Chapter 1581 — The Approaching Tide

Looking at the communications log sent over from the Thorin region, Gao Yang raised an eyebrow and said with a smile to Bei Yila, whose figure hovered in the projection of the Magic Web terminal: "I never thought you'd be the one to bring up our biotech to Nova on your own initiative."

"Was that out of line?" Bei Yila's face showed little expression, but there was a hint of unease in her tone. "Though I don't believe it involves leaking any classified intelligence..."

"Nothing out of line about it. So long as it doesn't touch the classified information explicitly listed in the memorandum, there's no need to hide the rest from our alien friends," Gao Yang shook his head and set the record file down on the desk. "I'm just surprised you took the initiative—seven hundred years ago, this sort of thing wouldn't have raised an eyebrow, but coming from you today, it does."

"...An immature, rash move, you mean?" Bei Yila said slowly. "I didn't think too much about it at the time."

"It's a promise with a slim chance of ever being honored—though neither side regards it as a formal 'promise,'" Gao Yang leaned back in the tall-backed chair, his expression calm as he spoke offhandedly. "Our 'technical exchange' with the Noi is currently limited to the field of the Magic Tide. In other fields we're still strangers to one another, and providing biotech guidance to an alien species across a distance of four light-years is difficult enough in itself—let alone when we can't even be sure we'll all survive."

He paused there, then abruptly changed tack with a shake of his head. "But don't fret over it. I can see these things, and that 'Witch' understands them well enough in her heart. Besides, a little more hope and expectation for the future is always a good thing."

Bei Yila nodded gently. Then she noticed the faint weariness beneath Gao Yang's eyes. "Were you just in an online meeting with the other Alliance leaders? Did it go smoothly?"

Gao Yang raised a hand to rub the corners of his brow and let out a soft breath. "Draining, but it went well enough. The work at the Sky Vault Station has reached a critical stage. We've sent three more engineering teams into space in succession, and at last we've ensured the broadcast relay units can be installed at the expected pace. With the Deep Sea Kingdom supplying more heavy transports, the bottleneck between the Loren continent and the orbital elevator is cleared as well. The biggest problem left is whether we can manufacture enough broadcast units before the Magic Tide reaches Loren—and that was the main business of today's meeting."

"The final plan is to increase the production quotas on the Silver Empire's side—the elves' ancient factory installations can switch modes at short notice, and they sit close to the southwestern seas, so transport costs are the lowest."

"So over the next four to five months, the Silver Empire will suspend more than half its domestic conventional industrial projects and pour every freed-up unit of capacity into producing the broadcast units. In the meantime, Alliance members without advanced industrial capability will keep supplying the Silver Empire with materials, ensuring the latter can maintain national order even with more than half its material output halted."

Bei Yila was briefly taken aback, then quickly grasped what Gao Yang meant. "...Turn the Silver Empire into one enormous factory, with every function of the state devoted to supplying the barrier components, while the other Alliance members—those unable to produce the components themselves—'transfuse' the Silver Empire to feed this unprecedented factory? That is... quite the undertaking."

"It is, and only the Silver Empire could bear it," Gao Yang nodded. "Cecil and Typhon already carry eighty percent of the burden of the Ragnarok Project; they have no strength left for an industrial adjustment on this scale. As for the other nations, most simply cannot manufacture broadcast components—and even those that can produce a small quantity are a drop in the bucket against the scale of the Sky Vault Station project."

Bei Yila was silent for a moment. Gao Yang rose slowly from behind his desk and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, watching the brilliant sunlight slant down across the city's streets and alleys. Above the distant horizon, the vast, magnificent disc of the giant sun was gradually sinking westward, the cloud-like corona bleeding from its edges seeming to merge with the clouds at the sky's rim—and on the sun's surface, faint, hair-thin traces of blood-red could just be made out.

Gao Yang's expression suddenly froze. He did not turn around. "Bei Yila, have you noticed those fine patterns on the sun's surface?"

Silence on Bei Yila's end for two or three seconds, then a swift reply: "Yes, brother. There are indeed some faint red traces there. Is this... is the Magic Tide about to arrive?!"

"Calm yourself. It hasn't come yet, but the 'vibrations' at the Magic Tide's edge are indeed drawing near. Such disturbances can reach across several light-years—that is precisely the principle on which our observation devices work," Gao Yang said quietly, gazing at the distant sky. His voice was steady and forceful, and it gradually settled Bei Yila's frayed nerves. "The first signs actually appeared once, years ago, but back then no one could understand the mystery behind those astronomical anomalies."

Bei Yila nodded in understanding. Gao Yang remained standing quietly at the window, watching the faint patterns on the surface of that distant giant sun—watching the calamity that was drawing step by step toward this world, watching the shadow it cast upon the mortal realm. He saw those blood-vessel-like lines slowly spreading across the corona, gradually forming somewhat clearer crimson blotches, so that it seemed blood might at any moment drip from the sun's surface—and then, after a moment, those blood-red streaks and patches began to recede just as swiftly...

It was as though the calamity were proclaiming its might to the mortal world.

Gao Yang heard footsteps in the corridor—so he was not the only one to have noticed the change in the sun. He drew a soft breath, composed his expression, and turned toward the study door. A moment later, Hedi's voice came from beyond it: "Ancestor, you..."

"Come in." Gao Yang's steady voice cut Hedi short. The next second the door was pushed open, and Hedi appeared before him, visibly tense: "Ancestor, have you noticed the patterns that have appeared on the sun? Is that...?"

"No need to panic. Doomsday isn't here yet," Gao Yang shook his head, walking back toward the desk as he spoke. "It's merely reminding us of its existence once again."

...

The sudden crimson patterns on the sun's surface were not visible only within Cecil's borders. At that same moment, nearly every region of the Loren continent then in daylight witnessed that eerie transformation on the giant sun's face, lasting a full ten minutes—and those who knew more of the truth understood all too well the dreadful significance behind it.

The Magic Tide was truly drawing near.

In the Augurey tribal nation, within the city of Holy Helm at the foot of Mount Mingcen, the five tribal kings had come to the highest watchtower in the city. Kamila, the tallest of them, stood at the platform's edge, staring expressionless at the enormous solar disc already a third sunk below the horizon—dusk was near, and the giant sun's radiance had become a golden afterglow, splashing wildly across the towering, ancient walls and rooftops of Holy Helm. On the sun's surface the blood-red patterns had now almost entirely faded, leaving only a few inconspicuous dark red lines flickering in and out of the cloud-like corona, slowly dimming once more.