910
"Has something else happened on the Southern Continent?"
"We gave up gathering intelligence on the Southern Continent long ago," Dunn interjected. "The Balam Empire in the south has Death's protection. Our spies can barely infiltrate it. High risk, low returns. As for the Highlands in the north, don't even get me started. Everyone who went in was caught and put to work."
Traynor blinked, pulled the cat out, and stroked it a few times to conceal his guilty conscience.
"So what exactly happened in Loen?"
"Intelligence takes time to travel, too," Raymond said. "Mind Link can't reach Loen. Just wait patiently."
"Oh... anything else, then?"
"No. Go back to whatever you were doing."
Emlyn's bedroom lay between the first and second floors. The fire had already reached the top floor, but it raged only outside his bedroom door.
This church, which had already undergone demolition and closure once and was still not fully finished, suffered another devastating blow.
The heavy curtains, several meters tall, gradually turned to drifting ash in the flames. The wooden engravings set into the walls and the windows had been burned black along with the white-and-brown walls. Although the building's new, sturdy structure remained unaffected, the entire church was gradually becoming an empty shell with only its framework remaining.
Emlyn knew nothing of this and remained fast asleep.
He had no idea anything unusual would happen tonight, so he had finished his evening prayers early and gone to bed an hour ago.
Amid a chaotic, hazy dream, he suddenly shuddered. His mind immediately became much clearer, but sleepiness and exhaustion still tugged relentlessly at him, as though he would fall asleep again the very next second.
Emlyn vaguely sensed that something had happened. The discomfort of struggling to stay awake while being unable to