Chapter 651 — The Cooperation of the Defiant

"Perhaps not everyone can survive in this harsh world, but every sacrifice that occurs can only prove our own inadequacy."

So this, it seemed, was the defiant one's answer.

Gao Yang nodded slightly and strode out of the hall where holy light drifted.

Virodai watched quietly in the direction Gao Yang had gone. Only after a long while did she turn and walk toward the depths of the hall.

"He may have discovered the anomaly in this interface... The newly downloaded personality data has not yet fully stabilized." "But the goal of the exchange has been achieved." "It is not yet certain whether this contact will yield a positive result..." "The positive assessment is that it will be beneficial—and our time is already running short." "At the very least, there will be no loss..."

The murmured self-talk seemed to have split into several personalities, this self-conversation echoing low through the Great Hall of Light before at last gradually fading into silence.

Back at the Silver Fort, Gao Yang's first act was to summon Amber, who had been standing by.

"Whoa... that serious look on your face is scary as hell," Amber blurted out the moment she saw Gao Yang. "It was just a trip to a church... What happened over there? Don't tell me the whole college of bishops in the great cathedral got wiped out?"

Amber cheerfully launched into her freewheeling babble, never missing a chance to take a jab at the northern Temple of Yaoxiao—but the moment Gao Yang opened his mouth, she was dumbstruck.

"The college of bishops was wiped out in the rite of divine descent."

"...Huh?"

"Pope Saint Ivan III also died in the rite of divine descent. The news will be announced tomorrow."

"...Huh?!"

"At present, only high-ranking hierophants below the rank of bishop remain in the great cathedral, along with a single living saint—Virodai Moen."

"...Mother of God..." Amber finally came back to her senses, her eyes wide as saucers. "Hey, I was just joking around—you don't have to play along like that... That's not actually true, is it?"

"Do I look like you, making that kind of joke?" Gao Yang glanced at the half-elf. "Button your lip. I have a task for you."

Amber hurriedly clamped shut the mouth that astonishment had gaped open, then scrubbed hard at her own face. "Ah—right, you were saying."

"Take some men and look into the household records of the royal family in Silverhold, and pull everything on Virodai Moen, especially her childhood," Gao Dai said. "Also, check the circumstances under which the Church of Yaochen first accepted Virodai's conversion, including her baptismal records."

Amber's expression finally turned serious, and she nodded. "Understood."

Seeing how solemn she had become, Gao Yang paused a moment, then asked abruptly, "Have you found any leads?"

Amber started, then grasped what he was asking. She had probably not expected Gao Yang to have genuinely kept the matter in mind; she blinked a couple of times before answering. "I haven't had the chance to look carefully yet... I only asked a few court scholars who manage the heraldic rolls, but none of them had ever heard the surname 'Randolph'..."

The "leads" in question referred to information about Amber's adoptive father, that shadow-walker who possessed a surname: Sarri Randolph.

That name and the uncommon noble surname were all Amber knew of her adoptive father. Yet this shadow transcendent—bearer of a noble name, and seemingly no weakling in strength—had died in the end in a poverty-stricken corner of the Southern Reaches, executed under the joint judgment of the Church and the local nobility. The secret behind it all was truly baffling.

It seemed that even Pi Yun did not know what lay behind it.

Gao Yang had once promised to help Amber search for leads on her adoptive father in Saint Sunil, and now he had arrived in Saint Sunil—though the manner of his arrival was somewhat unexpected, it was time to make good on that promise.

"Your adoptive father might have been the descendant of a family that fell into ruin long ago, or someone stripped of his surname decades back, and more likely still a scion of some unacknowledged 'shadow nobility.' The heraldic scholars mostly hold records of the orthodox families, so it's hardly strange they wouldn't know," Gao Yang consoled Amber. "Don't rush—we have plenty of time. You can start with the royal library in Silverhold; it keeps the genealogies of every noble house of the Ansu dynasty, including the most remote and the most ruined. And if that fails, you can search the Moen family's secret archives—perhaps something will turn up there."

"I hope so..." Amber said under her breath. "Truth be told, it's all right if we never find anything... it's been so many years."

"But you still care, don't you? Well, so do I. I want to know whether your adoptive father's surname descends from some old friend's branch, and I want to know what book could possibly be worth a transcendent sneaking into a church to steal." Gao Yang smiled. "Think of it as doing me a favor—go and investigate the leads on Sarri Randolph."

"Fine. Then you'll have to raise my wages."

Gao Cen was taken aback. "...That's just brazenly shameless of you."