Veronica's voice echoed across the vast and magnificent Holy Light Plaza, yet the crystal remained silent, offering no response.
It simply operated quietly within the endlessly vast yet endlessly lonely Divine Kingdom Core, silent and precise like a machine, just as it had for the past seven hundred years.
Veronica silently watched the amorphous crystal before her. No one knew what she had been thinking during that long silence. At last, she slowly raised her head and looked toward the rivers of light flowing across the sky above the Divine Kingdom.
Compared with several years ago, the rivers of light flowing above Holy Light Plaza had changed drastically. Many of their former tributaries had vanished, and the remaining currents had largely changed direction. The power of faith that had once pointed entirely toward the God of Holy Light and been completely bound by divine laws had gradually detached itself from the operation of this Divine Kingdom. Though it still reflected within the domain of the God of Holy Light, that "reflection" had become faint and ethereal, like an illusion.
Yet several thin streams of light still converged above the enormous amorphous crystal and resonated faintly with its body. No matter how slight those streams were, so long as they stirred even a little, the crystal would still react.
"So that was the source of the unease I'd always felt..." Veronica said softly. The platinum scepter scorched her palm, but that purely spiritual "burning" seemed nonexistent to her. "An automatic response mechanism..."
She gazed at the enormous amorphous crystal for a long time before finally looking away. Then the former leader of the Defying the Gods let out a sigh and took a small step back. "No matter what... thank you for the shelter you once gave us."
A door of