Chapter 1019 — The Day of Descent

"On the day of the New Calendar Festival, the gods must rest and rearrange their governance of this world," Amber said unhurriedly. "For this reason, all religious activities across the world pause for a day — no matter which god's followers they are, even including those charlatans and frauds, everyone observes 'silence' on this day. People do not pray, do not go to churches, do not hold services at home, and even avoid mentioning the names of the gods as much as possible — because... the gods rest on this day."

The key that parted the fog lay not in any intelligence lead, but in a traditional custom — truly, all things in this world are wondrous.

A faint smile touched Amber's lips: "Luoyan Augustus cannot, by his own decree alone, make everyone simultaneously stop praying to the God of War. Though he has used the military to forcibly control the activities of the God of War's churches everywhere, forcibly banning public and formal sermons, he cannot stop people from praying secretly at home. He cannot ensure that among nearly a hundred million people, not a few underground churches operate in secret. And he certainly cannot reach the God of War's churches beyond Typhon's borders... But the power of traditional custom can accomplish this — at least, it does better than he can.

"On the day of the New Calendar Festival, everyone stops praying. No matter which god they believe in, no matter whether they obey Luoyan's orders or not, everyone will do this. And according to our research on the patterns of divine operation, under such circumstances, the gods' power loses its 'replenishment'..."

Gao Yang's expression turned exceptionally grave. He gently rubbed the knuckle of his index finger, his tone low: "So if he wants to strike at a god, the New Calendar Festival would be the most suitable day... There isn't much time left, but there's still enough to prepare."

...

Several days passed in the blink of an eye.

Inside an assembly hall near Winterfort, a massive brazier had been lit. Candelabras and iron sacred vessels were arranged neatly around the altar, and the scent of incense drifted from the bonfire and candle flames, spreading ceaselessly throughout the hall.

A great number of priests clad in black or gray robes were led into the assembly hall in a dazed state, gathering before the sacrificial platform like a crowd of swaying walking corpses. They stood there blankly, seemingly having lost the capacity for normal human thought — yet a continuous stream of low mumbling or muttering issued from deep within those heavy hoods, as though each of them were conversing with some unseen interlocutor, and even... enjoying a lively conversation.

Obsidian Guard troops in black armor stood watch at the edges of the assembly hall. Beneath faceplates forged from alloy, their gazes were cold, almost devoid of any emotional fluctuation.

A Guard commander glanced at the mechanical watch in his hand, then looked at the sky outside through the broad window nearby.

Cold wind blew through the open window into the assembly hall, carrying in snow particles accumulated over the past days.

The new year began today... opening with a dark and bloody day. Whether this beginning would lead to a future that preserved hope — no one knew as yet. The commander did not know either. His sole task here was to execute the orders handed down from above.

"This may be the worst New Calendar Festival of my life — cold as hell..." he muttered softly, striding toward a priest beside the altar.

As time passed, the incense drifting through the assembly hall had begun to affect these muddled priests and pastors. Some of them seemed to have started praying in low voices, but this was far from a true "ceremony." So the commander came before one of the priests and spoke unhurriedly to the face hidden beneath the hood: "The sacred hour has come. Will you not offer a prayer?"

"The sacred hour... the sacred hour..." The priest murmured to himself, sounding muddled, yet seemingly retaining a thread of reason. "But today we cannot pray... today..."

"The New Calendar Festival was yesterday, Your Grace. You've misremembered," the commander said in a low voice. "Look at the brazier and candelabras before you... These are gifts for the gods. There would be no such things during the New Calendar Festival, would there?"

"Oh... oh... you're right, the New Calendar Day passed yesterday..." From beneath the hood came a voice growing ever more muddled, until at last it had dissolved into muttering that could not be made out at all; and when that muttering turned hoarse and torn, mixed through with quantities of syllables no human throat could produce, the commander had already retreated swiftly to the edge of the assembly hall.

A low, deep prayer had already risen around the brazier —

"...the God of War protect us, my heart as iron, through a hundred battles..."

An indescribable psychic pressure began to spread. Even the well-trained Obsidian Guard soldiers could not help feeling their skin tighten and their lips go dry; they gripped their longswords tight and fixed their eyes on their officer, while that commander stared hard at the flames at the center of the altar, which were gradually being stained iron-grey, and every so often flicked a swift glance at the priests ringing the altar. Slowly, his hand too began to move toward the sword at his waist.

Within the assembly hall the prayers blended into one chorus, as though several other layers of sound were mixed in behind them, and the flames at the altar's center blazed fiercer and fiercer. And outside this hall, in the howling cold wind, across the vast reaches of Winterhold, in scores of assembly halls great and small, the very same thing was happening at the very same moment.

The sky abruptly grew clouds that gathered against all nature, great sheets of iron-grey darkness that seemed to spring out of nothing; and at the center of the cloud mass, something faintly glimmering, like a doorway, had vaguely taken shape — hanging above the earth exactly as the gates of the divine kingdom were said to hang, so that anyone in the Winterhold region need only look up to see it clearly.

The few remaining inhabitants of the region felt an immense oppressive weight. In their terror they fled into their homes, crawled into cellars, and barred doors and windows behind them, while the soldiers waited tensely for further orders, and countless commanders and dispatch runners turned their eyes toward Winterhold.

Luo Yan Augustus stood in the arcane hall at the highest level of Winterhold, gazing through the broad floor-to-ceiling windows at the sky, at the projection of the god that to his eyes had already grown very distinct.

Today was the New Calendar Day, when the god was to "rest," and prayer activities across the whole world had been suspended — yet tens of thousands of the most deeply corrupted priests of the God of War were here saying their prayers... This was a kind of powerful "anchoring," enough to steer the connection to the divine kingdom precisely down into the mortal world.

Yet that alone seemed insufficient; the god still had not truly descended — ordinary prayer could not turn quantity into quality. One final, crucial push was still required.

Luo Yan drew back his gaze, turned, and walked toward a blazing brazier at the very center of the arcane hall. Everyone in the hall had long since been cleared out, not even Palin Winterhold excepted; now only Luo Yan Augustus remained in that vast space, and he alone could finish what he meant to do here.

He came to a stop before the brazier, seemed to consider for a moment, then glanced back in the direction of the Cecil Empire.

"So far away... I doubt even a look in the eye would reach."

The Emperor of Typhon muttered this to himself — the first joke he had made in over a decade — then waved his hand and seized at the void.