Chapter 115
The mark of a private is the Heroic Path under the Blade Principle.
In the Egyptian lands, there is the mighty sheep Hesharif, who disguises himself as the King of Sheep.
In the Higashi, there is the demon king Sakata Kintoki, who stands upright and passes away like Kongō Nin'ō Nioh.
Even though the private had not yet truly become a ruler, the path he governed still transcended history and influenced others.
In an instant, the gloom in Hebe's mind finally disappeared.
She smiled, and without further hesitation, chose to enter the Atlantis Lostbelt!
The Bell of Ys.
The Prophetess Sibyl, shaped like a golden bee, folded her wings and lay quietly on the branches of the Golden Tree, her compound eyes gazing at the gradually decaying High Sea and the city-states on it.
Deep within the locked palace, the Philosopher King sat enthroned, the Grand Symphony of destiny still flowing silently.
Fate descended from the heavens once again.
Flames, endless flames, burned everything to ashes. The once prosperous Ys City shook violently, and all things withered and fell into the sea with mournful cries.
A girl with long flaxen hair, dressed in a thin robe, leaned against the doorway, gazing at the end of the Imperial Road. Her emerald green eyes were fixed, as the ashes, like a blizzard, fell heavily onto her shoulders, body, and clothes.
Before long, the knight, holding a flag and spear, dressed in pure white, arrived before her.
"Jeanne, my days are numbered," the green-eyed girl said quietly.
Jeanne, whom the barbarians called Maid of Orléans, felt only bitterness in her heart. She stepped forward and took her old friend's hand. "Come with me!"
"The last Grand Harmonizer... has already..."
A deep hatred welled up in the green-eyed girl's eyes, but her brows were instantly filled with pain. "I... I have failed the King Romulus. I have neither met his expectations nor quelled the discord in the North, nor united the chaotic minds of the people, allowing chaos to arise from within Ys..."
She turned her head, her breathing becoming slightly heavier, as if she were swallowing bitterness.
The green-eyed girl's voice was faint. "... Judgment, the day of judgment will come. On that day, the sky will be dark, the clouds will be gloomy, blood will fill the Vast Sea, and the world will turn to ashes... The earth will collapse overnight, cities will fall into deep water, and glory and happiness... will be lost forever. Everything will be just as the Prophetess Sibyl foretold."
"Run! Jeanne, run for your lives!"
She staggered a couple of steps, her feet covered in the ashes of someone else's remains.
"They will all die, Atlantis will all die, this is the will of the God-King... The Imperial Road will collapse, the temple will crumble, the Ys City and the Golden Law Great Movement will be destroyed together... Philosophers, Tuners, knights, all the citizens on record must die, the pure water must be cut off, otherwise the gods in heaven will not allow life to exist... I, I am one of them."
"Only, only the Bell of Ys can remain... even the God-King must..."
"Barbarians, barbarians are good... Take the Bell of Ys and go to a more distant place to build the country of your dreams."
The green-eyed girl's face was pale, and blood gushed from between her nose and teeth. The golden spiritual dew faded little by little, and then a dark blood color appeared.
She finally collapsed, leaning against the Maid of Orléans's chest, the filthy blood staining her pure white armor.
"Ishtar... Ishtar!!!" The Maid of Orléans cried out in despair.
The swirling Shirayuki landed on the girl's almost frozen eyes; her voice was fragmented, and she murmured to herself:
"Judgment... the great day will come... everything is as prophesied."
"Jeanne, I... I can't see..."
Jeanne Darc awoke with a start from her bed.
Pain, endless pain.
Endless flames, and those unforgettable memories of suffering.
The chilly sea breeze on Domremy Island stirred the lights inside the houses, which were mostly shrouded in darkness and quiet.
In the distance, the faint strains of hymns drifted from the Bard's Clock Tower: "... civilization, glory, and happiness, as the Prophetess Sibyl foretold."
Jeanne stared blankly at her hands. "Am I... am I dreaming, or...?"
She raised her eyes and looked around at the vast night.
178 Are you my master?
The dim light pierced Jeanne's eyes with the sight of the room's furnishings, causing her blue-violet pupils to contract sharply.
The lingering drowsiness in her mind vanished quickly, as if it had never existed.
"This is the Gaul Province... Orleans Region, Domremy Island."
No matter how much suffering she endured afterward, the tragic fate of being burned by raging fire and toyed with by the gods in heaven, she was never moved for a moment. Even when she was reduced to dust under the Skyflint's Excommunication, the scene of her hometown still appeared before her eyes, but it was far less real and tangible than it was now!
"It's true... it's true." Jeanne stood up in a daze and shakily pushed open her own door.
The moon, like a pearl, still hangs high in the sky, not yet turning a deep red like it's brimming with blood!
Great Mother Goddess! The Great Mother Goddess has not yet brought down the fate of world destruction.
Hot blood gushed across Jeanne's face and chest, and her heart pounded so hard it felt like it was going to burst out of her throat.
"The Crisis signs foretold by Sibyl have not yet appeared. I am only sixteen years old now, five years before the 'Philosophical Chaos' breaks out in Ys City and seven years before the Northern Uprising... At present, the Three Grand Harmonizers are still in power, and the thirty legions still firmly control the situation."
"The Orleans Region was not conquered by the barbarians from Burgundy, nor was it completely slaughtered by Nero Claudius's army! Mozart did not overstep his bounds by Philosopher King plays the Grand Symphony, causing Half the High Sea to boil over... Everything, everything is still in time!"
"And I did not sign a contract with the Pure Water Spirit, did not become a musician, nor did I launch a rebellion that led to our confrontation on the Northern Battlefield..."
"That's right, Ishtar! She's still alive!"
Jeanne didn't even have time to get dressed; she threw on her cloak and rushed into the dim night.
Most of the roads on Domremy Island were flat, but she didn't run on the main road. Instead, she traveled through the mountains and forests. Although the scenes in her memory were somewhat blurry, as she walked, those past memories surged up like a tide.
Finally, she excitedly reached out, pushed aside the withered oak branches in front of her, stepped over the collapsed marble steps, and once again visited that dried-up Spring Eye.
Hebe struggled to break free from the dried-up Spring Eye.
With her appearance, the once-dried-up Spring Eye began to gush forth clear, cool water again.
"It feels like unclogging a drainpipe..." Hebe thought to himself.
As soon as the image appeared, Hebe felt disgusted and quickly opened the panel to check her own status.
Clear water ripples emerged, forming characters that only Hebe could understand.
[Hebe Stanton / Ismara]
[Path: Pure Water Spirit (Lostbelt Limited). The Pure Water Spirit is a child of Pearl, a candidate for the Water Palace Immortal Class, and the prototype of Youthful Dew.]
[Principle: Blade (Lostbelt exclusive). A principle representing resistance, authority, and destruction.]
[Rank: Twilight (Lostbelt Limited). The Third Tier of the Path of Ascension, just one step away from ascension.]
[Final Merit: Great Silence - The Wish of No Light (Unfinished)]
Oh no, is this the start of a twilight? Hebe was overjoyed, but then realized something was wrong.
"Oh no, my body..." She tried to speak, but instead, she made the gurgling Sound of Spring Water Flowing.
Her body at this moment was a ball of clear water, with only a nearly invisible golden color deep within it—the core of the Pure Water Spirit's Consciousness Core.
Whose house looks so dilapidated at dusk?!
Oh right, I'm Pure Water Spirit...
Hebe felt a soreness in his teeth, but continued reading.
The Philosopher King Remus established laws with the supreme golden law and harmonized the Water and Soil and water with a magnificent symphony, thus there was no disharmony throughout Atlantis. Pure Water Spirit, unless they enter into a contract with a human, cannot regain their form under the Grand Symphony's Suppression.
Under the Grand Symphony's Suppression, the Pure Water Spirit are either enslaved to clean the city's waterways; or become the eyes and ears of the Tuners, spying on the hearts of others; or killed by philosophers, brewing the Youthful Dew that can carry consciousness.
Beneath the Grand Symphony, the Atlantis finally proudly proclaimed that they had ended all wars between humans and non-humans.
"No wonder the Pure Water Spirit here are the Blade Principle." Hebe smiled with relief. "Originally, as the familiars of the Pearl, they should be the Cup Principle."
The principles are not entirely immutable, just as the path of the wise, once Ancient Name the Lamp's Principle, gradually shifted to the Cup Principle.
The long period of enslavement fueled the anger of the Pure Water Spirit, which resonated with the oppressed barbarians of the North, leading them to raise the banner of rebellion.
They thus shifted from the Cup Principle to the Blade Principle.
But before that, another question of Hebe's was answered.
"What Remus... isn't that Divine Ancestor Romulus's brother?" Hebe clicked her tongue. "Is Atlantis just Rome in another History Line? If so, Nero's appearance would Tai He..."
At this point, some apprentices may not be clear about who Remus is. In official history, Remus is usually mentioned as a foil to Romulus, the ancestor of the gods and the founder of the nation.
They were twins, abandoned by their grandfather and raised by a she-wolf and a woodpecker. When they grew up, they founded the first city of Rome on the Seven Hills, but eventually went to war over the struggle for Divine Authority and royal power.
Romulus killed his brother, and after that, Romulus went through many more trials.
At the end of his deeds, he ascended into the wilderness and became the Eternals with the honorific name "Quirinus," and was further elevated by the Scar Father to become Named Attendant standing on His left hand.
After that, the Roman Empire worshipped Romulus Quirinus as a "godfather," and his faith continued to spread widely throughout Europe even after the fall of Rome.
But this is Lostbelt, it's a secret history.
Secret history is a scar left by time on the world, another possibility preserved by governance, and another direction of history.
—What if it was Remus who killed Romulus, one of the twins who inherited the bloodline of the Greek City-States Troy?
Then Rome would inevitably go in another direction... which is now Atlantis!
While unraveling the Mystery of Secret History delighted Hebe, her greater headache now was the lack of a single human willing to form a contract with her.
What kind of nonsense is it to suppress the glorious twilight in this Abandoned Forest Fountain? What normal person would come to such a remote and Wretched Land, and be so brain-dead as to talk to the spring, and finally make some kind of pact with the earth and the spring?
Isn't this a dead end?
Hebe waded backward in the abandoned fountain, then flowed back down the trough.
As soon as she returned, Hebe heard urgent running sounds coming from not far away, and the direction was straight towards them.
She exclaimed in surprise, "No way, someone actually came all this way?!"
Immediately afterwards, Jeanne's face was reflected in the clear water.
Hebe was shocked. Arthur?!
However, she immediately realized that this was definitely not Arthur, because the other person did not have that unruly ahoge on his head, and his enviable long golden hair was tied into a thick braid at the back of his head.
"This should be Jeanne ..." Hebe thought.
The next instant, she saw Jeanne reach into the pool.
"We will sign a contract," Jeanne said firmly.
179 Master Servant
Deep in the dense forest, the bright moonlight, like pearls, shone through the branches, falling on the dilapidated marble buildings scattered on the ground, and also on the shimmering water of the abandoned fountain.
"You... sign a contract right away?" Hebe stared warily at Jeanne, whose brilliant blonde hair almost touched the water.
Thanks to her current Pure Water Body, Hebe is not afraid of Jeanne seeing through her expressions.
She doesn't even have a face in the normal sense, let alone any "read my face" behavior.
Even though she knew that if she operated properly, Jeanne could even become her ally... Hebe felt at a loss, because while there were many examples of Opposing Blades, there were almost no examples of how to create Opposing Blades!
She originally intended to support Texas and Lapland as Opposing Blades, but the former seemed to have no such intention at all.
Texas swept the Saluzzo Family swiftly, leaving the Saluzzo Family's White Wolf's fate unknown, so much so that Hebe had no precedent to follow.
The only certainty is that the Opposing Blades must deeply "hate" each other, and they will stop at nothing to kill each other. When one of them dies, the other will inevitably not survive.
"Do I harbor any unbearable hatred towards Jeanne?"
Hebe asked herself honestly. She recalled Jeanne's behavior in the previous simulation. She could say that she disliked her, but it was far from enough to warrant killing her.
"Something must be wrong; this isn't how it's supposed to be," Hebe thought to herself. "Besides me, she also needs to have a sufficiently strong emotional response... But how could she possibly reach that level in her current state?"
"Besides, if we maintain this confrontation now, should we even sign this contract?!"