Chapter 899
From Then On, Heaven and Earth Were Severed
—RUMBLE!
A clap of thunder erupted, startling Bai Ke, who was deep in thought, causing him to nearly fall. The little cat beside him gave him a look of disdain, making the young man with brown skin and dark eyes blush as he touched his nose and pursed his lips.
“Is there danger?” Xingxian asked the Vagrant nervously in a low voice.
The Vagrant shook his head, confused, “No.”
“Really no danger?” Xingxian asked, unwilling to give up.
Originally, he looked down on these mercenaries. Magic could also simulate divination; after all, astrology was once the domain of mages. In the past, he would rather waste mana than not perform a divination himself to see the result.
But now, his previous staff was ruined.
Xingxian removed the jewel from the top of the staff, extracted the backup mana stored within, and held the outer casing as a secondary artifact in his hand. Although it could still amplify the casting range and reduce casting time, it no longer had the function of reducing mana consumption. And he had just cast a great spell that infused all his mana. Now, even with the backup mana from his life-saving reserve, he only had a pitiful dozen units of mana left. It was likely only enough for two or three spells.
In this situation, Xingxian truly didn’t know what else he could do by following them.
“—As a mage, I’m out of mana, and you’re still not letting me leave?”
But there was no other choice. His Majesty the Pope had personally ordered him to follow. So he had to follow. Xingxian secretly regretted it, thinking that if he had known he would have to follow to the end, he wouldn’t have wasted his mana so much on casting spells.
Reflecting carefully now, he had used excessive mana several times when casting spells before. For example, when facing those puppets at the entrance, he didn’t need to use so much mana. They were already controlled, and low-level spells could solve the problem.
However, Xingxian felt that as a great mage of the Fourth Tier, using low-level spells to solve problems would make him seem inferior. Therefore, to save face, he used two Fourth Tier spells when he first entered, consuming a quarter of his mana.
…He now finally understood why Zhu Tang and Mu, despite their immense power, always saved their energy.
Mages were very intelligent, but he lacked experience in such high-level combat. With just this one experience, he could learn a more correct way of fighting—as long as he could return alive, that experience would be useful next time.
The Vagrant also found it strange. When the lift ascended to the ninth floor, he felt a strong fear that made his whole body tingle. But it seemed like a hallucination, and it completely dissipated before he could try to pinpoint the source of the fear. This usually indicated that the danger was fleeting… It was a reaction he usually had when a powerful person or important figure directed a momentary killing intent at him.
At this moment, the ninth floor had been reached. This was the top floor; anything above it had been destroyed. Only fragmented outer shells remained, extending haphazardly. Even the ninth floor was almost nothing left— under the persistent wind, only wind-eroded ruins remained.
The first floor of the Sky-Piercing Tower was almost equivalent to the height of ten floors of an external building; it towered into the clouds. Looking down through the tattered walls from here would make one afraid of heights.
…However, the ninth floor was empty. Only the sky, which had become gloomy at some unknown time, and the roaring thunder remained. The giant sun seen outside was hidden by dark clouds, and the sky had become completely dim. The scale of the dark clouds was astonishing—it looked layered, like black dragons swimming in the clouds, or like an approaching tornado.
“…Is it going to strike again with lightning?” Bai Ke asked, somewhat uneasy.
The Vagrant, however, breathed a sigh of relief and impatiently urged Master Amber, “Hurry and find what you’re looking for—it’s too high here; a gust of wind could blow us away!”
“That’s right,” Xingxian added, nodding. “The higher you go, the more deadly the wind becomes.”
Light Amber—no one knew its value; perhaps only Master Amber valued it so highly. Amber nodded, closed his eyes, and sensed for a moment before walking in a certain direction.
Meanwhile, Eivass subtly fell behind.
He glanced at Cardinal Galatea, who understood and covered them both with an illusion. “We can talk now; they can’t hear us.”
“…Your illusion ability is really useful,” Eivass first exclaimed, then asked, “Didn’t you say the ninth floor would let me see what I wanted to see?”
“Yes,” Cardinal Galatea nodded slightly, softly acknowledging.
She extended her cold, dry fingers and gently touched the wall, but felt no sensation.
—When she was still a fish, she could feel pain. Touching here with her wet hands would cause her tingling electric shocks, a pain like a light sting.
She turned her head slightly and looked at the ninth floor. In her illusion, it seemed as if it was still intact and sealed. Winged Ones and Those with scales were busy here, working for their common Great Deed. This was after the previous King of Winged Ones had killed the sky-devouring giant beast Nibiru and ascended as the Wing Heavenly Envoy. At that time, Heaven and Earth had not yet been severed. Pillar Gods and Heavenly Envoys walked in the Material Realm, and entering the Dream Realm had become difficult. Many Heavenly Envoys were killed and had their Authority seized before they had even visited the Dream Realm. And the Winged Ones were an incomparably powerful race. With the threat of Nibiru gone and the protection of the Wing Heavenly Envoy, they created a magnificent civilization—the Sky-Piercing Tower. All Winged Ones who yearned for the sky gathered here, piling up layer upon layer, getting closer and closer to the sky. The Atlanteans, who created civilization from the bottom of the sea, were also targets of the sky-devouring beast. Now that the war was over, they dared to return to the earth. The Winged Ones accepted them, and their civilizations gradually merged… even giving birth to new beings with both wings and scales. However, from the ninth floor upwards, almost only those Winged Ones could live. It wasn’t because of class differences among them, but because if they lived too high up, it would be inconvenient for Those with scales to return to the sea.
“You must have read the Grimoire of the Morning Crow, Your Majesty,” Cardinal Galatea said softly. “The First Sun fell before life was born and no longer rises; the Second Sun was killed and shattered by sacrifice and language, turning into countless stars in the silent night…”
Eivass nodded slightly. “Horus’s school of Mithra believes that one solar cycle is twenty-six thousand years, which is one ‘Great Year.’ Due to the precession of the equinoxes, constellations always undergo subtle changes, completing a cycle in about twenty-six thousand years. We are currently in the Age of Pisces, meaning the sun falls on Pisces during the spring equinox. It began about two thousand years ago… around the time Hengwo ascended to becoming a Pillar God. The Horus people believe that human history is long, dating back at least ten thousand years. They believe human history began in the Age of Leo, and some believe it began in the Age of Libra… which was thirteen thousand or twenty thousand years ago.”
“Six or eight?” Cardinal Galatea smiled. “Adaptation or transcendence… perhaps it’s also nine, nine is always the limit.”
Eivass nodded and walked behind Galatea. “I lean towards the Age of Libra origin theory. Because the Third Sun was ignited by the Dawn Fire at the suggestion of the Hourglass, and both the Hourglass and Libra represent balance. The sun was incubated by Libra… perhaps this is a metaphor.”
“When Taurus dies, Aries is born… This saying is not bad; it even reveals some truth about solar calendars.” Galatea sighed. “However, Aries is not the sun, but darkness; the death of Taurus is not the end of the Second Sun. The death of the Second Sun happened much earlier. The reason for calculating it this way is that Aries is the ‘Third Sun that should have been born,’ and it has a name… — it is called Mith.”
“Mith…” Eivass murmured.
“Yes, according to this calendar… the death of the Second Sun was the sun of Gemini. The six thousand years without light that the Elves experienced was the Path of Devotion, with the Sacred Number three. And the Age of Gemini… heh, didn’t a pair of ‘Twins’ just appear then?” Galatea turned to Eivass, looking at him meaningfully. “Just as in the Age of Pisces, a pair of ‘Pisces’ also appeared.”
She clearly recalled the appearance of the Ring Heavenly Envoy. At that moment, she knew Eivass’s identity. This was also why she was no longer as respectful to His Majesty the Pope. Although the Pope was a person to be respected, the Ring Heavenly Envoy was her enemy. Even though she knew in her heart that they were not the same person, and even that they were enemies, their appearances were exactly the same, so PTSD was normal.
Eivass, meanwhile, was calculating rapidly in his mind. This meant that the calculations of the Amber Calendar and the Hengwo Calendar were indeed related to the stars and the sun—the Hengwo Calendar was the Age of Pisces, and the limit of all things was nine… In that case, could the beginning of the Amber Era be the Age of Libra?
—The doomsday year 2000, that is the formal arrival of the Age of Aquarius! And before that, successively Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, and four more before them would be Libra… Counting backward, it was the ninth. Perhaps the demise of the First Sun was related to the Age of Libra.
“But if the birth of the Third Sun was related to the Hourglass… and the Second Sun died with the arrival of the Age of Gemini… Gemini was cut by the Hourglass…” Eivass murmured softly. “The severance of Heaven and Earth occurred after the collapse of the Sky-Piercing Tower, and the Second Sun died from sacrifice and language…”
His eyes gradually widened. He suddenly remembered something. The Hourglass had both a scholar side and a merchant side—he had commissioned the Hourglass to cut him back then, and there was a price for it. It was not free… the price was paid by the Boss. So, what was the price paid by the Great Philosopher and Supreme Heaven back then?
“The Second Sun… was the price paid by ‘Gemini’?” Eivass murmured. “That’s why the Second Sun was destroyed with the arrival of the ‘Age of Gemini’…”
“You’ve realized it,” Cardinal Galatea nodded. “Very good, as expected of… another ‘serpent.’ Or perhaps, do you still retain some memories?”
As she spoke, the sky grew even darker. Endless storms seemed to gather on the other shore… She gazed at the scene, feeling a mix of nostalgia and fear. “I never personally experienced this moment, but when I awoke… the sun had already shattered. At that time, all Heavenly Envoys and Pillar Gods were expelled to the Dream Realm. The Material Realm was empty, with only powers below the Sixth Tier remaining. Even coming into contact with the Sixth Tier would cause one to be suppressed by the endless power of equilibrium to the point of immobility. People could no longer directly gain power from the Material Realm; instead, they needed to ‘dream.’ With transcendence and the Fall, the world had a distinction between upper and lower. From then on, the blurred and chaotic world was divided into two, and the boundary between the Material Realm and the Dream Realm became clear. The sun was a wound in the sky, so destroying the Second Sun also meant… the wound healed—He filled the sky and stopped the Origin River from flowing into the Material Realm. From then on, Heaven and Earth were severed.”
(End of Chapter)
