Chapter 870 - 1: New World’s Encounter_2
If not for the fact that His Blessing had not been withdrawn, that the heroes who once joined the punitive war of Gold still retained every bit of the Power and favor they had gained back then...
And moreover, every night one could clearly see the moon in the night sky, could see the moon turning, and when it revealed its far side, that colossal, mysterious mechanical body in its true nature...
And according to those Cultivators of the Ancient Dragon faith, they said that Fam Yizla, the once Sky City that had been slowly collapsing, was now in the midst of restoration; that the Ancient Dragons had all been summoned back, and under the leadership of the Five-Headed Dragon King Platonsank, were rebuilding that ancient Royal City wreathed in endless storms...
Then it was only natural that people could not help but let their thoughts run wild—
For instance, to think that perhaps that Great Being had, in truth, fought the Supreme Will to a mutual ruin, and now lacked the strength to do anything more.
And yet, clearly possessing such overwhelming Power, and having so easily won the contest of wits against the Supreme Will, this Great Existence did not choose, as the faith of the Golden Tree once had, to forcibly interfere with the entire world of the Boundary Land. On the contrary, It seemed to hold a certain attitude of non‑interference.
—It is not that He did nothing at all, perhaps, yet His methods were indeed exceedingly detached; He did not in the least teach people to follow any particular Law, nor did He compel them to submit to any specific faith.
—He did not even stir the people of the Eternal City and the Ancient Dragon faith; they made no move, did not seize the moment to preach widely, to broadcast their doctrine abroad. No one knew whether they had perhaps received some form of admonition.
This truly left people baffled.
"Could it really be because no King Elden has yet been decided? Is that why the system of Law has still not been established?"
Having worried and fretted over much, Miss Witch once more let out a soft sigh, murmuring thus in some perplexity. This was also the mainstream opinion in the Boundary Land at present: people were impatiently hoping to receive the favor of the Great Being, and just as eagerly yearning for a fully formed system of Law to be established.
Their wild surmise could hardly be blamed; they had lived through an era of suffering far too grievous, and so now longed all the more urgently for the future to gain some basic safeguard.
Once, the Boundary Land had hovered on the brink of annihilation, filled with battle and death—this never‑ending curse—until it had nearly fallen to the point where not a single ordinary person with sound mind could be found. Only the few who possessed Power enough to protect themselves, or the Fade who had been restored to life, could continue to move upon that rent and shattered stage.
This was no exaggerated turn of phrase, but a precise account of what had truly transpired.
Only now, up to this very moment, had all of this at last begun to improve.
Peace long unseen had descended; the races and peoples of every continent had gained a rare opportunity to rest and recover.
Thus it was precisely because they had witnessed such carnage in the past that people felt anxious in this period without a firmly established absolute rule, fearing that all this might yet suffer some upheaval, that nothing had been set in stone... In the current age of Law, strictly speaking, there seemed to be no Law at all, and it was difficult not to feel a faint unease for what lay ahead.
They feared that all of this was but flowers in a mirror, the moon on the water, rootless duckweed—so tenuous and illusory that it seemed weightless, without any true substance.
As though it were all a dream that a mere gust of wind could blow away...
Miss Witch herself could not help but feel somewhat torn. Rubbing at the bridge of her nose, she tightened the reins and turned the Spirit Horse’s head, guiding it to walk slowly toward the farther lands.
......
The terrain of Nimgruf was an unbounded wilderness, a level, vast, endless plain.
Yet in many places there lay scattered colossal ruins: walls of unknown origin, a corner of some palace, the plaza of a holy altar—such things as these. Yet no corresponding relics were to be found nearby, which made one suspect that these were fragments that had fallen from the heavens.
As night fell, the Boundary Land was shrouded in starlight.
The mysterious moon hung quietly on high.
After walking the whole day, Miss Witch saw, faintly outlined atop a distant hill, the silhouette of a Marika Church. After a moment’s thought, she made straight for that place.
Although Queen Marika was already a thing of the past, in the newborn Boundary Land, those inhabitants whose minds were gradually restored by the Blessing were unaware of this. As villages slowly regained their vitality, the people nearby took it upon themselves to rebuild the ruined churches, seeking anew a refuge for their hearts.
This church seemed no exception, much like the other Marika Churches she had seen in her travels throughout the Boundary Land.
"..."
"..."
Miss Witch rode the Spirit Horse at a gentle pace up the hill, then lightly swung herself down from the saddle and patted the steed’s head. The latter, highly attuned to human feeling, nuzzled her hand, and without needing to be tied by the reins, quietly walked off to one side, where it would wait for her.
The one‑eyed girl surveyed her surroundings, then stepped forward into this church steeped in age and history—and then she paused, slightly taken aback, for she discovered within this church a stranger’s figure.
His garments were of moon‑white, with sleeves wide and long.
The cut was exceedingly plain, drawing no attention, nothing striking.
Only at the ends of the sleeves and such places there ran a few broken black lines. At a casual glance they looked like stitching, yet on closer consideration they did not seem so simple; they were some particular pattern of symbols.
No matter how well‑travelled and knowledgeable Miss Witch might be, she could not possibly recognize the hexagram figures of the Eight Trigrams. Even after studying him closely, she could not determine from what land or culture this mark had come. Yet she knew at once that this could not be an ordinary man, for before she entered the church she had not sensed his presence in the least.