Chapter 1079 — Greetings
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
Amber's wild imaginings were, of course, just wild imaginings. Only after the half-elf had finished her runaway train of chatter did Gao Yang cast a faint glance at the Shame of All Things. "Go on then. What do you make of what you heard today?"
"What I heard today?" Amber immediately stuck out her tongue and shrank her neck, muttering to herself. "I feel like everything I heard today could get me killed... the kind where any other setting or identity would've gotten me silenced on the spot..."
Gao Yang kept watching the half-elf with that half-smile, until her expression grew more and more awkward, until that feigned ignorance could no longer hold, until she was forced to speak in a small voice: "Actually, I figured it out a while ago. The 'Vagrant from Beyond the Domain' identity isn't entirely a bluff..."
"I know you've noticed," Gao Yang's lips curved upward. "Of course you would notice."
Amber stared at Gao Yang fixedly. A few seconds later, her expression relaxed, and that usual carefree air returned to her. She broke into a grin, brimming with smugness: "Of course—I am the best-informed person on the entire Northern Continent."
"If my Minister of Intelligence couldn't piece together the truth from every scrap of information available, then the Empire's intelligence apparatus would clearly be facing its greatest crisis yet," Gao Yun let out a soft breath, as though some burden in his heart had suddenly been set down. He felt a touch of relief, and at the same time a flicker of curiosity. "But... do you think Hedy and Rebecca have noticed anything about this?"
Amber tilted her head, then looked up toward the distant sunset, letting those pale golden clouds reflect in her amber eyes: "I'd guess... from the day you walked out of that tomb, they never cared whether you were really Gao Yang Cecil. And now, the question means even less."
Gao Yang looked at the half-elf with some surprise. He knew that beneath her careless exterior lay a remarkably sharp mind, but he had never imagined she had even pondered questions at this level—and Amber's answer seemed to remind him of something. He wore a thoughtful expression, and ultimately put all his thoughts into a smile.
Everything Gao Yang Cecil had once known was long gone. Only a scant few had survived seven hundred years to reach this day—and for those who thrived in this era, they needed only to know the Gao Yang of today.
The question truly meant nothing.
"Speaking of which, you didn't mention the God of Nature to that Empress," Amber watched the shifts in Gao Song's expression and suddenly chimed in from the side. "Not planning to tell her? If the elves are to join the Theocratic Council, this matter will eventually come to the table—at least for a figure like the Silver Empress, who holds both divine and royal authority, she will sooner or later come into contact with the core of the Defiance Project, and sooner or later learn of Amorn's existence."
"Yes, sooner or later—but not now," Gao Yan nodded. "At least not before the elves formally join our plan, and not before we've confirmed that Berentia can unify and control the will of the entire elven empire's upper echelon. This cannot be brought out yet. The elves are not like us. Their system of rule has operated continuously for over ten thousand years. Their royal court has long since grown into a colossal entity that outsiders cannot fully comprehend. Even a Silver Empress as powerful as she is may not be able to control it all."
He paused here, then spoke in a slow, heavy voice: "It's not that I don't trust Berentia. But this matter involves gods—and the elves... over the past three thousand years, they have made no small number of attempts to drag gods back into this world."