Chapter 932 — Taking the Initiative

"Such is the situation, my old friend," said Luo Yan Augustus, seated in his high-backed chair, gazing calmly at the grand duke standing before him. "As I have told you before, the gods are not especially reliable protectors—transcendent, powerful, unknown beings wholly above mortals. Whether or not they have always provided mortals with shelter, I have never ceased to regard them with vigilance."

"...I never understood your misgivings about the gods, but now I must admit you were right," Pei Yi Wendell said in a heavy voice. "I only never imagined we would have to face such things in our lifetime..."

With that, he could not help but frown again. "As for the intelligence Gao Yang Cecil disclosed in his letter—should it not be verified once more? Even now I find it hard to believe... that the ruler of Cecil would be so candid and so kind as to warn us."

"He is a formidable opponent, but in this matter he is our friend," Luo Yan said, shaking his head. "In that book Matilda brought back, Gao Yang Cecil more than once asserted that mortal fates must advance and retreat together before nature and the might of the gods. I once took that for a piece of propaganda posturing and sloganeering, but now I am inclined to believe his sincerity on this point."

"...We all live upon this earth." Pei Yi's voice was low.

"Yes, we all live upon this earth," Luo Yan said mildly. "And that is why I summoned you today—to make ready for the disasters that may befall this earth."

"...Can we truly withstand a threat from the gods?" Pei Yi could not help but doubt. "True, the Cecil folk appear to have successfully withstood a 'divine calamity,' but what they faced was not a true god, and luck accounted for a great part of it..."

"What we face is not a true god either," Luo Yan said, shaking his head. "Or rather, I do not believe the gods will directly 'attack' the mortal world."

"The gods will not directly 'attack' the mortal world..." Pei Yi unconsciously repeated, a look of some bewilderment on his face.

"The gods require a 'medium.' They cannot descend so easily, can they?"

Pei Yi furrowed his brow and looked at the sovereign he had sworn fealty to for decades. For some reason, he suddenly glimpsed something unfamiliar in the other's face. "You mean..."

Luo Yan was silent for a few seconds before he abruptly said something that seemed to have no bearing on the matter. "Do you know, lately I have begun to envy our neighbors..."

……

After Duke Pei Yi had departed, Luo Yan still sat quietly in his study, leaning back in the high-backed chair that could screen a man from view entirely, as though sunk in prolonged thought. Only after a dozen minutes of silence and stillness did he suddenly lift a hand and, with a small trick of magic, extinguish the lights in the study.

The night outside was already deep; only starlight shone upon the high towers of the Obsidian Palace. As the lights in the study went out, darkness rapidly crept in, and the starlight beyond the window poured through the crystal panes beside it, scattering across the whole study.

Everything in the study was submerged in the pale, indifferent hue of night.

Luo Yan tapped lightly on the armrest of his chair. In that rhythmic tapping, he seemed to be patiently awaiting the arrival of something.

After some dozens of taps, a faint yellowish glow abruptly surfaced upon the desk, then spread swiftly, racing across the desk, the bookshelves, the floor, the walls... within mere seconds the entire study was lit by that dim yellow radiance. The murky light also filled the window nearby, tracing beyond the glass a vision of Olandell as it had been two hundred years ago.

Dusk had fallen all at once.

Luo Yan lifted his head. The familiar objects of the study were swiftly changing shape, and certain ancient, stale phantoms long since vanished from history were overlaying the furnishings he knew so well. Rustling whispers and light laughter, their source impossible to trace, rose from every side, as though a banquet were being held just beyond the study's wall, the guests' merry voices carrying through the wall and through some balcony; it even seemed that guests had already passed through the wall into this very room and were murmuring something at Luo Yan's ear.

Luo Yan ignored these phantom sounds entirely, gazing quietly toward the door. In the next instant, the laughter and whispers vanished all at once.

Beyond the firmly shut study door, out in the corridor, a shuffling footstep—as though dragging something heavy—suddenly sounded after the whispers died away, and seemed to draw a little nearer.

The next second, a knock came from the direction of the study door.

Luo Yan made no reply, and the knocking continued with great patience.

It knocked for a long while, so long that time itself seemed about to stand still in that eternal dusk, before Luo Yan broke the silence: "You can keep knocking, or do you expect to break this door down by knocking?"

The knocking stopped abruptly. After a few seconds of deathly stillness, a voice—low, as though countless voices blended into one—came from beyond the door: "The strength of your mind truly is astonishing... countless times I thought you were about to collapse, and yet you are still yourself..."

"Astonishing?" Luo Yan shook his head. "But you are not a man."

"What a meaningless detail," said the voice outside the door. "I dislike details. So let us get to the point... why did you enter this dream of your own accord? That is a rather rare occurrence."

"I suddenly grew curious about certain things, and in the world of mortals I could find no answers—perhaps you would care to answer something?"

Hardly had his words fallen than an uncanny atmosphere abruptly filled the whole dream-space, an atmosphere that seemed to mingle surprise and delight, while countless sensations of being watched pressed in from every direction. It was as though deep within this dream, among those ancient corridors of memory, halls, and courtyards, the eyes of innumerable "guests" had all been drawn in an instant and were now fixed coldly upon the place where Luo Yan Augustus stood.

In the study before Luo Yan's eyes, the wall that had hung with an ordinary decorative oil painting suddenly rippled like the surface of water; the ornamental painting was swallowed by the wall and then spat out again, and the image upon it had become the likeness of Marjorie Augustus.

"Ah, my dear son, have you finally decided to return to our great family?"

Then Marjorie became George Augustus: "This is truly a day worth celebrating!"

"You celebrate a little too early," Luo Yan said, casting the oil painting a cold glance. "Keep quiet over there."

The figure swaying to and fro on the canvas blurred at once, and the low, overlapping voice beyond the study door gave a soft laugh: "So full of confidence—yet seeking knowledge from the gods is no simple matter... But be that as it may, I am rather willing.

"Ask, then. I am glad to answer any question—so long as you dare to hear it."