Chapter 177
Of course, Hebe also studied the secret teachings here.
The fireplace crackled and popped, the kettle sat to one side, and several bundles of straw paper sat on a wooden shelf against the wall.
Arthur stood in the center, enveloped by immense loneliness from all sides. The king looked around and saw that the lamps on the table had frequent fingerprints and the candles were already half burned.
—With what expression did Merlin greet those nights?
A strong sense of urgency surged within Arthur, and she turned and left the tower's reception room.
Beyond the reception room lies a long corridor, with wisteria climbing the colonnades. The verdant vines are adorned with flowers that cascade like a waterfall, creating a scene that is both magnificent and mysterious.
When Arthur saw the flowers, his eye twitched involuntarily.
These flowers once bloomed in her palace, but they no longer exist.
Then she heard the gurgling sound of water again.
Turning around, I saw a Spring Eye in the courtyard that was constantly gushing out clear water.
Arthur stood by the fountain, Spring Eye the once cheerful flow of water had subtly diminished.
"Did she bring this?" Arthur gazed at the spring and asked softly.
"You already have the answer in your heart, why ask again?" The Fallen Empress stretched her hand above the spring water and flicked her fingers lightly.
The spring water remained stagnant, unchanged.
The Fallen Empress glanced at Arthur quietly, then stretched out her entire palm and waved it with a slight force.
The faint sense of majesty was finally dispelled, and the spring water gushed forth joyfully once more.
"You're going to argue with a spring?" the Fallen Empress sneered.
Even so, Morgan was shocked.
Arthur's power grew stronger and stronger. He didn't even need to use supernatural powers. Just by casting a glance at someone, he had to expend his own strength to dispel the imagery!
Yes, even a casual glance from Arthur was enough to create an image.
The twilight that follows different paths has different intensities in different fields. In certain special environments, the corresponding twilight can be enhanced.
Their power and symbolism are amplified when they carry out their deeds and etch their mark on the world.
For example, near bodies of water, the Fallen Empress can gain a great advantage by virtue of her rank as Water Palace Immortal Class; and the Gaul holy knight Bradamante, by upholding his oath, can also increase his power and rank by 20% to 30%.
But authoritarianism is a very special path.
There are only two twilights on the Authority Path in the world today, one in the west the Other in the east.
—Arthur Pendragon, the Eternal King of Albion; Arthur no Minamoto no Raikō, the Imperial Monarch Great General of the Higashi.
According to Morgan's divination and speculation, the Imperial Monarch Great General did not seem to be a simple Authority Path.
In other words, the only one who truly embodied the twilight of pure Authority Path was Arthur.
How can we enhance the symbolism and status of the Authority Path?
First, you need to have your own territory, the bigger the better; you need subjects who obey your rule and are loyal to you, the more the better; you need to enact your own laws on your territory and have at least a certain number of subjects respect them; you need to promote the development of civilization and always control the trend of civilization, making yourself an indelible symbol of the nation... How about that, it's very simple, right?
When the twilight of Authority Path is established on its own territory, it is truly invincible as long as the ruling party does not take action.
Arthur can easily knock enemies down to a lower level and elevate friendly units to a higher level.
The Fallen Empress suddenly remembered an ancient legend— that the February Archon, Scar Father, had once summoned His Heroic Spirit to form an army in the mortal world in order to deal with Twilight of the Gods.
Without exception, these Heroic Spirit were all monarchs who once exercised ruling power.
Naturally, Arthur was among them.
But now it is the world after Twilight of the Gods, and there are only one or two Authority Path to Ragnarok in the present world. In other words, Scar Father has no more troops at his disposal.
Will Arthur be chosen by Scar Father? The Fallen Empress squinted, observing the back of King Albion.
Arthur, of course, did not answer her question. The king walked silently through the pure white hall, his heels clicking on the floor. She reached for the notebooks on the shelf, which bore three different handwritings.
One type of writing was slanted, with ink flowing freely. Arthur recognized it; it was his Royal Sister's handwriting.
The handwriting was new; it was small and delicate, with a kind of cautiousness like that of a small animal. Arthur thought to himself, "You really can't sit still."
The last type of handwriting is the oldest, with the edges blurred and fuzzy, but it falls at the very top.
The brushstrokes are fluid and unrestrained, yet somehow still manage to make it clear what the writer is trying to say.
"You're having a good time here," Arthur said in a low voice.
She reached out and tore off the other two types of writing, then folded the one with Hebe's ink and put it in her pocket.
Arthur turned and looked around, thinking to himself, "You usually teach and educate people here, and when you have nothing to do, you manipulate the situation in the hidden world, causing the curtain between the two worlds to tremble a bit." Then he sat by the fireplace, a sly smile appearing on his face.
What a wicked woman.
As Arthur thought about it, a smile inexplicably crept onto his lips.
Where is the reading room?
Although Arthur didn't know which room Hebe liked to spend the most time in, she knew that the reading room must be a place Hebe frequented.
"Go straight ahead on the first floor, it's the second one," Morgan replied coldly.
Xiao Xiang is not in the bookstore; Morgan has already confirmed that.
Of course, the Silent Bookstore did not have a rule that librarians could not leave their posts, but Xiao Xiang had always been the kind of person who rarely went out, at most taking a walk at Wanghai Cliff.
Perhaps Xiao Xiang and Hebe went to the festival party in Blanckug together? Morgan had no idea.
But she wasn't worried. After all, Shoko had become daylight after her trip to Atlantis, and besides, no one could hurt her in Blanckug.
And Hebe is there too.
Arthur ignored Morgan's thoughts and went to the door of the reading room, where the dark door was ajar.
She pushed open the door, and a familiar scent wafted towards her.
For a moment, Arthur even had the illusion that the girl with long flaxen hair was wearing slippers, sitting in a chair, holding a thick book and reading it carefully.
As I pushed open the door, those deep green eyes looked up at me, a knowing smile on their faces.
But illusions are just illusions. The familiar wind flowed past Arthur as she looked at everything in the room, at the desk with its steel nameplate and the scripture reading table, and at Hebe's notes on alchemy and alloy formulas.
This guy never seems to have a moment's peace. Is he now researching special alloys again?
Arthur thought to himself.
At the Wanghai Cliff, Xiao Xiang was struggling to drag a drowning person ashore.
However, calling her a drowning victim is not entirely accurate, because there wasn't a single wet spot on her body, even when she was soaking in water.
When Xiao Xiang found her, she was lying prone among the jagged rocks at the Wanghai Cliff.
Of course, Hebe had taught Xiao Xiang to be cautious; but when she saw that the other person was just a little girl who looked to be over ten years old, she still resolutely went into the water and carried her ashore.
The seawater in Blanckug is always icy cold, and the water level here is high enough to reach Xiao Xiang's knees.
She finally reached the drowning little girl, who had pale skin, gray hair, and unsettling bluish-purple lips and fingertips. Her body temperature was extremely low, as if she had just crawled out of an ice cellar.
The moment the drowning person was completely pulled ashore, they opened their eyes.
She wrapped her arms around Xiao Xiang's neck in a seemingly intimate gesture, her voice hoarse. "Where is this?"
Xiao Xiang paused for a moment, then said, "I saved you."
"... Feel sorry."
The girl with ash-like hair loosened her arms and wearily repeated her question, "Where is this?"
"This is Blanckug." Xiao Xiang crouched down. "And where are you from?"
"Gaul? Who can say for sure?" Joan of Arc raised her head with difficulty.
She was clearly protected by the June Archon Pearl.
In her dream, however, she saw another woman with ebony-colored skin, ivory-white hair, and golden eyes. This woman called herself "Nitocris" and claimed to be Eternals under the protection of the December Archon, the Duke of Sighs.
The woman who called herself Nitocris wanted to make a deal with her: she would let her travel downstream to Blanckug, and in return, she would invoke the power of the Duke of Sighs to freeze the remaining life of Joan of Arc.
As the deity who governs the realm related to the Winter's Tenets, the Duke of Sighs certainly possesses such authority.
That's why Joan of Arc appeared to be in such a state of near-freezing death. If it weren't for the divine power of the Duke of Sighs, she would have surely died from the double injuries of excommunication and the burning of her achievements.
Joan of Arc looked at her petite body and her tender arms.
If he could still maintain a barely acceptable balance between practicing the Dao and burning away his merits, after the punishment, he could no longer maintain this precarious relationship. In just two or three days, his body became like this.
—Rejuvenation—this is perhaps the dream of all those in power.
But for Joan of Arc of Arc, it was a complete disaster.
The noble monks of the Ganges basin in the South Asian subcontinent say that time is a flame, its outer flame cruel and its inner core violent.
As the flames continue to burn endlessly, Joan of Arc will continue to "rejuvenate," even becoming an infant... and then, in her fetal state, she will be burned to ashes by the fire of time.
Now, the Duke of Sighs's ice has sealed off this terrible flame—it is still burning, but very, very slowly.
Furthermore, Nitocris told her: There is more than one way to solve this problem.
If she could get to Blanckug, she could alleviate, or even solve, this problem once and for all.
Joan of Arc silently pulled herself out of her thoughts, and Xiao Xiang was helping her walk up the path below Wanghai Cliff.
She raised her head, and it seemed she could already see the outline of the Silent Bookstore.
252 Please stop fighting! (Refresh the page)
Inside the Silent Bookstore, the Fallen Empress sat on a soft sofa in the pure white foyer, while Mordred sat restlessly not far away.
Morgan ignored Mordred's predicament.
She had long anticipated the future of the Silent Bookstore — the Island Council, which forms the power structure of the Silent Bookstore, has several directors under it.
Now, Communications Director Mostima has recruited his own team.
Whether she had anticipated it or it was a spur-of-the-moment decision, Hebe ultimately agreed.
And what about myself, as the Continuance Director? Shouldn't I have a few Servants under my Servant obey my orders?
In fact, Morgan's first thought was not Mordred, but Toyokawa Shoko.
Even though, under the current circumstances, Toyokawa Shoko's status as a librarian no longer possesses the subtle detachment of the past, she remains the highest-ranking official in the name of the Silent Bookstore.
There is an old saying in Cathay: "To control the Son of Heaven and command the feudal lords."
This statement is not difficult to understand, because similar practices exist in Europe.
Toyokawa Shoko was the nominal Son of Heaven, while Morgan was the most powerful lord.
As for your question about where Hebe stands? Well, even above the Son of Heaven, there's still the Azure Sky above him.
As a librarian personally discovered by Hebe from the Higashi and awarded a gold ring by her own hand, Toyokawa Shoko was destined not to be an appendage of any director, but rather a direct descendant of Hebe alone.
However, not being a vassal does not mean that a relationship cannot be cultivated.
Morgan felt that she had a mentor-student relationship with Toyokawa Shoko, and that their relationship was obviously much closer than that of a director like Mostima.
This is a complex web of relationships within the Silent Bookstore. No matter who Hebe recruits as a board member in the future, Morgan will always firmly occupy the most orthodox position.
Therefore, Morgan could forgo some overly aggressive measures.
This was also knowledge she learned from the Water Palace Immortal Class: advance five inches, retreat two inches, this is called nibbling away.
By the time Hebe gradually got used to this process, the seemingly safe and cozy Silent Bookstore had long since become Morgan's impenetrable web.
By then, Hebe was completely dependent on Morgan, trusted Morgan... and sank deeper and deeper until she was completely ruined.
Haha, do you really think Morgan's reputation as a "Fallen Empress" is just a rumor?
However, Arthur's arrival did indeed disrupt Morgan's plans to some extent.
The Fallen Empress gritted her teeth inwardly.
This has been true for a long time, and it remains true now.
The reason is simple: as a king, Arthur was destined not to accept Hebe's decree. However, Blanckug did indeed still reside in Cornwall, Albion.
Blanckug's power initially stemmed from the agreement between Arthur and the King of Ibis, and when the Silent Bookstore was established, scholars from the Egyptian lands brought with them the divine message of the "Elegy".