Silent Crown

by Feng Yue

  After the dome roof of the central holy temple collapsed, more than sixty thousand organ pipes came out and flew to the sky.

  Sixteen layers of keys and thousands of stops popped out from the wall, ten cables that were as thick as a man’s waist connected to the central harmonious melody instrument, and finally, the floors turned around and revealed the pedals.

  More than sixty thousand tubes that connected with the engine changed their directions and connected to the core, and in this way, continually provided the enormous musical instrument with power.

  The water in the aether pond was boiling and shining in silverlight, a throne in which Ye Qingxuan’s body was sitting, then disappeared and moved into the core.

  Everything was ready.

  “God, please bless us,” Albert prayed in the silence. “Long live the Sacred City!”

  The next minute, the pipe organ produced an extremely high pitched sound, a huge cloud of mist spurted out of the organ pipes.

  Tens of millions of bell towers began to shake, and the magnificent sound wave continued to spread in all directions.

  At that moment, everyone in the world saw the same scene: a white moon rose up from a burning tree and stopped in the middle of sky. The moonlight tore the darkness into pieces and shed itself upon the world.

  The moon was in the sky.

  I am here.

  —

  The final limit of authorization in Ye Qingxuan’s hand rang. Then, the black branches of the abyss that had covered the whole Sacred City trembled. In the center part of the black branches, there was a broken moon. Its pieces immediately gathered together and began to shine. Accompanied by the holy and magnificent ringing, all the branches exploded.

  The enormous shadow that covered the whole sky angrily brandished its branches. It reached its branches into the Physical World, and at the same time, the explosions came from time to time inside its body.

  With each explosion, a bloody crack formed on its body.

  As if the explosions had already been planned by thousands of Masters, in a short while, more than half of the roots of the tree were destroyed.

  As for Ye Qingxuan, he did not even move a finger. Instead, he just coldly watched the shadow of the huge tree suffering with misery.

  “Have I just been aided by the energy of the bell tower? No, this cannot be true!” Menti shouted.

  “You are right!” Ye Qingxuan nodded. “Just now, you have been aided by the energy from all the bell towers. You have the strength equivalent to that of hundreds of Masters added together. But it all relies on the music theory of the seal of moonlight.”

  “So what do you think of the magic I did just now? It is not bad, is it?”

  Hearing this, Menti yelled at him with all its strength.

  If a musician was aided by the energy of a bell tower, his strength could be elevated to the level of a Master, which was something that every musician in the Sacred City longed for.

  Throughout history, no one ever aided a devil with the purifying music theory, a devil that stood for all the dark devils in the abyss… It was like someone walking into a mine full of natural gas with a torch in his hand.

  Since the music theory of Menti and Ye Qingxuan’s purifying music theory were completely different, the music theories would create an explosion once they met.

  Which meant that the energy of hundreds of Masters offset Menti’s energy that had accumulated the whole night, and severely damaged his projection in the Physical World.

  The huge tree was trembling severely. It reached out countless branches and penetrated the enchantment and aimed at the moon.

  “Ye Qingxuan!”

  “I am here!”

  Ye Qingxuan smiled and gazed at its twisted and broken face.

  In his hand, the music theory of the final limit of authorization was trembling. Aided by the energy of numerous bell towers, the moon got brighter and brighter. The light was now as bright as sunlight and too dazzling to look at.

  Tens of millions of strings trembled, producing a magnificent music. The bell towers rang from time to time to resonate with the music.

  A round holy emblem appeared in the moon and floated right behind Ye Qingxuan. Countless music theories were running across the emblem.

  This time, Ye Qingxuan did not absorbed the energy from the bell towers, but transferred it all to the enchantment.

  In the blink of an eye, the holy light filled the whole outflowing layer. All the music theory of the abyss made a sound of screaming and completely vanished.

  The roots of the black branches of the abyss were all waving, and after a short while, they all disappeared!

  “The cracks among the mountains shall be filled up; all the peaks of the mountains shall be kept at the same height; the bumpy road shall be smooth; and the plateau shall all turn into plain!”

  Ye Qingxuan’s voice was echoing across the whole sky.

  “The door to heaven shall be opened, the truth shall come to the world, and every decent man and woman shall witness this together!”

  The Sacred City made of steel and iron made a huge sound!

  511 Sword of Judgmen

  Countless people had made great sacrifices and suffered a lot of pain and torture. At that cost, the enchantment of the Sacred City was finally recaptured from the abyss!

  The highway of God was ready.

  The highway of God had been straightened.

  Ye Qingxuan heard the bell in his hand ringing. The complicated and ancient melody emerged from the “Final Authority” and poured into his consciousness.

  That was…an indescribably magnificent music movement!

  Innumerable music theories occupied his soul in an instant, urging his body to play, to sing, and to release the movement that represented miracles.

  Thus, in the Central Temple, numerous perception threads stretched out from Ye Qingxuan’s body, and accessed the countless keys. He manipulated the unprecedentedly large musical instrument, and lead the pipe organ to create that solemn symphony with unimaginable dexterity and smoothness.

  The melody stunned the Sacred City. Countless musicians shouted in shock.

  The holy spirits under the ninth level of the earth happened to look up towards the solar disk at the same time.

  That was…

  “The Ninth Symphony!”

  The Ninth Symphony Prelude created by the original King of Red!

  From Ye Qingxuan’s fingertips, the symphony was performed according to his will in the controlling center of the Central Temple, and it reverberated in the whole steel city. Wherever it passed, all churches, buildings, and facilities echoed in response.

  Sacred City!

  This was the Sacred City!

  The Sacred City had woken up!

  The spirituality that had been sleeping in the deepest part of the Sacred City condensed and reemerged. Thousands of bells were ringing at the same time and intertwining into many incredibly magnificent music theories.

  Those countless music theories ran in the steel city, like the blood flowing through the body of a giant.

  At that moment, the city finally opened its eyes.

  As if God’s messenger had finally come to the earth.

  Behind Ye Qingxuan, the burning holy emblem suddenly expanded and floated between heaven and earth, like a man-made sun!

  That was the authority that could only be mastered by the Kings of Red of all ages.

  Even if it was only a prelude, it was still powerful enough to call the foundation of the seven schools of musicians—the power represented by the holy ax!

  “Holy, Holy, Holy!” In front of the holy emblem that burned like the sun, Ye Qingxuan was immersed in the magnificent music movement. With his will, the angry scream that was as loud as thunder rang between heaven and earth!

  “To purify all the poisonous snakes in the name of the holy spirit and fire!”

  “To beat them with iron rods and smash them like the crockery of the potters!”
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br />   In the enchantment of the Sacred City, the spirituality in the prelude of The Ninth Symphony flew into the consciousness of Ye Qingxuan. He was enabled to separate from the narrow perspective of humanity and endowed with endless lights and heats. He was at the moment overlooking the world!

  “Tell those who are here and who are not that this is the only correct principle and gospel in the world! Those who work for it are righteous! Those who died for it can be redeemed!”

  He reached out.

  Then, above the earth, a trumpet roared.

  Numerous burning posts rose abruptly out of the ground, and countless cold silver spikes fell from the sky. Immediately afterward, purified flames spewed out from the burning posts.

  From here to there.

  From one side of the world to the other side of the world.

  Everything that could be seen was on fire.

  It was as if the day of judgment had come upon the earth, flames pouring out from the silent ground, giving all sinners equal and merciful purification!

  Ye Qingxuan looked up. Behind him, the wheel of the Holy Emblem was revolving with a magnificent and loud sound, as if iron and steel were rubbing against each other.

  Then, the enchantment oscillated.

  The roaring melody ran from the Central Temple, and then through the action zone, the creation zone, the formation zone, and the outflow zone. Endless light flew out from the solar disk.

  Like a waterfall.

  Countless rays of light poured into the enchantment, sweeping in all directions. Then the lights ignited the dark clouds in the sky, burned up the dark fog in the abyss, and destroyed all the demons completely!

  In the end, the lights went up and then towards the huge shadow that covered the sky…

  Cast the Sword of Judgment!

  As stated in the Holy Bible, Prepare and straighten the highway of God. Heaven is near, and God will cast the Sword of Judgment into the world through the opened gate!

  The blade of the sword revolved in all directions, glowing and bursting out flames. Forward! Forward! Forward!

  It would pierce the earth if it encountered the earth. It would light up the sky if it encountered the sky. It was going to break down the nine layers of hell, tear up the endless abyss, and burn off all sins!

  Boom!

  A huge crack emerged on the trunk of the abyss black branches, running from the front to the back.

  Above the trunk, the strange face of Menti had been completely burned into ashes, only leaving a shrill cry spreading out with the pulling out of a shadow.

  Immediately afterward, endless light rushed out of the inside of the abyss black branches.

  The shadow was torn up from the inside out, and the haze in the abyss was eliminated completely!

  Menti’s projection in the Physical World was completely destroyed and lost its final foothold.

  In the aether sea, the vast trunk that ran through the Physical World and the Aether World collapsed. Even his real body far away in the abyss had suffered irreversible and severe wounds.

  The abyss boiled. The abyss black branches rooted in the deepest part of the abyss whined, pulled out a withered branch like a bone, and cast it toward the Physical World with strong hatred!

  The target was Ye Qingxuan!

  Menti tore off the poisonous branch from his own body. The poisonous branch had grown by absorbing the resentment and poison over thousands of years, and being assimilated by the ultimate source of the Hyakume.

  Since Menti was born, he had only made three poisonous branches. The dagger that it gave to Ludovic to assassinate the Pope was one of them.

  Now, as a glorious dark minister, he had been tripped up by Ye Qingxuan, and made an even more stupid mistake than Paganini had, which drove him crazy. He wanted to give Ye Qingxuan an unforgettable lesson at any cost!

  However, the radiance of the enchantment flowed and gathered in the air in front of Ye Qingxuan.

  The melody of Requiem rang through the entire Sacred City.

  Holy! Holy! Holy!

  The nine layers of holy regions formed in an instant. Even the enchantment that contained all the power of the bell towers moved to block the poisonous branch.

  In an instant, the poisonous branch broke the sky and arrived.

  Along the way, the aether sea was even smeared with dark green light for that moment.

  Immediately afterward, countless rays of light shone. The Sacred City shook. The radiance flowing over the huge enchantment resisted the impact from the poisonous branch. But the branch was alive, and it could even be regarded as a part of Menti. Since it lost its momentum as it came, even most of its power, it reduced into a black light, swaying like a live snake.

  Like taking root in a boulder, it wormed its way through the weak part of the music theory, and ran through the enchantment towards the real body of Ye Qingxuan.

  In an instant, it penetrated Ye Qingxuan’s holy sphere.

  One layer, two layers, three layers…

  With the fragmentation of the former spheres, new spheres formed again. Ye Qingxuan manipulated the music theories of the bell towers, as if he was resonating with thousands of Master musicians. Thus, it was quite hard to know exactly how many spheres collapsed and reformed in just an instant.

  In the end, the sphere had become a long and narrow one, like a box, getting the dim and black light embedded in it.

  The poisonous branch couldn’t even move a bit.

  Like a dragon in a shoal, a tiger in a cage.

  Ye Qingxuan stretched out his hand and pressed on the poisonous black branch through the holy sphere—nature intervention!

  Thus, the poisonous branch that contained the essence of Menti’s music theories and could be regarded as the quintessence of the abyss trembled, fizzled, and cramped in the box. However, it still couldn’t get rid of the music theories of Ye Qingxuan.

  In the end, as the holy sphere broke down, it changed into a piece of dead branch which then fell into Ye Qingxuan’s hand.

  “Such a good stuff.” He stared up at the furious Menti in the Aether World and waved with a smile on his face. “You left me such a good gift, dude, even if I made you leave! Okay, please go now, don’t hesitate!”

  Roaring!

  The abyss black branches disappeared.

  It was completely silent between heaven and earth.

  Ye Qingxuan finally felt relief, and found himself gasping with fatigue.

  Finally…

  Ended?

  No, not really.

  The real boss had not yet unveiled his face. Ye Qingxuan had barely driven away a small dog, let alone ended the war.

  For the real two parties, this wasn’t even the start.

  Even so, Ye Qingxuan still felt proud and delighted.

  The projection of the abyss black branches in the Physical World was destroyed by the last blow, and it was even driven back to the Aether World .

  It was the second dark minister Ye Qingxuan had defeated.

  Menti said that in the abyss, there were already four dark ministers who hated him badly. Apart from Paganini, he had no idea who those dark ministers were. If he counted the two incarnations of Hyakume as dark ministers, there would be six of them?

  Even Ye Qingxuan himself found it incredible.

  It was too bad.

  In the meantime, the abundant power and inexhaustible energy just faded like the tides and disappeared. With the end of the Ninth Symphony Prelude, he separated from that marvelous state.

  When he recalled what had happened in those dozen seconds, he felt like it was just an illusion.

  At that time, Ye Qingxuan had been like an almighty god, manipulating land, water, fire, wind, and nearly everything. But now, the clear memory blurred rapidly.

  Like a dispelled dream.

  But at least…

  He looked down at the final authority in his hand.

  The repaired Sacred City enchantment was still in his hands.

  “Even suc
h a big fight couldn’t draw you out!”

  In the core of the Central Temple, he opened his eyes, stretched out his hands, and pressed the keys that surrounded him, whispering, “Let me see… where are you hiding?”

  As the hands bounced flexibly, the pipe organ sounded loudly.

  In the machine room underneath the Central Temple, the loud sound came back. The hot steam rushed through the pipes like a flood. After running through many diverting valves and pipes, the steam hit the reeds, causing the reeds to burn red, vibrate, and sound loud noises.

  Thousands of sharp sounds overlapped. Like the hub of the enchantment, those machines allocated the resources and submitted summarized information to Ye Qingxuan.

  Finally, he resaw the huge nebula of the Central Temple.

  512 Transparent Mirror

  The sparkling nebula permeated the Sacred City, and each sparkle represented a person’s aether wave.

  The huge enchantment now seemed to become an enormous transparent mirror, revealing every detail of itself in front of Ye Qingxuan. A huge amount of information that was too much for an average person’s brain to store had been categorized by the way of deciphering.

  About four-fifths of the information was useless and had been deleted, and most of the redundant information among the last one-fifth had also been deleted. At last, via the music theory, the information was transformed into some simple music notes, which Ye Qingxuan bore in mind.

  He only needed to turn the music notes into different intervals and put them in a fixed place. Then, the music theory of the way of deciphering would help him find the variate he needed within this big formula.

  Where on earth was the variate that represented Ye Lanzhou?

  If he looked at the world through this big formula, he sometimes felt puzzled. But once he figured out what the variates and complex music theory really stood for, the world would instantly make sense to him.

  Especially when the huge enchantment was constantly sending information to Ye Qingxuan, he indeed felt puzzled.

  His ears and eyes could no longer observe the immediate surroundings, and his brain could not function at the same time.

  Ye Qingxuan realized that it was necessary for him to change the way he was attempting to do things.