Chapter 867 — The Immortal Project
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
A soft, cool breeze seemed to brush against his face.
How long had it been since he had breathed so easily? How long since he had lain down so comfortably? How long since he had felt so at peace, so at ease—all pain and weariness far away, every old ailment and chronic hurt seemingly cured.
In his memory, a feeling like this belonged to decades past.
"This child is blessed with the land; he bears the grace of the Goddess of Harvest..."
All at once, a voice long settled deep in his memory burst into his mind, gathering his scattered, disordered thoughts back together. That sensation of being unable to tell illusion from reality dissolved in an instant; the wind on his face turned real, and a faint scent of green grass and soil crept into his nostrils—Norris suddenly opened his eyes.
An endless green plain stretched out before his gaze. A breeze did indeed blow across this land, and the blades of grass rose in rolling waves beneath it. In the distance stood strange mountains that looked as though they had been pieced together from blocks of color, and among the clouds in the sky he could see magnificent arrays of formulas and runes. A vast sun of gentle light was slowly traversing the heavens, and he himself lay here in this unfamiliar world.
Norris had awakened in this strange place, and he looked at everything before him in bewilderment.
Fragments of memory began to drift through his mind: he remembered figures swaying before his eyes, remembered Margarita and Beiyila whispering at his bedside, remembered walking through the last long sigh of his life—and with confusion rising in him again and again, he rose from the grass and got to his feet.
He found his body more limber than it had ever been—a feeling he had not known for many years.
A small earthen rise stood nearby; from higher ground he ought to be able to see more. Norris set off toward it, climbed easily to the top, and then discovered that beyond the gently rolling hills there was, astonishingly, human habitation.
—A great and beautiful city lay quietly upon the plain, encircled by rivers and lakes as clear and crystalline as gems.
A voice suddenly came from beside him: "Pretty, isn't it? They built it from the way they remembered it."
Norris started at the voice and turned at once, only to see that a figure had appeared beside him without his noticing—a young girl he had never seen before, dressed in a plain white gown, her snow-white hair hanging all the way to the ground. She stood there gazing at that beautiful, unfamiliar city in the distance, a simple, happy smile on her face.
Noticing Norris's gaze, the girl turned back and flashed him a brilliant smile: "Hello, my name is Naretiel."
Then she pointed behind him: "And he is Duvalt!"
Norris turned in confusion, and saw that a figure had appeared behind him as well without his noticing—an old man in a plain robe, kindly of face, smiling, nodding slightly to him.
"I..." Norris opened his mouth, but could not decide where to begin. He looked around at everything in confusion, and at last shook his head. "Is this the divine realm? The Goddess of Harvest's divine realm?"
"This isn't a divine realm, but it's a very good place all the same," the girl who called herself Naretiel said with a smile. "We're only responsible for bringing you here, though. Someone else will explain the details to you."
Norris frowned: "Someone else?"
Naretiel nodded with a smile: "He's already here."
As the words left her mouth, the girl who called herself Naretiel and the old man named Duvalt had already vanished silently from Norris's sight. He rubbed his eyes reflexively, and the moment he lowered his hand he saw that a familiar, powerfully built figure was standing before him, watching him with a gentle smile.
"Your Majesty!" Norris recognized him at once and blurted out in his astonishment. "How did you..."