Chapter 1234 — News from Afar
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
As she spoke, the sea caterpillar pressed a hand to her forehead and shook her head, and all her feeling finally came out as a sigh: "Ah, our ship is still stuck on the boundary of the water elementals' domain even now..."
Gao Yang pictured the scene, then reviewed that history from the Elemental Sovereign's point of view, and at once felt that the grudge had been sown deep indeed—and the native water elementals were beyond question the true victims. There they were, minding their own business at home, provoking no one, when suddenly a crowd of visitors from beyond the sky fell down and smashed a hole in their roof; they brought their people to demand an explanation and got beaten up for their trouble, taken for monsters. Even now, when the Sovereign of Water raised his head, he could still see half the body of that wrecked vehicle jammed in his own roof... That he could swallow all this and sign a peace agreement with the sirens could only mean he truly could not win.
But this was a tangled account stretching back who knew how many tens of thousands of years, not something an outsider could sort out; and besides, relations between the two bands of elemental beings had eased considerably over the years, so he was in no position to comment. He only asked casually: "Speaking of which... your conflict was so great back then—how did the native water elementals finally come around to making peace with you?"
At Gao Yang's question, Tyr could not help looking somewhat reminiscent, and only after a long while did she slowly begin: "We fought for many years—perhaps a hundred thousand, perhaps several hundred thousand. Elemental beings live long lives and are stubborn by nature, and the wars that break out on the elemental plane are chaos itself, so in the end both sides came to treat it as a kind of daily routine—until one day the native water elementals, apparently wanting to break that long deadlock, planned an operation of tremendous scale, attempting to destroy the Antavien's defenses in one stroke..."
Gao Yang's expression turned grave: "An operation of tremendous scale?"
"Somehow or other they came to an agreement with Wendy, Sovereign of the Wind, and assembled a vast joint legion to launch an assault on the Antavien. The power of storm and towering wave ravaged the entire ocean, and that magnificent sight even made the civilization of that season believe doomsday had come," Tyr recounted that ancient history in a faraway tone. "I took part in that battle too, and that storm left a deep impression on me—the armies of wind and water elementals filled every trench and undersea valley..."
Gao Yang had unknowingly become absorbed—whenever he heard secrets as ancient as these, he felt as though he were leaping through history himself: "What happened after that?"
Tyr lifted her face, a smile appearing in her recollection, her tone soft and unhurried: "That was the first time I ever drank something with bubbles in it..."
Gao Yang: "...?"
Tyr nodded again, as if confirming something: "It hits harder than the iced stuff."
Gao Yang: "...?"
He really felt he had eaten too much and had nothing better to do, to be expecting these sirens to bring him some epic record of antiquity—all right, that terrifying elemental war itself might indeed have been quite epic, but from now on he would remember: no matter how epic a thing is, never let it be recorded from a siren's point of view—these deep-sea salt fish were exceedingly good at dragging the style of all things under heaven down to their own level...