Chapter 378 — The Xuanmai Sect Is Watching from Above
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 3
The two beams of light above the Fortress of Defiance still shone brightly into the sky. As the giant sun sank below the horizon and night gradually fell, those beams stood out all the more sharply against the darkening heavens, like two swords piercing the gloom, visible for several kilometers around the fortress.
Perhaps those beams did represent two swords—the sword of Ansu and the sword of Typhon—and now those two swords were engaged in negotiations for peace.
The king and the emperor's face-to-face private talk had ended; the general tone had been set in their exchange. No one knew what they had said, but since the formal negotiations were proceeding as scheduled after nightfall, it meant everything was broadly going according to plan.
After formal negotiations began, Duke Silas Loren, highest guardian of the kingdom's eastern marches and first executor on the border, entered the Long Hall of the Fortress of Defiance with his eldest son, Belk Loren, and sat to the king's rear flank. From there he could see Anluo Wendel across the long table, and even more the legendary Typhon ruler, Emperor Luoyan Augustus.
Luoyan Augustus wore a black coat with gold trim. The almost plain garment did nothing to diminish the Typhon emperor's imposing presence. He sat directly opposite Francis II, a limited smile on his somewhat gloomy, gaunt face. To Duke Silas Loren he felt like a predator born of shadow: the predator had come into the light, yet still carried with him a darkness that would not disperse; he smiled in the brightness, but seemed always to keep another face hidden in the dark.
By contrast, Francis II wore only a calm, faint smile. There seemed no pressure at all in the old king's eyes, yet they never left Emperor Luoyan. His steady, powerful voice reached the duke's ears: "Seven hundred years have passed since the forebears of the human nations cut their way through the wasteland and founded new countries on the continent's edge. We have enjoyed seven hundred years of peace, but every one of us knows that in those seven hundred years the wasteland has not receded by so much as a hair. As many scholars have warned, we may be at peace now, but between our peace and utter ruin there stands only a wall."
"That wall was built by the elves, but it is not as permanent and reliable as we imagine," Luoyan Augustus said, giving a slight nod in acknowledgment of Francis II's words. "There is now clear evidence that the monsters of the wasteland are capable of crossing the barrier. This is a common threat."
"So we have come here, like the forebears seven hundred years ago, to unite and seek a way to face this threat together," Francis II said solemnly, raising a hand toward the sky. "The ancestors watch us from the realm of the gods. Under their gaze and before their witness, it is time to set aside pointless greed and quarrels and seek the path of peace together."
In the night sky, within the reach of the two bright beams, a swift little bird darted through the columns of light, chirping crisply as it flew higher.
It climbed higher and higher. In a few breaths it had risen into the clouds, to a height beyond the reach of human eyes. In both speed and altitude, this small bird had already surpassed the ordinary notion of a "bird," yet at this height, in the dark of night, the sentries on the ground gazing skyward could never have seen this sight that defied common sense.
The bird turned over in the air. A sudden surge of magical current wrapped swiftly around its whole body and tore the surrounding clouds to shreds. Within the pale cyan-glowing stream of magic, an enormous body rapidly emerged from the air and gradually condensed into solid form: hard blue-green scales, a long elegant neck, and huge wings that seemed to blot out the sky. As these features appeared, the former "bird" had transformed into a dragon.