Chapter 689 — Tarronde

"That's because your eyesight is bad!" Noretta swung an arm, easily breaking free of the dragon's claws and landing steadily on the ground. "And of course I'd maintain human form—today is the sacred rite, and this ceremony is being held in our Xuanque City. Would you have me appear before the gods in dragon form?"

A radiance cloaked Mehampenia's vast dragon body, and her figure shrank swiftly within the glow, transforming into human form almost in an instant. Hearing her friend's words, she was taken aback for a moment, then said softly, her expression somewhat complicated: "Ah... the sacred rite... I nearly forgot. Today is the day we behold the Dragon God..."

Noretta, with her pale golden hair and the teardrop mole at the corner of her eye, noticed Mehampenia's expression. She pursed her lips, and at last wore a faint smile: "She is forever the god who shelters us."

"Yes—'our' god, after all..." Mehampenia said, shaking her head slightly. "Let's set that aside for now. I need to see Speaker Anqian. I've brought back a special 'Mithril Commission.'"

"A Mithril Commission?" Noretta glanced curiously at her old friend. "What commission could be worth the personal review of the Council's Speaker?"

"Gao Yang Cecil. You remember that name, don't you?"

"That human who rose from the dead?" Noretta blinked. "You're still taking his orders? Last time he came back to life and wanted his goods, the Mithril Vault was run ragged—and afterward we had to dig up graves all over the world to make sure those dead clients wouldn't crawl out again to demand we honor their orders..."

"Well, in the end no voice demanding payment came from any other grave, did it!" Mehampenia waved a hand, glossing over it casually, then her expression turned somewhat grave. "I'm not joking with you. This commission really is rather special. That human is more interesting than you or I imagined, and the power he is building has already shown developments beyond the Council's initial expectations. And most importantly, he has already noticed—"

Mehampenia abruptly closed her mouth.

But in Tarronde, among dragons, that sudden silence was itself a signal.

Noretta's brow furrowed slightly, then she said with some disbelief: "Are you certain?"

Mehampenia nodded gently. "Remember that mad human empire? And their mad plan of defiance? We all thought a single tide of magic had utterly destroyed those audacious mortals and their grand ambition, but in truth... their resilience and courage surpassed the imagination of every dragon..."

"Defiance..."

White Dragon Noretta's expression shifted slightly at that peculiar word, and then, with a trace of emotion, she softly repeated it once.

She recalled the assessment the Supreme Speaker had made when the Council first learned that the Gondor Empire was suspected of researching the power to defy the gods:

Fleeting in lifespan and thus full of variables; born weak and thus knowing no fear. Before the gods, humans are braver than dragons.

"Very well. There's still time before the rite—I'll arrange for you to meet Speaker Anqian."

...

At the heart of this dragon city, atop the towering mountain ridge, the magnificent temple rose straight into the clouds.

The far north was in its polar day phase; for half of each day the sky was bathed in afterglow. This radiance, with its sense of the utmost splendor, poured through the temple's great floor-to-ceiling windows into its resplendent golden inner hall, casting mottled shadows and bright spots upon every inch of ancient floor tile and every weathered pillar. A woman in a magnificent pale-gold gown, her golden hair trailing to the floor, her features radiant and her bearing dignified, stood before one of the palace's great windows, gazing at the distant afterglow, looking down upon the sea of clouds below the temple and, within that sea, the faint outlines of city buildings and scattered lights.

She had been looking upon such a scene for close to a million years.

"Even the fairest scenery... must grow tiresome one day," the golden-haired woman murmured with a soft sigh, turning her head to the high dragon priest standing respectfully just behind and to one side of her. "Wouldn't you agree, Hragol?"

The dragon priest called Hragor lowered his head slightly, his pale-gold vertical pupils hidden in the shadow of his ceremonial crown: "It is because Your Eternity has already surpassed all landscapes, my Lord."

"...Perhaps," the corners of the blonde woman's lips curved up faintly, yet it was almost impossible to tell whether it was a smile at all. Her voice was gentle and warm, but the timbre was so utterly flawless that it inspired fear and revulsion instead. "Hragor, you are the priest who has accompanied me longest. There is long since no need for such flattery—forcing words against your heart is tiring, for speaker and listener alike."

The dragon priest did not raise his head: "My respect for you comes from the heart."

The blonde woman narrowed her eyes slightly, still smiling: "And hatred? Is that from the heart as well, like everyone else's?"

"..."

"I set a lock upon you all. You should hate me—and yet, pitifully, even that hatred is locked away," the blonde woman turned her head, gazing at the distant clouds and sunset as she spoke. "Just like this landscape unchanged for a million years... From the day your defiance failed, you have been locked here forever, locked within this eternal alternation of day and night... Hate me from the heart. That is what you ought to do."

"..."

"But it does not matter. I remain your guardian deity still. I will protect you as always—yesterday so, today so, forever so..."

The blonde woman spoke softly, then turned and left the floor-to-ceiling window, walking toward the depths of the temple.

"Pitiful creatures—you are about to be trapped to death on this planet."

The dragon priest Hragor raised his head, gazing at the deity's retreating figure. Expressionless, he stepped forward and followed closely.