Chapter 1003 — Father and Daughter
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
They said the plains outside were already deep in drifting snow by now, and that Red Maple City and Boulder City to the west had both been dyed white by it.
An Luo steadied herself on the terrace railing and slowly made her way to its edge; standing high upon Sorin Castle, she gazed out toward the far horizon.
It must be snowing at Winterwolf Keep too by now, she thought—and at Longbranch Manor as well. The scholars had predicted that the whole of the northern continent would run cold this year, and this war... this war would likely bring an even colder winter.
She lifted her head, but no snowflakes drifted down from the sky. All she could see was an endless expanse of green, and scattered among the vines, the canopies, the blossoms and the grass were towns and watchposts, their artificial lights flickering across the land like a field of stars, while in the dim spaces between those lights grew strange plants that glowed with a faint luminescence.
Unnamed birds darted in and out among the crowns of the giant trees, or occasionally beat their wings across the sky, or boldly alighted on the castle's towers and the tops of its mottled walls.
A soft rustling sound came from beside her. An Luo turned toward it and saw a small creature—larger than a squirrel, its fur a vivid crimson—clamber onto the terrace from somewhere or other. In its mouth it carried a red fruit, and when it caught sight of An Luo, it raised the fruit toward her with its forepaws in a startlingly human gesture—it even wiped the fruit clean with its paw first.
An Luo blinked, and only after several seconds of staring into the little creature's eyes did she hesitantly reach out and take the fruit. It was a kind of fruit she had never seen anywhere else: its bright red skin was as glossy as a gemstone, and it gave off a strange, sweet fragrance that made it look utterly enticing.
She remembered the name of this fruit: the Sorin tree-fruit. It was the fruit borne by the giant Sorin Tree, a "crop" unique to this region and a source of food for many of the cities in the eastern Holy Spirit Plains. It was perhaps the most bizarre and wondrous specialty she had ever heard of in her life—but then, beneath a Sorin Tree that was itself nothing short of a miracle, what wonders were not imaginable?
An Luo lifted the fruit and bit into it. As the sweet flesh burst against her taste buds, a rather thin, frail voice suddenly came from beside her: "I hope you like it. There isn't much here I can offer a guest, after all."
Surprised and curious, An Luo searched for the source of the voice, and at last, near the wall brick where the little creature had landed, she saw a small flower swaying in the wind. That thin voice, so faint it was almost distorted, had come from within its bud.
"Lady Beiyila," An Luo said, greeting the bud with a rather peculiar feeling, "um... thank you for your hospitality."
This frail-looking bud was in fact an extension of the giant Sorin Tree; it was the will of that great tree which spoke through the bud. An Luo did not know much about this powerful living being—she only knew that everyone here, including her own father, called her Lady Beiyila: a mighty druid of ancient times.
The giant Sorin Tree was the final product of the divine calamity that had once befallen old Ansu. As a Typhon commander who had long kept her eyes on Ansu, An Luo had of course looked into such matters—but her investigations were doomed to yield few details.
What changes must a human being of flesh and blood undergo to become this miracle that shaded an entire region? And what was the origin of this powerful Lady Beiyila? She was intensely curious, yet had no idea whom she might ask.
Perhaps her father knew something—after all, all of this was connected to that Mystic Order which had vanished into the long river of history...