Chapter 541 — Aftermath in the Shadows

The high priests fell into hushed discussion, and in the midst of it someone looked up at Bei Yila: "On this point we had already made certain conjectures. The key question now is—how great is the sun's influence, how much longer can the wall over the Gondor wasteland hold, and if everything is to come early... how much earlier, exactly?"

"Unfortunately the Book of Ultimates gives no answer—it is, after all, only a man-made counterfeit," Bei Yila said with a shake of her head. "And we do not know the specific technical details of the barrier the elves built, either."

A tall, lean middle-aged man looked toward the elf twins present: "We do happen to have two elves here..."

"What a pity—we know nothing of shield technology," the twin elves said with a giggle. "But there is at least one thing we can say for certain—our queen will surely take action; it may even be that the party she sends to warn the nations and repair the barrier has already set out by now."

When the twins had finished, Bei Yila cleared her throat softly and rose: "Whatever action the elves take, we must be prepared—in light of the wasteland's premature anomaly, we must consider moving our plan forward."

Someone gasped softly: "It has come to that?"

"It is the will of the Great High Priest," Bei Yila said, looking toward the source of the voice. "The answer the Book of Ultimates gives is not encouraging. We have no time to prepare slowly any longer."

One who sat at the far end of the long table stood up: "If the plan is to be moved forward, we must make contact with our brethren on the other side of the wall..."

"Owing to the communications failure in the Great Wall's system, contact between us and the wasteland has been cut," said a middle-aged man in a black robe, half his face mutated into something like tree bark. "In repairing the barrier, the elves will certainly update the communication channels, and our 'Dark Bridge' will fail utterly. We must now restore contact with our brethren in the wasteland as quickly as possible—so as to grasp conditions inside the wall."

"I have already sent men to contact the Sleepers—their mind-projection technique holds promise of breaking through the barrier's obstruction," Bei Yila said. "In addition, High Priest Hiten, how goes the biomass collection?"

The lean, tall High Priest Hiten, his face sinister, raised his head: "There are still shortfalls—the shift in the situation in the Southern Region was an unforeseen development."

"...We had assumed the Southern war would last at least several years, yet never expected that Gao Yang Cecil would simply flatten the entire allied noble army," another high priest said, shaking his head. "And he is spreading cremation and purification rites on a large scale across the Southern Region. In that land, usable biomass sources are pitifully few."

"Enough of these useless complaints," Bei Yila cut him off. "Whatever we have will have to do—the Body of the False God is nearly complete, and the missing biomass... after next spring, the king** and the Eastern army will naturally make it up for us."

The meeting ended.

One after another, figures draped in high-priest robes rose and left the hall, and the vast space soon fell quiet. Beiyila remained where she was and did not leave; apart from her, the last to go were only those twin elves.

"Beiyila, you have truly been restless of late," the twin elves said, coming up before the female hierarch. The two sisters, their faces blooming like flowers, smiled and spoke as one, like the same person reflected on either side of a mirror. "Shall we give you a bit of 'treatment'?"

"I am not yet so pitiable as that," Beiyila refused them coldly. "But you two—as elves, do you truly not care what becomes of the Silver Empire once the barrier collapses?"

"Haha," the twins laughed, clear and bright. Amid that silver-bell laughter they turned and walked away, leaving only a single sentence to drift into Beiyila's ear: "Aren't you just as indifferent to the fate of Typhon? Lady Augustus..."

Beiyila watched the twin elves' departing figures in silence. She let out an exceedingly faint sigh, then sat down in her seat and raised her head to gaze up at the ancient stone roof above.

"Augustus, is it... It has been so long since I heard that name."

On the mottled, ancient roof the magic-crystal lamps still burned bright. Around those lamps, the newly inlaid metal plates were arranged in neat rows, extending all the way to the tops of the nearby pillars; the runes upon the plates glimmered faintly in the darkness, as though breathing.

"Whatever Rong may say, the magic net really is a useful thing."