Chapter 1090 — The Last Seat

And in such an atmosphere, the Hand of the Silver Empress, a courtier of great standing in the elven empire, Valendian Goldvale, stepped forward. After a brief self-introduction, he began to read out one by one the names of the representatives of the various powers at the venue and the nations they represented, as the opening of this first alliance conference. The high elf's voice — magnetic, authoritative, and carrying a certain strange rhythm, like a magical chant — rang out across the whole venue, and the representatives of certain small nations at once listened intently to those names, trying to infer some kind of "order" from the sequence, but they soon fell into bewilderment.

Because apart from Cecil, the first initiator; Typhon, the co-initiator; and the Silver Empire, the host and witness of the conference, the remaining names were in fact arranged alphabetically...

This was the first conference, and Gao Yang had no intention of ranking anyone here by national tier or regional influence.

Beneath the banner symbolizing the Augurey Tribal Nation, the orc chieftain Camilla sat beside Wenna Angelica. She looked up at the state of the whole venue and muttered under her breath, "This seems a bit interesting. Compared with a dead, dreary conference hall, I rather like this environment full of wildness and natural majesty — these elves know what they're doing. I'd thought they only knew how to swing from trees in a forest..."

Wenna paid no attention to her friend's muttering. She was in fact rather nervous — Camilla and she were both representatives of the Augurey Tribal Nation, but on the conference roster, the principal representative of the Tribal Nation was her, while Camilla's status was "assistant." Yet her friend had been seized body and soul by curiosity since early this morning; like any feline, most of her attention had already settled on the fluttering banners, the great and small standing stones, and the spring at the center of the venue. This made Wenna rather pessimistic about the pressure she was about to bear at the conference...

She even felt she should have listened to Wycliffe when she set out and brought Stella, who was full of sly ideas. The Fairy Queen was not exactly reliable either, but at least she was a little better than a big cat who had already begun to slack off.

Amid such wandering thoughts, she suddenly heard her friend's voice from beside her: "Hey, wait — look, isn't there a seat over there that's empty?"

Wenna started, and instinctively looked up in the direction Camilla was pointing. Sure enough, she saw an empty seat beneath one of the great stone pillars on the opposite side of the venue, and above that strange seat was an equally strange emblem.

It was a banner entirely unfamiliar to her. Its main element was an imposing, abstract design that called to mind a dragon's head, traced in golden lines upon a deep crimson drape. As the leader of the gray elves, Wenna knew the flags of every nation in the world, but she had never seen this design.

Camilla murmured beside her, "That color scheme... is that the flag of the Holy Dragon Duchy?"

"No, the Holy Dragon Duchy's seat is over there, and it's already occupied," Wenna said quietly, betraying nothing. "See? That's Sir Golosh Hicker. We read news of his visit to Cecil in the papers."

"...Then it seems to be a nation neither of us knows," Camilla said, blinking in confusion. "Absent?"

"That shouldn't be. Since their banner has already been hung on the stone pillar, their representatives must have arrived at Outpost No. 112 as well," Wenna said softly. "The silver elves would not make such a low-level mistake..."

While Wenna and Camilla discussed that vacant seat and the unfamiliar banner, more and more representatives at the venue were noticing the same thing.

Gaze after gaze fell upon the front of that stone pillar. Though the representatives were too well-bred to fall into any large-scale discussion, some among them could not help murmuring softly to their assistants, and more and more people looked curiously at that crimson banner with its golden lines, guessing at the origins of this absent party, and all sorts of strange conjectures began to take shape in their minds.

Some of them seemed to have caught certain crucial details. They noticed that the empty seat stood right beside the Cecil Empire, with the Holy Dragon Principality on its other side, but even so, they could make out nothing further.

In the course of this, names and nations were announced one after another. The delegates rose in turn to pay their respects, and Valendian Goldvale's voice was drawing to its close—as the last representative, from a small nation in the west of the continent, stood to acknowledge the assembly, every participating nation had made its appearance within the Ring of the Oathstone.

And that absent seat... remained absent.

Valendian Goldvale's gaze swept across the whole gathering. He saw many curious looks, just as he had expected. Though not a few of them were well concealed, to a high elf of silver rank who had lived more than two thousand years, they were still easily discerned.

His expression did not change in the slightest. He merely waited quietly in place for a few seconds, and once he received the signal from the Silver Empress, he drew himself up even straighter, placed his right hand over the chest and abdomen of his formal coat, let his left hand hang naturally at his side, and said in a steady, clear voice: "There is one further seat: the continent of Tarlond, the Dragon Kingdom, ambassador—the blue dragon Metzen Pernia and her delegation."

The entire hall fell instantly and utterly silent.

Valendian's voice had already faded, yet all the delegates seemed not to have reacted. They exchanged glances, doubting their own hearing and comprehension. Some felt a sense of absurdity, as though someone had just brought a bard's legendary tale into this solemn and reverent place. But soon everyone's thoughts were cut short by an overwhelming pressure that suddenly appeared in the distance, and by the thunderous, wind-like beating of wings—

To the south of the Ring of the Oathstone, in the sky above the towering mountains, vast shapes broke through the clouds, wrapped in the radiance of the giant sun, flying toward the meeting ground with a pace that seemed slow but was in truth swift. At their head was a blue dragon, her scales weathered and mottled as though tempered a thousand times over in iron and fire, and six more dragons followed in formation behind her, likewise bathed in sunlight, likewise bearing an awe-inspiring presence.

"Dragons!"

Someone in the hall could not help but cry out in a low voice. A faint stir ran through the delegates and the assistants they had brought, yet amid that tension which swept across every heart, not a single person truly panicked in the end—though some had gone pale, some were already breaking into cold sweats, and some were even beginning to tremble, not one of them left their seat.

Call it forced composure, call it keeping up appearances—at least such a response, falling upon the eyes of Gao Yang and Berlantiya, made them give a slight nod.

They could not compare with the pioneers of seven hundred years ago—but at least they were not bad.

Many eyes were fixed on the dragon flock drawing near the meeting ground, while other gazes finally reacted; these looks swiftly converged on the Cecil Empire's seats, on the very initiator of this conference.

Every power at this conference... had been invited by Cecil.

Those dragons, too, had been invited by Cecil.