by Feng Yue
“She still remembered that she needed to give this to someone.” Ye Qingxuan looked down and clenched the straw doll. “That’s why she was there, Father. She was waiting for someone to find her. She was waiting for me. Father, I can’t let her wait for too long. I must go there.”
Ye Qingxuan uttered, “If I abandon her, no one on this world will remember her anymore.”
In silence, Bann furrowed his brows. He soon raised a hand. The knights around them walked over to drag Ye Qingxuan away, but another voice rang out.
“Wait, wait…don’t be so impatient.” The Angloian grandmaster that had been MIA for a while ran over. He stopped some knights and pulled Bann to the side.
“Don’t rush to lock him up, Father. Just let him go. I’ll look after him!” The master did not speak like a musician. Instead, he sounded like a gangster trying to do business. “As for Faust’s frozen time, you don’t have to worry about him at all. How do I say it…well, he’s thought of highly by that man. With him in the next step, he might be helpful.”
“This has nothing to do with you.” Bann looked at him coldly. “Even if you’re the grandmaster from Anglo, please do not disturb the Knights Templar.”
“Ah, don’t be like that.” The master stomped his feet and sighed. He discreetly stuffed something into his hands. “Look at this. Do you still not trust me?”
Bann looked down at the object and he frowned. He looked coldly at the grandmaster who still wore a hood and chuckled. After a long while, Bann looked toward Ye Qingxuan in the distance.
Ye Qingxuan was looking back at him.
“Someone give him armor!” After issuing the command, Bann left without another word.
Soon, an iron whale in the sky threw down an iron cabinet. The black cabinet was carved with complicated designs. Two knights opened it, revealing the armor sleeping within.
The dark movement armor was assembled around Ye Qingxuan under the help of a few knights. The heavy metal armor did not hinder his sense of aether. In fact, it was even clearer now.
The last piece—a manmade spine—was put against the iron muscles and pulled tightly. The complex yet sturdy pieces went taut without any open seams. The heavy armor fit Ye Qingxuan well as if it was tailored for him. His movements became more agile and his body felt light as if he could fly.
The armor’s style was similar to the heraldry knight’s. Without the cumbersome structure, it ensured lightness and agility. It only had added protection to his vital parts.
Finally, the knight passed him a document with a wax seal. “This is the activation command for the Blade Dancer. It also has critical parameters and usage methods. You have ten minutes to memorize everything and you are forbidden to pass on the information.” Ten minutes later, the knight burned the document in front of his eyes. Before leaving, he said, “His Regency ordered to report in three minutes. We won’t wait.”
Only then did Ye Qingxuan have the chance to thank the grandmaster who never really cared for him.
“No problem.” Under the hood, the grandmaster seemed to be laughing. His voice was strange and flirtatious. “I have to take responsibility for you, right?”
Ye Qingxuan could not reply. He just scooted back so this mysterious and unknown grandmaster would not do anything he truly needed to take responsibility for.
-
Three minutes later, a small cabin descended under the shadow of the iron whale with a wire. It opened. Other than Mr. Hu who was not under the Sacred City’s jurisdiction, the other temporarily recruited grandmasters entered. Ye Qingxuan, who arrived last, was stopped at the entrance by Father Bann.
“You will now accompany the grandmasters there as part of the Knights Templar,” Bann said seriously. “Remember, the Sacred City does not allow the Romulusians to enter the abyss’ territory. Half an hour. You only have half an hour. If you all are still not back after half an hour, I will activate Heaven’s Door and request His Highness, the Pope, to use Fate.”
Fate… Thinking of the ultimate music score that represented God’s judgement and punishment, Ye Qingxuan shivered. He quickly nodded and walked in.
Bann gave him one last glance before closing the cabin door.
It was pulled up with rumbles and rose into the sky. One minute later, it would whale fall into the frozen city. Bann watched as the cabin disappeared into the distance.
After a long while, a knight approached him and whispered, “Caligula is finally willing to speak.”
-
The raw material from the iron whale was quickly used to construct a command center. Caligula sat on a chair within the metal prison cell, his hair unkempt. He did not seem to have been treated cruelly but he was still thin and pallid. He seemed to have aged decades within one night.
Father Bann gestured for the others to stand guard. With the door closed, he sat before Caligula and studied him. “You asked the natural catastrophes for help. Why?”
Caligula looked up at him and laughed. “Was I supposed to ask your non-existent god?”
Bann remained indifferent and just raised his voice. “I asked you why?”
“Why?” The elder scratched his white hair and repeated the question in confusion. “If you want to know why, I’m not sure either. Perhaps…I had to.”
378 Into the City
“Probably…this is the only way.” Looking at Bann, Caligula took out a stone, placed it on the table, and slowly pushed it to the middle. The fist-sized scarlet stone looked exquisite and beautiful. “What is this?” Bann frowned.
Caligula smiled. “You know what? When I was young, I lived in Burgundy.”
“That was a good place. My wife and I got married there. She was smart, beautiful, and attractive. She was the best. She died so early and it was my fault. She lived a bitter life with me. In that year, the nations expelled the people of Romulus, which caused riots. The kingdom wanted to imprison me. She stood up to vouch for me. She promised that this matter had nothing to do with me.
“Then she… Later, she died. She swore to the gods that if I were innocent, her heart wouldn’t wither. But how will gods bless such a man like me? I was imprisoned for ten years, soaked in a dungeon, and was not even able to attend her funeral. I didn’t even know she was dead.” Caligula stretched out his hand and rubbed the stone red as flesh. “Look, this is her heart… She confirmed her oath. I took it to visit many people, but ten years had passed. Everyone forgot her. Even the files of that year were gone. No one in the world remembers her, and no one remembers me either.”
He looked at Bann and said in a measured, slow pace, “The cruelest thing in the world is this: there are some things you haven’t forgotten, but the world has forgotten because they don’t care.”
After a long silence, Bann lowered his eyes. “So you have resentment against the nations because of this?”
“No, I don’t hate them.” Caligula shook his head. “Hatred is meaningless. Any sensible man can see that there is a reason for everything the kingdoms have done to Romulus. You can say they are forced to do so but are we doomed to perish?
“We are born guilty. There is no door for us to heaven, so should we just die obediently before falling into the abyss?” Caligula, holding the scarlet heart, gazed at Bann. “A sinful man is also entitled to salvation, Mr. Bann. If you don’t care, I’ll do it.”
-
The dark steel cabin was in silence. Ye Qingxuan felt a sense of weightlessness, like suddenly falling into the deep sea, surrounded by pressure that almost crushed him.
It was a sudden shock caused by the whale fall. But at that instant, his sight went black as if everything fell into stillness. He fell into the icy sea, and every part of his body was frozen. His thoughts, as well as the sub-originator in his body, stopped operating. All music theories were completely solidified in situ.
But then the odd feeling disappeared again. The sub-originator slightly vibrated, emitting inexplicable fluctuations. Where the fluctuations passed, those shackles were untied.
Ye Qingxuan’s stiff body suddenly trembled. He was drenched in sweat, gasping intensely.
In the cabin, the grandmasters glanced at him in astonishment. They did not agree for this knight to join the team although it was the Knights Templar’s delegation. Unless someone unfolded the symphony of predestination and temporarily prevented him from being intervened by Faust by breaking a hole on the wall between the material world and aether world, everything would be frozen in time under Faust.
Since the Knights Templar had ensured that the new knight did not need any care, they had no objection to his participation, but they had not expected that Ye Qingxuan could overcome such a strong power. Even they needed to unfold the symphony of predestination to resist it in all force. Only the grandmaster from Anglo looked at him meaningfully and whistled.
To tell the truth, Ye Qingxuan also did not understand what was going on. He just vaguely sensed that the melody and music theory of Faust did not work on his body as if he was totally ignored.
“We have entered the range of Faust. Once landed, you need to be more careful,” the master whispered in his ear. “Although we are masters, we need to use the symphony of predestination to resist the influence of Faust, so we will be equivalent to the ordinary distortion level when we fight. No one knows what will happen. If you see something wrong, do not worry about us. Just turn around and run.”
Ye Qingxuan was speechless. He complained in his mind, who was the one that guaranteed the priest he would protect me?
The black-robed master smiled. Before he could say something, the earthquake came. It was like he suddenly hit a wall. Ye Qingxuan only felt the shaking all over his body, his bones rattling. Even if there were two layers of shock absorber system, his body still almost fell apart.
The cabin landed! Bang. The cabin’s door snapped open and flew away. It was designed to save time and make it easier for the Knights Templar to operate the whale fall. But now, the cabin, which had just been detached from the masters’ protection, was frozen in the air.
A few of the masters under the cover of the symphony of predestination stood up and reached out to press the door. The frozen door crashed and then flew for several meters before freezing in the air again.
The door opened.
Ye Qingxuan breathed heavily. He untied the chains and fixtures on his body and staggered to get up. He followed behind and poked his head out to look.
The whole world seemed to be frozen and covered in an icey blue. The cabin had crashed into the ground of a square. Layers of fissures spread around. Gravels flew but were solidified in the air. Time stopped at the moment of their whale falling. It was so bizarre.
At this moment, they had entered the strange city, but when looking at the towering buildings, they were overwhelmed by that kind of dark and sharp beauty. This was definitely not the style of the Romulus. This was completely different.
The Romulusians advocated squares or circles with preference of white. The frame of their buildings was magnificent. But in this city, there were no white buildings.
These emaciated gray buildings towered with their sharp tops piercing the sky. On both sides were carved lifelike statues and on the floor, every piece of tile had slender complex lines drenched in gold. Meticulous and exquisite decorations filled every corner. But such magnificent architecture had not brought any sense of closeness. Instead, it increased the distance between each other so that the buildings became sparse and lofty.
Along the way, Ye Qingxuan could not tell the specific role of those buildings. It was as if this was not a city built for people, but a huge artwork. The whole city was like a huge shrine, enshrining the only god. However, the god had left the throne and disappeared. Only a light was forever illuminated in the Holy Church at the center of the city.
However, the only light that illuminated the dark city made people more repressed. Along the way, it seemed that they were climbing the stairs before the temple. The closer they got, the more they could feel a nameless majesty. The majestic oppression pressed onto their backs. It was to force the comers lower their head to worship the god, to respectfully serve their all.
“Is this city built by the Church?” Anglo’s master murmured with displeasure, “Why is it like the Sacred City? It makes you feel like dust wherever you go.”
“This has nothing to do with the Sacred City. Although it feels the same, the style is totally different,” Ye Qingxuan lightly said by his side. “If I must make comparisons, it is more like…” He suddenly stopped and sank into speechless silence. He unexpectedly found that the style was most similar to the Anglo Royal Academy of Music.
Ye Qingxuan looked back, staring at the square they landed. After coming so far, he looked back, only to find that on the ground of the square was engraved with a huge emblem that showed its presence to the comers.
Double-snake emblem. It was the double-snake emblem again.
“Boss, why the f*ck is it you again?” Ye Qingxuan cursed. He had known that the guy Hermes always acted secretly and mysteriously, but he did not expect that he was so crazy… If Hermes descended from the sky with small wings on his back right now and said that he was actually an angel, Ye Qingxuan would also believe him! However, no one descended from the sky with little wings.
Instead, thick blood emerged from the ground between the green tiles. Wailing suddenly sounded as distorted faces emerged in the void. The darkness pumped, rising up like mist.
“Dark musicians!” Ye Qingxuan whispered.
“That bunch of bastards came too! How can they be so fast?”
Unprepared, they did not realize that they had stepped into the dark musicians’ trap. The dark musicians had the Garment of Original Sin as camouflage. They did not find anything wrong at all. How the h*ll did those guys have time to arrange this trap?
Before he could figure out the reason, the trap launched. In the dark movement, many masters were instantly suppressed and fell into the blockade from the Garment of Original Sin.
In the blink of an eye, the music theory suppressed them completely. The tiles under their feet quickly decayed into the rotten soil of the abyss. The soil was pushed up, pale palms stretched out and grasped at the living men.
The master from the School of Modifications huffed angrily and waved his hand. An inexplicable fierce melody sounded. In a few seconds, the rotten soil was burned into pure white tiles again. The tiles’ color was so pure like milk.
Ye Qingxuan saw this and his face twitched.
This grandmaster really had a peculiar taste. He had crushed the pale hands and dried them. Then they were put into the soil and together burned to make ‘bone porcelain’. Just in an instant, the master separated the bones and burnt them into the stone. It was impressing. He even prevented the enemy from playing any other tricks with the bony hands. The sticky blood evaporated, drifted in the air, and melted into the black mist.
In the dark, a few vague figures sneered, playing strange melodies, and pounced toward the crowd.
This time, Ye Qingxuan was not nervous anymore. If the sky fell down, there were taller ones to hold it up. There were so many grandmasters here. He did not need to fight at all.
But, even at the same rank, the grandmasters were coming off worse! Those dark musicians seemed to be free and unrestricted in the shadow of Faust. They fought back and in an instant, the struggling people were forced to a precarious situation.
Then the sound of the gurgling water rang out. In the darkness, a cold river emerged with a biting blast, extending around the crowd. In the river, colorful illusions constantly flashed. People would be trapped in it once they glanced at it, dazzled and unable to wake up.
In the trance, Ye Qingxuan felt a hit on the back of his head.
“It’s killing you! How dare you look at Styx,” the master from Anglo hummed coldly.
Ye Qingxuan was shocked awake. He hurriedly drew back his sight. The moonlight lit up in his eyes to resist the deadly illusion’s erosion. But he felt more chilled.
It was the Styx! Hyakume had truly retrieved the Styx from Originator. It was true…
With the power of the Styx, no wonder the enemy had no fear at all. Even Faust which could solidify time could do nothing with the Styx which represented the death and end. When everyone grew gloomy and became too tired to fight, suddenly a voice sounded, “Don’t be afraid. Watch me!”
379 You Flatter Me
“Don’t be afraid! Watch me!” That came from the mysterious Angloian grandmaster. However, then he gripped his chin and pondered for a long while before suddenly asking, “Oh right, little Yezi, what school do you study?”
Ye Qingxuan was speechless. Why did he have to call his name so intimately? Were they that close? But despite being annoyed, he replied honestly, “Abstinence, and also Illusion, Mind, and Revelations.”
“Oh…oh?!” He was shocked. “Uh, you learned all that? That’s great! But how come none of them are for fighting? Are you a pacifist?”
Ye Qingxuan was speechless again. “Just tell me what you need.”
“Sure!” He pointed somewhere. “Later, watch my face. Once I make a gesture, take your most destructive music score and bomb in that direction, got it?”
Ye Qingxuan nodded. Then he looked up at the shadowy ‘face’ under the hood and almost died. “Can you show me your face first?”
“Ah, then just watch my eyes…err, whatever! Just do it!” Here, the weird master gave up on faces and eyes. He just rolled up his sleeves. Taking out a very familiar flute, he created the echoes of wind and sand. Instantly, a wolf howled. It seemed that pair after pair of beastly eyes lit up in the long night. Those eyes shone with green light, like will o’ wisps.
Then pained cries sounded in the darkness. The Styx halted. A tiny and practically imperceptible ‘opening’ was created. Without time to think, Ye Qingxuan pulled out the sword in his knight’s armor and wiped his finger on the blade.