Book 3: Chapter 327: Shadow of Calamity

The carriage sped through the sky, weaving through the cloudsea like a shooting star.

Inside the carriage, even at such high-speed flight, it remained exceptionally stable. Sylutia initially watched the scenery outside the window, but the unchanging sea of clouds eventually bored her, and she leaned back against the seat for a nap.

These past two days, she had been constantly brewing potions and teaching the local Blood Clan physicians how to administer treatment. She had barely slept at all, and now she was genuinely exhausted.

Seeing this, Carmilla did not disturb her, merely steering the carriage steadily southward, occasionally sitting across from her and quietly studying Sylutia's sleeping posture.

After a day of travel, the carriage carrying them had reached the northern central region of the Mage Alliance. Now the carriage lowered its altitude, emerging from the cloud layer, giving them a chance to overlook the land below.

If it were uninhabited wilderness and mountain forests, everything would have looked relatively normal. But when the carriage passed over densely populated cities, they could see ceaseless burning smoke and dust. Around the outskirts of these cities, numerous cremation grounds had been hastily constructed. Those who died from the plague could not be casually buried, but were instead dragged here for centralized cremation.

Even without approaching the cities, gazing at the curling smoke and ash, one could almost hear the mourning cries of the dead rising from within.

Now Sylutia gazed downward through the carriage window's glass. She could sense the death aura permeating the city, lingering without dispersing. That was the Dead Embers Aspect that appeared after living beings died, along with the countless shattered souls and lamenting thoughts brought by death.

Such spiritual thoughts and emotions were captured and perceived by the spiritual Luminous Moon, continuously imprinted into her mind. Her eyes grew distant, and scenes from a distant era she had once seen in a dream resurfaced, actually overlapping with the current situation, making it impossible to tell whether she was in a dream or reality.

That was the statue of Meleranke she had seen when she first unknowingly fell into the Shadow World, and from which she had dreamed of scenes spanning thousands of years.

The Mad Crow Riot. This was a calamity even more terrifying than the current Flesh Plague. Corpses everywhere, with no time to bury or burn them. Crows perched on branches, pecking at rotting corpses. The dead often displayed avian characteristics, growing feathers, their arms transforming into crude, incomplete wing shapes, their bodies contorted.

That scene was just like now, appearing in nearly every corner of the continent. Wherever birds landed, none were spared. The entire continent was shrouded in an atmosphere of despair and numbness. Even Transcendents with some resistance wore black face-covering robes and donned various bird-beak masks that isolated the air.

At the time, people superstitiously believed that if they wore clothes resembling crows, the curse-like plague would not cling to them.

Though this belief was mere superstition, people in desperate circumstances were like drowning individuals, unwilling to give up even the smallest hope or chance.

Wearing crow-like clothing, when their clothes were peeled back after death, twisted crow-like limbs had also appeared underneath. People's spirits fell into madness, as if insane. Later scholars named this calamity that swept the continent the Mad Crow Riot.

Time flashed by a thousand years, and a similar scene once again appeared on the land. The dusty history of the past was once again remembered by people.

..

"Let's go, Ti Ya." Carmilla knew Sylutia was in a bad mood right now, so she softly comforted her, then steered the carriage to accelerate again, passing through the sky over this plague zone.

The carriage continued forward. When they reached the Parliament District in the central Mage Alliance, the two temporarily stopped. Sylutia traveled to the top of a tall tower above the cloudsea, reported the plague discovered by the Blood Clan, and then asked whether there was a way to quickly contact Hidden Grove.

"If it's just communication, it's not difficult. Due to a previous agreement, several information relay towers have already been built on Hidden Grove's side."

Upon learning this, Sylutia expressed her thanks, then quickly headed to the communication tower.

After she left, the three highest existences of the Mage Alliance were also discussing.

"Unexpected that things have also cropped up on the Blood Clan's side."

"A very bad sign. It means that small continent hasn't yet reached the very edge of opening up. The shadow of the Aberrant Mother Nest hasn't yet rapidly seeped above to affect the surface world."

"The best outcome, no, the entire small continent begins to show various calamities until order completely collapses. The Shadow World Erosion that various organizations have suppressed in the past will erupt across all regions, then spread, and then the many monsters of the Twilight Sea can pass through Shadow World Erosion to reach the surface, finally flooding and devouring the entire small continent."

"Bell should not sit by and do nothing, right?"

"He will not intervene, but such intervention could be very crude." Sordas answered slowly after pondering.

"If you were a Bell, facing a situation where tens of billions of living beings across an entire small continent are infected by plague, what method would you choose to resolve it?"

"Dispatch millions or tens of millions of physicians across the small continents for treatment? No, just thinking about it makes it clearly very unrealistic."

"Send down a blessing to instantly dissolve this plague calamity? If a Bell could truly do that so easily, then in the previous era, the Mad Crow Riot would not have expanded to such a degree."

"The most likely outcome is that the entire continent's living beings are cleansed, and then new inhabitants are brought in to live again."

"Doing so is not only simple, but also allows one's dependents to expand and gain even more powerful strength."

"The Corona Dragon once had such an idea after cleansing the Fifth Continent, and such behavior was stopped by the other Hours, ultimately erupting into the world-spanning Calamity War."

"In order to prevent the dragon race led by the Corona Dragon from once again controlling the world, many Hours united to respond. Aside from the Sixth Continent and Seventh Continent, the forces on the other continents were all drawn into this great war. It was just that at the time, the Fourth Continent had also just finished contending for the Luminous Moon position and was in complete disarray, so the intensity was much smaller."

"After the great war ended, the dragon dependents and forces of the Fifth Continent were all expelled. The various races of the other continents were also constrained and forbidden from persecuting the surviving dragons, and the Hours also established a covenant that henceforth they would not easily interfere in the mortal world."

"This great war that caused many Named Ones to fall finally ended, and now very few people realize that the reason it erupted was the vacated Fifth Continent, which drew too much attention and scheming."

"If we ourselves cannot suppress this ceaseless plague and calamity, then the result will head down the path of the Fifth Continent." Sordas analyzed.

"It is still early to say this. Things have not yet reached such a despairing point." Vailenhart shook his head.

"However, preparations of all kinds do indeed need to be made. I have already ordered them to speed up progress and build the Genesis Machine underground. If all goes smoothly in the end, that divine machine will be activated using we three as fire seeds, igniting the Gold Steam Path."

"Can it make it in time?" Abellid raised his gaze.

"I remember that thing is still incomplete, just like how the Gold Steam Path always has a missing piece and cannot cycle on its own."

"One cannot have everything prepared perfectly. When I created the first fire seed back then, I was fully prepared to be blown to death on the spot." Vailenhart recalled.

"Fortunately, I succeeded. Not only did I create a completely new path, I also transformed the Alchemy Aspect into the roaring, ceaseless Gold Steam Aspect."

"Even if we ultimately fail, the Gold Steam Path ignited during the activation process will be enough to burn away and dispel the shadow shrouding the continent, leaving behind invaluable experimental data for those who come after."

Hearing this, Abellid let out a breath.

"Ha... those words really sound inauspicious. Also, I actually do not like this kind of grand sacrifice."

"It is not that I reject the grand conviction within it, but rather that I know such convictions often ultimately bring about results that are too insane."

"When I was studying at the Capital of Star-Gazing back then, quite a few familiar friends were like this, ultimately walking toward obsessive, insane paths. Later, several of them even died at my hands."

"That feeling, even now when I recall it, is still sticky and nauseating."

"Later, my pursuit of precision in the world's measurements was also like this. I very much do not want to see so-called conviction and obsession used to pursue a blurry, unclear goal. That creates too many meaningless deaths, as well as foolish self-moved sentimentality."

"Is that so? But my thoughts are not the same. I still believe the world has many parts that cannot be observed or clearly seen. If people stop moving forward because of this, then progress will be very difficult."

"I greatly respect the first person to sit upon an engine. That kind of boiling, burning, roaring, and vibrating thing, does it really not explode? Yet they still went and did it."

"Abellid, life will sooner or later head toward its end. Even one as noble as an Hour has a day of fading and replacement. I very much look forward to the day I transform into blazing fire and setting sun and burn."

To this, Abellid no longer answered.