"As the backbone of the Church, are you sure it's appropriate for you to say that?" asked Ye Qingxuan .

"Every high-level officer of the Church should know one thing: the faith is for the wors.h.i.+pers only . We don't need to fool ourselves with that . " s.h.i.+ Dong smiled weirdly . "I'm old anyway . Old men tend to have some wild thoughts . "

"You can say whatever you like," said Ye Qingxuan .  Shaking his head, he continued, "You may continue . I'm curious about the secret of the Religious Court . What on earth is it?"

"As we are only used by the senior officers as tools, we shall not get to know too much . If you want to know that, you may need to ask the Pope . "

"I have asked him actually . "

"But he didn't tell me . " Ye Qingxuan shrugged .

"Then there is nothing we can do . If the popes don't want to tell you, no one can help you . " s.h.i.+ Dong shook his head pitifully .

s.h.i.+ Dong obviously knew about the truth of the King of Red as he said "popes" instead of "pope . " but it was normal as he was once the most powerful leader of the knights .

"The Forbidden Technologies you mentioned just now, are they all from the Church?" Ye Qingxuan asked .

"Part of them, yes," s.h.i.+ Dong answered .

s.h.i.+ Dong explained, "The other part came from Catastrophes . It was like a jigsaw puzzle . We humans have part of it, yet the rest were taken by the catastrophes . We, as tools to fight against the catastrophes, are only allowed to know this much . "

Ye Qingxuan walked behind s.h.i.+ Dong, thinking along the way . For a very long time, the Sacred City had led the development of the countries with its technology which was tens of years ahead of all countries . The Church controlled the best technology . Even the Chainsaw Fraternity, who got separated from the Church, had technology far better than what anyone could think of .

The beacons for detecting Aether density and transmitting information, churches and the refuge facilities in churches, as well as the Aether balancers, they had such great achievements in all subjects .

The Church's budget on research was far below that of any research inst.i.tute . Yet they got so much ahead of those other research inst.i.tutes . This was puzzling .

Ye Qingxuan realized that there must be something no one had expected in it . Compared to conduct researches to improve technology, it was easier to block existing technologies . In that case, what they needed to do was reveal them gradually, and not much investment was need .

It's just that…

"How advanced is the technology controlled by the Church?"

"No idea," said s.h.i.+ Dong .

s.h.i.+ Dong shook his head . "Except the water tank, there is more technology that is not known to the world, not to mention the related files or products made available to the world . We were never allowed to know any of that .

"It's not only about weapons . Some files even have priority levels higher than the Purgatory built by Gaius; they are mostly from the catastrophes .

"Compared with the human world, the secret they held were much to terrible and ma.s.sive . The world might be wiped out by those powers if someone got careless . Therefore, they were sealed . "

Then he paused and gave a mocking smile . "After all, all this is to maintain the 'Correct' history . "

From the Catastrophes?

Frowning, Ye Qingxuan said "What catastrophe would communicate with humans except the Three Wise Men and the Three Pillar G.o.ds?"

"None . " Shaking his head, s.h.i.+ Dong said, "They cannot speak any language . How can they communicate with humans? What's more, if you want something, you can rob it instead of trading for it . Just like the snake of crystal . "

The Naica Nest of the Crystals . Ye Qingxuan recalled his memory of the ruin he had been to before he went to Romulus—the crystalized earth and the deep hole . That was the evidence of the fight between the humans and the catastrophes . Yet, what have men gotten from the body of the snake of crystal?

The body of the catastrophes were made of pure aether and music theories circulated all over the body . There was no flesh or blood . The death of it is caused by the collapse of the core music theory and then the body couldn't be kept long . It would collapse into pure aether and disappear for a long time . Then, it would resurface to the world . There, it was not in any way similar to a tiger's skins and bones, which could be made into leather robes and medical wines .

How did the churches get the forbidden technology from the catastrophes?

In the silence, the two walked down the wall and into the courtyard . Surrounded by walls, the courtyard was empty, without even a single tree or any gra.s.s, not to mention flowers .

There was nothing to see in the courtyard .

s.h.i.+ Dong stopped at the center of the yard . He turned back and looked at Ye Qingxuan . "Sir, please get everyone out of here," he said in a low voice . "This might be a good place for talking about secrets . "

Ye Qingxuan immediately understood what he said . Compared to a closed room which could be monitored or bugged, this kind of open ground was safer . There was no room to hide . And Ye Qingxuan's Wyrmrest enchantment could fend off any one who wanted to wiretap them .  

Ye Qingxuan thought about it for a while . Then he nodded and looked behind him . Then everyone following him went away . Then, he deployed two layers of sound-isolator and his Wyrmrest enchantment at a diameter of two meters .

"As you wish, Mr . s.h.i.+ Dong . " Ye Qingxuan said, "You may now say what you want to tell me . And it's also the best chance now if you want to a.s.sa.s.sinate me . "

"What I'm telling you now, is what the first leader of the Witch's Hammer and Grand Inquisitor told me when he died . " s.h.i.+ Dong lowered his eyes . "It is the secret he kept for his whole life . If it is disclosed, even the Religious Court of Inquisitors would be purged ruthlessly by the Church . It's about the real body of the catastrophes . "

"The real body?" Ye Qingxuan was surprised .

"Yes . The real body . " s.h.i.+ Dong said, "Or its 'source'—the power and essence of it . That is the reason why catastrophes don't die .

"The catastrophe we called is only a very small fraction of something hidden in the darkness . If we don't destroy the roots, they will come back into life endlessly .

"We can only kill them by destroying their real body . The whereabouts of the real body and the source is the biggest secret of each and every catastrophe and their only weak point . "

s.h.i.+ Dong continued, "The technology and secrets held by the Church are also from the real bodies of the catastrophes . Up until now, men have killed six catastrophes . The real bodies of them were kept in secret by the Church, bringing us a lot of technologies and power beyond imagination—weapons, power, music theories, medications, you name it . Every catastrophe is a great treasure, even corrupted ones .

"The 'Hundred Years' War' between Anglo and Burgundy was for the ruin where a catastrophe's real body was buried . "

Silence .

In the silence, Ye Qingxuan got his pipe with his trembling hand . He was thrilled . He filled the pipe with Tabaco, lit it and smoked to calm himself . He puffed out the smoke and re-found his faith which had been ruined by s.h.i.+ Dong's words . But it was not like before .

"Every catastrophe has its real body?" he asked .

s.h.i.+ Dong nodded . "The Three Pillar G.o.ds are special . They came from the Originator, which cannot be figured out for sure . Except them, as observed and doc.u.mented by the Church, every other catastrophe has .

"The Three Wise Men, the Four Living Creatures, the Eight Phenomena and everyone else, they all have their own origins . "

"What exactly are their real bodies?

"No one knows . " s.h.i.+ Dong shook his head . "In the three wars against catastrophes, the last phase of the wars was carried out by a secret force I never knew anything about . I have never seen a real body of any catastrophe but the vague contour of one .

"I had once, on my escort mission, seen them carrying something to the cart . It was a huge container, covered with heavy dust cloth . I might be mistaken . But I think the size of the thing was not fixed .

"At the first time, it took a whole month and six trips by train to transport the real body . Yet, at the second time, only several men and a suitcase were needed . Maybe different catastrophes have different real bodies . They may be of different levels .

"The musicians told me there was nothing peculiar that could be sensed about the real bodies . We may think they are worthless if judging from their appearances . "

Ye Qingxuan couldn't help ask, "What would happen if the catastrophe abandons its real body?"

s.h.i.+ Dong thought about for a while and shook his head . "I don't know . But, I guess they may lose their powers if they are alive and may not be able to reborn if they die . However, the power will not disappear if the origin is not destroyed . There will be new catastrophes born from it . "

"Really?" Ye Qingxuan murmured .

s.h.i.+ Dong glanced at him and said, "No catastrophe as I know has done this . What kind of creature would be so silly as to give up eternal life?"

Ye Qingxuan smiled as if mocking himself and felt relieved . With no particular reason, he became happier and sadder at the same time .

"That's right . " Lowering his eyes, he murmured, "No creature except humans commit suicide, right?"

Boss, it seems you really are dead .

-

They talked until it was six o'clock in the morning . Yet there was no light at all in the darkness . s.h.i.+ Dong looked tired . It was torture like h.e.l.l to stay up late into the night as his life was at tis end .

"Thank you for telling me those things, Mr . s.h.i.+ Dong . " Ye Qingxuan removed the Wyrmrest enchantment and the sound isolating layers . Then, he poured the music theories of the Stone of Sages into s.h.i.+ Dong's body, which turned into aether to circulate with his blood around his body, giving him great energy of life .

In great pain, s.h.i.+ Dong vomited a lot of deep-purple sticky liquid, which smelt like corrupt body . Carroll and several apprentices got so scared that they hurriedly came up . s.h.i.+ Dong raised his hand and waved them away .

s.h.i.+ Dong looked even more haggard, yet his eyes brightened up .

"Is this the reward for following you? You are so generous, your holiness . "

"Consider it a reward for telling me those secrets . "

s.h.i.+ Dong looked at Ye Qingxuan and seemed to understandwhat was on Ye Qingxuan's mind: you may not die now . You need to live until I allow you to die .

"Yes, your holiness . " s.h.i.+ Dong smiled bitterly and heaved a sigh . "I'm afraid you have known that the death of Hyak.u.me means a lot more than it appears . The Sacred City will no longer be able to control this world . The descending of the abyss brought about not only darkness and wars, but also untied the bounds of the humans .

"I'm afraid more and more people will yearn for the power of the catastrophes . Even they are in deep trouble, they will want the secrets of the catastrophes . The war to decide the fate of the world will begin .

"Your holiness, it will begin very soon . "

"Do you look forward to wars like that?" Ye Qingxuan asked .

"I'm old, your holiness . I'm abandoned by the time . " s.h.i.+ Dong shook his head in dismay . "The future belongs to the young and talented like you . "

"The future?"

"Yes . " s.h.i.+ Dong smiled and looked at the dark sky .

The future…

. . . . As the backbone of the Church, are you sure its appropriate for you to say that? asked Ye Qingxuan . Every high-level officer of the Church should know one thing: the faith is for the wors.h.i.+pers only . We dont need to fool ourselves with that .  s.h.i.+ Dong smiled weirdly . Im old anyway . Old men tend to have some wild thoughts . You can say whatever you like, said Ye Qingxuan .  Shaking his head, he continued, You may continue . Im curious about the secret of the Religious Court . What on earth is it? As we are only used by the senior officers as tools, we shall not get to know too much . If you want to know that, you may need to ask the Pope . I have asked him actually . But he didnt tell me . Ye Qingxuan shrugged . Then there is nothing we can do . If the popes dont want to tell you, no one can help you . s.h.i.+ Dong shook his head pitifully . s.h.i.+ Dong obviously knew about the truth of the King of Red as he said popes instead of pope . but it was normal as he was once the most powerful leader of the knights . The Forbidden Technologies you mentioned just now, are they all from the Church? Ye Qingxuan asked . Part of them, yes, s.h.i.+ Dong answered . s.h.i.+ Dong explained, The other part came from Catastrophes . It was like a jigsaw puzzle . We humans have part of it, yet the rest were taken by the catastrophes . We, as tools to fight against the catastrophes, are only allowed to know this much . Ye Qingxuan walked behind s.h.i.+ Dong, thinking along the way . For a very long time, the Sacred City had led the development of the countries with its technology which was tens of years ahead of all countries . The Church controlled the best technology . Even the Chainsaw Fraternity, who got separated from the Church, had technology far better than what anyone could think of . The beacons for detecting Aether density and transmitting information, churches and the refuge facilities in churches, as well as the Aether balancers, they had such great achievements in all subjects . The Churchs budget on research was far below that of any research inst.i.tute . Yet they got so much ahead of those other research inst.i.tutes . This was puzzling . Ye Qingxuan realized that there must be something no one had expected in it . Compared to conduct researches to improve technology, it was easier to block existing technologies . In that case, what they needed to do was reveal them gradually, and not much investment was need . . . Its just that… How advanced is the technology controlled by the Church? No idea, said s.h.i.+ Dong . s.h.i.+ Dong shook his head . Except the water tank, there is more technology that is not known to the world, not to mention the related files or products made available to the world . We were never allowed to know any of that . Its not only about weapons . Some files even have priority levels higher than the Purgatory built by Gaius; they are mostly from the catastrophes Compared with the human world, the secret they held were much to terrible and ma.s.sive . The world might be wiped out by those powers if someone got careless . Therefore, they were sealed . Then he paused and gave a mocking smile . After all, all this is to maintain the Correct history . From the Catastrophes? Frowning, Ye Qingxuan said What catastrophe would communicate with humans except the Three Wise Men and the Three Pillar G.o.ds? None . Shaking his head, s.h.i.+ Dong said, They cannot speak any language . How can they communicate with humans? Whats more, if you want something, you can rob it instead of trading for it . Just like the snake of crystal . The Naica Nest of the Crystals . Ye Qingxuan recalled his memory of the ruin he had been to before he went to Romulus—the crystalized earth and the deep hole . That was the evidence of the fight between the humans and the catastrophes . Yet, what have men gotten from the body of the snake of crystal? The body of the catastrophes were made of pure aether and music theories circulated all over the body . There was no flesh or blood . The death of it is caused by the collapse of the core music theory and then the body couldnt be kept long . It would collapse into pure aether and disappear for a long time . Then, it would resurface to the world . There, it was not in any way similar to a tigers skins and bones, which could be made into leather robes and medical wines . How did the churches get the forbidden technology from the catastrophes? In the silence, the two walked down the wall and into the courtyard . Surrounded by walls, the courtyard was empty, without even a single tree or any gra.s.s, not to mention flowers . . . There was nothing to see in the courtyard . s.h.i.+ Dong stopped at the center of the yard . He turned back and looked at Ye Qingxuan . Sir, please get everyone out of here, he said in a low voice . This might be a good place for talking about secrets . Ye Qingxuan immediately understood what he said . Compared to a closed room which could be monitored or bugged, this kind of open ground was safer . There was no room to hide . And Ye Qingxuans Wyrmrest enchantment could fend off any one who wanted to wiretap them .   Ye Qingxuan thought about it for a while . Then he nodded and looked behind him . Then everyone following him went away . Then, he deployed two layers of sound-isolator and his Wyrmrest enchantment at a diameter of two meters . As you wish, Mr . s.h.i.+ Dong . Ye Qingxuan said, You may now say what you want to tell me . And its also the best chance now if you want to a.s.sa.s.sinate me . What Im telling you now, is what the first leader of the Witchs Hammer and Grand Inquisitor told me when he died . s.h.i.+ Dong lowered his eyes . It is the secret he kept for his whole life . If it is disclosed, even the Religious Court of Inquisitors would be purged ruthlessly by the Church . Its about the real body of the catastrophes . The real body? Ye Qingxuan was surprised . Yes . The real body . s.h.i.+ Dong said, Or its source—the power and essence of it . That is the reason why catastrophes dont die . The catastrophe we called is only a very small fraction of something hidden in the darkness . If we dont destroy the roots, they will come back into life endlessly . We can only kill them by destroying their real body . The whereabouts of the real body and the source is the biggest secret of each and every catastrophe and their only weak point . s.h.i.+ Dong continued, The technology and secrets held by the Church are also from the real bodies of the catastrophes . Up until now, men have killed six catastrophes . The real bodies of them were kept in secret by the Church, bringing us a lot of technologies and power beyond imagination—weapons, power, music theories, medications, you name it . Every catastrophe is a great treasure, even corrupted ones . The Hundred Years War between Anglo and Burgundy was for the ruin where a catastrophes real body was buried . Silence . In the silence, Ye Qingxuan got his pipe with his trembling hand . He was thrilled . He filled the pipe with Tabaco, lit it and smoked to calm himself . He puffed out the smoke and re-found his faith which had been ruined by s.h.i.+ Dongs words . But it was not like before . Every catastrophe has its real body? he asked . s.h.i.+ Dong nodded . The Three Pillar G.o.ds are special . They came from the Originator, which cannot be figured out for sure . Except them, as observed and doc.u.mented by the Church, every other catastrophe has . The Three Wise Men, the Four Living Creatures, the Eight Phenomena and everyone else, they all have their own origins . What exactly are their real bodies? No one knows . s.h.i.+ Dong shook his head . In the three wars against catastrophes, the last phase of the wars was carried out by a secret force I never knew anything about . I have never seen a real body of any catastrophe but the vague contour of one . I had once, on my escort mission, seen them carrying something to the cart . It was a huge container, covered with heavy dust cloth . I might be mistaken . But I think the size of the thing was not fixed . At the first time, it took a whole month and six trips by train to transport the real body . Yet, at the second time, only several men and a suitcase were needed . Maybe different catastrophes have different real bodies . They may be of different levels . The musicians told me there was nothing peculiar that could be sensed about the real bodies . We may think they are worthless if judging from their appearances . Ye Qingxuan couldnt help ask, What would happen if the catastrophe abandons its real body? s.h.i.+ Dong thought about for a while and shook his head . I dont know . But, I guess they may lose their powers if they are alive and may not be able to reborn if they die . However, the power will not disappear if the origin is not destroyed . There will be new catastrophes born from it . Really? Ye Qingxuan murmured . s.h.i.+ Dong glanced at him and said, No catastrophe as I know has done this . What kind of creature would be so silly as to give up eternal life? Ye Qingxuan smiled as if mocking himself and felt relieved . With no particular reason, he became happier and sadder at the same time . Thats right . Lowering his eyes, he murmured, No creature except humans commit suicide, right? Boss, it seems you really are dead . - They talked until it was six oclock in the morning . Yet there was no light at all in the darkness . s.h.i.+ Dong looked tired . It was torture like h.e.l.l to stay up late into the night as his life was at tis end . Thank you for telling me those things, Mr . s.h.i.+ Dong . Ye Qingxuan removed the Wyrmrest enchantment and the sound isolating layers . Then, he poured the music theories of the Stone of Sages into s.h.i.+ Dongs body, which turned into aether to circulate with his blood around his body, giving him great energy of life . In great pain, s.h.i.+ Dong vomited a lot of deep-purple sticky liquid, which smelt like corrupt body . Carroll and several apprentices got so scared that they hurriedly came up . s.h.i.+ Dong raised his hand and waved them away . s.h.i.+ Dong looked even more haggard, yet his eyes brightened up . Is this the reward for following you? You are so generous, your holiness . Consider it a reward for telling me those secrets . s.h.i.+ Dong looked at Ye Qingxuan and seemed to understandwhat was on Ye Qingxuans mind: you may not die now . You need to live until I allow you to die . Yes, your holiness . s.h.i.+ Dong smiled bitterly and heaved a sigh . Im afraid you have known that the death of Hyak.u.me means a lot more than it appears . The Sacred City will no longer be able to control this world . The descending of the abyss brought about not only darkness and wars, but also untied the bounds of the humans . Im afraid more and more people will yearn for the power of the catastrophes . Even they are in deep trouble, they will want the secrets of the catastrophes . The war to decide the fate of the world will begin . Your holiness, it will begin very soon . Do you look forward to wars like that? Ye Qingxuan asked . Im old, your holiness . Im abandoned by the time .  s.h.i.+ Dong shook his head in dismay . The future belongs to the young and talented like you . The future? Yes . s.h.i.+ Dong smiled and looked at the dark sky . The future…