Chapter 609 — Lowly
Blade of Dawn · Page 3 of 4
Having parried the attack in an instant, Belk immediately sprang backward, transferring his longsword to his left hand, while his right hand swept fiercely downward through the air; a translucent energy blade descended from the sky and pinned the first crystal giant hard to the ground. Almost simultaneously, a chill-inducing gust swept past the back of Belk's neck—he lunged forward and spun around in an instant, dodging the lethal ambush, a few severed strands of hair scattering through the air.
The attacker struck again, and Belk, briefly regaining his balance, raised his sword to meet it.
They flashed past each other at close quarters, and in that crossing that lasted less than a hundredth of a second, a pair of eyes—already partly transformed into crystal, ringed by fine crystal clusters—flickered across Belk's vision.
He was somewhat startled, vaguely feeling that those eyes looked familiar...
......
A woman clad in green priestly robes, beautiful and dignified above the waist but with hideous plant roots below, walked slowly out of the flames, step by step toward Edmund Moen.
Edmund, armored in black and wrapped in a wolfskin cloak, stood behind the table, staring fixedly at the woman who had emerged from the fire—at that female hierarch of the Assembly of All Ends.
"Was all of this your scheme?" he said in a low voice, and even as the words left his mouth, a black blade had already appeared in his hand.
At the same moment, he noticed that the attendants and guards standing not far away showed no reaction at all, as though sunk in some hypnotic state, utterly unaware of the intruder's arrival.
Beiyila came unhurriedly to the far side of the long table, regarded the Prince of Ansu before her, and let a faint smile surface on her face: "To others, this is a conspiracy. To you, it is an open stratagem—is it not, Your Highness, our 'ally'..."
Edmund knew this uncanny woman was exceedingly dangerous and immensely powerful. Covertly invoking the blessing of the knight's domain upon himself, he suppressed his fury and said, "You people truly cannot be trusted."
"Did you not know that from the very beginning, Prince so full of confidence? You merely make a habit of underestimating others and overestimating yourself."
As Beiyila spoke, she actually drew a chair over from the side with perfect composure and sat down calmly before Edmund—her legs, formed of vines and roots, spread and grew with a rustling sound, merging into the chair and the floor as one.
"What do you people actually want? And what do you want?!"
"We?" Beiyila laughed, and the laugh was singularly sincere—in fact, this was almost the only heartfelt smile she had worn in seven hundred years. "We wish to seek a way of life for humanity, a way to endure at the table of the gods, amid the malice of the world.
"And I... I have merely come to welcome you. To welcome the new you."
"Madwoman." Edmund felt himself wholly unable to comprehend the thinking of such cultists. He had already gathered his power and wanted no further variables, so he raised his longsword, and countless fine black cracks swiftly spread from the blade's tip, sealing off the entire space like a spider's web.
The long table crumbled to dust amid the cracks; chairs burst apart one after another. Yet before the lethal black fissures could reach Beiyila, waves of whispering and murmuring—splitting the skull, shattering reason—abruptly flooded Edmund's mind. In an instant he lost control of the longsword in his hand, and even his whole body swayed, unable to stand.
Beiyila watched quietly as Edmund propped himself up on his sword, sliding step by step toward collapse, and said mildly, "Have you been feeling thirsty often of late?"
"Water..." Translucent crystal clusters were gradually growing from both sides of Edmund's cheeks, and a flicker of understanding abruptly crossed his eyes. "You poisoned us?"
"Not poison—only a blessing. A blessing bestowed personally by the 'god.'"