Golden Knight and Silver Dragon

Dim daylight filtered down through the Water Temple's famed crystal dome,

The dome, supported by marble columns, had been exquisitely designed. Sunlight became shimmering and rippling after passing through it, and Zhou Yun felt as though he were walking underwater.

This dome had been built around an ancient natural spring. It had existed since the age when the War King ruled Macragge as its true monarch and was worshipped as the sacred Water God.

Today, the Temple District, which housed temples to the gods of Macragge and even Ultramar, spread outward in a fan around this Water Temple.

Zhou Yun walked around the pool formed by the gathered springwater. Denarius silver coins jingled in his pocket.

Lukeleis had given him thirty-five denarius silver coins—not as a loan. According to Lukeleis, it was an advance on Zhou Yun's wages.

In return for those wages, Zhou Yun would have to help him translate newly unearthed cuneiform clay tablets from the area around Odin City.

Once he left the Water Temple, Zhou Yun's view suddenly opened up.

The mountains unfolded like a fully drawn bow. Temples built from piles of gray-white stone lined the curving ridge, their spires and domes gilded by the setting sun hanging between distant mountains. They looked like burning candles, turning the entire Temple District into a candlestick offered to the gods.

Even the surroundings seemed to fear the gods' authority and had fallen silent. The calls of mountain birds common in Macragge and the noisy cries of street vendors had vanished completely here.

Zhou Yun could only hear prayers blending into a chant, drifting softly from those temples along with the scent of incense and lingering all around him.

He could feel it... reality here was weaker than elsewhere in Macragge, and the veil between the Warp and the material universe was easier to breach.

Temples, churches, sacrificial grounds—these were places closer to the Empyrean, where matter began to ebb and spirit began to rise, where reality met the Warp.

Here, Zhou Yun would find it easier to cross the "Realm" and truly awaken this body's psychic power.

Yet even in the Temple District, Macragge's veil was still noticeably thicker than elsewhere.

If Zhou Yun wanted to cross the Realm, he would likely need to find a more crucial location, as well as something else to help him.

Zhou Yun's gaze swept over the temples. At the highest and most central point stood, naturally, Macragge's War King Temple.

The gates of the War King Temple stood open, signifying that Macragge remained in a state of war.

Its enemy was the barbarian nation of Elyrium in the far north of Macragge, also called the Land of Bandits by the people of Macragge. Countless fragmented barbarian tribes lived there.

Since time immemorial, Elyrium and Macragge City had been locked in endless war, like a pair of utterly opposed twins on the same planet.

Elyrium was savage; Macragge was orderly.

Elyrium was poor; Macragge was prosperous.

Elyrium was mad; Macragge was rational.

Elyrium was divided; Macragge was united.

Their war seemed to have become the eternal theme of Macragge's history.

Elyrium had approached and even breached Macragge City several times, the most recent occurrence only a few decades ago.

Macragge City's armies had likewise devastated Elyrium several times, the most recent being the war led by Conor only a few decades ago.

Yet Macragge City had never truly destroyed Elyrium's barbarians.

The barbarians of Elyrium were like some kind of tide. They often receded, but they always surged back.

They could be defeated, conquered, and driven back, but afterward they would hide among the mountains and caves of the far north, concealing themselves within temples known only to them, waiting until they seized another chance to strike again.

They could only be defeated, never eradicated. The people of Macragge often whispered this.

Still, it was not as though Macragge City's military prowess was lacking.

After all, not even the Primarch Lion El'Jonson had been able to tame Elyrium.

During the Second Imperium, in order to eliminate Konrad Curze hiding within it, the Lion had even attempted to bombard Elyrium directly from orbit and deliver an Exterminatus.

Roboute Guilliman had opposed the orbital bombardment—so the Lion instead had gunships carry out saturation bombing from orbit, forcibly burning Elyrium into a wasteland and killing two-thirds of its population in one stroke.

Even so, Elyrium had not surrendered. It had continued rebelling all the way into the forty-first millennium.

It was practically like a villain in a children's show who came back at full health in the next episode no matter how badly he had been hurt.

Zhou Yun shifted his gaze away from the War King Temple. He was increasingly suspicious that the War King Temple might have something to do with Khorne, and that Elyrium might have something to do with Khorne too.

Maybe Elyrium and Macragge City were just Khorne's left hand fighting his right, grinding war KPIs.

Then there were the Talasa Pantheon, the Broken Lighthouse Temple, the Lax Purifying Garden Temple... and the Semuneta Temple.

That slender, towering temple dedicated to Semuneta, goddess of beauty, came into Zhou Yun's view.

The entire temple seemed like the product of an architect indulging their talent while disregarding the laws of physics: thread-thin flying buttresses, towers like spikes, enormous amounts of near-insane openwork and stained glass. The whole temple radiated a dangerous beauty.

This temple was Zhou Yun's creditor.

"Goddess of beauty." Zhou Yun savored the words.

If he had an Inquisitorial Rosette in hand, he would have summoned a starship into orbit above the Temple District and used a single lance strike to burn the Semuneta Temple into glass, leaving not even a scrap behind.

Another day of missing Inquisitor Greyfax.

He did not head toward the Semuneta Temple. Instead, he walked deeper into the Temple District.

There were as many gods worshipped in the Temple District as hairs on an ox. Those occupying the prime locations behind the Water Temple were all powerful and high-status gods worshipped in Macragge.

The less popular and less worshipped a god was, the deeper its temple tended to be in the Temple District—after all, land was cheaper farther in.

Just as old Lucretius had said, the strongest sorcery in Macragge was the denarius, and the strongest god was also the denarius.

Zhou Yun panted heavily. Only after climbing this stretch of mountain road until his heart raced did he reach the temple he had been looking for... or rather, the church.

It was not a large church, only about the size of a five-story apartment building, but anyone could tell at a glance that it was ancient.

It had been built almost entirely from rough stone, covered in thick moss. The ground and walls had nearly fused together, and the overall architectural style still retained the style of Macragge's Old Night era.

Zhou Yun raised his head slightly. Above the church doors stood a cross carved from stone.

This was a Catholic church, and also the place of worship known to Professor Lukeleis's "priest" friend in the Temple District.

Zhou Yun stepped into the church. The moment he entered, his gaze was drawn to the mosaic on the wall directly ahead.

The mosaic had faded badly, and the gems that served as the figures' eyes had long since disappeared, but it was still clearly a masterwork.

Under the dim orange light, those small tiles bearing mottled colors resembled flowing liquid, weaving agile forms, powerful human bodies, and the annihilation of stars.

The two protagonists of the mosaic in particular made one's soul tremble at the mere sight of them.

One was a Silver Dragon coiled above the desert, starlight contained in its eyes and the fires of creation billowing from its mouth.

The other was the Silver Dragon's opponent: a Golden Knight riding a black steed darker than night and wielding a pure silver lance.

"Ah! Sir, you really came?"