Chapter 998 — The Psychic Songster

In Gao Yang's view, what Luo Yan was doing did not even count as a conspiracy — everything was happening openly and aboveboard.

It even gave him a certain feeling — as though Luo Yan Augustus, far away in Aldernan, had cast him a glance across the miles, telling him to watch and catch what came next...

And Gao Yang thought about it seriously, and concluded that he really could only catch it, because all of this was, conveniently, exactly what he had been hoping for.

By whatever means, reducing the number of carriers of mental contamination, weakening the War God's influence in the material world, and keeping the enemy beyond the nation's gates were all things that had to be done; in this regard, Luo Yan had merely played a tacit hand in concert with Cecil...

"Ancestor, is this really all right?" Heddy could not help but frown. This whole chain of maneuvers by Luo Yan Augustus had gone well beyond her expectations; in her memory, only this coffin-rising patriarch of the Xuanyuan Sect before her could have pulled off such bold, rule-defying moves. "The Typhon are using our hands to clear out those mentally mutated infectees..."

"The key now is not whether this is right, but that it is the only option — Luo Yan has thrown us a ball we have no choice but to catch, and now we can only play this out with him," Gao Song said, his manner calm. "Rather, this actually suits my thinking — we do not have the energy to spare for those Typhon whose minds are still sound, but if the ones on the other side are infectees... that is another matter entirely."

The strange feeling in Heddy's heart was still hard to dispel. She pressed her lips together, a flicker of disbelief on her face: "But he can actually do this openly... those soldiers and nobles contaminated by the War God are no longer of ordinary mind, yet he still commands them at will, and the War God has shown no reaction at all throughout..."

"Just as we have long been analyzing how gods are born and how they operate, Luo Yan Augustus has his own research in this area as well," Gao Song said, his expression turning grave. "He has clearly found the underlying pattern... With the god in a half-mad state, he has precisely exploited the loophole in the domain of 'war' — even sending those infected followers of the War God to die at the front is, in essence, part of supporting war. So long as that remains within the framework, he will not draw the War God's backlash, and those mentally contaminated nobles and soldiers will obediently obey orders from Aldernan."

"The problem is that even a deranged army still has ordinary intelligence on the battlefield — and because they have lost the fear and weakness of normal humans, those mentally contaminated people can unleash combat power far beyond that of normal soldiers," Heddy said sternly. "By sending those out-of-control nobles and soldiers to Winterwolf Fortress, Luo Yan Augustus is also steadily wearing down our fighting strength..."

"Of course he wants to wear down our fighting strength — we have a mechanized legion of over a hundred thousand camped on Typhon soil; do you think he can sleep at night?" Gao Yang waved a hand. "His thinking is not hard to guess. I can only say... this is a very well-laid plan."

Luo Yan Augustus's intentions were plain as day to Gao Yang — this chaotic, sudden war had plunged both empires into a whirlpool, and countless people could not see clearly what the future held, yet for the rulers of the two empires it all lay before them as clearly as mountains and rivers under sunlight.

This war might have broken out suddenly, but in the long view, Typhon and Cecil were bound to have such a clash sooner or later, so when it truly came, Luo Yan Augustus would inevitably do everything in his power to bring the situation back under his control and seek out the greatest point of profit therein — he sent those armies controlled by the War God to the front, using this method to rapidly reduce the hidden instability within his country, and those fearless, death-defying out-of-control legions were just right for weakening Cecil's fighting strength. At the same time, those失控 troops would also buy Luo Yan precious time, allowing him to restore order and bit by bit claw back Typhon's disadvantage from the war's beginning.

This might not give him any advantage, but at least it could gradually bring Typhon and Cecil back onto the same starting line.

Beyond that, Luo Yan would also seize this opportunity to sweep away all manner of unstable factors within Typhon, gaining a chance to thoroughly reorganize order as Cecil once had; his rule would be strengthened as never before, and the upper echelons of Typhon would truly coalesce...

Of course, all of this rested on one great premise — that events really would unfold as he had planned.

"Ancestor, do we need to draw up a plan to attack Aldernan?" Heddy watched the shifts in Gao Song's expression, and after a moment's thought she suddenly broke the silence. "Perhaps it will be of use."

Gao Yang glanced at Heddy with some surprise, then fell silent for a few seconds before saying slowly: "A plan... there always has to be one."

"Yes, I understand," Heddy said, lowering her head. Then she looked up and saw that Gao Song's gaze was resting on the continental map not far away — the map was already traced over with all kinds of lines and markings, and amid the seemingly jumbled annotations there faintly revealed the order hidden deep within this war.

"I have been thinking about one thing," Gao Xi said slowly. "Could there be something deeper still behind all this..."

Heddy blinked, a trace of curiosity in her eyes: "What do you mean?"

"That out-of-control War God has so far only been projecting His power onto the mortals who worship Him, sowing chaos — but is a divine calamity really nothing more than this much chaos? Intelligence shows that Luo Yan Augustus is carrying out large-scale purges at home, while also taking a series of shutdown, suppression, and review actions against the War God's church. It looks like normal measures to restore order, but could this be a deliberate provocation to a War God already out of control?" Gao Yang curled his fingers, lightly tapping the armrest of his seat as he spoke. "The series of bold moves Luo Yan Augustus is making gives me the impression of a gambler... but he cannot be a gambler — or rather, he cannot be a 'pure gambler.'"

Heddy wore a thoughtful expression: "Not a 'pure gambler'..."

"A pure gambler bets everything regardless of the cost, but Luo Yan... he will certainly calculate all the costs and the probability of failure with precision, and cautiously stake only what he can afford to stake," Gao Che said. "So when he decides to take a gamble, there is only one possibility — he truly holds a certain amount of 'gambling capital,' and is certain there is a chance of success in it; whether gain or loss, it is acceptable to him."

Gao You spoke with great certainty. Though from a personal standpoint he had met Luo Yan Augustus only once or twice, as rulers of empires... Cecil and Typhon had dealt with one another more times than could be counted.

Those commercial statutes, that circulating intelligence, those records of Typhon's new policies and the Augustus family... countless third-party materials had long since pieced together the full "portrait" of Luo Yan Augustus.

To Gao Yang, this "portrait" assembled from intelligence and documents was even more vivid and reliable than Luo Yan himself.

He fell silent, beginning to sort through the various pieces of intelligence currently in his grasp bit by bit, weighing what actions Typhon might take next — he had never, from the very start, worried about this "war" itself; he trusted his army, trusted Philip and the other generals, trusted the Empire's technology, industry, and people. What he truly worried about had always been the thing standing behind this war.