Pivot of the Sky

The Plains of Duc was in a state of war, and Rod Drick was also aware that Theo and others were transporting supplies to Salem through the borders of Cape in the name of trading, but he turned a blind eye to it. Gabriel asked him to inquire about Amon’s whereabouts, and he was really concerned about it, but unfortunately, the well-informed governor did not get manage to get any information regarding Amon in the past half a year, and Amon seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

Rod Drick still went to the shrine to pray according to customs and would lead the people in holding various ceremonies on major occasions. But the thing that he prayed for the most personally was for the war on the Plains of Duc to never spread to Ejypt. Otherwise, Cape would be the first to face the pressure of war. He also hoped that the city of Salem would be able to stand firm and that Amon would be safe. He was also willing to help in any way he could in private.

Rod Drick had been looking for news of Amon for a long time without any success, but he never expected that Amon would show up openly in Cape on his own accord. When he saw Amon, he was so surprised that he fell off the carriage and turned around and not only ordered the whole city to arrest him but also sent a petition to the Pharaoh to ask for punishment.

……

In the shrines of the various cities in Ejypt, rituals of offerings were held twice every month, and during that time, the citizens could come to the shrine. There were also three major ceremonies every year, equivalent to the most important holidays in the cities. That day happened to be one of the major ceremonies where they made offerings to their one god An-Ra, and it was also a festival of celebration for the citizens.

On this day, all the officials of the departments were on holiday, and the people wore new clothes and shopped in the streets, a rare day of leisure and enjoyment. After midday, everyone gathered in the shrine square to talk and laugh, while many vendors also carried their wares or pushed their carts in the square.

The city governor’s carriage came, and Rod Drick lifted the curtain as he was about to get down from the carriage. On the other hand, supreme mage Ibene was leading the mages in line on the long steps, and the atmosphere was cheerful and peaceful. The heavy shrine doors were open at this time, and from the front of the square, one could see the statues in the main shrine.

Who would have expected that at this moment, a figure suddenly flew out from the crowd and shot straight into the main shrine like an arrow. Swinging a sword with a golden arc of light, the figure chopped towards the statue of Seth that was just beside the statue of Ra. Immediately after that, the figure smashed a huge hole in the solid stone roof of the shrine and flew away.

Tens of thousands of people let out a unanimous cry of surprise, followed by silence, all wide-eyed and dumbfounded. Ibene, who was about to greet Rod Drick who had arrived, cried in surprise before waving his staff and taking a flight to the sky to chase after the figure. However, the moment Ibene flew to the area above the shrine, another figure came flying diagonally, the sharp axe in his hand like a silver shadow, and a blade wave sliced towards Ibene.

Ibene was nearly scared out of his wits, but he reacted quickly and slipped into the big hole on the roof with a turn in the air before conjuring a thick layer of air element armor. After the second figure forced back Ibene, he also flew away.

Then everyone heard a very strange sound in the shrine, a constant cracking, and crunching, and after several minutes, they heard a loud boom, like something heavy collapsing and falling to the ground. The guards on duty had followed the direction in which the troublemakers had fled, while the priests rushed into the main hall to see what had happened to Ibene.

Rod Drick was just about to get out of the car when this turn of events occurred. As he looked up at the sky in a daze, he missed his footing and fell on his face. The governor had fallen down when he was stepping off his carriage, but the guards who should have supported him also turned their heads to look at the sky, and failed to hold onto him! However, Rod Drick couldn’t care less about this. He got up and ordered the entire city to be on alert to arrest the assassins.

Lord Drick called the two men “assassins”, but they did not assassinate anyone. If they had, it was only to assassinate the statue of Seth. The first “assassin” rushed into the shrine and swung his sword before immediately crashing through the roof and flew away without stopping. When the priests rushed into the shrine, they could only see Lord Ibene standing on the floor looking at the statue of Seth with a shocked expression.

On the tall and solid stone statue, a crack slowly appeared on the brow, followed by more and more cracks spreading everywhere like spiderwebs. Finally, with a crunching sound, Seth’s statue collapsed into pieces all over the floor.

Rod Drick ordered the “assassin” to be apprehended, but who was the assassin? No idea! What does he look like? No one could see! How do they catch him, it was impossible to find! But Rod Drick had to make such a gesture, and the An-Ra legion and the city garrison were mobilized to search for suspicious people around the territory day and night, and a lot of troublemakers and local ruffians were caught in the process, making a lot of noise!

This was a very serious matter. During the city’s major ceremony, where military and political officials were present, and in full view of the people, that person had chopped the statue of Seth with a sword! If the matter was pursued, including Rod Drick and Ibene, everyone was guilty. Knowing that he could not catch the “assassin”, Rod Drick had to do his best to hunt him down, and at the same time, he had already written a plea and was about to send it to the capital of Ejypt along with a detailed report of the incident.

Rod Drick could only suffer in silence, for, in fact, he knew who those two people were. The first one who rushed into the shrine and wielded a sword was Amon. Although no one could see his face, Rod Drick was more than familiar with the figure and aura, and even if he only took a sweeping glance, he could recognize Amon. The second figure in the air who had swung the axe to repel Ibene, of course, was Gabriel. It seemed that the supreme warrior had found Amon, and was now following Amon to do such an absurd thing, causing Rod Drick to suffer an unwarranted disaster.

After the guilty plea was written, Rod Drick called his trusted aides to come and privately instructed what people to greet in the capital and what kind of heavy gifts to send, so as to help him to mitigate the damage. This matter was his bad luck, and the Pharaoh would definitely reprimand him, but as long as there was no substantial punishment it would be fine. Before the words were finished, Rod Drick received another news which made him greatly relieved.

Turns out that just three days after the statue of Seth was chopped down in the main shrine of Cape with a sword, the same thing happened in the city of Djanet that was the closest city to Cape. On that day, there was no sacrificial ceremony in Djanet, everything was very quiet, but all of a sudden someone came flying through the air and smashed a big hole in the roof of the main shrine, and then flew out from the big hole after cutting down the statue of Seth with a sword.

When the governor of Djanet received the emergency report, he had just finished his meal and was going down the stairs. Upon hearing the news, his legs went weak and he rolled down the stairs, breaking an arm. The guards standing beside him were severely punished, how could they not hold onto their lord?

The governor of Djanet was not as calm as Rod Drick when it came to such things, so he probably got the shock of his life. On the other hand, Rod Drick was relieved. He was not sure why Amon and Gabriel were doing that, but he understood what they were doing, and they were certainly not intentionally giving Cape a hard time to bring trouble to him. The Pharaoh’s reprimand would certainly still be there, but there will not be any substantial punishment, and there might even be a few private words of comforting.

Rod Drick let his men go to the capital as planned, with gifts and the petition, while keeping a close eye on the other cities. Seven days later, the same thing happened in Bushiri, west of Djanet, and half a month after that, an assassin broke into the main shrine of Bubast, south of Djanet, and smashed the statue of Seth with his sword.

The next month or so, in the city of Atri, the city of Rocai, and the city of Heliopolite on the east bank of the Nile River, a series of earth-shattering events happened. The content was the same, but the time and place was different. A crazy “assassin” coldly rushed into the city’s main shrine and simply cut down the statue of Seth without doing anything else, and then flew away into the sky.

In Cape, Gabriel also appeared, but in these cities, Gabriel did not appear at all.

This man must be crazy, a madman of madmen, making such crazy moves beyond the world’s imagination! But he was so powerful, so terrifyingly powerful! All the people were talking about him as a mad supreme sorcerer, and he was at least an eighth-level sorcerer, because he could fly, while the sword in his hand emitted power with a dazzling and shocking magical effect. As for what kind of magical effect it was, the general public could not figure it out.

What kind of strange and terrifying existence was this supreme sorcerer who did not use a staff but used a sword instead? The shrine was such a solemn and noble place, but that person kicked in the door and rushed in as if seeking revenge for something. If one said he was a desperate criminal, he did not seem like one either, for this man did not hurt anyone, he just destroyed Seth’s statues. There were probably countless small and large statues of Seth around Ejypt, but he only looked for the ones in the main shrine of each city.

In more than two months’ time, that person had already destroyed the statues of Seth in seven cities to the east of Nile River in Lower Ejypt. The impact of this matter was too big, and the whole Ejyptian Empire was almost turned upside down. The various garrisons had been mobilized to search for the perpetrator, while the Ejyptian Academy of Magic, and the Military Department of the Empire also sent a large number of experts to chase.

As for those cities not yet visited by the assassin, all of them were now on high alert, and their respective main shrines were now heavily guarded so that they would not let this “blasphemous demon” get away. Amon’s title had now been upgraded from “assassin” to “blasphemous demon”. His purpose was not to fight with the military, but simply to destroy an immovable statue of Seth placed in the shrines. Nobody could tell which city he would visit next.

The cities of Ejypt could not possibly remove the statue of Seth from the main shrine, dig a pit and hide it inside the pit. In fact, after Amon destroyed the statues of Seth in four cities, the nearby cities were already on alert, but he still managed to succeed. Even if a group of priests and warriors were sent to guard the doors, they still would not be able to stop Amon’s surprise attack.

Heliopolite even went as far as to gather all the mages in the city to lay a magic formation in the shrine, but the mages also cannot possibly stay on alert forever. After waiting for a month without anything happening, just as everyone let down their guard, Amon suddenly crashed through the door into the shrine. Before the mages had the time to activate the magic formation, Amon had already vanished without a word after destroying the statue.

So far, no one had seen the face of this madman, and although Rod Drick knew, he did not tell anyone, so nobody knew that the “blasphemous demon” was Amon. Later, all kinds of rumors spread like a plague in the Ejypt empire, and some people even speculated that the person was not some demon, but a god who had a feud with Seth!

There were obviously a lot of experts in the Ejyptian Empire, and the Ejyptian Academy of Magic also sent people to various cities to examine the statues that were destroyed. Several elders of the academy saw the remains of the statues and listened to the detailed description of the scene by those present, and agreed that the man was at least an eighth-level supreme warrior, or even a ninth-level supreme warrior.

A supreme warrior who could fly freely was an astounding existence! In the traditional concept, this was a divine power possessed only by gods or divine emissaries. A powerful warrior could leap with all his might and be capable of rushing into the shrine to break the statue, and could also break through the roof and run away, but not instantly fly straight to the sky without a trace.

The divine emissaries were usually called gods on earth, such as the cat god Bastet, the frog goddess Heqet, the crocodile god Sobek, etc. There were ten heavenly gods in the Ennead divine clan, including Horus, and the rest of the gods were regarded as divine emissaries. Nowadays, the Ejyptian Empire believed in An-Ra as the only god, so the rest of the gods and emissaries were called neteru, and Seth was the head of the neteru.

If they were actually facing such a “neteru”, the situation would be even more serious!

Some of the supreme mages privately discussed that this might be the former king Horus taking revenge. After examining the two destroyed statues, Burk, one of the elders of the Academy of Magic and the former high priest of the Shrine of Isis and now the Temple of Seth, reported to Pharaoh Merneptah that the means of destroying the statues resembled the skills of the miners in Duc, and therefore guessed that the person was probably Amon.

Burk was right, and his guess was well-founded. Because after Supreme General Amon left Ejypt, he was worshipped as God Amon in the city of Salem in the Plains of Duc, so perhaps he already possessed the means of the gods.

Was Amon actually a god who came to earth, or a divine emissary sent to earth by a certain divine clan? Otherwise, how could a small miner in Duc miraculously establish great merit that shocks the continent? The people who saw this secret report of Burk could not help but think so, but no one could say it openly.

Although Amon had been away from Ejypt for a year, his reputation had not diminished at all, and he was still idolized and admired by many people, while the poems that praise him were still sung everywhere. Even though the Pharaoh of Ejypt sent his men to hunt down Amon, it was a secret order that was not made public. On the surface, Supreme General Amon did not violate any Ejyptian law, and as for the killing of Prince Snek, the matter was later dropped, and no one in the court was willing to mention his name, but Amon’s influence among the people was growing.

As a matter of fact, Amon only went to the Plains of Duc, which was also his homeland and was publicly decreed to be rewarded to him by the late Pharaoh. So the general’s act was not a defection, but a return to his hometown with the Pharaoh’s reward after building a successful career to build his dream city. On his way back to his hometown, Amon also defeated the supreme mage Celia of Hittite, the beautiful invincible princess, and thus got the support of the Hittite Empire to establish his city.

This was how the story of Amon was told among the people, and it was also true that Amon’s reputation had not only not diminished in the hearts of the people of Ejypt, but his legend had made even more people aspire and revere him, and his influence had even surpassed that of any famous heroes in history.

Amon was worshipped as a god in the city of Salem, and after hearing about it, many people worshipped him even more from the bottom of their hearts. — If the gods really came down to earth and experienced everything as mortals, then it should be like Amon, who is the god people dream of.

Why did Amon have such a great influence, many people probably did not expect it, but after thinking about it, it made sense. In this hierarchical society, Amon’s experience had broken through too many constraints and obstacles and was the dream of most ordinary people.

His origin was just a lowly miner’s son in Duc, his home was destroyed when he was a teenager and he became a wanderer, but he was able to eventually achieve great feats that astounded the continent and built a miraculous city in his hometown, where he was eventually worshipped as a god. His story was more inspiring than the deeds of any exalted emperor.

Many people worship Amon, to put it bluntly, out of a psychology of self-replacement and compensation. The vast majority of people in the world could not have noble origins, but Amon was once the same person as they were. Even if you could not do the things you can dream of, Amon had done it, and in their dreams, it was as if they had done it themselves.

Merneptah and several of the Empire’s top brass could not say it publicly even if they agreed with Burk’s speculation. If the Ejyptian Empire really caught the blasphemous “demon” and found that he is indeed Amon, they would also not declare that he is Amon, but use another name or title instead.

But catching the “demon” was not going to be easy. Even if he is not a “neteru”, for a ninth-level warrior to use more than two months’ time to merely destroy seven statues, it was impossible to determine his location, not to mention gathering experts to hunt him down.

After the seven cities had their main shrines visited by the “demon”, his erratic movements finally became clearer. All seven cities had been located east of the Nile River and belonged to Lower Ejypt. From the route that he took, he should have entered the Ejyptian territory from Cape, and from east to west and then south, he should have crossed the Nile River and arrived at Memphis next.

People who already knew or guessed that the “demon” was Amon, such as Rod Drick, knew more or less what was going on in their hearts. –He wanted to destroy the statues of Seth in the main shrines of all the cities of Ejypt, one by one, to openly challenge and humiliate Seth in front of the world.