Chapter 137: The City of Silver

Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Seven
The City of Silver

The City of Silver, mortuary hall.

Derrick stood before the steps, eyes red as he stared ahead—at his parents lying separately inside two coffins.

Before him, a plain silver straight sword had been stabbed into the stone floor. It trembled slightly amid the thunder that shook the building from time to time.

Inside the coffins, Mr. and Mrs. Berg had not truly died. They struggled to keep their eyes open, their breathing sometimes faint, sometimes violent. Yet in the eyes of certain people, the brilliance of their lives had already dimmed beyond control, dimmed beyond reversal.

“Derrick, do it.”

An old man in a black robe, leaning on a hard cane, looked toward the boy whose face was nearly twisted out of shape and spoke in a deep voice.

“No. No. No!”

Derrick, with brownish-yellow hair, shook his head again and again. With every word, he stepped farther back. By the end, he let out a scream that seemed to tear apart his heart and lungs.

Thud!

The old man struck his cane against the floor.

“Do you want everyone in the city to be buried with your parents?”

“You should know this clearly. We are the people of darkness abandoned by God. We can live only in this cursed land. Every dead person will become a terrifying evil spirit. No matter what method is used, it cannot be reversed—except, except when someone with the same bloodline personally ends their life!”

“Why? Why?”

Derrick asked in bewilderment and despair, shaking his head.

“Why must we, the people of the City of Silver, be fated from the moment we are born to kill our fathers and mothers…”

The old man shut his eyes briefly, as though remembering things he had experienced in the past.

“…This is our fate. This is the curse we bear. This is the will of God…”

“Draw your sword, Derrick. This is respect for your parents.

“Afterward, once you have calmed down, you may try to become a God’s Blood Warrior.”

Inside the coffin, Berg wanted to speak, but after his chest rose and fell several times, he could only produce hoarse, broken sounds.

Derrick moved with great difficulty and returned to the silver straight sword. Trembling, he extended his right hand.

The cold touch entered his mind, and he suddenly remembered the blood ice his father had brought back from an outside hunt—just a palm-sized piece had been enough to keep a room cool for days.

Before his eyes flashed his stern father teaching him swordsmanship; his gentle father patting dust from his back; his warm mother mending clothes; his brave mother standing before him against a mutated monster; the whole family gathered together, sharing food beside flickering candlelight…

Wu…

From his throat came a sound suppressed to the extreme, deep to the extreme. His right hand suddenly exerted strength, drawing the straight sword.

Thud, thud, thud!

He lowered his head and charged forward, lifting the straight sword high and driving it down with all his strength.

Ah!

Amid a scream filled with pain, blood spattered outward. It splashed across Derrick’s face and into his eyes.

His vision turned entirely scarlet. He pulled out the straight sword and stabbed it into the coffin beside it.

Sharp metal pierced flesh. Derrick let go and staggered upright.

He did not look at the two coffins. As though chased by evil spirits, he stumbled out of the mortuary hall. His hands were clenched tight. His teeth were bitten hard together. Pale streaks had been washed through the blood-red color upon his face.

“Sigh…”

The old man who had watched everything let out a long breath.

On the streets of the City of Silver, stone pillars stood one after another. Lanterns hung from them, candles sitting unlit inside.

This sky had no sun, no moon, no stars. There was only unchanging darkness and lightning that tore through all things.

By the light of lightning, the people of the City of Silver moved along dim roads. The few hours each day when the lightning subsided were regarded by them as the true night recorded in legends. At such times, candles were needed to illuminate the city, drive back the darkness, and guard against monsters.

Derrick walked through the streets with a blank stare, not even considering where he was going. Yet as he walked, he discovered that he had somehow returned to the front door of his home.

He took out the key, unlocked the padlock, pushed open the door, and saw everything familiar. But he did not hear his mother’s concerned voice. He did not encounter his father’s scolding for running around recklessly. The house was empty and cold.

Derrick bit his teeth together once more and quickly returned to his room. Again, he found the crystal ball his father had said was once used by a long-destroyed city-state to worship a deity.

He knelt down, facing the crystal ball, and began praying without much hope, began praying in pain.

“Great deity, please turn Your gaze once more upon this land You have abandoned.

“Great deity, please allow us, the people of darkness, to escape the curse of fate.

“I am willing to offer my life to You, to please You with my blood…”

…

Again and again.

Just as Derrick had fallen into complete despair and was about to stand up, he saw a ball of crimson light erupt from within the pure crystal.

That light was like flowing water. In an instant, it swallowed Derrick whole.

When he first regained awareness, he discovered that he stood inside a majestic palace supported by enormous stone pillars. Before him stretched an ancient, mottled bronze long table, and across from it sat a figure shrouded in dense gray fog.

Beyond that, the surroundings were empty, ethereal, and hollow. At the bottom spread boundless gray-white mist and illusory crimson points of light.

Inside Derrick’s heart, a flame called hope was ignited. Confused and bewildered, he looked at the figure seated high before him and asked, “Are You… are You a deity?”

The moment he asked, he abruptly remembered a line from the City of Silver’s general education books and hurriedly lowered his head.

The line was:

“Do not look directly at God.”

Klein leaned back, fingers interlaced, his posture leisurely and relaxed as he answered in Giant language, “I am not a deity. I am merely a Fool who is interested in long history.”

Having long ago tapped the teeth on the left side of his mouth twice, he discovered that deep within the boy’s Ether Body, upon the surface of the Astral Body, the colors were mottled and not unified.

This meant the other party was not yet a Beyonder.

“The Fool…”

Derrick chewed over the word. He remained silent for a long time before finally saying with difficulty, “Whether You are a deity or the Fool, my prayer will not change. I hope that everyone in the City of Silver can escape the curse of fate. I hope that the sky will have—will have the sun described in the books. And if possible, I hope my parents can be resurrected.”

Hey, I am not a wishing machine…

Klein released his hands and smiled.

“Why should I help you?”

Derrick froze. After quite a while, he said, “I will offer my soul. I will please You with my blood.”

“I have no interest in the blood and souls of mortals.”

Klein smiled and shook his head, watching the young boy’s emotional colors bit by bit turn the color of despair.

Without waiting for the other party to speak again, he said leisurely, “But I can give you a chance.”

“I am a Fool who enjoys equivalent exchange. You may use everything you can obtain to receive what you want from me, and from others similar to you. Remember: the value must be equivalent…

“This can make you strong. Perhaps one day, you will be able to rely on yourself to let the City of Silver escape the curse and let the sun appear again in the sky.”

According to the other party’s earlier description, Klein was somewhat confident that the City of Silver was located in the so-called Forsaken Land of the Gods.

Of course, he still could not be entirely certain. After all, according to religious scripture, a state in which the sky had no sun also existed during the First Epoch—the Epoch of Chaos. And no one knew whether, aside from the Forsaken Land of the Gods, there might be other strange places unknown to the nations of the Northern Continent.

Derrick listened quietly, lowering his head in silence. After a while, he answered, “I want to become the Sun. I want to obtain the potion formula for its initial Sequence from You.”

Sequence, potion, the Sun… the Sequence pathway controlled by the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun…

It seems they truly are in the same world.

And the word “Sequence” came into being after the first Blasphemy Slate appeared—that is, at the end of the Second Epoch, the Dark Epoch. In other words, if the City of Silver truly lies in the Forsaken Land of the Gods, then this region must have been separated from the Northern and Southern Continents no earlier than the end of the Second Epoch…

Could this be related to the Cataclysm of the Third Epoch? The legends say that the Evernight Goddess, Earth Mother, and God of Combat emerged then, protecting humanity through the Cataclysm alongside the Lord of Storms, Eternal Blazing Sun, and God of Knowledge and Wisdom…

Klein obtained quite a bit of information from the other party’s words.

However, listening was difficult, and forming sentences was even more difficult, because his Giant language was still not especially skilled.

Fortunately, ancient Feysac had directly developed from Giant language, and Klein could barely be considered an expert in that field. Thus, his progress in mastering Giant language was rapid enough that he would not expose himself now.

Maintaining his posture unchanged, Klein answered in a calm tone, “This transaction can be placed afterward. For the next two days, it is best that you do not go out, and that you avoid being in the same room with others as much as possible.”

He did not know what unit of time the City of Silver used, much less how it converted with the Loen Kingdom’s time on the Northern Continent. He could only phrase things broadly as “the next two days,” and wait until after the Tarot Gathering to tell the other party that this time would serve as the point of contact in the future.

As for the unit “day,” because Giant language did contain such a word, Klein believed that even if the City of Silver did not use it for counting time, Derrick should still understand what it meant.

“…All right. I will obey Your instructions,” Derrick lowered his head and answered, raising no objection.

Klein secretly breathed out, then tapped the edge of the table with one finger.

“Before I send you back, let us first complete the equivalent exchange from just now. I have given you an opportunity to grow strong, so you must pay a corresponding price.

“I said that I am a Fool fond of long history. What I ask for in exchange is the history of the City of Silver—the parts you know.”

Derrick thought for a moment. In a low voice, he answered, “I will describe it truthfully.”

“Since the Lord who created everything, the omniscient and omnipotent God, abandoned this land, the City of Silver has already existed. No—before that, it already existed. Only then, it was called the Nation of Silver.”