Chapter 891 — Playing Dead

Virodai and Camille instinctively exchanged a glance (the latter had no eyes to speak of, but his gaze was bright). They formed a few guesses, but did not voice them on the spot.

Camille nodded. "I understand—I'll arrange it at once."

"Should we call Miss Tyr as well?" Hedy said from the side. "In a sense, she counts as... an expert at fighting gods."

"...Better not," Gao Yang said, shaking his head. "Her way of fighting gods doesn't offer us any frame of reference—and at this hour you'd have a hard time waking her up anyway."

"Yes, Ancestor."

...

The vast and magnificent corona hung high above the peaks on the western side of the Dark Mountains; that celestial body, grained like wood and streaked with the traces of cyclones, shone in solemn majesty over the world, and amid the shifting light and shadow of sun and cloud, a dragoon squadron undergoing flight training swept at a slant across the skies above the western forest.

On the road to the Fortress of Defiance, Gao Yang leaned out the car window and instinctively glanced up at the sky.

The sky was clear, the clouds moderate, the high blue vault unusually empty. He strained his gaze to its limit, yet even with a legendary powerhouse's sight pushed to the utmost, all he could see was blue sky and white cloud, and nothing besides.

He could not see the enormous orbital ring that spanned the heavens, nor the glimmer of satellite lights, nor the silhouettes of space stations—at the scale the Firmament Station had shown in its miniature projection, that astonishing colossus ought to cast a magnificent shadow across the land; and though the whole Cecil Empire lay far from the equator, one need only gaze southward into the sky to see that splendid ring.

In fact, on any clear day, across most of this planet, the Firmament Station should be visible to the naked eye—even an ordinary person could see it plainly.

Yet Gao Yang saw nothing. He could only guess, from impressions left by earlier times and from some faint connection in this moment, that a certain curved segment of the Firmament Station's vast structure now hung somewhere overhead, flanked by its accompanying swarm of satellites; that farther off lay the ancient installation known as the "Star Bridge"; and that the smaller Glow Space Station ran somewhat closer to the atmosphere. Those ancient, cold tombstones kept watch over this land, and yet their forms were wholly hidden by some optical masking device equally ancient.

"Progenitor?" Hetty's voice came from beside him. "What are you looking at?"

"The sky," Gao Yang said, drawing back his gaze. "The weather's fine."

Hetty nodded and broke into a bright smile. "Yes, the weather's been good lately. Many crops in the south have already begun their harvest, and the new Minister of Agriculture, Romlin, is drawing up the planting plan for next season..."

Listening to the things Hetty mentioned so casually, Gao Yang's somewhat restless mood suddenly settled.

He looked toward the Dark Mountains. The concrete highway extending from the military zone ran deep into that natural barrier, and far off on either side of the road, broad fields of farmland waited for harvest or had already been reaped. Crystal light flickered atop the communications tower built the year before last; agricultural machinery stood idle beside the fields, and a well-drilling crew was driving the first anchor pile into the low ground beside the railway...

However many ancient tombstones drifted overhead, for the people of this land, at least today the weather truly was fine.

Gao Yang leaned back in the seat of the magitech car and closed his eyes slightly, letting his still-weary mind recover a little further.

...

After entering the military exclusion zone of the Dark Mountains, descending to the lowest level of the Fortress of Defiance, passing through the rifts of the Shadow Realm and those vast hollows, and crossing the ancient Gondor portal, Gao Yang once again came to the deepest reaches of this ancient installation.

The Fortress of Defiance, situated in the Umbra Realm.

This Gondor installation, built within the interstices of dimensions, had not fallen entirely dormant. Though Cecil's technicians had cleared out every piece of equipment and material that could be moved, the energy system and the anti-god shielding system fused with the fortress itself still ran on in silence.

Ancient lights illuminated the deep, long corridors and halls; the isolation walls and energy barriers covered in dense, close-packed runes protected this place as ever. Gao Yang, Amber, Hetty, Karmel, and Virodai came to the end of the outermost corridor, where Karmel opened the alloy wall panel. A faintly shimmering energy barrier sealed the corridor from what lay beyond, and through that near-transparent screen, the scene outside the fortress was laid out in full.

Upon a shattered land composed of countless floating boulders, ancient binding devices and a great mass of metal wreckage together held fast that hill-sized body. A pure white radiance shrouded the corpse of the God of Nature—Amon the Giant Deer—and as the light drifted slowly, it gave off an endless aura of sanctity.

Looking at the giant deer bound within the fortress's "garden" area, Virodai could not help but let a trace of emotion show on his face, and he said softly, "Back then I only ever saw Him in reports..."

"After all, your main duty then was holding the Gondor imperial capital," Gao Yang glanced at Virodai. "Karmel was the one directly in charge here."

"Every time I return to this place, my heart is hard to settle," Karmel buzzed, and looked at Gao Yang. "So—can you tell us your thoughts now?"

"...The primary material of the Shield of the Kingdom's Guardian came from the supply depot of the Vipulandon Observatory." Gao Yang spoke without haste, seemingly raising an unrelated topic, while Virodai at his side quickly recalled something; the former leader of the Defiers frowned slightly. "I remember that was one of the Gondor Empire's research facilities in those years, located in the north..."

"Yes, used to study the meteorite fragments excavated there—the meteor shower that fell in the Vipulandon region in ancient times," Gao Yang nodded. "Virodai, you and Karmel should be no strangers to this matter—when did the Vipulandon meteor shower occur?"

Virodai gave the answer at once. "Roughly three thousand years ago..."

"Yes, the Vipulandon meteor shower happened three thousand years ago," Gao Yang nodded and said without haste. "And the fall of the White Star was also three thousand years ago."

Virodai's eyes widened slightly.

"Fall back to a safe position," Gao Yang looked at Karmel. "Open the barrier. I want to examine the corpse of Amon the Giant Deer."