Chapter 915 — Dragon and God
Blade of Dawn · Page 4 of 4
On a round platform hemmed in by masses of machinery, pipes, and cables, the aged and majestic dragon Anqian listened to Metzen's report in full. That terrible affair, so long buried, made even this old dragon—who had seen so much of the world—raise an eyebrow: "…To think that such a thing happened six hundred years ago… Had the god not intervened to shelter you, you would by now be nothing but bones sunk in the waters around Monitoring Tower No. 1."
"Even now I still feel the fear in hindsight," Metzen said honestly. "What I fear is not being corrupted by the Reverse Tide, but that all of it happened so silently, so utterly without warning—so much so that only today do I learn I once wandered at the very edge of the abyss."
"'The Reverse Tide' has never ceased its attempts to seep outward… though 'He' has no reason, He has the instinct to break through the blockade," High Councilor Anqian's aged voice echoed through the circular hall. "It is your fortune to be sheltered by the god—He will, in the end, protect every dragon."
"But I never expected Him to shelter that adventurer Mojin as well…" Metzen frowned, somewhat perplexed. "At the time I didn't dare press further—but why would He protect a mortal who is not of the dragon race?"
High Councilor Anqian fell silent for a time. His mechanical eye seemed to dilate and contract unconsciously, thin streams of light leaping within its dark red photosensitive crystal.
Only several minutes later did this old dragon—who had witnessed the whole of dragon history since the "failure of the Defiance"—let out a sigh.
"Perhaps… even now our Lord still holds hope for the mortal races of the world."
"Holds hope?" Young Metzen was rather puzzled by the High Councilor's words.
Anqian shook his head and answered nothing at all.
There are certain things of which even dragons who know the truth cannot speak a single word to their own kind.
Faith is a lock: mortals on this side, gods on the other.
One unsuccessful struggle had made that chain tighten abruptly, sealing away every possibility—so that certain things could not be uttered even by those who understood them perfectly well, and could only be guessed at and confirmed through each party's unspoken understanding—
The god had always been waiting for some mortal civilization to develop, to grow incomparably powerful, incomparably arrogant.
And then… to help the dragons complete the plan of Defiance that they had failed to carry out millions of years ago.
Now it remained only to see how the mortal civilizations of this season would develop.