The Amber Sword

The twelve high-ranking clerics dressed in a Phnom Penh red robe were pale and almost unstable, and the attendants and servants beside them were busy holding them together. These high-powered figures, either the regional high priests of the area around Rusta, or senior scholars of the Senate, of high standing and honor, can be said to be second only to those above the dome of the Temple of Fire; matched by their strengths, among which Christopher of the Cohen region, Andres the Families of God, Sutton the Senate Master, have come to the truth. Side by side, just a step away from the Holy See —— Rusta residents used to refer to the eleven people above the temple dome of flame as being on the Holy See, and for a long time, it also circulated —— except for these three, all nine other people have evolved elements, and people like them have rarely personally presided over sacraments or rituals on weekdays, but occasionally, most of them are also believers. Never be so lame as this moment.

“It's amazing.” The man who looked at the scene and spoke was Walla, and it was hard to imagine that the man who had never seen the Supreme One, who was in charge of the whole temple of fire, would be such a little old man who seemed to have some kind of charitable purpose. His bearded eyebrows had long been snowy and his body had shrunk a lot, wearing a red bishop's cape with snow-white bristles, with his hands behind his back, trembling as if a gust of wind could blow down. But it is only those deep beneath the skin of the temple, occasionally flashing a glimmer of light and a clear line on the lips that proves that the elderly man, who controlled the temple for more than half a century, has not shown such simplicity.

The world calls him a great priest who brings iron and fire, the only person in the eleven holy places who has experienced complete jihad, and Rusta has a proverb about him that circulates widely - the Holy See is never merciful, it is about his character, it is never as charitable as his appearance.

He stood on the altar with two other people, and he spoke to the woman on the left behind him, who was tall, dressed in a short white shawl, with a tall crown with a golden flame crest on her head, and a long cape dragged all the way to the smooth floor of the obsidian; her face was a little too thin, her cheeks cut out like an axe with a knife, so that she couldn't see the woman's soft and too cold, she had short white and gold hair, and she had a long, fine braid strapped behind her head, and this woman was Sidney. Metfarica, the third master of the Temple of Fire, is also the fourth master of the Cruz Empire. About her legend, countless since the year of the Gathering of the Stars, it is said that she has dealt with the fourth wizard leader of the Buga people, losing only one line, even though she lost Judah.

Ordinary people often use falcon sharpness to describe the sharpness of a person's gaze, but such language appears weak in front of this woman. Her gaze is not only sharp, it is more like substance, she can only look at a person and make people understand what she means. She has a circle of golden flame rings deep in her pupil, which is related to the divine power she has - the angel Aroma by the Holy Sword - and no one in the empire is able to take her right, not even Walla, to admit it, if she speaks of the creation of a guilty sacred word.

And the other person next to Walla, the silk robe, was beautifully decorated, has a good face, looks more like a businessman. His name was Caesar, and he was ranked second among eleven, and his name sounded hefty, but his people worked diligently in history, but didn't do much.

Sidney maintained a constant silence, even though the master of the Temple of Fire spoke in front of her, but she had no intention of answering. It was not unreasonable for the world to call her the statue of the Virgin of the Lion's Holy Palace, but Vala admired her personality very much, compared to the time when the great priests of the previous generation lived, and because of the jihad, the heirs of the temple of Fire generally appeared young - young people always seemed overly radical, but not stable enough, except for Sidney.

“On the fourteenth day of His Majesty's ordination, these men entered the city on the seventeenth day, and those in the Senate responded most positively, the Great Cleric.” Caesar whispered.

Vala nodded, of course he understood the hidden meaning of the phrase. Over the centuries, Cruz's royal power had finally reached its peak in a hundred years. Sometimes he had to wonder how good it would have been if he had been born in the era before his teacher. At that time, the temple could not only develop its power arbitrarily in small countries like Eruin and Antoboro, but also intervene in secular matters. In the era of the highest ecclesiastical power, even the inheritance of the throne, was in the hands of the high priest, but now?

The old man only felt bitter.

“After this, I fear His Majesty's influence inside the Temple will rise again, Grand Cleric. ”

“I understand," Vala shook her head, the Senate was always closer to the royal family, they had been wanting to reform their teaching since Thunder's Day, they had long begun to blame his great cleric, and although they cleared up a group of people after the Jihad, this clearly did not stop those lunatics. It is true that the Temple is about to change, and he is becoming more and more aware of this, but the power to preside over change must not fall into the hands of those who are partisan and private, otherwise the Temple of Fire will have no tomorrow.

He knew that Caesar's words were a reminder that he should not meet Her Majesty's demands this time. Despite the increasing infiltration of imperial power into the temple, the Temple of Fire still had its own authority to decide its own internal affairs. His decision, to make the Supreme One, as if he were never old, reach inside the temple, had long caused dissatisfaction among many of the eleven. It is only he, Sidney and Caesar who are here today, who can see a glimmer of discontent - Sidney has no desire to compete for power, Caesar Vignono, while others are clearly already very dissatisfied.

“But that's a Tianqing gun.” Walla sighed, their queen was too hard to deal with, and sometimes he wondered whether such a queen was the fortune of Cruz or the misfortune of the Temple of Fire - the gun of Heaven and Blue is the sacred object of all the worlds, the knight of Heaven and Blue smashing the dome brings with it the object of the second century, in the poem of Heaven it is described as the sacred gun of hope, change of fate of mortals - imagine that any temple possesses such an artifact, and if it had been recognized, how great the temple's prestige would have been, above the public and private, he would not have refused.

Caesar also shut his mouth and, of course, he understood the meaning of it. He couldn't help but look back at his colleagues, even Sidney, whose face was always the same on a weekday, had a gleaming light in his eyes at this moment.

It's a holy gun, after all--

“Unfortunately, why would a man with a gun be a mountaineer?” It is with regret that Caesar thought that if he had not known that the holy gun had been removed from Eruin, he would have had a master before that, otherwise he would have felt that it had been planned by His Majesty the Supreme Queen, because it was well known that among the nations under the Temple of Fire, only the mountain people did not believe in the teachings of Gilt, who worshipped the spirits of their ancestors and nature and were therefore called barbarians, but only such barbarians, recognized by the holy gun.

“Your Majesty, it is only for the sake of suppressing the temple that you hand over the things that change fate to the heathen. You are playing with fire and burning yourselves - can a mortal put the future in his hands, and God will sin against him?” Walla was also helpless and could not help but mutter to herself.

None of the three spoke, silently watched the crystal layer in the center of the lobby become thin, eventually disappearing invisible, the girl inside closed her eyes, with a long gun in her hand, as if she had lost her center of gravity to break the 'ice’ and knelt weakly on the ground, then fell down, so unconscious on the ground poured with a layer of law.

Walla looked at a piece of crystal fragment that fell on the ground, seemed to see a disintegrating temple, the Sutra faction no longer stood with them, the local priests were on both ends of the snake, and Williams' failure hit heavily on the temple's prestige outside the Empire. He thought of the impotent guy, he couldn't help but breathe, a temple knight leader in the hall, would fall into the hands of a small generation, it was a disgrace, but it was not only his face, or the face of the Cecil family, but also the face of the temple.

He went on to think of the little Earl Tonigle, the grandson of the rumored sword Saint Darius, who couldn't help but mutter: “Why is this guy again? He's a ghost. ”

Caesar couldn't help but shake and his face changed when he heard this whispering. He certainly remembers the dramatic change of 40 years ago, the decline of the temple, as if it had started with that unfair trial. When he looked at the great priest beside him, he suddenly thought that the great priest had so happily agreed to Her Majesty's terms, not only because of Tianqing's gun, he suddenly remembered that, as early as last week at the royal banquet, Her Majesty seemed to have implicitly revealed the birth of the new Countess and her relationship with Count Tonigle of Eruin.

With this in mind, he could not help but almost shed cold sweat. Hurry up and tighten his face as if he was afraid to call the Supreme One around him to see his thoughts.

But Vala didn't care about him at all, but overdid. She said to Sidney, "Sidney, take the Count to the shower and comb. Be nice to her. ”

The goddess shrugged and nodded indifferently.

……

Dressed like a princess, the young girl wrapped herself in a light yellow dress in Baroque style, with long, flaming red hair scattered down, as if flowing scattered flames, a long neck and soft collarbone bare in the air, a fine secret silver necklace running through a flame diamond, close to it, and a flowing amber reflection lined her skin with a healthy colour. The fluffy skirt was filled with lumpy rose-like folds, multiple stacked sleeves, a lined veil and a huge bow on her chest almost dressed her as a fine doll, and that tightly framed her waist almost strangled her waist, causing her to catch her breath, and Sy looked at all of this overwhelmingly, and her amber eyes filled with uneasy light.

The experience of the day seemed like an absurd and strange dream to her, she dreamed of sleeping in a giant amber, during which she experienced many things and saw strange scenery - but most of the time she was covered in black cloth, or locked in a box where the sun was gone - and occasionally when she was disturbed, there was a voice to chat with her, but not many times, and the lady in Tianqing's gun was so proud that she could not help but conclude that she was an idiot.

Then she ‘saw' herself being transported into a magnificent temple, where many clerics performed a ceremony around herself, and her ears were filled with a low humming of the hymn, then, then she felt as if she had woken up, a woman dressed in a white gown led her, then the lady had several waitresses serve her in a bath and change her clothes; she had never experienced such a scene in her life, she was almost frightened, she tried to escape several times, but each time she was stopped by the lady, she was proud of her strength, she was weak in front of her like a child, she could not strike. She remembered that each time she looked at her with determination and recited a prayer, and then as if an irresistible pressure had fallen from the sky, penetrating the dome of the diocese and applying it directly to her, she could not move.

And at this moment, she was sitting on a bench —— a chair so luxurious, almost like a wooden throne, even in the castle of the lord that she had never seen such a beautiful chair —— staring at herself in the mirror, even though the beautiful person in it did not look like her at all; several waitresses surrounded her around, carefully dressed her up, and Sydney knew she could not resist, simply like a puppet, still manipulated by them.

Several waitresses looked at their new owner, comparing to the beauty in the mirror, carefully brushing her hair, putting on shiny earrings, or whispering, occasionally making a low laugh and smiling fever. She still hasn't figured out what exactly this place is, why she came here, why she put on such strange clothes, she has the heart to contact Ovina, but the lady in the Sky Blue gun seems to have something else important today, Sydney's inquiry about the rock sinking sea, good thing she felt she could still feel the existence of the Sky Blue gun, which made her feel a little comfortable.

Around her maids, all are beautiful and cute, obviously carefully chosen, but most of them have long red hair or short hair with different shades, let people see their origins and bloodlines, Sy looked at these people she had never seen before, listened to them speak softly in their ears, for a moment it was really hard to shake off their temper, only to be patient - which, of course, was also her understanding that some of the too harsh goddesses were still out there.

“Count,” a round-faced maid said with some envy, “you are truly our princess, the most beautiful young girl among the mountain people. ”

“What do you... call me...” Sy wasn't very good with strangers, but she couldn't help but be surprised to hear the phrase, which she almost asked.

“By the way, Count, don't you know - you are the only Count in centuries who has been personally sealed by His Majesty the Emperor, and your enclosure is said to be the most beautiful piece of land in the kingdom, on the edge of the Four Realms -”

“Yes, yes, I've seen the maple groves there. God, they're so beautiful, I can see that His Majesty admires you so much," the maids said in a chirp. “The point is, they're still right next to our mountain people's land, the mountains of Varache, and I really want to go home and see them. ”

Sy heard the fog in the clouds, she looked at the girls somehow, she didn't know what they were talking about, she was born in Chablis, and there were many mountain people there, and she seemed to have heard stories about the mountain people's homeland - the mountains of Varache - when she was a kid, but those were distant dreams, she listened to them saying what a seal, what a sire, what a countess, just felt so messed up in her head that she couldn't think of anything for a while.

But she can see that these girls worship her wholeheartedly, and they whisper to her, “Count, I hear His Majesty intends to give you the right to autonomy over that land after you have sword allegiance - that land in your hands is like returning to our mountain people, and the independence and autonomy that our mountain people have dreamed of for thousands of years can finally be achieved in your hands! ”

The girls were discussing it enthusiastically, but as they spoke, their voices slowly subsided.

The situation of the mountain people in the empire is not much better, or worse, than in Eruin, where the Krutz see them as barbarians, and the nobles capture the mountain people as if they were catching beasts - men and women of the mountain people, once driven out of the mountain forest, are trapped in cages like beasts, deserted from their homes, sold to various places, in better conditions, can be servants of nobility, and most of them die in an unknown mine.

Whoever is willing to leave their homeland, but the history of mountain resistance has long been a legend. In the empire, except for a small part of the clans that depend on the empire, most of them hide in the mountain forest and live like beasts. But even those who remain, low on their heads, may be caught and enslaved at any moment for any reason.

These are the experiences that these girls shared, and all of a sudden the house was silent for a moment, and a few girls couldn't help but cry, and the round maid swallowed and said, "Count, you know, today, because you —— we mountain dwellers don't have to leave our homes, our wives are separated, we don't have to be hunted like animals, and Count, your fame will surely spread all over the mountains of the Empire, and one day you will surely be a hero of the mountains ——”

Sy opened her mouth.

She must have dreamed of herself, she couldn't help but grab the handrail and stood up as if wandering - the crystal shoes beneath her feet really made her very uncomfortable, walking like a puppet - while the waitresses hurriedly held them to shake Her Royal Highness in case she stepped on her skirt and threw it on the floor, which was not something that had happened before. But Sy looked around and finally Nana asked, “What are you talking about… I don't quite understand, Lord, where is he…? ”

“Lord, aren't you? ”

Sydney shook her head hard and was trying to refute it, but someone knocked on the door outside at this moment, and Sidney's voice came in: "Count Mitra, if you're done dressing, someone wants to see you. ”

The waitresses calmed down and all of a sudden they all seemed to be puppets, because they knew who would only be here at this time.

……