Chapter 673 — Two Empires
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
The carriage rolled over the smooth central avenue of the city, its gentle swaying enough to make anyone drowsy. Daniel sat at the rear, leaning back against the cushions and pillows reserved for him alone, his eyes half closed as though he had already fallen asleep.
Yet his mind was at its most lucid. Through the signals generated by his artificial nerve cord and the special rune array inscribed on the carriage floor, the thoughts of this cleric of the Eternal Sleeper had slipped free of his body, and he was now roaming a perfect world shaped by the mental network.
Phantom Pivot City, the Golden Broad Avenue, thronged with people.
The beautiful Nameless Trees lined both sides of the road, their faintly glowing leaves drifting down on the wind at the most pleasing of speeds and trajectories. A crisp breeze blew among the rows upon rows of palatial halls and towers, and banners and decorative draperies danced in the wind between the buildings.
Daniel, wearing the form of a refined middle-aged mage, strolled along the broad avenue and came to a node square.
Believers moved about the square in twos and threes, and their murmured conversations drifted to Daniel's ears:
"The All-Ending Society's plan seems to have failed utterly..."
"Crude and hideous. Those monsters they made gave people a bad feeling from the very start."
"But it's still hard to imagine they'd fail that fast... Are the Cecil folk really that hard to deal with?"
"After all, the Outlander is over there."
"How long has it been since we heard anything from the Children of the Storm? It seems their contact with the mainland has grown even sparser since the stars took their places again."
"Who knows what those water-brained fools are up to..."
Daniel listened to the conversations of those mid-tier believers with the detachment of a bystander, not a ripple stirring in his heart.
In a sense, the followers of the Long Dusk, with their mental network, were better informed than any king or emperor—yet on matters concerning the Cecils their intelligence lagged far behind. Especially after the Cecil folk had built those magic-detection devices and imposed strict management of extraordinaries across their whole territory, a great many of the Eternal Sleepers had been forced to withdraw from that region. Intelligence on the Cecils could only be pieced together from rumors in other areas, and much of what they discussed today was already days-old news.
Compared with them, what Daniel held was first-hand intelligence.
Royal power ended, an empire rose, the arcane legions swept across the plains, steel fortresses raced along their tracks, and the man-made god was devoured and annihilated by the deep-sea allied forces...
A stirring war indeed. What a pity that he, stationed in Typhon, had no chance to witness it with his own eyes, and could only view some of the records of that time through the "Origin Space."
Footsteps came from nearby. A follower of the Eternal Sleeper clad in a white coat, with a valiant and extraordinary air, came to Daniel's side and broke into his thoughts.
"Thank you for your warning last time, Bishop," this follower of the Eternal Sleeper said, bowing his head with respectful poise. "Duke Severn has provided us with aid of the utmost importance."
Daniel tilted his head slightly and glanced at the man. By virtue of the special authority of the head of the security department, he could see through to the true self hidden beneath that valiant face.
A gaunt middle-aged man with a pale complexion, dark brown eyes, and rather flat features.