Chapter 998: Act 170 – The Legacy of the Divine People
The three worlds in the dream should be arranged in chronological order. The first dream depicted a room located in the Bastion of Babel—an ancient fortress described in the texts of the Mithril Society, recorded on ancient parchment: “It is situated at the center of the heavens and the earth, above the golden layer of floating clouds, where palaces carved from gold and jade stand, and the silver people in long robes walk upon it, with the sound of bells resonating through the clouds and sacred songs lingering.” Everything perfectly matched the scene he saw in the dream. Those eleven tall and handsome humans should be the divine people, but it is also possible they belong to a golden lineage—though the Bastion of Babel is a city of silver, golden lineages still exist. While in this era, only the dragon lineage remains of the golden races, for thousands of years before the destruction of the Bastion of Babel, many golden lineages wandered the earth, most buried beneath the dust of history, like the ancestors resting in Valhalla.
However, Brendel still believed that the likelihood of them being divine people was greater. The divine people had black hair and golden eyes, which aligns remarkably with the legends of their description. Though the golden eye color is the most renowned external characteristic of the golden lineage, black-haired golden individuals are quite rare. As for the later Minren, their eye color seems to lie somewhere between amber and agate, resembling a golden-red flame, not a pure color.
Moreover, according to what he later saw in the visions, the Minren and the divine people appeared to have deep connections from the start.
As for the term “Truth Society” mentioned by those tall and handsome humans, Brendel had heard it before. Avina had once mentioned that his authority was inherited from the Truth Society, but she did not specify which ability this authority came from. Later, when he occasionally spoke with Dark Kehua, the eldest daughter of Echis inadvertently revealed some information about the Truth Society. Before the destruction of the Bastion of Babel in the Silver Age—and even further back, to the times of the wars against the Duskgazer Dragon—was an era when the divine people walked the earth. It was a glorious age when divine people, together with Martha, created Vaunte and governed the world, just like the gods in a pantheon. The divine people belonged to several organizations, the most important of which were the Truth Society, the Tribunal, the World Tree Organization (he suspected it was the precursor to the Druids of the World Circle and Sky Circle), the Earth Guard, and a will of Gaia that only exists in legends and has never manifested before the people.
However, Brendel could not determine from that scene whether the “Truth Society” mentioned by those handsome humans referred to “him” or “them.” If it referred to the latter, then these individuals must undoubtedly be divine people.
The second world in the dream depicted the destruction of the Bastion of Babel during the Sixth War, when the Knight of Azure pierced the heavens, causing the stars to fall to the earth. The immense dragon spanning the sky was undoubtedly the projection of the Duskgazer Dragon in this world. Even though it was just a glimpse in the dream, it left a profound impression on him. The golden-red eyes high above the heavy clouds resembled so much the aura of pressure he had sensed over Fatan Port, and he could almost confirm that what was summoned at that time was indeed the Dusk Will.
The destruction of the Bastion of Babel ended the age of the gods; countless texts and records vanished in this disaster, the fragments of civilization scattered across the land. The Silver Age wandered the wilderness, and civilization nearly collapsed entirely. A prophet would lead the Minren to re-establish their empire in the Black Forest a mere ten thousand years later. Although the Knight of Azure was the first generation of Dark Dragons and left a remarkably important legacy for the Minren, no documentation mentioned what that legacy truly was. Current mainstream historians believed the Knight of Azure to be among the earliest Minren, and what he left behind likely constituted the golden bloodline of the Minren.
In other words, even before the Minren Empire was established, the Minren already existed upon the earth, roaming the wilderness with other silver people, striving to reignite the flame of civilization. This conjecture aligns with the development and proliferation of civilizations—an empire’s establishment cannot be accomplished in a day; much like the Silver Elves and Bud people, the Minren Empire also developed and grew amid countless years of ignorance, and their powerful bloodline laid a solid foundation for the empire’s strength, which led to the later Malduos standing on the soil of Vaunte.
The third world in the dream revealed some secrets to him. These fragments of memory might need to be viewed across several different eras. Navigating through the heavily clouded mountains, this should depict events that occurred before the first generation of Minren fled to the vast plains, after the destruction of the Bastion of Babel, when civilization and order collapsed, causing the Minren and Silver people to scatter. Countless sparks of civilization were lost in the wilderness: “The noble people forgot their noble and elegant past, lost upon the earth, hiding in mountains and forests, enduring a long passage of time, forgetting everything of the past, moving through ignorance and thorns.” This was precisely recorded in the Dusk’s Poem.
Soon after, civilization sprouted amid ignorance. He saw numerous followers sincerely worshiping an altar towering beneath the sun, the birth of reverence and superstition—the awe towards deities walking in the heavens was, in fact, a reverence for order. The seeds of civilization would bloom again after hundreds of years in the midst of superstition and mystery.
However, regarding this segment of history, it remains an ancient enigma in the orthodox historical circle of Vaunte. Some documents from the parchments prior to the War of Sages invariably mentioned the same term—prophet. “The Minren appeared upon the earth, led by a prophet across the vast plains to establish the first civilized empire far removed from the gods in the fields of today’s four-leaf clover; this was the Minren Empire and also the dawn of the Age of Mortals.” There are undoubtedly similar descriptions among the Silver Elves, Bud people, and other existing races of that time; the legends of the Bud people recount a traveling mage (Brendel believed it should be a traveling mage, as the descriptions closely resemble the legendary Mataratanian people, who possessed the ability to travel between worlds) teaching mortals magic in the present-day Flash Silver Bay—a precursor to modern magic, distinct from the ancient string magic used by dragons.
The story of the Silver Elves contains the legend of the prophet “Harlodir,” a tale that persists to this day; in some stories, Harlodir is described as an elegant stag as enormous as mountains, entirely snow-white. Thus, in the south of Cruz and Erluin today, people still consider the white deer as symbols of guidance, believing they can lead lost hunters out of the forest.
These legends evidently point to a possibility—that individuals intentionally spread civilization during that era, and these individuals were likely the Druids of the World Circle. Brendel saw in the last few fragments of images how they used divine blood to create monsters and Minren. The Minren were the last golden people of the previous era, distinctly different from dragons and several other golden entities. The individual strength of the Minren was far inferior to that of their predecessors; they bore two obvious markers as golden people: one was their golden blood and eye color, and the other was that upon perfecting their body, they would directly step into the realm of the golden body.
However, the power of Minren’s juvenile forms was extremely weak, and the average strength balance of their population lagged far behind other golden lineages. Nevertheless, they possessed a considerable population—once widespread throughout the territories ruled by the Malduos Empire, constituting dozens of legions. This number of population is far beyond what most of the golden people could aspire to.
According to the Dusk’s Poem—
Golden people are born from the blood and corpses of the divine people, created by the deities.
Then everything that followed can be explained.
The Druids of the World Circle were once the most crucial guardians of order in this world. They monitored the spread of the Black Forest at the edges of the civilized world and planted the seeds of fire. According to the documents of the Mithril Society, after the destruction of the Bastion of Babel and during the War of Sages, there were two significant splits in Druid history, especially the latter, which gave rise to the unique group known as the Tree Shepherds. The Tree Shepherds once followed Odin and established a terrifying legion, but after Odin’s defeat, they shattered and retreated underground, and when they reappeared in this world, they had transformed into a mad organization.
In stark contrast to the Everything Returns Society, which is also a rival cult and one of the four great temples, the Tree Shepherds worship chaotic power, but that is all it is—they are obsessed with stealing divine blood to gain divine power in a futile attempt to control the entire world, which is why people consider them a band of lunatics.
But when did the tradition of Tree Shepherds creating divine envoys originate?
The disjointed images within the dream seem to offer an answer.
If the Druids had already begun utilizing divine blood well before the schism, a time that could even trace back to the early days following the destruction of the Bastion of Babel, then everything makes sense. The bloodline of the divine people had nearly ceased to exist after the destruction of the Bastion of Babel, possibly having already begun to decline even before that—Odin possessed divine blood, though not pure, but in that era, bloodlines like his were still able to become leaders of the world of order, highlighting the decline of this bloodline.
The divine people no longer appeared in this world, just as the deities gradually distanced themselves from Vaunte. The decline of civilization forced the order’s guardians, the Druids, to choose an alternate path: to use divine blood to bring forth the divine people once more. But it was easy to foresee how difficult this would be; even in glorious times, deities could only create golden races from the corpses of divine people.
From this perspective, the Druids can be said to have succeeded; they created the Minren—the most distinct golden people. Yet, they were indeed considered a golden bloodline. In a sense, the Druids of the World Circle exercised divine authority.
This is everything he saw in the third world of his dream.
However, Brendel believed that it was a far-fetched notion for the Druids to create a golden lineage entirely on their own; he was more inclined to another speculation: that the Druids were fulfilling a path left incomplete by the pioneers. In other words, before the destruction of the Bastion of Babel, the remaining divine people likely began efforts to continue their bloodline, but this experiment could have been interrupted or failed due to the invasion of the Duskgazer Dragon.
From the era when the Knight of Azure was born, he likely was the product of this experiment, the first generation of Minren, and the most perfect Minren.
After the destruction of the Bastion of Babel, the sparks of civilization and countless documents that once resided in that magnificent city scattered and fell apart. Some were carried out by refugees, yet most were lost during the thousands of years the Silver people faced exile. Everything regarding the final experiment of the divine people was likewise dispersed across the land, and later the surviving Druids of the World Circle may have learned fragments about this plan through some means, which enabled them to complete it once again.
And the completed Minren—the Minren who established Malduos—among these Minren, the bloodline of the Knight of Azure flowed through generations, signifying them as the most genuine successors of the divine people, until Odin’s fall marked the conclusion of an era.
Brendel recalled the images he had seen regarding the monstrous creations made by the Druids that escaped into the forest; he suddenly remembered one thing.
The obscured segment in the Dusk’s Poem about the end of the Silver people era and the rise of the Black Iron people. How did the Black Iron people appear on this earth? He suddenly remembered this famous question, one of the most discussed issues in “Amber Sword.” Both the silver and golden lineages stemmed from the hands of the divine, and now the Minren had their origins, but what about the Black Iron people? According to historical records, the Black Iron people were originally subjects and slaves under the Minren at their inception; they were early savages from the forests and hills, later refined by the empire and thus acquired their own civilization.
This is the origin of the Black Iron people according to historical records.
If so, the Black Iron people should be the natives of the Black Forest. From the records on the parchment, it indeed seemed to be the case— in the earliest times, the Black Iron people were referred to as hybrids by the Silver and Golden peoples, as these savages emerging from the forest bore the same dark magical aura as that of monsters and the Duskgazer breed. To truly orderly beings, they were essentially seen no different than monsters—especially in that era, the Black Iron people had no civilization of their own, no language or writing, and among the dark forests existed human-like monsters, making the savages appear scarcely different from them.
But the biggest difference between the Black Iron people and those monsters is that they were truly orderly beings; they could sense the elemental power under the laws of Tiamat and ignite the spark of fire, developing elements; this was the most fundamental characteristic of orderly peoples.
Indeed, history proved this; the Black Iron people rapidly integrated into the civilized world in later times and took up the torch of civilization from the remnants of the Silver, lasting to this day.
But are the Black Iron people truly natives?
Brendel’s mind repeatedly replayed the scene of the Druids creating the Minren: those robed and powerful sages who created various monsters—the giants encircled by lightning, the flame-running beasts, beings possessing various powers resembling superhumans—while hundreds of failed creations were immediately put to death, and a few trembling Minren were abandoned in the wilderness. Some fortunate surviving monsters fell into the groups of civilized beings, causing wars in some instances, while others were worshipped as gods.
These monsters shared a common name: divine envoys.
Just like Xi and like himself.
Brendel gently shook his head, deciding to filter out these tangled thoughts from his mind, as there were too many speculations and some that were simply impossible to determine. These chaotic notions surged into his mind as he woke up, and he keenly sensed the shadow of the dark divine blood behind him, suggesting that this part of the memory must have originated from the dark divine blood. It seems that the so-called dark jewel was indeed far from being as simple as it appeared.
With that thought, he raised his head and looked towards Sidney beside him.
