Chapter 1063 — Lifting the Veil
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
The dragons knew of the sea-dwellers.
On this planet, aside from certain strange creatures hiding away in the elemental world, only two intelligent races had ever endured tide after tide of magic while keeping their civilizations intact: the dragons of Tarronde, and the sea-dwellers who dwelt in the deep ocean. As ancient species who had likewise survived for ages beyond reckoning, these two races were bound to possess at least some degree of mutual understanding, however infrequent their contact—though "some degree" was all it had ever amounted to.
The sea-dwellers lived in the deep ocean far from any shore and rarely took interest in matters on land. They had built a mysterious and ancient kingdom around a colossal crashed starship, and the waters surrounding that kingdom were strewn with the perilous remains of ancient gods, which kept other races at bay. The dragons, for their part, lived in the closed realm of Tarronde, bound by the myriad taboos of the Cradle Age. Beneath the gaze of their gods, the dragons were deeply curious about the sea-dwellers and their starship, yet seldom had any chance to encounter them.
No one had foreseen that when the cradle of Tarronde toppled and the gods' bonds were loosed in a single day, the first to set foot upon this land would be these visitors from the deep.
The water elemental, already drained down to a mere dozen or so centimeters, scurried off at once. The nearby dragons made no move to catch it. Metzen took a few seconds to gather her thoughts, then continued toward the black-haired sea-dweller—and as she drew near, the black-haired sea-dweller had already begun surveying her surroundings with open curiosity.
Cassandra had already worked out her situation. Upon discovering that dragons surrounded her and that she stood on solid land, she guessed what had happened. It must be said, the circumstances exceeded all expectation; even this seasoned deep-sea sorceress could not yet fathom how she had "swum across," but that did not stop her from swiftly regaining her composure and drawing up new objectives and plans atop her original exploration mission.
Exploring the Eternal Storm and investigating it had been her goal from the start. But now that she and her subordinates had passed straight over the storm and arrived in the dragons' realm, this was the perfect opportunity to investigate Tarronde in one stroke.
She looked at the blue-haired woman approaching her in human form, and a faint smile surfaced on her face. "Greetings—it seems our journey met with a small mishap, and we've stumbled onto your land. I am Cassandra, from Antavien, sworn to the sovereign of the deep, Her Majesty Queen Pythia—though this time my subordinates and I set out on our voyage of exploration by order of the Emperor of the Cecil Empire."
"Greetings, and welcome to Tarronde—you may call me Metzen Pernia; I manage this camp," Metzen said, and upon sensing the other's courtesy, she at once produced a smile of precisely the right measure, quickly catching the key words. "Wait—you say you came by order of the Emperor of the Cecil Empire...?"
"Yes, we set out from the Cecil Empire's northern port," Cassandra nodded, while keeping watch on the reactions of the dragons around them. The situation was delicate; this "entry" was an unforeseen incident, and to avoid unnecessary conflict born of misunderstanding, the wise course in such circumstances was to lay out plainly who they were, where they had come from, and what public portions of their mission they could disclose—Cassandra was no professional diplomat-fish, but this much basic sense she had. "We observed that the Eternal Storm over the northern sea had suddenly vanished, and came to investigate. We were supposed to explore the waters near the storm, but something happened—our sense of direction failed, and the magnetic and magical environment of the deep sea went wrong..."