Chapter 1388 — The Decisive Battle Draws Near
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
The nations of Loren, locked as they were in total war, had no surplus strength to spare for the heavens, and interstellar exchange carried too many unforeseeable risks besides—it demanded a long process of verification, to say nothing of the shock it would likely deal to the faith of every mortal and the severe trial it would impose upon the gods' stability. Theoretically, merely restoring an interstellar signal was nothing like as provocative to the gods as crewed spaceflight, but who could guarantee that measure of "provocation"?
After all, the work of the Theocratic Council had never paused over the years; the nations of the Alliance had been ceaselessly working by every means to loosen and cut away the mental brand that pressed down upon mortal heads. That cutting was, at bottom, dancing on a blade's edge: peeling away bit by bit, at a dangerous critical point, the bonds between gods and men, forever leaping back and forth across the "boundary of defiance" without driving the gods mad. When the process was done, both men and gods would be free—but until it was done, the gods stood always at a "critical point of pressure." To answer an interstellar transmission now... who was to say that some blunt, thick-headed deity might not throw back its head and go mad with a single howl?
So this matter had to be considered at length. It must wait at least until the dust of this war had settled, until the Alliance nations had strength enough to steer public opinion and raise large teams of experts. Until then, the most Cecil could do was the groundwork Gao Yang had mentioned: compile a modern "alien dictionary" and translate the signals already received.
When the arrangements were settled, Gao Yang suddenly raised his head and looked toward a holographic projection across the round table—the figure of Victoria, Grand Duchess of the North, hovered above the Weave terminal: "Victoria, have the listening posts in the North all been running normally these days? Have you received any further signals there?"
"All listening posts in the North are operating as usual. Since the beginning of winter last year, sixteen signals have come in one after another. Their contents repeat somewhat, but there are occasional variations," Victoria answered at once with a nod. "We are gradually grasping the characteristics of these signals and can now catch them promptly and keenly. Some signals once lost in atmospheric interference and unidentifiable can now be recorded effectively—once the 'dictionary' is finished, the deciphering can begin at once."
"Hm... very good," Gao Yang gave a slight nod, then raised another matter. "How is the Old Grand Duke?"
He meant Mojin Vild, that legendary adventurer of antiquity with his wondrous past, now caught in some mysterious "threshold between life and death" and pursued by the Lady of the Night's divine power—the ancestor of Victoria Vild. Affected by that power, and perhaps also once tainted by the Reverse Tide, Mojin Vild's condition was highly unstable: half of his "existence" had been replaced by the Lady of the Night's shadow-dust and was ceaselessly collapsing and draining away. Only by the stolen authority of the Night, which Amber had thieved, was he barely held stable in the material world. He now dwelt in Winterhold, tended by Victoria, his "descendant."
Of the Empire's three grand consuls, Duke Baiyu Vild was personally leading troops in the field, Hetty's energies were given to daily governance, and Victoria's chief duty was to secure the Empire's industrial supply and troop transport to the front. Beyond that, the greater part of the northern duchess's attention went to the elder of her own mystic line—for Mojin Vild's strange experience and his mysterious bond with the Lady of the Night had always been a matter of deep concern to Gao Yang.