Chapter 911 — The Gaze of the Divine

"It seems you have had a special experience," Speaker Anqian's voice followed. "Metzen, rest well where you are, and stay safe. The Recovery Team has already launched; they will come to retrieve you shortly. We will discuss everything once you are back."

Then the aged dragon speaker, too, left the channel.

For a time, only Metzen remained on the communication line, along with her friend serving as rear support.

The boosters had fully taken effect, and the pain and abnormal signals throughout her body had been temporarily eased. Metzen's thoughts churned in restless confusion, and in the end she cast all her vexation to the back of her mind and hid the communication interface as well. She adjusted her posture slightly, settling quietly on the ground in a relatively comfortable position, her eyes fixed on the dark mountain range in the distance that had already sunk into the night.

Above the Dark Mountains, night shrouded the vault of heaven, and scattered stars were twinkling, adorning the whole sky.

After a long while, she suddenly heard her friend's voice at her ear: "Metzen, are you all right?"

"You haven't ended the communication yet?" Metzen moved her neck slightly. "I thought you had already gone offline."

"I was a little worried about you," Noretta said. "I happen to have no other liaison duties here, and the other dragons on external assignment heard about your trouble and gave up the line for you... By the way, Pector is staying in the Mosswood Forest region. He happens to have nothing to do—shall I have him come over to lend a hand?"

"No need... I don't want to be laughed at," Metzen said at once. "The boosters are working. I'll just rest quietly here for a while."

"All right then..."

The channel was quiet for a few minutes, and then Metzen could not help breaking the silence again. "Hey, you still there?"

"I'm here."

"Something just occurred to me... do you know what it feels like to have only one heart beating inside you? One that hasn't been modified at all, one you've had since you hatched from the egg, and what it feels like when it beats."

"Me? I don't remember..." her friend said, perplexed. "I had my original heart swapped out when I was very small... Dragons like you, who keep their original heart all the way into adulthood, are probably pretty rare..."

"Right... I'm a young antique," Metzen couldn't help laughing a little, but then she grimaced and cut the laugh short. "Hiss... it still hurts a bit."

"Which is why you shouldn't get carried away—hey, you still haven't told me," her friend's voice came through. "What does it feel like when you're relying on just that one original heart?"

"...Very weak. Every beat is unsettling. All your life rests on a single fragile organ of flesh and blood, and it gives me the feeling that I could die at any moment. I'm terrified it will stop sometime, and there's no backup circulation pump to keep me alive..." Metzen said in a low voice, the distant stars reflected in her jewel-clear eyes, the stars drifting slowly against the backdrop of night. "But... there's also a strange sense of reality. You can genuinely feel that you are alive, and alive in a real world.

"I often feel that I have too many implants in my body. Almost every vital organ has an implant helping it run, even every muscle and bone... It makes me feel that I'm no longer myself, that there's a copied 'Metzen Pernia' made of machines and auxiliary brains living in the same shell with me, like a parasitic monster of steel and polymer hiding deep in my flesh and bones... But now all that parasite's hearts have stopped, and my own heart is holding this body up... That feeling is actually rather nice."

Her consciousness grew hazy, and she felt a little drowsy. Half-asleep, she heard Noretta's voice come through indistinctly: "You've taken too much booster, that's why you're getting all sentimental... But there's one thing you said right: that feeling of dying at any moment is real..."

"Good night..." Metzen murmured.

Under the booster's side effects, she finally fell asleep.

The instant she fell asleep, a pale golden curtain of light appeared out of thin air, wrapping her defenseless body in strict protection. And above the curtain, in the void, hundreds upon hundreds of eyes seemed to faintly surface, floating there coldly, staring without a blink at the blue dragon under the light's protection.

......

Within Typhon, in the center of a town near the eastern desert, the church of the God of War stood quietly in the night, its spire decorated with black iron spikes pointing straight at the sky, like a sharp sword beneath the stars.

An ordinary priest carrying a lantern walked through the church, checking the rooms and corridors along the way.

Behind each door was a room in its usual order, and only the priest's own footsteps echoed down the long corridor. He gradually came to the end of his patrol; the priest's own room lay ahead.

In the hierarchy of the God of War's church, "priest of the God of War" is a rank above ordinary clergy. They usually administer the small local churches, and here was no exception.

Faint light seeped out from behind the door at the end of the corridor, and one side of the door was clearly ajar.

"Priest Kosto still isn't resting at this hour..."

The patrolling priest muttered curiously to himself and walked forward without slowing.

But halfway there, a strange sound reached his ears—something like a person moaning in pain, and also like dream-talk.

With the special intuition of a transcendent, the priest felt a sudden jolt, and a bad premonition rose in his heart.

Something was wrong!

The priest reacted instantly, quickening his steps. A few strides brought him to the door at the end of the corridor, and at the same time the smell of blood rushed into his nostrils.

Forget church etiquette; the priest decisively cast three layers of protection on himself, prepared a reactive warning spell, and then pushed the ajar wooden door open.

Behind the wooden door there was only a formless mass of flesh collapsed on the ground, its vitality gradually fading...