Silent Crown

by Feng Yue

  He was unwilling to wait even for a second.

  The cardinal bishops raised their heads, looked at the uninvited guest, and frowned.

  All of them knew the iconic white hair and the indifferent young man. But they were shocked when they saw the old rosary on his wrist.

  There was no one who didn’t know what it represented.

  In the sight of everyone, he went to the front and bowed to the King of Red.

  The King of Red raised his eyes and looked at him.

  “Have you made your choice?”

  “Thank you for your kindness, your majesty,” Ye Qingxuan said. “Tonight, I will leave the Sacred City.”

  The King of Red was silent for a long time and sighed. “I thought what the Sacred City promised you was satisfying enough for you.”

  “It’s too slow.” Ye Qingxuan shook his head. “I can’t wait.”

  The King of Red stared into the young man’s eyes, but suddenly felt that perhaps he was wrong.

  He originally thought that Ye Qingxuan would gain insights from it, but what he saw now was definitely not the case.

  In that pair of dark eyes burned the fire of resolution and craziness, like spreading lava on wilderness that burned the earth’s crust and steel, and then rose to the sky to light the whole world…

  The King of Red lowered his eyes and stopped looking.

  “Go ahead.” He waved tiredly. “In thirty minutes, there will be a boat that will send you wherever you want to go. Someone will be there to give you what you want. After that, perhaps only God can bless you.”

  Ye Qingxuan smiled and said nothing.

  He bowed and then turned away.

  The door closed.

  The low-pitched disputes sounded again, and the King of Red closed his eyes drowsily, but for some unknown reason, he suddenly remembered Gaius’ favorite poetry.

  Since then, we, as humans, have been suffering from great pains and hardships. We Became brutal and indifferent to prove the nature of our real body…

  Perhaps that was humanity.

  -

  -

  Late at night, on a quiet wharf outside the Sacred City.

  Surrounded by the sound of the tides, Ye Qingxuan waited silently and read the notebook left by Hermes.

  Faint moonlight fell from a gap among the clouds, illuminating another obscure figure. The illusory figure stood beside Ye Qingxuan, looked at the young man, and sighed.

  “Every musician dreams of the promotion that could bring them everything. Are you sure that you don’t want it?”

  “What I want is not here.” Ye Qingxuan gazed at the silhouette of the steel city in the distance, and shook his head slowly. “The Sacred City can’t give me what I want either.”

  “Little Yezi, you finally got on board.” Lola laughed. “You should have been like this! Get what you want! Why do you have to worry about so many things? Anyway, this world has been trampled by Hyakume to such a degree. If things go badly, this world will be nothing more than hell!”

  A high-pitched whistle, and the iron wheels were ready.

  The thump of hooves came from afar, a messenger dressed in white rode a horse and stopped in front of Ye Qingxuan.

  “In the name of the Archbishop of the Sacred City, the representative of gods, the highest pope, and the King of Red.” The messenger half knelt to the ground, and handed a red ribbon with green gold trimmings to Ye Qingxuan. “Today, you are appointed the master of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Grand Inquisitor, assigned to rebuild the Religious Court of Inquiry and patrol all countries, and titled the ‘Hand of God.’

  “You are crowned with justice. From now on, what you do and say are the principles.”

  “This is the will of God!”

  “The Hand of God?” Ye Qingxuan stared at the red ribbon for a long time, then laughed softly. “Great, I like this title. Express my appreciation to the king for me, please.”

  Saying that, he wore the holy ribbon on his shoulder with majesty, which meant that he accepted the mission given by the God.

  The dark pupils were so cold that the messenger didn’t dare to look directly at them and bowed in awe.

  “Then, by the will of God, let’s first create a better world from fire and iron.”

  He turned and left.

  Without looking back.

  -

  Under the silent moonlight, the whistle burst sharply.

  The iron wheels rotated slowly and drove away, stirring up undercurrents and waves.

  In the dim light in the cabin, Ye Qingxuan stared at the large and complex design sketched on the note, Hermes’s last legacy. It was a sketch of a huge thing that straddled the whole Physical World and was named the “aether net.”

  A photo was stuck to the last page of the notebook.

  It was a photo taken by Hermes at an unknown time. In the photo, Bai Xi was standing on a cart being pulled by a running golden retriever. She was on a street of Avalon.

  She smiled like a little fool who owned the world, although she would definitely roll the cart over in the next second.

  “Wait for me, Bai Xi.”

  He touched the smile in the photo and closed his eyes.

  Soon, I will find you…

  And then, I will not let anyone take you away from me!

  -

  -

  That night, a notification was issued by the Central Temple and sent in all directions.

  The Religious Court of Inquiry, which had been damaged for many years, was rebuilt from the ashes.

  The light of the burning posts would light up the entire world again.

  The young man who was named the “Hand of God” had abandoned his former dreams and aspirations and once again embarked on a long journey.

  However, this world had already been immersed in turmoil.

  As Ludovic once said, a new era had begun.

  It was not a golden age that belonged to mankind, nor the everlasting darkness of the abyss. In the midst of fire and iron, a new prelude started and a new era was coming.

  530 The Lightless Sea

  It was late at night, and a guard stood on the edge of the cliff holding up a storm lantern, lighting the raging sea.

  The ocean tide was coming with heavy rain and thunder on its back. A storm was sweeping across the sea, and the air was full of the sticky and cold water vapor. The guard found it difficult to breath normally.

  Though it was raining heavily, it was silent. Countless rain drops dropped into the raging seawater. The sea had turned into something horrible, like a monster.

  A fog permeated the air of the region. The whole sea was tumbling, as if there was a huge creature stirring the water. The hurricane swept across the sea and blew towards the cliff, creating scary sound. Seeing this, the guard was in a daze. Soon, he felt a bit dizzy and fell down.

  He felt extremely cold, which made his mind clear again. He screamed aloud. Suddenly, a man reached out a hand and grabbed him by his collar and pulled him up. He then fell back down on the ground. The cold rain dropped on his face, and he looked pale and began to breathe heavily. His looked at the man lifelessly and said, “I…I…”

  “What is wrong with you? Were you petrified?” the man said. “I called your name for ten minutes and you did not reply to me. If I did not come up, you would have already…”

  Recently, many guards had encountered this.

  “I just came out to have some fresh air, I never thought…” the guard murmured. The man patted his shoulder and said, “You go back and take a rest. Someone has just shipped some food here, and the cook made some soup. You should drink it. I will stay here.”

  The guard nodded and backed away. He said with great gratitude, “Niven, be careful, Old Gai jumped off the cliff yesterday.”

  “You should go back now.” Niven waved his hands. He quickly laid a waterproof blanket in a cave and lay down on it. Then, he took out a lighter and lit his pipe. He breathed in the warm and wet smoke
and finally felt a bit warmer. He relaxed a bit and stared at the sea and the sky in awe.

  He looked at his watch and realized it was exactly midnight. F*ck the twelve o’clock. He spat.

  As a member of the Fifth Department, he had been doing the hardest and dirtiest work for years. He had retired from the navy, and spent the next ten years travelling all over the world and living in bad environments countless times. Still, he never thought Anglo would become like this.

  In the past, the Cloister of Cavern was a famous holiday paradise with a pleasant climate, but now, all the hotels and roads had been flooded by the dark wave. What was left was the Cloister of Cavern that was still sitting in the mountain.

  When the fog shrouded Anglo, half of its territories in the coastal area had been flooded. Currently, no one really knew if the islands located in the deepest part of the fog were still there or not.

  According to the emergency regulations of the Fifth Department, the current situation in Anglo meant that this city was already in a very dangerous state.

  All the institutions around the world had gone into silent mode. Apart from some specially appointed members, everyone needed to gather at the fixed place at the fixed time; everyone else would be treated as traitors.

  Currently, around four hundred experienced experts who had known a lot about devils and catastrophes had gathered here. They had been staying in the Cloister of Cavern for over a week.

  They were still very disciplined, but some of them were beginning to become a bit worried. In fact, they were all carefully selected elites, and among them were musicians and people with lots of talents. Most importantly, they were very courageous and determined, and would not easily freak out.

  This time, things were rather different. Apart from the bad environment and the shortage of food and water, the sea posed the biggest threat to them. They had not seen light in nine days.

  The lightless sea seemed to have a sort of magic power. At this point, more than ten people had been lost. A few days ago, four corpses were spotted floating on the sea. Those who came back alive all went insane, and some of them even had to be quarantined.

  Two of them had killed themselves. One cut his wrist and drew some graffiti with his blood on the wall. The graffiti was washed away, and later the man who cleaned it also went mad and was soon quarantined.

  “F*ck.” Niven spat again. He was a bit afraid. Anglo had already became a living hell, and he had no idea what would happen next if he continued to stay there.

  The storm was still sweeping across the sea and pouring rain, but it was very quiet. He was a fisherman’s child; when he was young, his father never allowed him to step onto the boat, or even to touch the net.

  He stared at the sea, terrified by this quietness, and finally understood his father.

  The deep sea was just like a uterus, where a disaster was growing.

  “How scary this is.” He sighed and crawled under the blanket. He stared into the distance, and from time to time, he had an urge to walk into the darkness. If he indeed walked into the darkness, he might become part of it, a tiny part of it…

  Instantly, his urge disappeared, since he practiced the Decerebrate Rigidity surgery on himself. In fact, few spies would perform this sort of surgery on themselves. After the surgery, other musicians could no longer read his mind, but the surgery was not easy to do. Still, he never regretted the decision he had made, and now he could calmly watch this atrocious monster-like sea.

  He began to smoke his pipe and play sudoku. The visibility was now less than three meters, and the water quality had deteriorated so much that even the fish could no longer live in it.

  There is no point in continuing to guard this area!

  Suddenly, a cold water drop fell on his forehead. He was alarmed and looked up. Then he saw the rock above his head trembling, as if an earthquake was happening. For the first time, he saw a scary scene in the spot where the dark sea met the dark sky.

  The sea was raging and the dark clouds were getting closer and closer to the sea. It seemed like the sky and the sea were going to become one.

  All at once, he heard the sound of a siren. An enormous iron and steel-made ship was sailing across the sea.

  Around the ship, the distorted music theory collided with the twisted reality, creating a huge swathes of sparks.

  The ship was sailing fast. Seeing this, Niven was shocked.

  The wave was trying to stop the ship from moving forward, but it failed, as did the rain and the reefs. The head of the ship was already broken and cracks were crawling all over its body.

  Suddenly, the ship bumped into the cliff. The next moment, the searchlight on the ship lit and targeted Niven.

  The light was so bright that Niven could not even open his eyes. He then heard someone walking on the deck and getting closer and closer to him.

  The man stopped in front of Niven and lowered his head to watch him. Niven felt he was in great danger.

  Niven jumped up and took a dagger from his shoes, trying to cut this man’s throat. But he felt a sudden pain, and when his mind was clear again, he found he was lying on the ground and his dagger had been taken away by the man.

  The man sighed and threw a ring to Niven.

  There was an emblem of the Royal family on the ring, and a unique code on the inner side.

  Obviously, this man was not a musician. Although Niven could not read his aether wave and the code of his Alchemy Array, he was sure about this man’s identity.

  Against the bright light, Niven saw the man’s white hair. It was just like a burning metal.

  “Your name?” the man asked.

  “Niven,” Niven said. “Niven Taylor.”

  “Good boy, now, Niven, just calm down.” The man reached out his hand and pulled Niven up from the ground. He patted Niven’s shoulder gently and said, “Take a breath and go see your official, and do not forget this ring.”

  This man looked at Niven rather seriously, his eyes like the lightless sea, dark and deep.

  “Tell them I have come.”

  531 I Hope So

  The Cloister of Cavern was first built by a group of ascetic monks.

  They spent forty years carving the early structure of the cloister out of the rock cliff. From then on, after two hundred years and four periods of construction, the Cloister of Cavern became what it looked like now.

  Like the headquarters of the Chainsaw Fraternity, the interior part of the cloister was carved out of the rock mountain, but its scale was not as grand as the Chainsaw Fraternity’s. The construction of the stone chambers could only be described as rough, for those chambers didn’t even have any windows, but only several fist-sized holes for ventilation.

  After Ye Qingxuan’s identity was verified by a musician, he was respectfully guided to the office of the cloister’s dean.

  The stove in the corner dispelled the dampness in the stone chamber, but it was still cold.

  Ye Qingxuan sat in a chair and waited silently. After half an hour, the door was pushed open, and a middle-aged man who looked capable and vigorous came in.

  He looked older than his age, the hair on his temples going gray. His bones and facial features showed that he was Angle, and his knuckles were large, and his palms were rough with calluses. Although his muscles were oversized, they still presented a sense of strength.

  He moved with power and sturdiness, like an army.

  “Hello, Mr. Ye, I’ve heard a lot about you.” He stretched out his hand to Ye Qingxuan, and introduced himself. “I am the interim leader here, Colonel Xavier.”

  Ye Qingxuan raised his eyes, looked at him and his hand, but he didn’t intend to shake hands with him.

  Colonel Xavier’s tone was very subtle, for he disguised his discontent and contempt very well.

  Even though he called him “Mr. Ye,” he did not care about Ye Qingxuan’s identity as a sword bearer.

  Handshaking was common, but it could only be used among peers. As the successor appointed by
Maxwell, the leader of the Fifth Division under a state of emergency, Ye Qingxuan possessed a higher authority than Xavier did. Therefore, Xavier should give a military salute and transfer the command authority to him when they met.

  Instead, after making Ye Qingxuan wait for half an hour, he came late with two subordinates, and wanted to shake hands with him with fake zest.

  Ye Qingxuan looked at the two men behind Xavier.

  One of them was an old man in a robe, holding a walking stick, looking like a clergyman of the church. He did not wear an emblem nor a sacrificing garment of the Order, but he wore many luxurious rings on his fingers, from which anyone could feel the aether waves.

  He was definitely a musician with many achievements. Although he didn’t use any music movement or alchemy equipment, the water vapor and coldness couldn’t get into his body.

  It was because of the buffer layer of natural music theory around his body, which was formed through the regular frictions between the Physical World and the gravitational force formed in the music theory of his body.

  His music theory was at the distortion level, at least.

  The other person was much younger. He wore a pair of well-crafted glasses, which showed that he had a bad eyesight. The calluses on the index finger and thumb of his right hand indicated that he had been doing paperwork for years. Therefore, he might be a copyist, a scholar, a lawyer, or a middle-class official.

  However, there was no mark of the Fifth Division on their coats.

  That was interesting.

  A cunning smile appeared on Ye Qingxuan’s face.

  Being ignored by Ye Qingxuan, Xavier’s expression remained unchanged, but his eye muscles trembled slightly. He drew back his hand and sat in the main position of the office, as if nothing had happened.

  “Mr. Ye, you must be tired after such a long trip.” Xavier maintained his politeness and respect to Ye Qingxuan. “The resting room has already been prepared for you. A batch of supplies just arrived, so our chef has cooked many delicious dishes. You can have your dinner later and have a good rest tonight.”