Balubalen used his “qi” to sweep the moss off the ground, then plopped himself down. Though his movements were a bit slow, you could still see the briskness of his younger days.
He patted the wine jug beside him and peeled off the sealing cloth. A rich, mellow aroma of wine instantly filled the air.
Then he set out two rough clay bowls and slowly poured the wine into the bowl placed before the gravestone. The amber liquid swirled in the bowl. He poured himself a bowl too, then gestured invitingly toward Renith, motioning for her to sit as well.
“Want a bowl?”
Renith nodded. She wasn’t one to abstain from alcohol—in fact, her tolerance was rather impressive. Back in the day, Heltis would always drag her along to drink with him. In those days, they’d talk about everything over wine—dreaming of the future, reminiscing about the past.
Heltis, always sunny and cheerful, had once said while drunk:
“Some liquor burns going down like lamp oil, but it can burn away the ice in your heart. That’s my favorite kind. But truly brave people shouldn’t lean on it.”
“Things weren’t going well for me in my original world. I often drank to drown my sorrows. I really don’t understand why someone like me became a Hero. Maybe because there’s still a sliver of goodwill left in me—or maybe I just happened to be the lucky one among billions.”
“I came here and threw myself into the battle against the Demon King. Those were devastating fights, one after another. I watched warriors fall one after another, their figures blurring in the smoke and fire, their blood soaking the earth. I also witnessed entire populations devastated—villages burned, common folk displaced. Those horrific scenes are still vivid in my mind…”
“Even now, it feels like their corpses are piled up in my heart, and I can still hear the laughter of so many who made their final stand before dying…”
“I’ve lived in peace, yet here I’ve come to know the cruelty of war. At times like this, alcohol is like a lens cloth—it blurs the blood-soaked reality before your eyes into an abstract painting. In the end, I realized I wasn’t running from pain—I was bandaging my soul’s wounds. When the sun rises tomorrow, these hands of mine can still swing a blade.”
“For remembrance, for victory, for peace, for inner tranquility.”
As Balubalen spoke, he poured Renith a bowl of wine too.
For the same reasons—remembrance, victory, peace, and inner tranquility—Renith raised her bowl and paid respect to the nine cenotaphs. The wine slid down her throat, searing hot and bitterly harsh.
Seeing Renith drink so boldly, Balubalen tipped his head back and downed his bowl in one go—then broke into a violent coughing fit.
“Urgh—cough cough cough…”
“Balubalen, you’re getting on in years. Your body isn’t what it used to be. You shouldn’t drink like that.”
Balubalen waved his hand dismissively, coughing for a good while before finally catching his breath.
“It’s fine. I’m happy.”
Since Balubalen was happy, Renith wasn’t about to stop him. She kept him company and continued drinking.
After a few rounds, Balubalen was already a bit tipsy, but he hadn’t used his “qi” to neutralize the alcohol. Renith, on the other hand, set down her bowl and easily dispelled the alcohol from her body using magic.
Slightly drunk, Balubalen began slowly recounting his story:
“More than thirty years ago… two enormous beams of sinister purple light suddenly descended from the sky. One struck the Imperial City. The other struck Hobris—one of the four great cities surrounding the Imperial City, on the eastern side of the Aztec Mountains.”
The upheaval thirty years ago had been that massive?
And… two beams?
One of them Renith knew—it was the very beam that had killed her.
What about the other one?
If the unknown deity’s target was Allegria, then it wasn’t hard to guess who the other person was.
The Hero, Heltis.
If something went wrong on the continent, Allegria had only three ways to influence the course of events.
First, sending down proxy angels—angels who served as her vassals after she became a deity.
Second, a divine projection—sending down a projection with a certain level of power to handle matters personally. The drawback was that it required anchoring to a statue of sufficient strength. Such statues were extremely costly to produce, and the faith stored within would be depleted after the projection ended, so they weren’t used lightly.
Third, divine oracle delegation—issuing oracles for bishops, saintesses, and saint sons—the mortal representatives—to carry out on her behalf. But over time, churches tended to become corrupt, and representatives would abuse divine authority to oppress ordinary people.
What Renith had encountered was a mix of the second and third. Originally, Allegria had sent her an oracle, but because the enemy discovered it, she’d had to use her power directly.
Unfortunately, Allegria’s projection hadn’t been strong enough to stop the enemy.
“At the time, both projections dissipated instantly. I was living in Ongler City. When I heard that tremendous crash, I rushed to the Goddess statue.”
That statue was naturally the one that had been smashed that afternoon.
“At the time, the statue on my desk was trembling slightly too, and the air was filled with a faint scent of holy light. Thinking about it carefully, I believe that was a form of oracle.”
“Feeling that something was terribly wrong, I began contacting my old friends and former disciples, telling them to be extra vigilant and pay attention to everything happening where they lived.”
A look of reminiscence surfaced in Balubalen’s eyes.
“To be honest, something just occurred to me.”
“What is it?”
Renith met Balubalen’s eyes and caught a flicker of confusion in them.
“I’m not sure if I’m remembering correctly—the mind gets muddled when you get old. I keep thinking that four months after those two beams appeared, something crashed into this city.”
Something crashed into the city?
Sensing Renith’s puzzled gaze, Balubalen immediately added:
“Yes, something crashed into the city. I rushed over to check at the time, but there was nothing there. Maybe someone had already taken it—I was a step too late.”
Thirty years… something falling from the sky… suddenly appearing… a giant stone… a statue.
Renith reviewed the clues that had surfaced so far. She seemed to have hit upon something.
“I heard someone say the plaza used to have a giant boulder?”
Balubalen blinked.
“That’s right. There used to be a huge boulder in the center of the plaza. For a while, I kept hearing hammering sounds—’thunk, clang, thunk, clang.’ Someone must have been sculpting. When I went to look again later, that thing had become a stone statue.”
“So you’re saying—that boulder might be the thing that fell thirty years ago?”
Balubalen thought Renith’s speculation had some merit.
“It’s certainly possible.”
“The city lord also appeared thirty years ago, and the statue can absorb the thorns the city lord plants. That statue must be important to the city lord… no, extremely important.”
“Over thirty years, the entire city of Ongler—and even the surrounding cities—had thorns planted in everyone, all to reinforce the seal on that statue. That means the power inside the statue is growing stronger, and it needs more and more sealing power… This could be our opportunity.”
Balubalen mulled over Renith’s words.
“Let’s keep talking for now. We can discuss this tomorrow…”
Renith refilled Balubalen’s bowl.
“Where was I? After the statue gave its warning, my disciples and I mobilized. We started recruiting and secretly training our forces. We had seven hundred people in total. By twenty years ago, our ranks included two hundred twenty-one barons, thirty-four viscounts, two earls, and plenty of ordinary folk.”
Twenty years ago?
That was already half a lifetime for an ordinary person—but for her and Balubalen, it might only be a tenth of their lives, or even less.
In just ten short years, they’d built such a massive, formidable force. On the old demon battlefields, a group like that plus a few thousand soldiers would have been enough to hold an entire region.
“You must be thinking—with a force that strong, they should’ve been able to retake Ongler City, right? No way they’d lose, right?”
Balubalen seemed to see right through Renith’s thoughts. As he spoke, his tears seemed impossible to hold back.
“But we… lost.”
“Four ‘God-Chosen’—each comparable to an earl—led over a thousand troops each and surrounded Ongler City completely. They had more barons than us, more viscounts than us, and more earls too… The one in the middle only had to wave his hand, and everyone except the God-Chosen would swarm toward Ongler City like madmen.”
“At one point, even the city residents came out to help us fend off the God-Chosen’s assault. But through the God-Chosen’s schemes of sowing discord, the residents pushed us out… It was no different from when the nobles opened the gates a hundred years ago.”
“But I don’t blame them. They just wanted to survive. Those nobles from a hundred years ago, though—they were blinded by greed.”
“Another earl, Trudo, and I held off four God-Chosen. I vaguely remember everyone below fighting like madmen—the clash of blades, the battle cries deafening. Both sides attacked and defended in turn. The battle stayed deadlocked—it wasn’t one-sided at all.”
Trudo—Renith remembered. He was a rising star within the Empire over the past century. She’d heard his name during her travels. By her calculations, when the war broke out in Ongler City, he’d only been about a hundred and twenty years old.
“Until Trudo was defeated. And the one who killed him was Morist, the God-Chosen of ‘Perseverance.'”
Balubalen looked at the gravestone, at Trudo’s name written in the first row.
“Morist and another God-Chosen were being suppressed by Trudo, but Morist was cunning. Throughout the fight, he kept observing Trudo’s swordsmanship and tactics—and actually learned them in a short time. In an instant, he turned the tables. Seizing a moment when Trudo let his guard down, he cut off his head.”
Renith sighed inwardly with regret. Given time, that man would surely have become a marquis—his achievements would have been limitless.
“The moment I saw Trudo’s head, I snapped to my senses. I knew the situation was beyond saving. All I could do was lead everyone in retreat and disperse our forces back among the common people.”
“Only by preserving our strength, only by surviving, was there any hope of retaking Ongler City. But our forces had suffered too many losses—there was no hope left to fight. Until… you came.”
