Chapter 677 — Gaosong Road

The celebrations were in full swing both inside and outside the castle. Once the morning ceremony had concluded, there would be a grand float parade and all manner of traditional festivities in the plazas. Nearly everyone in Xuanque City would have the chance to relax to their heart's content on this day, and the newly designed ceremonial events would undoubtedly drive the people's celebratory fervor to its peak.

But before the banquet began, the Empire's new head of state did not need to attend any further events.

Gao Yang sat quietly in his room. He had not opened the curtains, nor turned on the lights, letting the dim, silent atmosphere slowly envelop him. The sounds of revelry from inside and outside the castle drifted faintly to his ears—music, laughter, dancing, the crack of magical fireworks—all of it distant and ethereal, so that their very presence only served to set off the stillness of the room.

Through his observation of and conversations with Mei Hengpernia, he could finally confirm that the Black Pit was indeed connected to the gods, and that certain measures within the Defiance Plan were genuinely effective at evading it.

Of course, Gao Yang had formed conjectures long before this, but it was only today that those conjectures were verified.

In the dim, silent room, he curled his fingers and tapped them lightly on the table, beat by beat.

"The dragon race is still trapped within the Black Pit... it isn't that they never encountered it—rather, after encountering it, they became 'stuck' in that state..." Various thoughts churned in his mind. "They too attempted acts of 'defiance,' and then failed? Were they discovered by the gods, or..."

"A pity I can't ask. From the look of Mei Heng, any dragon who knows the truth likely cannot answer questions on this subject... When Mei Heng tried to speak of the Black Pit and the gods, what exactly was the change that came over her?

"Was it divine interference? Or... a materialized mind-brand? If an attempt to break through the Black Pit fails, does the mind-brand become a force that can be materialized?

"If that is truly the case, then every step of the Defiance Plan must be taken with even greater caution... Even the dragons could not break free of its bonds. Once a human falls into the branded state, it would mean absolute and utter ruin."

The unconscious tapping stopped. Gao Yang turned his head slightly and looked toward the empty space beside him. "Almost done cracking those seeds? Have some water and stop eating—there's a banquet tonight."

Amber's figure emerged from the air, clutching the last few seeds in her hand, sunflower-seed husks littering the floor beneath her feet. She stared wide-eyed at Gao Yang, her face full of displeasure. "Can't you at least pretend not to notice me once in a while? I'm a prowler, for heaven's sake—I have professional dignity!"

"You, a proud Imperial Guard, cracking through two catties of seeds in the Empire's head of state's room in a single hour, and you tell me you have professional dignity?" Gao Yang glared at her. "Clean this up yourself. It's my first day of coronation—I won't have the court archives recording something as bizarre as 'the Empire's head of state, upon returning to his room on the first day of his coronation, cracked two catties of seeds for unknown reasons.'"

Amber tossed away the last bits of husk and clapped her hands, then, nudging the husks on the floor into a pile with the toe of her boot, muttered very softly, "I'm starting to regret not taking your advice and going to read those things you wrote... What exactly did you give that agent?"

"...Just some knowledge to leave for future generations."

Amber fixed her gaze on Gao Yang. "But why did the two of you get to talking about overthrowing the Empire? And even... about overthrowing you, and such..."

Gao Yang pondered, then let out a long, rueful sigh. "Yeah... I never expected I'd do these things either."

Why he had come to this point, and how he intended to keep walking forward tomorrow—on this, Gao Yang had actually always been clear. But along this clear path, not every single thing had unfolded as he had anticipated.

At the very beginning, his goal had been simple: he merely wanted to live. After enduring hundreds of thousands—millions—of years of solitude, he could finally stand upon the earth once more in human form. What a wonder that had been to him then. He wanted to live on, to live on as a human—but surviving in this world was not as easy as he had imagined.

To escape the ruins of old Cecil alive, he had been forced to carve a bloody path out with a few scavenged descendants and retainers. To find a foothold in this era, he had been forced to take on the identity of Gao Yang Cecil and lead the refugees in opening up a stretch of land. To contend with the demonic tides that could arrive at any unknowable moment, and to counter the threats of neighboring kingdoms, he had to let his power grow...

It was a road that could not be stopped, and Gao Yang himself had no intention of stopping it.

After all, he was not, at heart, a man content with quiet submission. Having been granted such a rare chance to live again, he was not willing to scrape by in mediocrity.

But the longer he lived in this world, and the more he came into contact with flesh-and-blood people, the more he found himself unable to shake off the influence of this "second life."

Responsibility is an innate thing. When he chose to take up the legacy of Gao Yang Cecil, he was destined to shoulder the responsibilities that came with it; and once he had personally set the fates of so many people into motion, that responsibility became his own.

He did not know when his state of mind had begun to shift, but he knew that after doing so many things along the way, his mindset must necessarily have changed accordingly—if it had not, that would only make him doubt: doubt whether he had been thoroughly remade by the "Satellite," doubt whether, though he appeared a man of flesh and blood on the surface, he was in truth a machine without blood or tears within.

After conquering the eastern regions of the Holy Spirit Plain and entering Silverhold, after a long conversation with Wales Morn and a look back over the road he had traveled, Gao Yang realized that his goal was no longer as simple as merely "surviving."

He wanted to live—and countless others depended on him to live as well. At this stage, even the entire order of the arcane industrial society lived through him—and the reverse held equally true: that he had reached this position was also owed to those countless people and things.

It was a vast symbiotic relationship, at least for now.

So Gao Yang wanted to go for something big—to make his second life count for something, and to be worthy of all his efforts up to this point.

And as for what else, beyond all this, kept driving him onward along this road... that was something even he himself could not explain.

He shook his head and gave Amber a smile. "Probably because my ambitions are too great, and the things I seek are too shocking for this world."

"...I can't figure out what's going on in that head of yours, but since it's you doing these things, there must be a reason for it," Amber said, scratching her hair and quickly tossing the puzzling matters to the back of her mind. "Anyway, I'm right here watching. Eventually I'll figure out what you're trying to do."

Gao Yang glanced at the half-elf. "You certainly have a broad mind."

Amber puffed out her chest, taking pride rather than shame in it. "That's my greatest virtue."

Gao Yang shook his head with a smile, then spoke half-jokingly: "Let's drop that. Last time you said you were going to pray to your goddess and ask for the truth—what did you find out?"