by Feng Yue
Ye Qingxuan’s gaze became colder. “That’s your reason?” he snickered. “I thought everything on the ground has got nothing to do with you.”
“Times have changed,” came the reply.
“No, since you have made up your mind at the start to let go, don’t step in again as things progress because of such a ridiculous excuse.” Ye Qingxuan lifted his hand and pointed to the sky. “Don’t you want unfettered freedom? Go back to the sky, go back to your iron cage. The King of Yellow, the freedom you seek is not here.”
“You are right indeed, but this place has a meaning equally important to me. This is the last time I appear in the world as the King of Yellow.” The King of Yellow softly laughed self-mockingly. “Or to be more exact, I’ve come here to retire from my position.” He paused and looked at Ye Qingxuan. “How about you make a bet with me?”
“Do I have the liberty to reject?” Ye Qingxuan asked coldly.
“Although it is not fair to you, aren’t you going to at least hear me out on what it is about and what I’m willing to bet?” The King of Yellow withdrew his gaze and looked in the direction of the Golden Palace. Through such a far distance of thousands of miles, he could still see the fierce lights flickering in and out of existence one after another and hear the nerve-wracking rumble.
He suddenly asked, “Ye Qingxuan, who do you think will win?”
“What about you?” Ye Qingxuan looked at him, his tone harsh. “Who would you like to see emerge victorious? The church you cast aside like an old shoe?”
“No, on the contrary, I hope that the Sacred City will lose, but I don’t want Charles to win either.” The King of Yellow said calmly, “To be exact, I hope that both sides suffer immense losses.”
Both sides suffer immense losses…
Ye Qingxuan was surprised. “What do you mean?”
“All along, everyone says that only you are the most similar to me out of all the people in the world. But can you understand what I feel, Ye Qingxuan? That sort of,” after a moment of thinking, the King of Yellow sighed softly and uttered the term, “that sort of… ‘disappointment’ in all this.”
Ye Qingxuan was silent.
In the silence, the King of Yellow found some broken steps to sit down by himself and continued, “I have been confused over one thing all along, namely, how should I look at all this?
“From the perspective of the King of Yellow, I don’t want the order of the increasingly distorted world to be gradually lost, and eventually fall apart because of the original sin human beings are born with, but I can’t do anything about it.
“From the perspective of a musician, I also don’t want everything in the world to be locked up in their cradle by a particular organization in the name of justice and righteousness. I can’t even breath carefreely, but at the same time, I have no courage to overthrow it all.
“From the perspective of a mortal, I long to throw away all the restraints and obtain freedom, but I can’t cut myself off from it all. I am destined to be the least free person in the world.
“Such is the most ridiculous part. Regardless of the perspective you look at it from, I can’t possibly get what I want.”
He toyed with his scepter and laughed mockingly. “From the moment I put on the crown, I have been destined to forever be unable to obtain what I have been seeking my whole life.”
“In a nutshell, what you hate the most, is still yourself, no?” Ye Qingxuan looked at him coldly. “You are just hiding from yourself, running far away, pretending that none of it has happened and that you have not seen anything. You seek illusory peace and freedom, in an iron cage floating in low earth orbit.
“You are here now only because you hope that someone else will rush out and smash the stall up completely [1], giving you an excuse to abandon all this and continue seeking and hiding!”
The King of Yellow was stunned.
After a long time, he laughed loudly.
“Yes, that’s it.” He did not conceal his ugly nature and insignificance, and calmly faced Ye Qingxuan’s ridicule, undisturbed. “As the King of Yellow, I must guard the balance, but now, the balance that guides everything towards kindness has ceased to exist, and what I can get is only an evil balance.
“So it leaves me no choice, as an evil balance is still better a kind destruction.”
He paused for a moment, his gaze becoming serious. His tone left no room for questioning and resistance, as he actually behaved like the King of Yellow. “Cruelly speaking, I hope that Charles will die in the battle and that the Sacred City will be badly damaged. So, I need you to stay here.”
“Everything may not be as you wish.” Ye Qingxuan clenched the hilt of the sword tightly, murderous intent in his eyes. A piercing sound burst out from the void, and it was the loud bang of the iron gleam of the New Testament striking the cage.
The embodiment of the King of Yellow fell apart before the New Testament Sword. The next moment, his figure gathered again, was destroyed once more, and gathered again. It was as if he had undergone endless cycles of life and death, and achieved eternity.
His breath suddenly became erratic and weak, and even the projection of the Holy Cauldron disappeared. His whole person was like a phantom about to dissipate in the next moment. Yet the cage did not shake in the slightest and was even more stable than before.
It was something that surpassed the domain created by Holy and all the domains and wonderlands in the world. It was a sort of wall that had abandoned everything else only for the sake of firmness and isolation!
“Surely, you don’t think that I have been closing my eyes and sleeping while being in ‘confinement’ for so long?” The King of Yellow turned and looked at him, revealing a complicated smile. “After all, I can still be considered as having come to some realizations. Welcome to my world, Ye Qingxuan.”
“This is the product of what you realized? A cage that keeps the whole world out? You should find a psychiatrist to cure your autism!” Ye Qingxuan retorted.
“Is that so? After I’m done with all this, I will.” The King of Yellow said calmly, “So, now, let’s go back to the original topic.
“Do you want to make a bet?”
He said, “The war over at the Golden Palace, who will win and who will lose?”
Ye Qingxuan did not respond, but the King of Yellow continued speaking without caring about his response, or lack thereof. “My bet is on Charles winning, what about you?”
“Charles?” Ye Qingxuan only felt like snickering after hearing his words.
Regardless of the stance of the King of Yellow, no one thinking with their brain would believe that one person would have any chance of winning against the Church that had ruled for centuries for the entirety of the old era.
“Ye Qingxuan, you have been refusing to admit something from the very beginning.” The King of Yellow said unhurriedly, “Namely, Charles is by no means the kind of human you imagine him to be.”
“He far surpassed humans in nature from the start, and he is something non-human.
“He may be able to wear camouflage and hide in the weeds before, but after Gaius awakened him, he will never be able to return to the world of mortals.
“He is different from you. He is the Son of God, literally.
“Everyone has understood it all along, only you are not willing to admit it.
“You would rather see him lose and die here like a human instead of seeing him win, right? If the friendship between you two is like this, I think I need to help you register as well when I go to see the psychiatrist.”
Ye Qingxuan was silent. After a long time, he looked up. “You are right, I would rather see my friend die as a human than watch him become something he does not want to be…
“Even if everyone in the world thinks that he is omnipotent, and no matter he is a god or a monster, in my heart, he is always Charles, my senior and my friend.”
Ye Qingxuan would never be willing to admit the prophecy said by the King of Yellow.
Even though in this case, Charles would die there.
Even the Sacred City would have the final laugh.
“So, the bets have been made.” The King of Yellow whispered softly, the laughter mocking both himself and Ye Qingxuan. “A gamble that neither side is willing to win.”
The King of Yellow hoped that Charles would win, and Ye Qingxuan hoped that the Church would win.
If the King of Yellow was to win, then the Order would completely lose the power to conduct a final counterattack, and the old world he had been maintaining would be destined to disappear in the faraway future.
If Ye Qingxuan was to win, then he would lose his most important friend.
Neither side hoped to be the winning side in the end, but they were unwilling to face failure either. The winner would not be redeemed, but the loser still had to face the bitter outcome.
It was just like what the King of Yellow had said.
It was an evil balance.
In the silence, the King of Yellow stared into the distance, watching the broken skies and the world ignited by war.
“So, as a punishment for failure…”
He announced the bet, “The loser will have to take on the position of the King of Yellow.”
[1] The author is referring to a Chinese saying that literally translates as “tidying up a messy stall” and means “cleaning up a mess.”
749 God
It was looking up at the wrath of heaven. The hot pillar of light, that had pierced through heaven and earth, was radiating with light. Hurricanes swept over with wind pressure and heat, which was suffocating.
Paganini stood on the debris of the Golden Palace and stared at the vault of heaven. Countless beams of light were dancing, and shortly after, stars began to fall like rain. The turbulent sea of light covered the entire sky and as the Holy Spirit fell, the broken scepter broke through the deepest layer of the raging ocean, just like a star crashing towards the ground. Along the way, it burnt brightly with the remnants of its life.
It slowly fell and dissipated until the end. Most of the light was lost between the vault of heaven and darkness, leaving behind only random streaks of light. It was just like a tombstone.
A voice spoke from a distance away and reverberated beside Paganini’s ear. It was Wolf Flute. “The latest news is that Asgard has restrained Quiet Moon.”
“Although that’s unexpected, it wasn’t impossible.” Paganini muttered quietly, “After losing Hyakume, there were no longer any conflicts in the Originator so there was no need for a brake valve. Although it still carried the name of the Three Pillar God, it only existed in name. On a certain level, a meaningless Quiet Moon and a meaningless Asgard could be compatible with each other.”
“Even so, the old fellow is still worried about any possible effects on the battle at Golden Palace.” Wolf Flute’s voice was monotonous, “He suggests that all of you get yourselves prepared so that, if necessary, Anubis will bring all of you along when we retreat.”
“No need.” Paganini rejected immediately, without considering the possibility of a retreat, “We should not even be thinking about losing. How can Quiet Moon, which has lost its divinity, be a match for Eden? Besides,” he looked up at the light in the sky. He could not disguise the look in his eyes that spoke about the trust and admiration towards absolute power, “Charles will definitely not lose!”
Wolf Flute stayed silent for a long time before sighing quietly. “What I’m worried about has never been whether he will lose. Some things can never be changed, regardless if we win or lose.”
Paganini replied coldly, “Men can never hide their true nature. No matter how determined they are, or how hard they try to control and suppress, men will always act according to their true nature at the end of the day.” He paused for a while, then said, “Just like you.”
After a short pause, Wolf Flute did not seem upset. Instead, he began to chuckle. “Sounds like I should have just been a traitor from the moment I was born.”
“Although that’s not what I meant, sometimes, some things can’t be avoided.”
“Yes, yes, yes. This, I understand.” Wolf Flute seemed to be smoking a roll of tobacco and was puffing out some smoke. “But you were wrong about one thing.” Tens of thousands of miles away, he stared at the flicker of light on his fingertips as he muttered quietly, “Maybe some people were destined to be a traitor from the moment they were born, but no one was born to be a God, Paganini. No one…”
He extinguished the flicker of light on his fingertips and the remnant sparks lit up his emotionless face. When the sparks were also extinguished, his face disappeared into the darkness. His voice was never heard again.
Tens of thousands of miles away, at the highest point of the entire world, the battle had reached its climax. Amidst the majestic voices and with the boost of the iron tower, the Holy Spirits were now well-armed with armors and weapons. It was as if music theory spirits and movements have turned into humans, as they displayed fierce and cold shimmer of metal from the infusion of aether.
The iron Holy Spirits traveled the vault of heaven at an incredible speed. A naked eye could only see the trails of their movements. This was a battle that far surpassed the limits of the speed of human reactions and every moment consisted of countless clashes. Every single detail possessed the power to influence the outcome of the battle.
At this moment, above the vault of heaven, every single Holy Spirit had already given up on their own individuality and devoted themselves in the main theme and turned into the most fundamental music note in that massive movement. And within the resonance of every single Holy Spirit, a majestic symphony played with aplomb. Symphony number nine!
There was no need for other names or title, for a single number was more than sufficient to recognize its existence. Within the entire Symphony number nine, there was one movement that was universally admired and respected. The core music theory that the King of Red had inherited, other than “Destiny” which ordinary men could not even take a peek at, was now being formed by countless Holy Spirits to become the ultimate power.
If destiny represented the emptiness and variance of God’s will and punishment, then Symphony number nine highlighted the principle of mankind. The elements represented by countless Holy Spirits were now gathered under the same main theme as they converted into pure power.
With this, they would praise and with this, they would sing at the top of their voices. With this, men would emerge victorious!
Amidst the music theory of Symphony number nine, the powers of countless Holy Spirits have already combined into one. Although the King of Red was not here personally, there was not much difference anymore. At tens of thousands of miles away, the iron city suddenly let out a deep roar. Countless towers began to toll their bells and the voices of hymns and prayers seemed to have extended from the distant past to the faraway future and carrying out the present.
The Church, which had once ruled over the old world for centuries, finally revealed their deposits. As countless Holy Spirits summoned, the power of the Holy Caldron finally descended upon the sky of Asgard. Just like a metal staff hitting on solid ice, rows of cracks began to appear on the projection of Eden.
All the powers throughout the universe gathered here with countless Holy Spirits acting as the vessel, the majestic and grand traces of Symphony number nine were finally outlined. As Symphony number nine gradually took shape and under the continuous impact of the iron Holy Spirits, Charles’ reaction became more tedious and cramped. It was no longer as smooth and easy as before.
“How terrifying it is when old people become angry…” He stared at the Holy Caldron above the vault of heaven and within the body, tens of thousands of burning beams of light were piercing through flesh and muscles. It seemed like he was about to melt and fuse into the light. This divinity would leave anyone dumbfounded. It was tens of times more powerful than Odin and it was a form of power that was completely different from those that were man-made
. Even if it was completely irrigated by fresh blood, it remained as pure dirt. It might have prospered out of a human body but it was completely natural. As if it was meant to be this way.
The tolling of countless bells continued and the power of the Holy Caldron struck down once more. As a result, Eden, which was in the depth of the realm of aether, shook violently and the crack extended rapidly. The light shook and was instantly extinguished under the heavy pressure, which had increased suddenly by tens of thousands of times.
The sky lost its color, and in the huge roar, Charles fell from the sky. In the blink of an eye, he fell into the heaps of debris on a street and crashed through a house that was already burnt down. Gasps of exclamation could be heard beneath the broken tiles.
“To think that there would be a sneak attack?” Charles was embarrassed as he coughed. He turned back and saw a group of children that were huddled together. These children had nowhere to hide and were staring at him with panic in their eyes. The blood on their faces had already dried up completely.
“Er… Hey, are you all okay? I’m so sorry. I destroyed your beds.” He laughed awkwardly as he brushed off the ashes on his hair and his body before standing up. “Don’t be afraid. It is coming to an end.”
The children shuffled backward and dared not get closer. It was fear. Charles was stunned. He looked back and saw the broken mirror hanging on the broken wall but he could not recognize the person looking back at him.
He lowered his eyes solemnly and apologized quietly to the children, “I’m sorry.” Then, he spread his wings again and flew up into the sky. He dared not look back into those eyes.
At this moment, with the sound of the screeching horn, tens of Holy Spirits vanished and the horn, that was high in the vault of heaven, broke. The blood-red gigantic star appeared behind the gap in the vault of heaven. Giant star Wormwood! With Sacred City’s intention to murder, the melody that everyone was all too familiar with began to play from within the Holy Spirits.