Chapter 1161 — The Retired Gods

The hatching chamber was silent. The shell of Enya's egg still gave off its usual placid, warm luster, yet Gao Yang simply stared at that golden giant egg without a word, until half a minute later he finally spoke and broke the silence: "Honestly, we could still call Meitzen and Noretta back in time..."

"No, I can handle everything," Enya's voice came at once, in a firm and unshakable tone. "Hatching a dragon egg is no complicated matter—especially with an automatic system in this room, so there is nothing I need to do. And tending a hatchling is quite simple as well. They are far easier to keep alive and raise than human infants..."

"But you said just now that you have no practical experience," Gao Yang said, looking at this 'goddess' with a rather strange expression, struck by the illusion that he was meeting her for the first time. "Is that bit of theoretical knowledge really enough?"

"Believe me, Meitzen and Noretta will only be worse off than I am—even their theoretical knowledge is unreliable," Enya's voice at last carried a measure of confidence, and the reasoning she offered was far more solid. "As dragons of the younger generation, they have none of the experience or insight of the ancient dragons. Whatever they know about tending hatchlings must have been taught to them by An Qian or Hragor. I, at least, have witnessed more than a million years of dragon history with my own eyes... though I devoted very little attention to the matter of 'tending hatchlings,' what I have accumulated still far exceeds those two girls."

"All right, since you're so confident," Gao Yang's mouth twitched as he realized this 'goddess' was in fact rather concerned with saving face, "then this is in your hands—if you need any help, just say so, and I'll do what I can."

The radiance flowing across Enya's shell gradually settled. With a smile in her voice, she said softly, "Thank you very much."

Gao Yang gave a sound of acknowledgment and said nothing more, only turning his gaze to the ordinary dragon egg not far away, a size smaller than Enya's. This small miracle of nascent life stood there quietly, bathed in the artificial light... as a hope, a healthy individual of the future, it was still utterly unaware of the future it was about to face.

A hatchling to be incubated and tended by the former Dragon God in person... fate truly was a wondrous thing. In any case, this little one's starting point could already be called 'extraordinary.'

...

Deep within the Fortress of Defiance, in the courtyard of the Shadow Realm, the round metal sphere at last finished calibrating the final set of components. He floated up, circled the large neural interface device twice, and only then turned toward the two vast figures not far off who were staring fixedly at him—a white giant stag wreathed in holy radiance, and a mysterious lady cloaked in magical mist whose figure rose like a tower.

In terms of sheer size, Nicholas Egg was simply as tiny as a pebble before these two figures; yet at this moment these two vast and immensely powerful beings watched the little iron sphere complete his dazzling operations with something close to reverence, hardly daring even to breathe—until the neural interface device beside them suddenly hummed to life, and the tower-like lady finally let out a breath. Her exhalation stirred a small vortex of magic in the void, and from that vortex came a slightly husky, magnetic voice: "Master Artificer, is it fixed?"

"Fixed—and it took a good deal more effort than I expected," Nicholas Egg said, and heaved a very humanlike sigh. "Be a little gentler with these machines, will you? Machines have 'souls' too. These poor components... the neural interface device at Lady Enya's place is treated far better than they are."

"Don't worry, we'll be careful, we'll be careful," the giant stag Amon's voice came at once, deep and pleasant, carrying utter sincerity. "It's mainly Milmina. She gets too absorbed in collecting all that junk entertainment on the network. I at least pay a bit of attention, at the very least..."

"Yours burned the worst—even the neural cord burned through," Nicholas Egg said, swaying his body before the other could finish. "The login records left inside the equipment don't lie."

Amon fell silent at once, while Milmina turned her head slightly away, and from behind the veil-like mist that hid her eyes she gave the God of Nature a long, deep look.

"The rest is up to you. I need to float off now," Nicholas said, as though he had not noticed the atmosphere that had suddenly turned delicate between the two former deities, and took his leave once the work was done. "If anything else comes up, just contact Narratiel directly. And if the network cuts out entirely, don't worry—the technicians will notice at once and send someone. Of course, I'd rather nothing else come up at all..."

The Master Artificer departed, and the courtyard shrouded in chaotic darkness fell quiet for a short while. After a few seconds of awkward standoff, Milmina finally spoke: "Is there something you still want to say?"

Amon instantly activated his own neural interface apparatus. The light flowing over his body connected within a second to the ring of runes around the device's base: "I'll go into the network first and check the situation, to confirm the equipment is really fixed..."

An instant later, the consciousness of the former God of Nature sank deep into the network. Milmina watched all this with some astonishment, and only after a long while did she let out a light laugh. "You're quite practiced at it now."

...

Light and shadow shifted; consciousness reassembled. After the familiar yet long-missed (by twenty-four hours) process of "connection," what lay before Amon's eyes was no longer that dark, gloomy courtyard of Defiance, but a sunlit, vibrant world of neural networks. Incarnated as an elderly elven druid, he could not help closing his eyes and drawing a deep breath, savoring a moment of relaxation in this illusory realm.

Two seconds later he opened his eyes, and a smile rose from the bottom of his heart. Then he glanced left and right—a mere habit, for of course he would not see Milmina. Though the two of them stood very close in the real world, in this illusory space the distance between them might span the entire city.

Shaking his head with a smile, Amon's mood grew even more relaxed. Then, with practiced ease, he activated a translucent floating window in the air. A simple act of will, and his figure had left the street, arriving in an instant at a plaza encircled by stone pillars, clustered about with a golden oak and strewn with golden fallen leaves.

This was the free teleportation function permitted within the Phantom Hub City, and by now he had mastered it thoroughly—though the one who had taught him the technique was not Milmina, who always hoarded her secrets, but the guide, Miss Patty. Compared with that somewhat eccentric "Goddess of Magic," the mortal girl named Patty was far friendlier.

Amon turned over a few irrelevant thoughts in his mind as, following the guide function provided by the "Contact Guidance," he found his target. He walked toward a bench at the edge of the plaza, where a golden-haired figure sat quietly, her hair trailing to the ground—she had a face of rare beauty and a unique, elegant bearing, and wore garments never seen in the human world. Her cascading golden hair hung down to the floor and flowed together with the equally golden fallen leaves. In the breeze circling the golden oak, this figure seemed cut off from the world, quietly savoring the peace and serenity of the moment.

Amon strode quickly toward the figure, a cheerful smile on his face: "Lady Enya, cards, cards..."