Chapter 1035 — A New Beginning

These things had happened in such coincidence, and the turmoil among the gods was an event that shook the whole world. Enya and the entire dragon race seemed always to be watching the divine anomalies of the human world, and now the God of War had fallen, while the Talonde had at almost the same moment lost contact with the Loren Continent... In that distant dragon realm, what on earth had happened?

Amid his thoughts, Gaoyang quieted his spirit. He focused his attention, and an invisible connection took shape in his mind—a view of the earth from space came into his mind's eye, and the situation of the Loren Continent and the surrounding seas entered his field of vision. Carefully he shifted the view from the geostationary satellite, trying as best he could to "look" northward over the Loren Continent, in hopes of observing something.

Yet the perspective of this malfunctioning satellite was limited after all; once past the seaward peninsula of the Holy Dragon Principality, he could see nothing more.

With some regret, Gaoyang withdrew his spirit and prepared to exit the satellite's view, but before the mental connection broke off, he suddenly noticed some indistinct flashes at the northern edge of the image in his mind.

The flashes lasted only a brief moment, and then several smaller flashes shone from the same direction. At first Gaoyang thought it was lens flare from sunlight reflecting off the planet's cloud layer, but he quickly realized this thing was no natural phenomenon—soon the flashes ceased and the satellite's surveillance image grew calm, yet at the upper boundary of the picture some faint tracery, as if from energy interference, lingered and would not disperse for a time...

A few minutes later, Gaoyang withdrew from the satellite's surveillance view.

He still could not see beyond the range of his vision, but now he was almost certain—something momentous must have happened at the Talonde!

Amber had already noticed that Gaoyang had suddenly drifted off, and she was quite used to it. Realizing that he was once again "roaming beyond the heavens," she very conscientiously took up the duty of guarding him, and stood watch beside him for a long while. Only when she sensed a change in his breathing and small movements did she immediately lean in and ask, "Hey, did you find something?"

Gaoyang had many secrets, and this occasional strange "drifting off" was one of them. Amber was intensely curious about it, but she had never pressed him for the reason—she knew only one thing: whenever he drifted off like this for a while, he seemed able to obtain certain "revelations" from some mysterious channel... and as for the content of those revelations, he was occasionally willing to share.

"Something has probably gone wrong at the Talonde. I have a... feeling," Gaoyang said vaguely, unable to explain his satellite view to anyone. "But it looks like it should not reach our side..."

As he spoke, he raised his head, and the tense, busy scene of the frontline command post entered his view.

Officers and civilian staff were wrestling frantically with intelligence from the war zone; every communications system and dispatch unit was running at full capacity. In the open ground outside, medical units newly arrived from the rear were assembling, while wounded soldiers evacuated from the front and the bodies of the fallen were passing along the broad roads on either side of the castle—the Talonde was far away, but the mess left by this divine calamity was right before their eyes.

Footsteps approached. Gaoyang looked toward the sound and saw the golden-haired Suojilin walking his way. The high ranger gave him a salute, his face grave: "A new communication has just come from Winterhold—the Typhonians wish to hold formal armistice negotiations with us."

"So we are finally returning to the negotiating table," Gaoyun breathed out softly. "Then, did the Typhonians mention where and when they wish to hold these negotiations?"

"As for the time, they only said they hope it will be as soon as possible. As for the place..." Suojilin hesitated a moment here before continuing, "They want it at the Concord Keep."

"Ah, the symbol of peace between our two nations... though it is a bit ironic to mention it now," Gaoyang's expression was somewhat complicated at the mention of the name, and then he smiled. "But judging by the actual zones of control on both sides at present, Winterwolf Keep is already in Cecil's hands, so the Concord Keep, which originally lay in the buffer zone between Winterwolf Keep and Longwind Fortress, is now in effect territory under Cecil's full control... Do the Typhonians not mind that?"

Suojilin nodded. "They do not mind, and they emphasized the point specifically—they are willing to negotiate in Cecil's zone of control as a show of their sincerity."

Gaoyang raised an eyebrow and smiled faintly. "Because they were the ones who 'started the war'... Very well, though they do not mind holding these talks within Cecil's zone of control, we should still be decent about it—bringing a neighboring nation's diplomatic mission into one's own military zone of control for this kind of 'peace negotiation' is an act of hegemony. That way, whatever the final outcome, from a historical perspective the fairness and validity of the agreement could be called into question by later generations. We need to choose a more suitable place—some neutral zone, or at least somewhere not caught up in the territorial disputes between the two sides. That would be more thorough. Do either of you have a suggestion?"

Gao Song's gaze fell on Amber and Su Jilin—he had not asked them on a whim, but because it was precisely fitting: Su Jilin was the commander of the Steel Rangers, and at the same time a high-ranking ranger who had been active in old Ansu and Typhon for a full seven hundred years. He had witnessed with his own eyes the storms and shifts of this land, had personally lived through many of the changes in both nations; though he was of another race, his familiarity with this land surpassed that of many humans, and he was himself a man of careful thought and seasoned experience—at this moment no one was better suited to serve as an advisor. As for Amber...

She was, after all, the head of the intelligence department, and in serious matters she was still reliable... probably.

Elf and half-elf alike fell into thought: a ceasefire agreement between two human empires—this was, it must be said, a great matter, and all the more so when the truth behind this "war" was a divine calamity. That lent the affair an extraordinary symbolic weight and historical value, and so it had to be treated with the utmost seriousness.

They began swiftly sorting through their memories, hoping to find a suitable place, and amid their pondering Amber was the first to offer a suggestion: "Why not just build a new camp in the middle of the battlefield? Signing a contract on the battlefield ought to make it carry more weight."

"I considered that too, but beyond the symbolic meaning we still have to reckon with realities—the Winterhold defense line has been smashed to pieces, and the whole region is still very dangerous. The magical waste-energy on the battlefield and the wreckage left behind by the God of War will take a long time to clear away; the environment is not suited to negotiations. And this time the main battlefield lies closer to the Typhon side—that is also a problem."

"Then why not leave dry land altogether?" Amber thought a little more. "The Winterhold hasn't returned to port yet—we could hold it aboard ship. Cecil and Typhon have no territorial disputes at sea..."