Chapter 716 — The Defiant Ghost

Gaoyu reasoned that the shadows of the Defiants must surely lurk behind the Order of All Things' End, for the "Great Evolution" they pursued was plainly an extension of the Defiance Project from those years ago.

But he had not expected that the "shadow" would turn out to be two elves.

He had assumed the members of the Defiance Project were all human.

"They were elven scholars once employed by the Gondor Empire—that has been so since a thousand years ago. At the same time, they were members of the Holy Spirit Forest Twilight Sect... at least on the surface," Beiyila went on. "When the shock struck Mingcen Peak, they vanished from the sight of the sect's members for a time. I even thought they had charged into the Gondor wasteland alongside the other fanatics. But years later, they suddenly reappeared and made their true identities known."

"And they brought the Defiance Project with them."

Gao Yang looked at Beiyila. "Without question, given your circumstances and the mentality brought on by the 'divine shock,' the Defiance Project struck a profound chord in you."

"More than a profound chord..." Beiyila shook her head slowly. "We were inspired by that great and almost tragic project, awed by the wisdom and courage of those who came before. We were wretched creatures crushed by the malice of the gods, yet in our most despairing and fallen moment, we suddenly glimpsed a sliver of light kindled by other resisters. The technology and ideals they brought were something we could not refuse."

"...The Defiance Project was indeed the greatest act of self-salvation in human history, but mortals always err. As you said, the long passage of time and obsession set everything veering off course," Gao Heng said with feeling. "Not all Defiants held the line, and you were unfortunate enough, I fear, to encounter those who had strayed from their original purpose."

Beiyila made no response. Perhaps she did not know how to respond in that moment.

Any defense was feeble in the face of fact. The scorched land in the eastern reaches of the Holy Spirit Plains and this colossal "Solin Great Tree" were the final answer—a cruel conclusion—to all the efforts and persistence of the Order of All Things' End over centuries, and there was no refuting it.

Yet within Gao Yang's own heart, doubt rose instead:

Those elven twins, the elven twins who had once taken part in the Defiance Project—they had set aside the divisions of race to stand shoulder to shoulder with humanity against the gods, had faced together the demonic tide that destroyed the Gondor Empire, had weathered the baptism of a thousand years, and in the end had passed the key technology and ideals of the Defiance Project to the Order of All Things' End... Could their purpose truly be nothing more than to unleash such a disaster upon Ansu?

That artificial god was terrifying, but Gao Yang knew full well it had not yet reached a level mortals could not withstand. Even without the Cecil Legion, even if it could destroy all of Ansu, it could not destroy Typhon, could not destroy the Silver Empire.

For a conspiracy a thousand years in the making, this finale seemed rather a case of a grand beginning with a feeble end.

He truly could not fathom what those elven twins named Filna and Relna were after.

Perhaps Virolai would know? After all, they were fellow ancient Defiants—it was not unlikely they were acquainted...

Gao Yang shook his head, filed away this new point of suspicion for the moment, and asked, "What else do you know about those elven twins? Where are they now? Are they here as well?"

As he spoke, his gaze drifted involuntarily to the space behind Beiyila.

In that secret chamber draped with vines and roots, the densely packed humanoid remains had already begun to crumble away.

Deprived of the ceaseless replenishment of life, these long-dead clergy of the End of All Things had finally reached the hour when dust returned to dust and earth to earth. Beiyila, in her dazed oblivion, had imprisoned these people for far too long—but now she had awakened, and all of it was due to end.

Those corpses would soon become nourishment for this giant tree... and then circulate through the forces of nature, ultimately becoming new fertile soil for the Holy Spirit Plains.

"They are not here. When the 'False God's Body' was awakened, they were elsewhere carrying out a mission," Beiyila shook her head. "I have been sunk in a dazed slumber all this time. I do not know their whereabouts, but surely they are still alive."

Ghosts, after all, are very hard to "kill"—especially the ghosts of Defiants.

Gao Yang was not much surprised by this, only somewhat regretful and irritated. If Defiants could be of such help when they were on one's own side, then they could do just as much harm when they became enemies or uncontrollable factors—this much he had come to appreciate.

"I spent several hundred years in their company, yet I still cannot claim to know them well," Beiyila continued. "They always appeared together, spoke and acted together, as though a single soul controlled two bodies. They wore the guise of amiable warmth, but in truth they were more cunning and dangerous than anyone. They were chiefly responsible for matters concerning the Defiance Project, but they also handled the technical work related to the Grand Wall—they were, after all, of the Silver Empire by origin, and had some understanding of the Grand Wall's technology."

Gao Yang nodded silently, committing it to memory, and could not help raising an eyebrow when he heard mention of the Grand Wall. "Speaking of the Grand Wall... what exactly is your connection to the wasteland?"

Beiyila hesitated a moment, but soon the corner of her mouth twitched, and with a strange smile she said, "Inside the Grand Wall... inside is the other half of the Order of All Things' End."

Gao Yang's eyes went wide. "The other half of the Order of All Things' End?!"

"Did we not say earlier that when the ritual at Mingcen Peak spun out of control and the power of the gods descended in shock, great numbers of the faithful from the three sects—Druid, Dream, and Storm—charged into the Gondor wasteland seeking self-annihilation..." A cold edge lay beneath Beiyila's smile, as though disclosing this secret brought her no psychological burden at all, but rather a kind of relish. "But not everyone who charged into the wasteland died. Druids have always been the profession best suited to confronting environmental change, best suited to surviving under extreme conditions."

Gao Yang's expression turned instantly grave. "...So the druids who charged into the Gondor wasteland back then survived, adapted to the wasteland's environment through some form of evolution and mutation, and became the 'collaborators' and branch of the Order of All Things' End inside the wasteland?"

"Yes—at least, that is what we always believed," Beiyila said, her voice cold. "They operated within the wasteland, gathering intelligence for us, especially data concerning aberrants and the demonic tide. We always assumed that whether inside the wasteland or outside it, all our sect brethren were laboring for the Defiance Project—but plainly that was not so.

"The loss of control over the False God's Body owes half its credit to those freaks."

Only at this moment did Gao Yang finally understand the full chain of cause and effect behind the Order of All Things' End's grand conspiracy, from beginning to end—and understand what those cultist clergy in this underground palace had met with in the final stage of creating that "artificial god."