Chapter 852 — The Eye of God
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
"We are the shadow and the symbiont beneath the city of Orendel. We took root together with that city and grew together with it, infiltrating many of its facilities. Thus did we recuperate amid those ancient halls and corridors, and the order, once so grievously wounded, slowly recovered its strength—at first we gathered only in the shallower levels of the ruin, where it was safer and room enough for all our members at the time. But as the order slowly recovered, we decided to press deeper.
"We wanted, at the very least, to understand what our 'dwelling' actually looked like.
"We soon finished exploring the safe dome region and the middle connecting corridors, which were almost empty. And at last, in the deepest part of the ruin, we found... something still running."
Gao Yang's eyes turned grave at once: "Something still running? What was it?"
"Permit me to show you what I saw in those years—"
Merkaur spoke in a low, slow voice, and his formless body of starlight gradually dispersed, becoming a mist; and deep within that hazy dust and vapor Gao Yang saw a holographic image—a magical illusion—swiftly peeled from Merkaur's memory and re-created before him.
He saw a vast circular hall, and around its outer edge an even larger ring-shaped structure formed of metal and crystal; a host of black obelisk-like devices were set at a slant within the hall, their tips pointing toward its center. And at the very center of the hall he saw a dazzling mass, like an ocean of light, surging within a circle of ancient devices—it was like some viscous liquid, yet as it rose it took on a hazy, illusory radiance, and within it things like starlight moved and flickered without cease.
Gao Yang frowned at once: "What is this thing?"
From the dust and mist drifting all around came Merkaur's voice: "A powerful energy-containment device, composed of an astonishing magnetic field, circulating arcane energy, and a series of elemental stabilizers. Its scale is so immense that the entire hall and part of the corridors around it serve as its 'shell.'"
The former pontiff paused, then added: "It took us nearly a century to work out these general 'functional components.'"
"...And at the center of the containment field, the remains of the God of Dreams?" Gao Yang said, brow furrowed. "This is a prison device?"
"We thought so once... and that was one of the greatest mistakes we ever made," Merkaur III said heavily. "After discovering that region we had no idea what it was for; we took it for the ruin's power source, like the mana wells in a mage's tower. We studied it cautiously, spent a century working out its general function, only to find that the technology inside could not be copied or utilized at all—and of course we dared not shut it down rashly, for no one knew what the consequences would be.
"Many years later we finally found ways to control the energy flow, and during one attempt to adjust it, a very tiny fissure opened at the center of the containment field—and at last a trace of whatever was shielded inside leaked out. I was there at the time.
"In that trace I sensed certain terrible and familiar 'voices'—"
Merkaur's voice suddenly quivered with a note of hesitation; it seemed that dread sensation still clung to him even now, to his already alienated body and mind. But after a moment's composure he steadied his tone and went on:
"I sensed the breath of a god.
"An astonishing truth that shook us all—what was 'imprisoned' in the containment field was nothing else but the god we had once worshipped and revered. Or rather, a part of a god...
"It was a fragment of the God of Dreams. We did not know where it came from, nor what power could cut a fragment from a god's 'body,' nor how many years it had been confined in that device. We knew only one thing—that the terrible, madness-verging god who will one day swallow the whole world could nonetheless be wounded and imprisoned.