Chapter 1020 — The Winter Hunt

One phantom after another was dragged out of the air by Luo Yan and cast into the blazing brazier like firewood fed to a bonfire — some of the phantoms dull and vacant, some vivid and alive, some silent amid the roaring flames, others pouring out frantic, raving curses, and still others emitting shrieks that no human throat could produce or comprehend, shrieks steeped in a powerful corrupting force — a sound that could set the bravest warrior trembling and drive ordinary folk to madness. Yet whatever they did, in the end they could only be hurled into the brazier without the slightest power to resist, and the flames took on layer after layer of iron-grey hue, burning ever more fiercely.

At last, even the phantom of Malm Dunite rose within the flames, growing ever more lifelike, and it cried out in a loud voice:

"Luo Yan! I curse you! You apostate who has betrayed the gods! You will come to no good end — there is no good end for one who sets himself against the gods!"

"Stop this, stop it now — you are doomed to strive in vain. How could a great god be manipulated by a mortal? Your arrogance will drag you into eternal ruin... Stop! Your blind self-assurance has no foundation!"

"What is the meaning of this? You labor so hard to make an empire strong, only to plunge it into the abyss at a moment like this? Look at what you are doing... You have destroyed so many who were once loyal to you..."

The voice in the flames raged by turns, grieved by turns, now denouncing him with righteous indignation, now softening into desperate pleading — yet Luo Yan merely carried out his movements with unhurried calm, and only after more than a dozen phantoms had been cast in did he lift his eyelids and glance at the fire: "Do you know why I have captured so many of your incarnations?"

"You..."

"You trust your god too much, but the gods are not as invulnerable as you imagine — the Augustus family has dealt with 'gods' for two hundred years. I could smell the stench of an 'Ascendant' possessing a mortal with my eyes closed... Once I realized the influence you were exerting on Pei Yi and separated the first 'incarnation' sample from him, every move you made in Typhon lay completely bare before me."

"You..." Deep within the flames, the phantom of Malm Dunite suddenly went wide-eyed. As though waking from a long dream, he finally cried out in shock, "It is that curse... the curse that has plagued the Augustus family... You actually came to terms with Him?!"

"No," Luo Yan gazed calmly into the flames as yet another incarnation of Malm Dunite coalesced out of the air, and without hesitation he pushed it into the brazier, "This is merely a transaction."

"A transaction... a transaction..." The projection of Malm Dunite in the flames suddenly bowed its head and began to mutter, and the muttering quickly turned into uncontrollable laughter, "Haha, hahaha... A transaction! Luo Yan, you have finally taken this road too! You think you can profit from a bargain with a god, but there is nothing in this world more absurd! You — and your ancestors, who fell one after another across those two hundred years — you are all equally arrogant and foolish... Luo Yan, it seems there is nothing special about you after all..."

Luo Yan Augustus seemed not to hear the mockery coming from the flames. He simply and quietly dragged the last of the Malm Dunite incarnations he had captured out of the air, unhurriedly cast it into the brazier, then walked with a blank face to a long table nearby and reached out to take up something that lay upon it.

It was the iron scepter that had once belonged to Malm Dunite — the symbol of the Popes of War across the generations —

The moment he saw that scepter, Malm Dunite in the flames suddenly fell silent. He had finally grasped Luo Yan's design completely, yet he did not resume his cursing or mockery; instead he spoke in a sorrowful tone: "Are you truly going to take this step? Luo Yan... we were once friends. Even though we walked different roads, we were once the very best of friends, were we not? I was the first to understand those ideals of yours. When the nobles and the religious leaders questioned you, it was the Church of the God of War that was the first to stand up and support your coronation — and even your repeated weakening of the Church's standing over the years came about through my cooperation..."

"Yes, Malm Dunite was once my friend," Luo Yan returned to the brazier with the scepter in hand and fixed his blank gaze on that phantom in the flames, then raised the scepter slightly, "and that is precisely why a thing that is not even he has all the less right to wear his face and keep babbling here!"

Before the words had faded, the scepter was already sheathed in a layer of sacred, vast radiance, and the flames in the brazier abruptly roared up, iron-grey light flooding through the fire. Every word of Malm Dunite was devoured clean by flames born of his own faith — and the next second, Luo Yan drove the scepter heavily against the ground. Iron struck the carpeted flagstones, and the impact rang out with the boom of a warhammer smashing against a shield!

"Dong —"

It seemed the whole of Winterhold heard that boom, and then illusory bells and war-horns suddenly rang out across the sky!

Luo Yan Augustus lifted his head. The illusory, hollow "Eye of God" rose behind him, and his gaze pierced the thick stone vault, fixing without a trace of fear upon the doors slowly opening in the sky, the banners unfurling in ranks, the spear formations arrayed like a forest of illusion — a giant clad in iron armor had already stepped out from the great gate, bearing some posture that drove men mad, uttering delirious whispers that shattered the mind, and step by step it merged with the shadow of the giant that had been wandering between heaven and earth.

"The Pope's sublime sacrifice can serve as the ultimate offering, unleashing a 'Divine Descent' far beyond the norm — and if the god is already willing to come into the mortal world, then He may even descend in His true body..." Luo Yan murmured as though to himself, "Truly rigid 'rules'... so long as the Pope sacrifices himself, is all that is required — it turns out the person's consent is not even needed."

"These rigid rules form the cornerstone of the gods' operation. We are made mighty by them, and by them we become prisoners," the illusory, hollow eye trembled behind him and spoke in a low voice, "The incarnations you captured are not in fact all of Malm Dunite, but they are more than half... enough to drag the God of War down into the mortal world."

"Once the God of War falls, will the remnants of Malm Dunite's incarnations scatter and vanish with him?" Luo Yan asked without turning his head.

"Already thinking about what comes after your victory? How very optimistic..." The hollow eye seemed to sneer, but it answered the question squarely all the same, "You need not worry on that account. Your poor old friend is now sustained in that half-living, half-dead, chaotic and fallen state solely by the God of War's power. Once that power is gone, he will naturally vanish utterly, threaten this world no more, and in a sense be released. As for now... you would do well to attend to what you are about to face. The being you have chosen to challenge... He is already here."

"I will face Him myself — you need only do your part."

"Of course. That is part of the contract."

...

The bells and war-horns echoing between heaven and earth gradually grew distinct from their hazy, drifting state, and little by little became a near-deafening roar. The clouds split apart, and the sky itself seemed to gape open; wild winds bore rain and snow howling across the land, and the miracle of the blizzard took shape in an instant — a divine miracle that would ordinarily require a host of high-ranking priests straining every ounce of their power to perform had here become a mere ripple idly stirred up by a god's descent.