"I won't marry him!"
"I absolutely refuse to marry Elliott!" Evelyn's voice tore through the heavy air of the hall, hoarse yet sharp enough to scorch everything in its path. Her slender back was ramrod straight, like a lute string about to snap. "My worth is not a bargaining chip for this kind of transaction! I'd rather undergo harsh ascetic training in the Sanctuary, I'd rather face the Black Tide on the front lines! I will never—"
"Silence!" A cry, ancient yet violently fierce, like a dull blade hacking into rotten wood, shattered Evelyn's declaration.
It was her grand-aunt who had spoken. The old woman's withered fingers gripped the chair back, knuckles white. Her murky eyes were nailed to Evelyn's face, burning with a near-frantic rage. "You know nothing! All you see is your own imagined grievance here! What use is your paltry priestess talent in this apocalyptic storm?!"
Her stick-like arm shot up, her fingertip cutting through the air as she stabbed it viciously towards the polished dark marble floor that reflected their figures, then swept it across the intricate golden reliefs and lavish tapestries adorning the walls. Her voice trembled violently with extreme agitation. "You don't know how many Moon people bones are buried beneath this very floor that holds us up, beneath these walls that keep the wind out!"
"You think Janusopolis is heaven? Bullshit! This is a fortress! A refuge built layer by layer with human lives! Every single brick here is soaked in blood!"
The old woman's chest heaved violently, a sickly flush rising on her gaunt face. Her eyes held Evelyn captive with a desperate, penetrating intensity:
"You dislike the man chosen for you? Think he's vulgar, all wealth and no nobility?! You're so clever… so clever your eyes only see the pretty words spoken in the Sanctuary?! Why don't you use that clever mind to think why, of all the people in the Sanctuary, it seems only you understand the preciousness of talent?!"
"Where are the Saints of the Sanctuary's past generations now? They're all dead! And the Hunter family, the Euly family, those giants of immense wealth—where are they now?! In the city center! The safest place! You don't know! You know nothing!"
She gasped for breath, a rasping sound like a broken bellows coming from her throat. Every word was like an ice pick dipped in poison, hammered straight into Evelyn:
"You don't know what a living hell it is outside because of that Black Tide! You don't know how many people are crowded at the foot of the city walls, waiting to crawl in, ready to sell their children for a patch of floor to lie down on out of the rain! You've heard a few kind words in the Sanctuary, a few verbal praises, and you think your wings have hardened? That you can fly? That you can kick away the family that bore and raised you, and do as you please?!"
The final sound was a roar that seemed to tear her vocal cords, carrying the force to destroy everything:
"Wake up, Evelyn! Open your eyes and look! This is no peaceful era for reciting poetry and admiring the moon! This is the end times! An apocalypse where merely surviving requires gritting your teeth until they shatter, clawing your nails into the mud just to gasp for air! The family needs this lifeline! And you—you need it too!"
"End times!"
The two words, like two massive, rusted bronze bells struck simultaneously by despair and madness, exploded in the hall—a place so opulent it was suffocating, yet as cold as a tomb—reverberating and clashing against each other.
The suffocatingly heavy sound wave instantly crushed the last trace of color from Evelyn's face and utterly tore apart the self-deceiving illusion of peace and choice deep within her heart.
She staggered, her lips moving but emitting no sound. Only her deathly pale cheeks and hollow, unfocused pupils reflected her grand-aunt's face, twisted with agitation.
…
Deep within the Sanctuary:
Helios's skeletal, eagle-claw-like fingers twisted a newly acquired gold coin set with a pigeon's-blood ruby, making it gleam with a seductive yet cold luster in the candlelight.
Listening to his confidant's report, a shrewd light flickered in his murky eyes. "...A spiritual resonance so pure it's almost primordial? That old fox Vittorio is hiding an uncut 'jade'! Tch, to fall into the hands of that antiquated stickler who only understands rules and abstinence—it's a sheer waste of heaven's gifts!"
He pressed the coin down onto the scroll spread on the table with a sharp *ding*, right on top of Cyrene's name. "Go. Find out her tastes, her preferences, that 'little brother' of hers who runs a food stall... Use the sweetest honey, the softest cushions to 'invite' her here."
"Tell her I can give her what she will never get from Vittorio... 'freedom' and 'value'. Remember, she must come 'willingly'... The more voluntary she is, the better the outcome for her and her brother!"
At the same time, High Priest Ascalon stood like an iron tower before a massive military map.
His finger, like a battering ram's head, thumped heavily on the raised marker representing Janusopolis, producing a dull thud.
"The makings of a Saint... Vittorio, you are indeed playing a deep game. Trying to cultivate a 'true divine spokesperson' who stands aloof and answers only to Oronyx? To break free from our shackles?"
A cold arc curled the corner of his mouth. "A pity, this 'banner' is too dazzling... In these dark end times, she is destined to be planted only on MY battlements!"
He turned his head, shadow covering half his rigid face, and issued an order to the black-armored figure beside him. "Verto, as the Golden Descendant I personally discovered, the time has come for you to serve me."
"I want her every breath, every meditation, to occur only under my watchful eyes! And that fellow named Phaethon by her side... Find an opportunity. Dispose of him. Vittorio wants to plant a tree? Then I'll help him... uproot the troublesome weeds as well!" The icy command echoed in the secret chamber, carrying an iron-blooded will that brooked no doubt.
"And the dust we encounter during the mission..." Verto's eyes flickered, a trace of thirst rising in his heart.
"Kill at will!"
"As you wish."
(Phaethon: Kill me? For real?
You having that thought makes you this …
If I let any of you survive, I'm this …)
"Teacher," Jacob stood beside one of the three High Priests of the Sanctuary, yet felt no sense of security. "Helios and Ascalon have already noticed Miss Cyrene's abnormality. Her progress is too fast; in less than a year, she's almost become a High Priestess. If not for you suppressing her rank..."
"No matter. Let me seek one more oracle." Vittorio solemnly prepared the altar.
"O Oronyx, your devout follower..." One moment, Vittorio was kneeling before the altar; the next, he nearly jumped to his feet. "What? Such a clear oracle? What do you mean, 'Cyrene is a Golden Descendant, I must go find Aglaea of Okhema, now, immediately, at once'?"
…
(Oronyx: Six-six-six! I took my eyes off things for a moment, and the semi-divine I personally chose was almost stolen from her home.)
(Author: Isn't that right~ You've driven the poor Titan to abandon riddles and speak plain language.)