Chapter 964: Act 136 – The Darkness Descends
Charles ascended the steps of the lighthouse, glancing up to see Brendel chatting with three ladies at the railing on the seaward side. Miss Romaine was giggling, while Faina wore a frown that hinted at deep thoughts. Nemeses stood in her armor, leaning against the railing with her back turned, gazing at the sea. Her black hair fluttered in the sea breeze, and the distant horizon blended seamlessly with the sky, with floating clouds resembling white mountains rising against the skyline.
The ladies had long since gotten used to the Lady Knight’s reticent and meticulous nature, but the absence of the lively Siphai Princess indicated she was likely off shopping at the port with the Sprite. The two little ladies had become inseparable friends, clearly sharing common topics and interests—namely, their knack for causing trouble.
“My Lord.”
Dressed in a black knight’s cloak with the Sword of the Earth hanging diagonally at his waist, Brendel noticed his wizard servant had arrived just then. He smiled faintly and gestured, “Just in time. How do you find the scenery here?”
Charles blinked in surprise, “It seems my Lord has taken quite a liking to this place’s views?”
Brendel chuckled and shook his head, extending his gloved hand to pat the lighthouse’s ancient and weathered exterior. “Do you know the origin of this lighthouse?”
Charles instinctively looked up at the lighthouse, which appeared quite old but seemed like a typical, old-fashioned structure found in the lofty inner sea. He truly did not know what other significance this lighthouse might have.
“Fatan Port has a long history, but my Lord, I’ve never been here before and I’m not clear on the historical relics here,” he replied.
“Haha,” Brendel laughed heartily, extending his hand toward the Business Lady at his side, who mockingly stuck out her tongue, reluctantly placing a gold coin in his hand while complaining, “Charles, you really are useless.”
“This lighthouse is the famed Tumen Lighthouse,” Brendel said, pointing toward the port area. “Fatan was established in the year of the Return of Radiance, its founder was the renowned scholar from the Cruz people, Fatan Freeman. He was a descendant of Tumen as well as a rare respected scion of the Minren bloodline among mortals. Unfortunately, this family ultimately fell prey to the passage of time, fading into the currents of history. This lighthouse was erected to commemorate them; Tumen represents the torchbearers of civilization, the wise who delivered the light of enlightenment to the people of the Black Iron in the darkness. Sadly, very few remember these histories today.”
His gaze softened as he looked toward the docks. In his previous life, he had passed through this place on his way to Fanzan, recalling the crest of Fatan Port upon the door of the lighthouse. Although many decades had passed since then, the crest remained; it just looked much newer. The sensation was quite strange—over two lifetimes, this port had not changed much. He could even pinpoint various details from decades later, and the memories of the past merged with these details, evoking a peculiar emotion in his heart.
Charles shook his head, bemused at how his Lord was making bets using him, but Brendel’s words piqued his curiosity. He looked up at the lighthouse—this ordinary structure shared no difference with the lighthouses of the lofty inner sea—it stood between two sea promontories, gazing at the unchanging blue sea and sky of Fatan Port, like a lonely old man silently observing the passage of time after enduring wind and rain, with only its mottled green and white paint remaining.
History created a significant coincidence here, completing a cycle—it had witnessed the decline of the last Minren bloodline and was now about to see them return to the world.
“So this lighthouse has such a backstory.”
“It isn’t the original,” Faina suddenly lifted her eyelids in slight pride. “The original Tumen Lighthouse was destroyed in a fire in 114, and it was rebuilt later. The rebuilt lighthouse was damaged during the July War, and what you see now is the second renovation.”
Brendel glanced back at her, concern shadowing his deep brown eyes. Although Faina looked considerably better after a night’s rest, and now dressed in a gown, she seemed to radiate the pride of the Duke’s eldest daughter, he knew only firsthand experience could convey what the past month had meant for her. Clearly, that shadow was not easily erased from her spirit.
The carefree Duke’s daughter from the Loop of Trade Winds was nowhere to be seen now.
“Miss Faina—”
“You want to comfort me again,” Faina shot back, glaring at him with furrowed brows. “I don’t want to argue with you, hick; I’m not as fragile as you think.”
“And,” she corrected seriously, “call me Faina.”
Brendel frowned at the lady, thinking her manufactured firmness was no different from her demeanor during the Loop of Trade Winds—just adorably naïve.
Charles was smirking inwardly at this scene but hadn’t forgotten his actual business; he quickly reported, “My Lord, they have finished the interrogation over there.”
“Oh?”
Brendel frowned lightly, realizing what news his wizard servant was bringing. In truth, prying information from Rodney wasn’t a difficult task, but the critical issue was—how many secrets did this guy know about Her Majesty the Queen? “What did he say?” he asked.
Charles answered quickly, “As you predicted, Rodney’s primary goal this time was to target Miss Faina; the Silver Queen hopes to use Miss Faina and Duke Helix and his son as hostages to force Miss Faina’s sister into submission, ultimately aiming to take control of the Flowerleaf Ducal Territory.”
“My sister is brilliant; she will never succumb to that wicked woman!” Faina coldly interjected, her fists clenched in fury, trembling slightly. Brendel gently patted her slender shoulder, asking, “What else? How did the Minren beside the Silver Queen come about? What does she plan to do, and what secret powers does she wield beyond the Minren?”
“Uh,” Charles shrugged, “Rodney doesn’t know much, but it seems the Queen is particularly interested in the Altania Mountain Range. Her eastern campaign aims not only to subdue the military nobility of the northern empire but also to open a route to the Altania Mountain.”
Does she still yearn for the final battlefield? Brendel paused, but immediately noticed the Duke’s daughter beside him shiver slightly, remembering that there were mainly two routes connecting Eastern Meiz to the Altania Mountains—one through Ludwig and the other through the Flowerleaf territory.
“Um, what is it that has the Queen so interested in that place?” the Merchant Miss curiously asked, blinking her deep brown eyes.
Regarding the Lord’s fiancée’s question, Charles replied without delay, “There are many reasons; perhaps it relates to a secret on the final battlefield or simply because Her Majesty particularly loves that place. Besides, the Altania Mountain Range itself holds significant strategic importance, sitting centrally among Fanzan, Saint Ausoor, and Cruz—capable of offensive and defensive maneuvers.”
“What about the Minren rumored to be outside? I absolutely do not believe they have returned from the Great Glacier as rumored.”
“My Lord, I have clarified this: the Minren beside the Silver Queen are mainly descendants of witches; she has mobilized the mountain people.”
“Mountain people?”
“To be precise, a branch of the mountain people—the Sainya ones…”
“Werewolves.” Brendel gasped, realizing that the mountain people resided in the mountains of Valarch south of the Flowerleaf territory. However, it was actually from an era before the last, as for various reasons, the mountain people had left their homes and spread out, such as Xi, who was born in Erluin as one of them. The mountain people’s relationship with the Minren is murky, which explains why they are generally discriminated against in this world. Among the mountain people, there are a few branches that originate from the Minren bloodline, and the Sainya are one of them. Nowadays, the Sainya have long since departed from their homeland, settling somewhere unknown in the Grey Blade Mountains south of Cloak Bay, an area already within the Silver Queen’s sphere of influence. She could indeed seek out these remnants of the past.
“My Lord, there’s this too, something I found on the knights,” Charles began, raising his hand to reveal a flat piece of rock in his palm. Then he looked up at Brendel with an odd expression.
Brendel narrowed his eyes.
This thing—
Lying in the young wizard servant’s palm was a flat gray shard, resembling a chisel, yet showing no signs of artificial sculpting, as if it had broken off naturally from a massive rock. This was not the first time he had seen this shard. The first time he discovered something similar was among Antinna’s father’s belongings; the second time, it was in the burial gifts within Chunximan’s tomb; and the third time, it had been a relic of the Crystal Elk.
“Ah, what is this…” Romaine also opened her mouth, voicing her gentle exclamation.
“This is the fourth one, right?”
“This is the fourth one.”
“What on earth is this, my Lord?”
“It’s still unclear, but…” Brendel furrowed his brow. Previously, when such gray shards exceeded three in number, they would resonate together to form something akin to a map; this time, it should produce a similar reaction. He gestured to Charles, who understood; he gently nudged the floating stone shard, which seemed to be drawn by some invisible force, standing upright in his palm, emanating a faint blue glow and slowly drifting toward Brendel.
Brendel immediately felt the other three shards within his dimensional pocket stir uneasily, despite still being contained there.
Then the space resonated as well.
Nemeses, leaning against the railing, seemed to sense something. She turned her head, quickly spotting the space between Brendel and Charles darkening slightly as if collapsing inward under tremendous force, and she frowned mildly, “What is…?”
“My Lord!” Charles suddenly turned pale, urgently calling out.
“What is…?”
Like a drop of water hitting a calm surface, in that brief moment, Brendel sensed the existence of the sea of magic.
The sky darkened instantly. Above the entire lofty inner sea, the horizon was rapidly dimming from west to east, as clouds appeared to be driven by an invisible force gathering from all directions. Bolts of lightning surged above the clouds, and the booming thunder rolled in from the horizon. In an instant, a new storm seemed to have formed above the new sea, the space’s resonance grew more apparent, and even the ground trembled, small stones and gravel swirling chaotically, while a shocking crack split the lighthouse’s white walls. Faina screamed, gripping the railing for support.
“It’s dark, Brendel!” Romaine glanced fearfully at the sky, where a massive vortex was forming above Fatan, resembling a terrifying eye opening within the thick clouds.
Cold sweat dripped down; Brendel felt his forehead sweat profusely. “Pull it back!” he shouted in a frenzy.
Without thinking, Charles grabbed the gray stone shard suspended in midair. Oddly, the moment he grasped it, all surrounding sights instantly calmed: the clouds ceased to gather, the lightning vanished, the thunder gradually faded away, the spatial tremors stopped just like that, and the sun resumed casting its multicolored light in the sky, the sea no longer howling with the storm, as if everything that had transpired before was a terrifying illusion.
Yet the giant crack on the lighthouse confirmed that what had happened just moments ago had truly existed.
It had come and gone.
The dock area was bustling; shouts rang out intermittently: “Was there an earthquake? An earthquake?” But these voices were quickly drowned out by cries.
Brendel, Charles, Faina, Nemeses, and Romaine stood by the lighthouse, frozen in their previous positions, like puppets, all of them in shock. After a while, Brendel was the first to regain his senses, asking somewhat dryly, “What was that…?”
Everyone exchanged glances, bewildered.
“My Lord.”
“You need not say more,” Brendel interrupted his wizard servant, feeling a dryness in his mouth, “I felt it.”
“What was that…” Charles still felt a lingering dread.
“It was the tide of the sea of magic…” Brendel recalled the terrifying sensation of the descent, answering slowly, “No…”
“It was the Duskgazer.” The Lady Knight’s cold voice chimed in at an opportune moment. Brendel paused slightly, looking back at her. Her face was also somewhat pale but at least she maintained her composure. After a moment of hesitation, she affirmed, “It was the Duskgazer Dragon. At least for a brief moment, I felt the gaze from beyond this world. But it could not have been a demon; I have a premonition that it is there—”
Brendel lapsed into silence. In fact, he had felt it too—the horrific sense of oppression was something he had never experienced even in the game before.
“Is this shard summoning it?” Charles cautiously glanced at the gray shard in his palm, drenched in sweat as if holding something dreadful. “What on earth is this?!”
“I think… it shouldn’t be,” Brendel furrowed his brow. He vaguely remembered that sensation of being watched; that immense power seemed to have breached the barrier between the sea of magic and Vaunte, descending upon the skies of Fatan Port. However, this channel was not opened by the resonance of these gray shards in their hands; rather than summoning, it was more like—
A forcible descent.
…
Outside Nazhe—
A pair of golden eyes, like flames burning, slowly opened in the darkness. The owner of these eyes, hidden beneath the foliage, suddenly sat up from the shrubs, rustling as she did. It had been the third day since leaving the imperial capital. Sidney instinctively touched her chest, a motion that tugged at her wound, causing her to frown slightly. The Saint of the Lion Palace now lacked her usual elegance and composure; her face was streaked with blood and grime. However, she was relieved that at least that thing was still there, hidden beneath thick clothing, offering her a bit of comfort.
She instinctively raised her head, looking puzzled toward the eastern coastal areas of Meiz.
Why had the sea of magic suddenly become turbulent?
What was resonating with this thing?
A hint of doubt crossed her mind.
