197 Obliteration (2)

“They’ll stay here until we confirm their true identities.”

With that said, he pointed the sword in his hand at William and moved to Diana.

“As for the two of you, return to Moonlaw City with me to meet Her Majesty and accept her judgment under the witness of the Holy Fire.”

Morton sneered at William, hoping to find fear or despair on his face.

!!
However, the other party only rolled his eyes.

“Why didn’t you say so earlier… Forget it. Hurry up. Stop wasting time.”

…

Moonlaw City was originally Ava State’s City of Sacrifices, the City of Priests. It wasn’t until they entered the city-state era that the priests who sacrificed to the mist became the first batch of magic chanters. Only then did Ava State become the City of Mages.

In the distant past, Moonlaw City was still the capital of Ava State. Every King of Mist had to be crowned here, and they would eventually disappear. As for those Kings of Mist, they were both the secular rulers of the Ava State and spokespersons of divine authority that symbolized the Mist Soul.

The Mist Soul consecrated in Moonlaw City corresponded to the Fire Soul in Phoenix Fire City and became the source of the two elven Fog and Fire.

Compared to humans on the Vic Continent who gave up on themselves to obtain extraordinary strength by imitating the shadows of the gods that were gone, the elves in Ava State were much luckier. Of course, from another perspective, it could be said to be much more unlucky.

This was because the souls of the elven ancestors didn’t completely turn into nothingness like humanity’s ancient gods. They only had collective memories as a race. On the contrary, They had always existed in Currere with their true forms and were truly worshiped by the elves.

On the one hand, this allowed the elves to struggle in the quagmire of divine authority for much longer than humans. If a real god was around them and they could clearly realize that everything from birth to death couldn’t do without Him, this faith would naturally be indelible.

On the other hand, once rationality was awakened in such an environment, the disintegration of theocracy would become extremely complete. It was precisely because of the ethereal nature of human faith that even though humans had entered the magical era that emphasized a rational spirit, superstition and ignorance constantly impacted their society. They had even regressed to an extremely terrifying level in the past 800 years.

However, once the holiness over a visible god’s body was removed, His altar would instantly collapse like a breached dam, leaving no chance of remedy. Gods were nothing special. Be it flames that could reflect the mist or reincarnate between life and death, they were just some special magical phenomena.

Although Ava State still nominally maintained Holy Fire worship and retained jobs like priests, those things only existed as cultural traditions.

“So this is your suggestion? Become that bullsh*t King of Mist? Do you think anyone other than that fellow whose mind is filled with war and glory will support your decision?”

This was the first thing Ward Windsong said after walking into the room.

This was Remides Shadowmoon’s collection room.

To be precise, it was the Ava State governor’s collection room, but considering the years she had been in power, it wouldn’t be a problem to say that it was her collection room.

She was standing at the end of the exhibition room. There were two display cabinets made of dragon crystal glass, and the faint light of countless magical barriers flickered on them.

The display cabinet on the left displayed an elegant longbow made of glass. There was also a quiver embedded with dragon scales hanging on the glass wall. A few arrows that were also made of glass lay quietly in the quiver.

In the right display cabinet floated a complicated crown woven from countless silver, hair-like metal threads. At a glance, the crown was like ring-shaped smoke floating in the air.

Remides didn’t answer Ward. Her eyes constantly swept between the two display cabinets.

Seeing this, Ward quickly walked behind her.

“You think you can succeed? You think you can reverse history for you and make you the spokesperson of the Mist Soul and the so-called King of Mist?”

Remides turned to look at him.

Those extremely empty eyes made Ward’s heart skip a beat, but he continued without losing his cadence, “Think about the general education you’ve received over the years. Faith is magic. You can control the mist around Ava State now because you’re the governor in the hearts of all elven citizens and the supreme ruler of Ava State. You cannot become the King of Mist with this crown alone because the citizens’ voices will pull you off your throne.”

Thousands of years of the free city-state era made it impossible for the High Elves to accept a King of Mist—who held authority and the power to kill—lord over them. However, without this faith as a cornerstone, the complete power of the Mist Soul could never be displayed in the form of personalization.

In the past, the King of Mist could summon heroic spirit troops from history for battle, but the current governor could only summon some afterimages from the past sporadically in the thick mist—those afterimages weren’t even under her control.

Therefore, when Ward heard Morton tell him that their governor planned on being crowned Ava State’s King of Mist, imbuing her with all powers and relying on the authority of the Mist Soul to resist the empire’s expeditionary army, all he felt was an absurdity.

After quietly listening to the other party finish speaking, Remides slowly said, “I know what you plan on doing.”

“Of course you do. I’ve already laid out my plans at the Mooncycle Conference. What else don’t you know?” Ward immediately interrupted the other party.

“Let me finish…” Remides said slowly, and an invisible pressure couldn’t help but emit from her body.

“To be honest, I don’t care about being governor or being King of Mist. I don’t even want to bother about Ava State’s future. Do you want to know why?”

Her voice was very light and clear, and the invisible pressure revealed by her voice gave Ward goosebumps.

Ward shook his head carefully.

“Because 1,200 years is enough to obliterate everything.”

The word ‘aged’ didn’t exist in elvish. After Ava State came into contact with the other intelligent races on the Vic Continent, they added this concept to their language, although they still couldn’t understand it very well.

But now, Ward felt that he understood the meaning of the word ‘aged’ from the other party’s tone.

“The years will obliterate everything about you. First, it’s passion, emotions, then desire. Later on, even memories begin to blur… Time is like a file that will slowly grind away everything about you, and there’s only one thing that can remain.”

Remides stopped and pointed at the Mist Crown.

“Do you think I really want it?”

Then, she pointed at the Glazed Moon on the other side.

“Or do I want to pick it up again?”

Before Ward could answer, the other party said, “Neither. There’s only one thing that drives me forward now, and that’s a promise—a promise I once made to a friend of mine. Now that he kept his promise to his death, I should do my best at the end of my life.”

“Wait… What did you say about the end of life?” Ward hurriedly asked when he heard the other party say something amiss.