Chapter 421 — The Beast Unleashed
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 5
He stood before the wooden pulpit, gazing for a long while at the empty place where the holy icon had once been placed. Sunlight poured in through the window and fell there; a few motes of dust floated in the light, reflecting glimmers of starlike brightness.
"Break the monopoly of the Holy Light, and return to man what belongs to man..."
Wright murmured softly, then lowered his head, slowly closed his eyes, and prayed in silence.
There was no holy icon here anymore, and he no longer needed one. He was praying to the Holy Light within his own heart; his prayer was the virtue and conviction he had believed in for decades.
All was quiet in the church, save that radiance gradually emerged from the air. A hazy, limpid halo enveloped the armored priest, as though sunlight had condensed into water flowing through the air. Within that clear brilliance, tiny motes of light drifted and gathered, slowly coalescing into a small figure.
The small figure drifted lightly down through the light onto Wright's shoulder, as weightless as a leaf. She raised her head and looked around; seeing that no one was watching her, she settled quietly on Wright's shoulder and drifted soundlessly into sleep.
...
On the road to the lord's manor, Amber fidgeted restlessly at Gaoyang's side, circling around him like a hamster that could not keep still, occasionally studying him with a strange expression. Gaoyang had meant to ignore her at first, but her maddening, mischief-seeking behavior finally got the better of him. He stopped, casually pinned the little runt in place. "What exactly are you trying to say?"
"Nothing! I'm just curious how that head of yours is put together," Amber said with perfect self-assurance, arms crossed and voice full of conviction—though with her head being held down, the pose had not a shred of dignity to it. "It's just the two of us now, so tell the truth—what you said in the church, was all of it real?"
"Do you really never read the newspapers?" Gaoyang said, half amused, half exasperated. "If you looked at what the papers say, you'd know I'm serious."
"I do read them. I finish the strange tales and oddities, then toss them to Betty," Amber said, still perfectly self-assured. Then she shook her head, flinging Gaoyang's hand off her crown, and wore an expression of puzzlement. "But why would you do it... throw away your own privileges, even your descendants' privileges, just to bury the class you belong to... All right, it sounds noble enough, but why do it?"
In Amber's perpetually unreliable expression, Gaoyang caught a rare trace of seriousness. He couldn't help but smile, and raised a finger toward the rapidly rising city. "Tell me—which do you prefer, the city of Xuanque or the castles of the old landowning nobles?"
"Here, of course," Amber answered without hesitation. "I know what castles are like—they only look grand. Living inside is worse than the workers' dormitories here—no running water, no heating. And outside the castle, never mind—filthy and stinking, and inside you'd freeze to death."
"That's the first reason. I want to live in a better world. Only a stronger, more advanced, more enlightened society can build a city like this—and build cities even more advanced than this. In that respect, the old noble order has reached its limit. They cannot build the strong, advanced, enlightened world I require, so I will build one myself."
Amber blinked. "And is there a second reason?"