### Chapter 3: Between Flowing Clouds and Running Shadows
By the time the ceremony wrapped up, night had already fallen.
On this day, people from all corners of the Western Continent gathered in Abedoria to honor the fallen hero, wishing for her return to the embrace of the divine. This was the reason they snagged a ticket to the Holy City. However, these highly-esteemed nobles, who responded to the Pope’s call and trekked all this way, clearly didn’t just trade their time and energy for a deceased girl.
After the funeral, the annual Thanksgiving event opened its doors to everyone in the city, and the Pope faced the crowd, dishing out a truckload of important announcements.
He recounted last year’s disasters in Silgaya, spoke of countless heroic sacrifices, listed the Church’s reactions to all this, and discussed future plans and new policies. Of course, he also dropped some juicy gossip about the currency exchange. He didn’t use overly dramatic language though; he calmly discussed how issues would be tackled. But everyone knew that the massive empire built by the Williams Family might face a shake-up sooner than later.
Many folks here were eyeing a slice of that pie.
As for this year’s Thanksgiving, three cardinal bishops were supposed to show up, but shockingly, two of them were ghosting everyone from start to finish. The nobles came to the royal city, catching a whiff of the brewing chaos that might be on the horizon—way beyond what they could’ve imagined.
As nighttime rolled around, clandestine meetings and various undercurrents started bubbling out from the Holy City, gradually radiating outwards to everywhere, and soon, the entire Western Continent was tangled in it…
Time flowed like a creek, trickling on.
The world that lost the girl continued to run as flat and dramatically as ever.
The globally-hyped funeral in February ended up scoring some serious wins for the Church. While many fumed about the Saint George Currency Exchange and the bloodsucking Williams Family, they couldn’t help but think of great figures like Miss Silvya and the Pope, who genuinely cared about the people.
And the young Pope didn’t disappoint. Even though he was still just a baby-faced ruler and hadn’t even been in his position long, he boldly took on the old guard with impressive guts.
In fact, since the end of last year, public executions had become all the rage. Especially in the north and south borders of Silgaya, heads rolled and rivers ran red. By March, it was common to see miracles happening on the streets.
By the end of April, Cardinal St. George’s charges were officially laid down, and the Church declared it was confiscating all the Williams Family’s assets. The currency exchange also seemed poised for a rebranding with a new captain at the helm.
The dust finally settled.
Just when everyone thought that was the end of the show, something unexpected happened one day in May.
On the eve of the New Moon Festival, a colossal boom resonated from the Rabeli Valley to the north of Ethanbel Royal City. Earth shook and mountains crumbled as a significant landslide erupted in the gorge, with dust clouds taking their sweet time to settle for half an hour.
This area had previously seen monsters from the Abyss, and the chasm’s muck was still sealed by the Church’s Sin Barrier. Considering that this landslide could lead to the muck’s dreadful spread, the royal city naturally took it seriously. Soon, peacekeepers raced over. As they reached the outer edges of the gorge, gearing up to assess the landslide’s position and size…
They suddenly spotted a few ragged figures sprinting out of the gorge.
The Church jumped into action quicker than a cat on a hot tin roof.
Within a day, the entire gorge was sealed off. The clerics proclaimed a muck leak and forbade anyone, including the royal guards, from getting close. Those who had run out were swiftly whisked away, along with anyone they’d interacted with.
Ten days passed, and the Church announced with fanfare that the muck had not leaked, so the royal city and palace could chill.
This should’ve been the last we heard of it.
But for some reason, after that day, strange and bone-chilling rumors started swirling out of taverns at an astonishing speed…
What these rumors would lead to for the Church in the near future—whether they were just idle chatter or someone stirring the pot behind the scenes—was anyone’s guess.
…………
The skies stretched wide.
Birds flitted back and forth in the flowing clouds, while butterflies danced through the blooming flowers.
Summer arrived in a flash, heating things up. Farmers in Silgaya wore straw hats with rolled-up pants, laboring hard under the burning sun as they frequently glanced up to wipe the sweat from their brows. Some of them were fleeing from last year’s southern demons, now resettled, slowly emerging from the shadows of disaster to start a brand new life.
In the Emerald City, the streets buzzed with life. Wealthy girls strolled about in cool outfits, crouched in front of vendors comparing goods. Guards patrolled the streets, brushing past adults and children living in the area. One impressed lad whistled at a girl, promptly earning a dirty look in return, but the guards just chuckled and sauntered off.
The royal city’s marketplace was as bustling as ever. A stall selling almond cakes wafted delicious smells into the air, same-s*x couples beamed as they hollered at passersby, and a cheeky little girl tugged at her mother’s sleeve, leading her to buy a cake, which she happily chomped down on.
In the distance, around the grand palace, war chariots buzzed back and forth, nobles with shiny hair exchanging pleasantries as they entered the palace. On the training grounds of the Royal Academy, students stood in horse stance under the scorching sun, sweating bullets and gritting their teeth. A few couldn’t take it and collapsed, getting a good tongue-lashing from their burly instructor. They begrudgingly straightened up again, faces a mix of defiance and compliance.
On the vast lands of the Valen Empire, iron hooves thundered as hunters rode out on war chariots, weapons drawn, becoming a fierce wave under the sky, pushing onward to the south. On the high walls, a majestic Duke turned back, with a weary but still stunning lady returning from the Holy City close behind him.
He walked toward her and gently pulled her into an embrace.
The dead had turned to dust, but countless others still had to keep living in this world, navigating their own significant or insignificant affairs amid the relentless tide of time.
Until the world quietly flipped to a new page.
Far away, in the Eastern Continent’s Eborista desert, the wind carried sand as ugly insects shed their shells, struggling out of their brown exoskeletons and morphing into beautiful moths, flapping their wings toward a desolate little town not far away.
At a certain moment, in a dim room of that town, covered in dust, a girl lay still. After a long slumber, her fingers finally twitched.
Slowly, her eyes opened.
