801. Chapter 801: Act 151 – The Age of Mortals III
“Absolutely.”
Freya slowly sat back down in her chair, her hands nervously gripping her knees. After a moment, she asked quietly, “So what should we do? How do we fight against the Duskgazer Dragon? This time, the Golden Race is no longer by our side, and even the People of Silver are keeping to themselves. There are no heroes like the Knights of Azure to lead us. We are empty-handed and even caught up in our own conflicts. When dusk falls, will we still have a chance?”
Milos did not answer, and a spark suddenly popped from the bright flames in the fireplace.
Time flowed like sand through an hourglass, and the dull buzzing echoed quietly in the space around them.
“The path ahead, the future, is equally shrouded in mist for both you and me. Not just me; even the wise like Crystal dare not claim to know all the secrets of the universe.”
“Even the deity cannot?”
“Even Mother cannot know everything.”
Freya opened her mouth slightly.
“But as long as you all still hold destiny in your hands, there is still a chance. The generation of Black Iron must firmly grasp their own fate; this is the last blessing bestowed upon you by Mother.”
“This is the Age of Mortals. Neither deities nor Duskgazer Dragons can interfere. The future, whether good or bad, is determined by you —”
“Is this why you chose us to come here, Lord Milos?” The knight girl took a gentle breath, finally understanding the purpose of the father of Frost Giants. In such an age, no matter the reason, there was no longer a need for an awakened deity, as deities had long since departed, merely existing like the dust of history, preserved in the vast scrolls of time.
“You are very intelligent,” the voice repeated.
“What should I do?” Freya asked softly.
“As I said, slay it with the sword in your hand —”
Freya’s eyes widened slightly. She had always thought it was a joke, but this time, the voice was serious. “But how can I possibly kill a deity?” She blurted out.
“Little girl, in your era, there are no longer deities. No matter how it revives or what its identity is, once it appears in this world, it is destined to be merely a false god.” The voice sighed and paused slightly. “And you, Freya, this is your era…”
Freya stared blankly across the table, where an empty chair seemed to always host a wise elder, and in that brief moment, he had told her a story long enough to encompass a lifetime.
There were many things she had no need to know.
With a sharp crack, a long fissure suddenly appeared in the floor of the room, and the previously muted buzzing finally converged into a shrill roar. The entire mountain trembled as if it were slowly sinking, causing the very ground of the room to tilt. Freya barely kept from being tossed from her seat; she quickly grasped the table, her eyes wide with surprise as she looked toward the sound.
“It seems this place is about to disappear…”
The voice paused slightly before adding with a gentle smile.
“Lord Milos?”
“Freya, remember my words. I will be waiting for you.”
Freya caught her breath, perhaps unwilling or perhaps deliberately ignoring this fact. It was as if, until this moment, she suddenly remembered that the one whom the father of Frost Giants wanted her to kill was he himself. Amid the rumbling sounds, the small cabin within the glacier began to tilt more violently, as if a sinking ship, with spiderweb-like cracks appearing in the walls and the floor crumbling as if it would vanish in an instant. Freya gripped the edge of the table tightly, staring fixedly at that empty chair.
“Lord Milos!”
“Are you saying goodbye, little girl?”
“No, no,” Freya shook her head, straining to keep her balance. She managed to straighten up and bowed deeply to that chair. She wanted to say thank you, but sometimes that sentiment need not be voiced; a thousand words are less than a moment of silence.
A crack ran through the entire ceiling above the girl’s head, and the ground beneath her began to sink freely, cracking, heaving, revealing the ice layer beneath.
“No need for that,” the voice chuckled softly, as if shaking its head. “No need for that.”
“But a child must say their safety to the elders before venturing alone.”
The knight girl straightened up, rubbed her eyes, and smiled as she replied.
“Thank you.”
“Well then, let us meet again in history.”
The voice fell silent, and a circle of white light unfolded around Freya. This faint glow deflected all the falling ice blocks away from the girl, allowing her to stand tall amidst the collapsing room. In her vision, the round table slid to one side, and across from it, that empty chair suddenly tipped back and was swallowed by the shattered ice, disappearing without a trace.
“Thank you…”
She whispered in her heart, and in the next moment, the collapsing ice layer tilted down, burying everything in darkness.
…
In the darkness, it was uncertain how much time had passed.
Brendel lay quietly on a glacier like a blind man and a deaf man. The cold, slick feeling beneath his body told him that a thick layer of ice surrounded him, perhaps with some accumulated snow, but apart from that, it was an expanse of pitch black. A faint breath about a few feet away, aside from his own, stood out sharply in the silence.
He didn’t know how long he had been lying there or how many times he had tried, but he was overjoyed to discover he could barely manage to control his numb limbs. First his fingers, then his wrists, and finally his whole arms. He gritted his teeth and propped himself up with his arms, struggling for several minutes until he finally regained sensation in his legs. Then he attempted to climb up, but as he raised his head, it hit the ceiling.
A very narrow space —
This was Brendel’s first thought.
Where is this place?
This was his second thought, as his thinking seemed to gradually return to his frozen brain. He began recalling everything that had happened before he lost consciousness. Kehua had awakened the awakening deity with her dark side’s soul, and the key to it all was that purple crystal suspended on the platform. Then the entire Spiral Hall collapsed, something that had never happened in the game, and now this place…
This place must be beneath the abyss of the Spiral Hall, right?
Oh right, what about the Frostbite Fang? He remembered that monstrous bug and thought he would be eaten on the way down, but it turned out he had miraculously escaped.
Unfortunately, he had no illumination on him. He had used up his magic during his struggle with Dejyar. Otherwise, he could at least cast a spell to see the situation around him instead of groping in the dark. Brendel thought for a moment, deciding to check where he was first. He remembered that there had been another breathing sound not far from him when he was lying on the ground. So he immediately leaned down and crawled toward that sound. After just a few steps, his hand encountered a soft body, still warm.
“Thankfully, it seems she’s not dead.” Brendel felt around the person’s body for a while, and suddenly noticed something was wrong. He grasped and finally confirmed this seemed to be a woman. This discovery startled him, and just as he was about to withdraw his hand, the stranger seemed to have aroused as well, letting out a soft “hmm.” It was the unfamiliar voice of a girl. Brendel’s heart skipped a beat, and he quickly withdrew his hand, nervously asking, “Miss Shi Do?”
But there was no response in the darkness; Brendel only saw her opening her eyes.
Don’t ask him why he knew she had opened her eyes.
Because those were a pair of shining silver pupils in the darkness.
In that instant, cold sweat broke out on Brendel’s forehead. “People of Silver, Golden Race? No way, could it be Alorze? What a coincidence, I happen to touch her first?” Brendel couldn’t believe what would happen if he touched Alorze inappropriately and that young female dragon would ridicule him. Perhaps names like ‘hungry ghost’ would be created. And that’s not even the worst; what if she flew into a rage? Or worse, what if she burst into tears? Alorze’s performance in the Spiral Hall had left a deep impression on him.
But he quickly shook his head; no, this is not Alorze. Alorze’s eyes were the typical golden ones with light silver pupils of the Golden Race. The pair before him looked a bit like the eyes of Princess Grifian but, of course, Princess Grifian was not here. Could it be the Young Prince? Brendel’s cold sweat increased; letting the Young Prince wear female clothes was already absurd enough. Now, he had created this joke, not knowing how the other party would view him as their teacher.
But no, the Young Prince can’t possibly have specific features! Brendel immediately realized he was thinking awry. He suddenly remembered he had caught a girl before falling, originally thinking it was Shi Do, but now it seemed to have been mistaken.
With that thought, Brendel took a step back, quietly observing the other person, unable to determine if they were friend or foe, deciding it would be better to let them react first.
To his surprise, as soon as he took a step back, he heard a softly echoing voice like a tranquil and blooming orchid ask, “May I ask how you were able to recognize me then? I mean, how did you recognize my human form?”
This question struck Brendel like a lightning bolt, catching him completely off guard and leaving him frozen in place.
“Dim… Dim Kehua?”
“Hmm.” The silver-eyed girl blinked gently, as though disappearing for a moment in the dark and then reappearing. “That was my old name. I haven’t used it in a long time. Now, you can call me Kehua.”
Not right, Brendel thought, something is wrong. As the first wolf of dusk, the eldest daughter of Echis, as part of the Dusk Wolf tribe, shouldn’t she have blood-red eyes? And her voice should be the cold tone he was familiar with; what is happening here? Is this a trick of Alorze? No, that is impossible. If it were that little female dragon, she would never make such an obvious error concerning her eyes; changing eye color with magic is not that hard a task.
He furrowed his brow and couldn’t help but ask, “Are you… truly Kehua? The eldest daughter of Echis, the first running wolf of dusk, one of the supreme beings?”
The silver eyes moved up and down, indicating she was nodding.
Brendel inhaled sharply.
At that moment he finally reacted; this was not Kehua; this was the kind side of Kehua. However, this realization left him confused. What does this mean? Kehua’s dark side had become the awakening deity, while her essence remained as her kind side. This implies that the young lady of the Dusk Wolf tribe was not of dual personalities but instead truly a single entity with dual souls. He suddenly remembered what she referred to that Kehua as — Sister.
This script doesn’t match, Brendel thought inwardly. Kehua’s dark side had become the awakening deity, but her kind side had survived. This did not align with the history he remembered. In the game’s history, Kehua’s dark and kind sides had been mutually destroyed, and after the instance of the Temple of Sleepers, the identity of Echis’s eldest daughter was lost.
But what is happening now? History has inexplicably changed.
Could it be that this was an original set-up in the game? If the awakening deity was revived, then this line of history would be entered; if the awakening deity could not be revived, it would fall into the game’s history. Brendel suddenly had a realization. No wonder that in the game, no one had seen the awakening deity again. The history had long been altered, and the results had already been set.
But now there was a problem.
No, more than just a problem.
Brendel realized that they seemed to have inadvertently changed history, and not just in the way Ampere Seale and the association had merely altered the history of Erluin. The existence of Echis’s eldest daughter, Dim Kehua, and a mere noble meeting in Erluin are not comparable, and the differences are self-evident. Besides, if Brendel recalled correctly, the next big chapter after the empire’s birth was the return of Echis.
This could influence the entire process of the Great Demonic Tide and even alter the future of Vaunte, shaking the foundation of the terrible war to come.
More critically, this change is different from what Ampere Seale and the association caused; it was triggered inadvertently and was entirely beyond his expectations. No one knows if this change is good or bad. Brendel could only be certain of one thing: in the game, Echis was killed by players. This was because before Echis was revived, all twelve of her daughters had been killed in turn; the process was similar to killing Kehua in the Temple of Sleepers instance.
And now that Kehua has survived, what of Echis? And if Echis does not die, what will happen to Vaunte?
Brendel could only think of five words.
The Twilight of the World.
He sat there dumbfounded, his mind tangled with these thoughts, and for a moment, he even forgot to respond to her. After a long while, it was Kehua who broke the silence, softly saying, “I seem to have frightened you, didn’t I?”
Brendel’s heart tightened slightly, and he quickly shook his head.
“Then why have you been in a daze?”
“Because I was contemplating whether or not I should kill you.” Brendel replied seriously.
“Ah!” Kehua was startled but looked somewhat puzzled. “Why would you want to kill me, Mr. Human?”
Brendel fell silent for a moment. He wasn’t joking; it was a thought he genuinely considered. “Because you are the daughter of Echis, the first wolf of dusk. In the not-so-distant future, your mother will revive again. If you are alive then, it will be unfortunate news for humanity. Your existence means many will perish.”
Kehua blinked.
“You seem like a prophet; nothing escapes your grasp, Mr. Human,” she paused. “My mother once told me that in the darkness where no one can see, there flows a river leading to an unknown future. Those who can see that river can behold the end of that future. Mr. Human, can you tell me why it seems you can see everything beyond the fog?”
Brendel pursed his lips. “Because of some special reasons.”
The killing intent he felt rose again, so he no longer concealed it. After all, lying all the time was rather exhausting; discussing this with Kehua felt quite relaxing, in fact. He exhaled. The kind side of Kehua was quite popular among players, and he felt no ill will toward this seemingly naive girl. However, her existence was a threat to Vaunte by itself, and she evidently understood that, so her reaction didn’t seem surprising.
And the more it was like this, the more tense Brendel became, as it suggested that his suspicions might be correct.
“You sharing this information indicates that it is indeed your secret, Mr. Human,” the girl replied serenely, appearing quite calm. “You trust me with this because you know I can keep your secret, right?”
Brendel nodded; the kind Kehua was quite perceptive and had already guessed what was on his mind.
“But what if there’s a third person listening to our conversation?” Kehua asked again.
Brendel felt a shiver run down his spine. He knew that she was not saying this to intimidate him; since Kehua mentioned it, she certainly had a specific meaning behind it. He quickly turned his head, and by then, Kehua had already chanted a spell. Suddenly, light burst forth in the dark underground, and Brendel squinted in the sudden brightness. Finally, he was able to see the other person sitting not far from him in this icy pit looking a bit disheveled.
“Anlek!”
A strange wave surged within Brendel. Kehua, Anlek, and now him; how peculiar it was to find these three individuals gathered in such a confined space. But he quickly felt something off; this space was so small, and at such close distance, how had he not noticed the third person’s breathing? Even if he had not paid attention before, there was no reason he wouldn’t have sensed it upon awakening.
Realizing this, he turned his head back and indeed saw the playful glint in Kehua’s eyes. “I played a little trick, Mr. Human. You won’t mind, will you?”
Being toyed with by a genuine demigod, Brendel almost laughed with anger. He pointed at the disheveled Anlek and directly asked, “Are you counting on him for your survival? If it were anyone else, it would be fine, but this person, isn’t he my enemy?”
…
(PS: Here’s an additional chapter of 10,000 words. Where are the tickets promised for today?)
