Sword of Dawn

Page 146

That is the voice of the Lord.

The voice of the Lord is whispering and indistinguishable, but it also contains endless wisdom, and one needs to listen attentively to discern a trace of the truth of the world.

Veronica stood quietly beside the Pope, she lowered her head slightly, soft and quiet, the holy light emanating from her rippled in the hall, enveloped everyone, and those who The holy light emanating from the bishop produced extremely complex and non-stop micro-resonances.

This "sacred resonance" is the source of the ubiquitous light in the entire Holy Light Cathedral.

After the bishops finally finished their reports and the rumbling voices in the Great Hall of Light quieted down, Saint Ivan III opened his eyes slightly and said in a hoarse voice, "Is it over..."

Veronica bent down beside the Pope: "Yes, Your Majesty, the bishops have left."

"I heard the voice of the Lord just now," Saint Ivan III said in a low voice, "That is really a great voice... The Lord must be pleased with our efforts."

"Yes, the Lord is pleased with what we have done," Veronica said softly, "He wants to make this world his heaven on earth, so we must clean up the heresy and evil in the world for the Lord."

"We must cleanse the world of heresy and evil for the Lord..." St. Ivan III muttered in a low voice, and slowly fell into a deep dream, and went to the dream to continue to embrace the indescribable whisper from the God of Holy Light whisper.

Cecil Territory, in the buffer camp by the Whitewater River.

After receiving permission to settle down, a place to lie down and sleep, and a hot meal, those from the Whitsunday Plains area who had been terrified for dozens of days finally felt a little bit of peace of mind.

They thanked the lord for his kindness, and lamented that Gawain Cecil was indeed a hero who was broad-minded and protected the people as in the legend, but more, they were thinking about their future survival.

They can't enter the city for the time being - although they have seen the clean and prosperous city, but before passing the final review, he must live in a "buffer camp" outside the city, which is the last source of their uneasiness .

No one knows what the content and form of the review is, and no one knows how long the review process will last, and what the result will be if they fail the review. Although they understand the lord's caution in this regard, as long as one day does not elute Suspected of "cultists", they can't rest assured for a day.

These people who had fled here from the Holy Spirit Plain all the way gathered in the big hut assigned to them, discussing the future and the past in low voices, and then the door of the hut was suddenly pushed open.

They raised their heads nervously, and saw an exceptionally tall figure standing at the door.

They thought it was a strong warrior, but soon they saw that the man was wearing a priest's robe.

The robe was frayed and faded, but it could still be seen that it was the robe of a Holy Light priest.

Everyone was tense and agitated.

"Don't be afraid," Wright opened his hands and walked slowly towards those who were showing fear and vigilance, "I have no weapons, no malicious intentions, and I am not here to interrogate heretics.

"I just wanted to talk to you guys."

Chapter 0351

Looking at the people in front of him who were full of vigilance, vigilance and even hatred towards him, Wright was silent for a while.

He wasn't a good preacher--not even a good priest, he'd known that for a long time.

He was just an orphan picked out of the pyre, and his survival was due to the kindness of the old abbot of the monastery. For the entire 20 years before he awakened the talent of the Holy Light, he was just a handyman and servant in the monastery. Unlike those priests of orthodox background, who have received a complete theological education, and are not like those lucky ones who are gifted and intelligent, who can learn how to face the intrigue of the upper priest group in a short period of time.

In the year when the old abbot died, he felt the call of the Holy Light while weeping bitterly. The "spiritual talent", a treasure bestowed by God, saved him from being reduced to a slave labor in a monastery after the death of his protector. From then on, he took off the burlap clothes of a servant and put on the robe of a priest, but he was still that rude and lowly servant in the eyes of everyone. He received the full education that a formal priest should receive, and It is so strict that it is almost harshly fulfilling every virtue standard recorded in those sacred books-because the old dean once said that those virtues are the biggest difference between human beings and beasts.

But after he learned all those things and turned them into his own rules of conduct, he found that he was farther away from other priests. The teachings of the Holy Light, which he valued so much, did not seem to be in the eyes of most priests in this era. not that important...

He knew that he was a different kind of priest, and he knew that the regulations he stubbornly followed were outdated in the eyes of the priests of this era. He knew all the slander, calculation and exclusion behind them, but he never said that.Because he still firmly believes in one last thing: Holy Light, after all, is used to protect others, the God of Holy Light, after all, protects this world, and those who use Holy Light, even if they no longer value classical Virtue, they are at least on the side of justice.

Therefore, he accepted the exclusion of the church, which was the price of his "untimeliness". He also accepted the task of preaching in the wilds of the southern border without any support, because spreading the gospel of the Holy Light was what he was most happy to do. things, but he...can't face these people in front of him calmly.

Even in the most failed and difficult times of his preaching, what he faced was nothing more than the numbness of the people, but on the faces of these people, what he saw was real hatred and hostility.

"I am the priest of the Cecil Territory, Wright Aviken, you can call me Wright," the tall Wright walked up to those people and sat down slowly, "I am the only priest of the Holy Light in this land ——So you can regard me as the person in charge of the Holy Light Church here. As you can see, I have no weapons and no hostility. I have left the central area of ​​the Holy Light Church. Now, I just want to know where the Holy Spirit Plain is In the end what happened."

"You burned down our church!"

A young woman yelled uncontrollably, but she was immediately pulled by the man next to her.

There are more than 20 people here, but there is only one Wright, but these 20 people are in great tension - because they know that the pastor in front of them is an extraordinary person, and the power of an extraordinary person cannot be resisted by ordinary people. What's more, this pastor still has those bulging muscles. Even if he doesn't have extraordinary strength, the people present may not necessarily be his opponents...

And there is a more important point: this priest is the only priest in the territory, does this mean that this priest was sent by the lord to "examine" them?

They didn't expect that after finally escaping from the Plain of the Holy Spirit, they would have to accept the scrutiny of the priests of the Holy Light in this new sanctuary.

Wright saw the nervousness of these people, and he slowed down his tone: "Please rest assured, I only represent myself-I don't represent the lord, and at this moment, I don't even represent the church. Regarding the burning of the church, I am on my way Then I heard rumors that the Holy Light Priest of the Holy Spirit Plain...why burn down the churches of other sects?"

People look at me, I look at you, and finally someone spoke again: "Because they found evidence of someone performing cult rituals in the church...and the priest of the church did turn into a monster because of the out-of-control magic... "

"Then why were you exiled? I can feel that you are all just ordinary people..."

"They forced us to change our beliefs," the woman who spoke first covered her face, "They lit a fire with the Holy Light, and asked us to make a choice beside the fire. If we convert to the Holy Light and donate half of our wealth as a ransom, It means innocence. If you don’t convert to the Holy Light, you have to walk through the fire to prove your innocence. They say that the fire lit by the Holy Light will only burn guilty people to death. If you die in the fire, it is evil. The minions of the believers..."

The person next to him continued: "Some people were pushed into the fire, some people converted to the Holy Light, and we... escaped early."

This topic has been opened, and these people who have been terrified for a long time seem to have been suffocated to a critical point. At this moment, they can no longer care about anything, and they all open their mouths to talk about the hardships along the way——

"As soon as we escaped, they said that we were all bewitched by evil gods, and we were already hopelessly depraved..."

"They burned the house we left in the city, took away the property in our house, and hunted down those who escaped with the lord..."

"We spent all our money, bought soldiers and merchants, and ran south from the Holy Spirit Plain—because the north is close to the capital, and there are more Churches of Holy Light there..."

"We rode in a carriage, then walked to Pittsburgh, and ended up stuffed like fish in the cabin, hidden and searched among the wine barrels, and we could barely lie down to sleep - only a few at a time. , everyone takes turns sleeping..."

"Three people died on board and were thrown into the river..."

Wright listened quietly to what happened to everyone. Under his priest's robe, his fists were clenched again and again.

He hardly dared to imagine that this was something that his former church compatriots would do... Are those people crazy?Did the last sliver of Holy Light's teaching also disappear from their minds?

Who judges heresy?Who came up with the idea of ​​lighting a fire with holy light to identify evil?What is the ransom money!

After everyone finished speaking, the scene was silent for a long time, until Wright took the initiative to break the silence: "In the city... there is a small church in the north of the mage district, that is my church.

"No, I won't force you to convert. I just want to tell you that if any of you get sick or injured in the future, or if your child wants candy, you can find me there...I'm always here."

After saying this, the strong priest who looked like a warrior stood up and left as quickly as if he was running away, leaving the people in the shed looking at each other in dismay.

Wright quickly crossed the streets and returned to the church. He took out the letter from the headquarters of the regional church from his arms, and carefully read every word on it—now, he finally knew what this letter was. What does it mean in the letter that the Pope called on churches at all levels to fight heresy?

After reading the letter, after a long silence, he finally raised his other hand and rubbed it lightly twice.

A white flame burst out from his fingertips. It was a slightly dimmed holy light, but it was still enough to ignite the paper—after a few seconds, the letter turned into a handful of ashes blown by the wind.

Outside the church, a lazy and elegant female figure who seemed out of tune with the surrounding pedestrians stopped for a while.

This is a tall woman wearing a lavender gauze dress. In this cold early spring, her thin dress is extremely eye-catching, but the pedestrians around seem to have not seen this woman, but one by one from her. walked around.

The woman wore the same lavender veil on her face, revealing only a pair of curious eyes, which were looking in the direction of the church gate at the moment—even though the gate was closed now, she seemed to be able to see through it. The gate seemed to see the situation inside, and laughed softly while watching: "Hmph... Humans are really a complicated creature..."

Then the woman withdrew her gaze, and looked at the already developed and large-scale city in front of her.

"Again...how did this place develop so fast...when were these small buildings built, and when did these people pop up..." the woman muttered as she crossed her hips, "go up The next time I came here, it was still a shed!"

Just after muttering this sentence, a clear but annoying exclamation suddenly came from behind: "Wow! It's you again!"

The woman turned her head in an instant, and sure enough, she saw the dwarf melon-like, half-elf, half-god-know-what guy standing behind her, and quite impolitely used a half frosting stick (a kind of stick of frosting) in his hand. local snacks) pointing to himself.

Then the annoying half-breed creature yelled again: "And you're still wearing the same clothes and veil as last time - why are you so poor?"

Melita Pernia, a senior agent of Mithril Treasury, a top service practitioner who specializes in dealing with high-end customers, a well-trained and elegant lady, at this moment wants to kick this guy out again.

But the next second she spoke with a reserved and dignified smile: "I'm here to visit Duke Gawain Cecil, please lead the way."

"Oh," Amber quickly stuffed half a stick of frosting into her mouth, chewed and swallowed it, then stretched out her hand, "Six copper coins."

Melita Purnia's eyebrows twitched: "Didn't it be three last time?"

"It's increased, I'm now a big official, and it's twice as expensive," Amber plausibly said, "You'd better make a decision quickly, maybe you will have to increase later..."

Half an hour later, Gao Wen, who was studying mechanical design drawings in the study, was suddenly interrupted by a cry from the door: "Hey! Gao Wen! Someone is looking for you!"

Gawain raised his head abruptly, and looked at Amber in surprise, "How did you enter through the door... eh? Miss My little pony?"

"Long time no see, Your Excellency the Duke—and once again, please read my name correctly," Melita Purnia bowed gracefully and said with a smile, "I have brought the goods you ordered."

Chapter 0352 The Second Eternal Slate

To be honest, if it wasn't for this rainbow... this Miss Melita came to the door, in fact, Gao Wen would have almost forgotten his deal with Mithril Treasure.

He hopes that the Mithril Vault can find him a second Eternal Tablet.

"Hope you didn't have to wait too long," said Melita, who was wearing a thin veil in any event, but from behind that veil she could be seen smiling quite appropriately (although I don't know why whenever When she turned her head to look at Amber, the smile would be distorted for a moment), "We must act according to the regulations - the original owner of this stone slab violated the agreement with Mithril Treasure, but we have to wait for his The stone slab can only be disposed of by itself after the repayment period has passed.”

As she spoke, the mysterious agent of the Mithril Treasury raised her hand casually—a metal plate exuding a light golden metallic light had appeared in her hand at some point: "This is what you want' Cargo', you can check it."

She didn't seem to be worried at all that Gao Wen would snatch the slate or use other methods to tear up the agreement on the spot.

Of course, Gao Wen did not mean to tear up the agreement, he just took the metal fragment in Melita's hand solemnly, and at the same time couldn't help but say: "Such an important thing even has a matching Don't you have any containers at all...you should at least wrap it in oiled paper."

Melita smiled slightly: "If the luxurious container has no protective function, it is just a flashy decoration. No one can snatch things from the senior agent of Mithril Treasury, so the stone slab does not need any additional packages."

What the other party said seemed to make sense, Gao Wen's mouth twitched, and then he lowered his head and carefully observed the metal plate in his hand.

Like the Eternal Slate he got before, this metal slab is still just a slap-sized fragment, but its edge shape is a little different from the first slate, which made him guess that maybe each slate fragment is similar in size but The silhouette is different.Familiar straight lines and incomprehensible patterns can be seen on the surface of the metal plate, and an unknown, slightly shiny light blue crystal is inlaid on the back. Wen judged this thing to be true.

No one in the world is better at identifying the authenticity of the Eternal Slate—the ripples in the spiritual world at the moment of trying to resonate with the Slate are the best proof of identification.

The last time he resonated with the slate, he heard a battle report of a Zentraedi star fleet defeating the gods. What enlightenment will he get this time?

Gao Wen could hardly hold back the urge to try, but in order to avoid being noticed by Melita, he suppressed the idea of ​​"flying into the sky" on the spot, and put the slate on the table calmly: "I checked I can't tell it's fake."

"Then according to the original agreement, you should pay enough 'reward' in exchange for an Eternal Slate," Melita smiled brightly, even a veil could not hide her smile, "It can be equivalent to the Eternal Slate The "extraordinary things" can also be a large amount of Gondor knowledge and relics, but the conventional gold, silver and jewelry in the world will not work - no matter how many meaningless things there are, they can't compare with the Eternal Slate."

At the end, Melita kindly reminded: "I am also responsible for evaluating whether the 'remuneration' you provided meets the requirements. If it is not enough, then I will take this slate—but within ten years , we'll keep it for you until you can afford the starting price. That's what you get as a premium customer."

"You don't have to wait ten years, I'm ready for the reward," Gao Wen smiled slightly, and raised his hand to greet Amber, "Go to the treasury, the 'Deep Asylum', and bring the 'God's Metal'."

Amber blinked, and whispered next to Gao Wen's ear: "There are a lot of them over there, which one to choose?"

"Emmmm... the bigger one, it looks like it will be very valuable. In fact, you can just hold one if you look at it, and any one is bigger than this eternal slate."

"Okay, I'm going now!"

After saying a word, Amber disappeared into the air in the blink of an eye.

"Please wait a moment, my personal guard has gone to pick up the goods from the treasury," Gawain nodded to Melita, "I promise you will be satisfied with the things."

Melita was obviously curious about what kind of exchange Gawain had prepared, but as a senior agent of the Mithril Treasury, she controlled her emotions well, and just nodded lightly and said, "I'm looking forward to it."

It didn't take long for Amber to return to the study—probably because it was inconvenient to carry heavy objects through the window, she still walked in through the door honestly.As soon as she entered the room, she put the thing she was holding in her hand in front of Melita with a "Duang" sound, with a smug expression on her face: "Come and see! Look at the color, look at the size! If you smash it, you can get a lot of it." slate……"

Melita was stunned when she saw the thing that Amber brought in, and when the thing slammed under her feet, the dignified and elegant senior agent even jumped up a little. She stared dumbfounded at the big piece The twisted and deformed metal object, which was obviously a broken piece of some kind of large-scale device, exclaimed: "This... what is this thing?! Where did you get it?!"

"We don't know either," Gawain said with a smile before the big-mouthed Amber opened his mouth. "We discovered it when the Dark Mountains were blasting and mining. It is extremely hard and cannot be smelted, and it has super high resistance to magic power I also found that its material is somewhat similar to the Eternal Slate—so I named it 'God's Metal'. I think this thing is the same as the Eternal Slate, and it may also be some kind of extraordinary creation beyond human cognition... "

Gao Wen's words were understated, but he spoke with a sense of self-confidence, while Melita looked at the huge twisted piece of metal on the ground in amazement, and finally bent down to hug it.

Of course she could tell that the material of this thing was close to that of the Eternal Slate...even almost the same!

It's just that there are no strange and complicated patterns on this huge piece of twisted metal, nor are there any inlaid crystals, which means that it is definitely not an eternal stone slab—its value will probably be lower than the eternal stone slab with textures and crystals ...

But it's big!

The power it contains - the kind of power that humans cannot perceive, is also real!

Melita fell into entanglement and thinking for a while, hugging the piece of metal in an inelegant and unsteady posture, and then froze until Gawain's voice woke her up: "Miss Melita, I miss you It's time for an assessment."

Only then did the agent wake up suddenly, she felt that she might have been intimidated by the power emanating from the so-called "divine metal", that's why she behaved so badly, and then she began to seriously weigh the transaction.

The "trade item" that Gao Wen took out was beyond her imagination, but the Mithril Treasury must abide by the rules she made - orderly, which is the first requirement of the Mithril Treasury.

So she evaluated quickly, and got the result quickly: "Its value... meets the requirements, and it's a little bit higher."

"That's good." Gawain heaved a sigh of relief. Although he was very confident before, he still felt that exchanging such a large pile of metal scraps for an obviously high-quality eternal stone slab was a bit deceitful. Although the materials of the two should be similar, this is equivalent to exchanging a handful of sand for monocrystalline silicon. No matter how similar the two ingredients are, the price cannot be the same!

But since the agent lady judged that the exchange of the two items is a good deal...then Gao Wen didn't say anything.

But at the same time, he was a little curious—the senior agent of the Mithril Treasury could not be brainless. Even if she didn't know the mysteries of the materials stored in the Eternal Slate, she should know that the Eternal Slate contained the secrets of the gods... those metals The scrap is just real metal scrap, so she can't judge the difference in the potential value of the two things?

Or...was she feeling something else from that scrap metal?For example, the "divine shield" technology or similar things that the Gondor magisters cracked from metal scraps back then?

A lot of guesses popped up in Gao Wen's mind, but he didn't ask, but changed the subject: "By the way, can I ask one more question——Actually, I'm quite curious about the original owner of the Eternal Slate you brought. who……"

He is really curious about this matter: it is not easy to own a piece of eternal stone, even if it is a small fragment, it must be a prince, aristocrat, wealthy businessman, and businessman, so which unlucky collector will lose his treasure? ?

But as he expected, Melita shook her head slightly: "Keeping the secrets of customers is the basic rule of Mithril Treasury. Although the customer who broke the contract lost the slate, his breach of contract has already handed over The slate was then canceled so I can't reveal anything about him."

"Well, you guys really follow the rules," Gawain waved his hands. "Then let me change the question. Do you have more Eternal Slates that you can sell? I mean - it is possible to sell them in the future."

Melita couldn't help but widen her eyes, and looked at Gao Wen in surprise: "You... want more?"

The Eternal Slate is not a Chinese cabbage. Even a king and emperor can collect one piece of life to be satisfied. How can anyone dare to place a long-term order? !

She obviously didn't know how much "God Metal" Gawain had in his hands...

"I like to study theology," Gao Wen casually made up a reason, "and I have a collection habit."