Silent Crown

"As the backbone of the Church, are you sure it's appropriate for you to say that?" asked Ye Qingxuan.

"Every high-level officer of the Church should know one thing: the faith is for the worshipers only. We don't need to fool ourselves with that." Shi Dong smiled weirdly. "I'm old anyway. Old men tend to have some wild thoughts."

"You can say whatever you like," said Ye Qingxuan. Shaking his head, he continued, "You may continue. I'm curious about the secret of the Religious Court. What on earth is it?"

"As we are only used by the senior officers as tools, we shall not get to know too much. If you want to know that, you may need to ask the Pope."

"I have asked him actually."

"But he didn't tell me." Ye Qingxuan shrugged.

"Then there is nothing we can do. If the popes don't want to tell you, no one can help you." Shi Dong shook his head pitifully.

Shi Dong obviously knew about the truth of the King of Red as he said "popes" instead of "pope." but it was normal as he was once the most powerful leader of the knights.

"The Forbidden Technologies you mentioned just now, are they all from the Church?" Ye Qingxuan asked.

"Part of them, yes," Shi Dong answered.

Shi Dong explained, "The other part came from Catastrophes. It was like a jigsaw puzzle. We humans have part of it, yet the rest were taken by the catastrophes. We, as tools to fight against the catastrophes, are only allowed to know this much."

Ye Qingxuan walked behind Shi Dong, thinking along the way. For a very long time, the Sacred City had led the development of the countries with its technology which was tens of years ahead of all countries. The Church controlled the best technology. Even the Chainsaw Fraternity, who got separated from the Church, had technology far better than what anyone could think of.

The beacons for detecting Aether density and transmitting information, churches and the refuge facilities in churches, as well as the Aether balancers, they had such great achievements in all subjects.

The Church's budget on research was far below that of any research institute. Yet they got so much ahead of those other research institutes. This was puzzling.

Ye Qingxuan realized that there must be something no one had expected in it. Compared to conduct researches to improve technology, it was easier to block existing technologies. In that case, what they needed to do was reveal them gradually, and not much investment was need.

It's just that…

"How advanced is the technology controlled by the Church?"

"No idea," said Shi Dong.

Shi Dong shook his head. "Except the water tank, there is more technology that is not known to the world, not to mention the related files or products made available to the world. We were never allowed to know any of that.

"It's not only about weapons. Some files even have priority levels higher than the Purgatory built by Gaius; they are mostly from the catastrophes.

"Compared with the human world, the secret they held were much to terrible and massive. The world might be wiped out by those powers if someone got careless. Therefore, they were sealed."

Then he paused and gave a mocking smile. "After all, all this is to maintain the 'Correct' history."

From the Catastrophes?

Frowning, Ye Qingxuan said "What catastrophe would communicate with humans except the Three Wise Men and the Three Pillar Gods?"

"None." Shaking his head, Shi Dong said, "They cannot speak any language. How can they communicate with humans? What's more, if you want something, you can rob it instead of trading for it. Just like the snake of crystal."

The Naica Nest of the Crystals. Ye Qingxuan recalled his memory of the ruin he had been to before he went to Romulus—the crystalized earth and the deep hole. That was the evidence of the fight between the humans and the catastrophes. Yet, what have men gotten from the body of the snake of crystal?

The body of the catastrophes were made of pure aether and music theories circulated all over the body. There was no flesh or blood. The death of it is caused by the collapse of the core music theory and then the body couldn't be kept long. It would collapse into pure aether and disappear for a long time. Then, it would resurface to the world. There, it was not in any way similar to a tiger's skins and bones, which could be made into leather robes and medical wines.

How did the churches get the forbidden technology from the catastrophes?

In the silence, the two walked down the wall and into the courtyard. Surrounded by walls, the courtyard was empty, without even a single tree or any grass, not to mention flowers.

There was nothing to see in the courtyard.

Shi Dong stopped at the center of the yard. He turned back and looked at Ye Qingxuan. "Sir, please get everyone out of here," he said in a low voice. "This might be a good place for talking about secrets."

Ye Qingxuan immediately understood what he said. Compared to a closed room which could be monitored or bugged, this kind of open ground was safer. There was no room to hide. And Ye Qingxuan's Wyrmrest enchantment could fend off any one who wanted to wiretap them.

Ye Qingxuan thought about it for a while. Then he nodded and looked behind him. Then everyone following him went away. Then, he deployed two layers of sound-isolator and his Wyrmrest enchantment at a diameter of two meters.

"As you wish, Mr. Shi Dong." Ye Qingxuan said, "You may now say what you want to tell me. And it's also the best chance now if you want to assassinate me."

"What I'm telling you now, is what the first leader of the Witch's Hammer and Grand Inquisitor told me when he died." Shi Dong lowered his eyes. "It is the secret he kept for his whole life. If it is disclosed, even the Religious Court of Inquisitors would be purged ruthlessly by the Church. It's about the real body of the catastrophes."

"The real body?" Ye Qingxuan was surprised.

"Yes. The real body." Shi Dong said, "Or its 'source'—the power and essence of it. That is the reason why catastrophes don't die.

"The catastrophe we called is only a very small fraction of something hidden in the darkness. If we don't destroy the roots, they will come back into life endlessly.

"We can only kill them by destroying their real body. The whereabouts of the real body and the source is the biggest secret of each and every catastrophe and their only weak point."

Shi Dong continued, "The technology and secrets held by the Church are also from the real bodies of the catastrophes. Up until now, men have killed six catastrophes. The real bodies of them were kept in secret by the Church, bringing us a lot of technologies and power beyond imagination—weapons, power, music theories, medications, you name it. Every catastrophe is a great treasure, even corrupted ones.

"The 'Hundred Years' War' between Anglo and Burgundy was for the ruin where a catastrophe's real body was buried."

Silence.

In the silence, Ye Qingxuan got his pipe with his trembling hand. He was thrilled. He filled the pipe with Tabaco, lit it and smoked to calm himself. He puffed out the smoke and re-found his faith which had been ruined by Shi Dong's words. But it was not like before.

"Every catastrophe has its real body?" he asked.

Shi Dong nodded. "The Three Pillar Gods are special. They came from the Originator, which cannot be figured out for sure. Except them, as observed and documented by the Church, every other catastrophe has.

"The Three Wise Men, the Four Living Creatures, the Eight Phenomena and everyone else, they all have their own origins."

"What exactly are their real bodies?

"No one knows." Shi Dong shook his head. "In the three wars against catastrophes, the last phase of the wars was carried out by a secret force I never knew anything about. I have never seen a real body of any catastrophe but the vague contour of one.

"I had once, on my escort mission, seen them carrying something to the cart. It was a huge container, covered with heavy dust cloth. I might be mistaken. But I think the size of the thing was not fixed.

"At the first time, it took a whole month and six trips by train to transport the real body. Yet, at the second time, only several men and a suitcase were needed. Maybe different catastrophes have different real bodies. They may be of different levels.

"The musicians told me there was nothing peculiar that could be sensed about the real bodies. We may think they are worthless if judging from their appearances."

Ye Qingxuan couldn't help ask, "What would happen if the catastrophe abandons its real body?"

Shi Dong thought about for a while and shook his head. "I don't know. But, I guess they may lose their powers if they are alive and may not be able to reborn if they die. However, the power will not disappear if the origin is not destroyed. There will be new catastrophes born from it." ƒ𝓇e𝙚𝔀𝐞𝚋𝓃𝐨𝘷e𝙡.𝒄𝗼m

"Really?" Ye Qingxuan murmured.

Shi Dong glanced at him and said, "No catastrophe as I know has done this. What kind of creature would be so silly as to give up eternal life?"

Ye Qingxuan smiled as if mocking himself and felt relieved. With no particular reason, he became happier and sadder at the same time.

"That's right." Lowering his eyes, he murmured, "No creature except humans commit suicide, right?"

Boss, it seems you really are dead.

-

They talked until it was six o'clock in the morning. Yet there was no light at all in the darkness. Shi Dong looked tired. It was torture like hell to stay up late into the night as his life was at tis end.

"Thank you for telling me those things, Mr. Shi Dong." Ye Qingxuan removed the Wyrmrest enchantment and the sound isolating layers. Then, he poured the music theories of the Stone of Sages into Shi Dong's body, which turned into aether to circulate with his blood around his body, giving him great energy of life.

In great pain, Shi Dong vomited a lot of deep-purple sticky liquid, which smelt like corrupt body. Carroll and several apprentices got so scared that they hurriedly came up. Shi Dong raised his hand and waved them away.

Shi Dong looked even more haggard, yet his eyes brightened up.

"Is this the reward for following you? You are so generous, your holiness."

"Consider it a reward for telling me those secrets."

Shi Dong looked at Ye Qingxuan and seemed to understandwhat was on Ye Qingxuan's mind: you may not die now. You need to live until I allow you to die.

"Yes, your holiness." Shi Dong smiled bitterly and heaved a sigh. "I'm afraid you have known that the death of Hyakume means a lot more than it appears. The Sacred City will no longer be able to control this world. The descending of the abyss brought about not only darkness and wars, but also untied the bounds of the humans.

"I'm afraid more and more people will yearn for the power of the catastrophes. Even they are in deep trouble, they will want the secrets of the catastrophes. The war to decide the fate of the world will begin.

"Your holiness, it will begin very soon."

"Do you look forward to wars like that?" Ye Qingxuan asked.

"I'm old, your holiness. I'm abandoned by the time." Shi Dong shook his head in dismay. "The future belongs to the young and talented like you."

"The future?"

"Yes." Shi Dong smiled and looked at the dark sky.

The future…