Amber Sword

Chapter 1195: Chapter 301: Whirlpool V_2

This narrow little room was a guest chamber in a side wing of the Ande Fulei Grand Temple. Since the Great Temple rarely received outside guests in ordinary times, there were not many guest rooms to begin with, and most of them were rather simple. Moros and Wood had already been passing the reins of authority between them for some time now, yet this newly appointed Great Priest had continued to live here, which in itself showed how little he cared for material comforts.

But the two people in the room looked a little ill at ease, especially Marquis Youxi. His playboy image was more or less a deceptive disguise, but this Marquis’s pursuit of quality of life was every bit as genuine as that of the other nobles. To him this room was practically a slum; although the table and chairs had been wiped until they shone bright and clean, it still felt to him as if there were always a layer of dust on them.

The Marquis had only been sitting for a short while before he felt as if ants were crawling all over him. Not to mention that a weighty "urgent matter" was pressing on his mind, which made him all the more irritable.

Only the master of the room had yet to arrive, and neither of them dared act rashly.

At last, footsteps sounded, and a moment later Moros’s cold face appeared outside the door. His sharply defined hooked nose was almost his emblem. At this moment, this Lord of Priest was wearing the gold-and-red robe he used in handling daily affairs, his face set in a stiff expression.

He always wore that same expression. Back then, the Erune players had given him the nickname "Ironface." It was not that he was incorruptible as iron, but rather a jab at the fact that the man seemed to have no expression at all.

Marquis Youxi did not dare let such thoughts arise in his heart. Leaving aside this Great Priest’s own status, more importantly there was a colossal behemoth standing behind him. Though Erune had once defeated the Cruz people several centuries earlier, the Erune Nobles of today had become one of the groups in this World that feared the Cruz people the most.

One could not help but call it a kind of irony—

Both men rose to salute. Moros merely nodded in return, his arrogance on full display. Marquis Youxi and the others felt nothing strange about this; it would almost have felt odd had he behaved otherwise. The accumulated might of the Cruz people was so great that everyone in Erune, high and low, instinctively saw themselves as a head shorter.

"Marquis, for you to come here so late at night, I imagine it must be for some important matter." Molosi Chief Priest dispensed with any pleasantries and went straight to the point.

"Indeed." Marquis Youxi smiled faintly, his true colors restored for the moment. "Just as Lord of Priest expected, the letter we sent over has taken effect. It seems the Royalist faction has already broken out into an internal quarrel."

He spoke with a smile, and when he came to a particularly satisfying point, he could not help sneering: "The likes of Macaro and Liwu—brilliant as they may be—are driven by their own interests and thus appear short-sighted; they can see only the carrot on the stick, paying no heed at all to the trap that lies ahead."

"Which shows how important a lofty goal is." Moros nodded, tacitly acknowledging Marquis Youxi’s self-congratulation. In fact, the plan itself had been proposed by the latter. They had sealed off news from the North, yet at this time let their agents around the other side leak the intelligence about the Lion-man invasion upward. Sure enough, the Royalist side had fallen into utter confusion.

This could be called an open conspiracy, but they knew Macaro and the others had no choice but to swallow this bait. It was determined by the very nature of the nobles, and Moros could not help a cold laugh.

"Ridiculous that they even dream of splitting North and South. I fear they won’t live to see tomorrow’s sunset." Marquis Youxi smiled, brimming with pride.

It was this very line that Princess Magdalene, coming through the secret passage, heard first. She could not help jumping in fright. At first she thought they were speaking of Griffith, but when she pressed herself against the wall and listened carefully, she realized they were talking about the Royalist crowd.

The Royalists really had come into conflict with Griffith! This Princess of Antobro could not help holding her breath. On the one hand, that "treasonous" talk of Brand’s she had heard at the auction in the afternoon had still left her half in doubt, yet now in the blink of an eye it had become reality; on the other hand, Magdal frowned despite herself—by breaking with the Royalists, her dearest friend’s situation would only become all the more perilous.

This was the last thing she wished to see...

She pressed her lips together, not daring to make a sound, and continued listening closely. The construction and renovation of the Ande Fulei Grand Temple had been handled entirely by the Flame Temple, and these secret passages were known not only to her; in fact, the new Great Priest Moros should know of them as well. It was just that he probably did not know there was another Key leading into the hidden passage, which was why he had let down his guard.