The entire hall fell deathly silent.
It was like a lavish banquet: the flavors might not have been astonishing, but the sense of ceremony had absolutely reached its pinnacle.
Yet one moment, the dishes were still being painstakingly arranged, every knife and fork positioned neatly and properly, without the slightest oversight; the next, someone grabbed the tablecloth and overturned everything on the table.
Knives, forks, bottles, and jars crashed to the floor. The piercing clatter of shattering objects punctured the "eardrums" of almost everyone present, leaving them stunned and unable to recover for the moment.
In the first row, District Chief Harry maintained his earlier posture, his expression virtually unchanged, as though everything around him had nothing to do with him.
Chief Bishop Woforen held a cup of tea and drank silently. His attendant officer had brewed it with tea leaves he had brought along himself. Bitter and astringent, it even scraped the throat on the way down, which had earned it the nickname "Eagle-Falcon Tea."
Although Woforen's physical condition appeared unchanged from the outside, every aspect of his body had actually begun deteriorating severely. Only with this tea could he barely taste anything;
Thus, what happened around him seemed unable to reach him either. As he drank, he even habitually closed his eyes, as if he had finished his duties for the day and was simply dozing until it was time to leave work.
Yet the tea in his cup kept rippling.
No one knew that he was restraining an impulse-the impulse to splash the contents of his cup straight into the face of the district chief beside him.
Before he died, he wanted to follow his heart and do something for the Order God Church. His intentions were pure.
Unfortunately, the others were not so pure. They even