Wizard: I Have a Cultivation System

Chapter 403: Chapter 86: The People of Antiquity All Lived a Hundred Years

The next moment, silver light and deep darkness flashed and vanished.

The two vortexes, along with the figures within, were completely erased from atop this eternal sea of clouds, leaving only the slowly re-forming, gently flowing mist.

Directly below where their figures had vanished, deep within the world of the cloud sea shrouded by endless mist.

An unimaginably vast silhouette seemed to flash, blurry and indistinct, through a gap in the mist before vanishing.

The silhouette was no living thing. It resembled some kind of cold, metallic construct with a complex geometric structure. Its lines were rigid, possessing an unnatural, exquisitely precise beauty.

It was just a fleeting glimpse before it was once again completely swallowed by the endless, milky-white mist, as if that instant had been nothing more than an illusion, a trick of light and shadow.

Above the sea of clouds, silence returned.

Only the eternal, gentle, milky-white mist quietly blanketed everything.

...

「Holy City, an antechamber of Chenxi Hall」

Twilight streamed through the tall, narrow stained-glass windows, casting long, colorful yet cold bands of light on the floor.

Unlike the solemnity of the main hall, this place felt more serene, almost forlorn.

Elizabeth stood with her back to the door, in front of a stained-glass window depicting Oriane scattering stars.

Her immaculate white robe made her figure seem all the more slight. She seemed to be gazing out the window at the silhouette of the Holy City, gradually being enveloped by twilight, yet she could have just as easily been staring into nothingness.

TAP... TAP... TAP...

Footsteps sounded from behind her—steady, with a peculiar rhythm. Each step seemed to fall on a beat of time itself, unhurried and deliberate.

Elizabeth did not turn around.

The footsteps stopped a few paces behind her.

"You’ve come," she said softly, her voice cool and clear.

"I have," the voice of the Ironspine Duke, Hakon Perik, replied. It was old and calm, betraying little emotion.

His tall figure stood at the boundary between twilight and shadow, his gray-blue eyes fixed on Elizabeth’s white-clad back. "It seems Saint Cyril is putting a great deal of pressure on you."

Elizabeth slowly turned around.

The twilight outlined the delicate contours of her profile. Her ink-black eyes met the Ironspine Duke’s calmly. "The pressure has always been there, Your Grace. It did not begin today."

"You made a special trip here. Surely it wasn’t just to confirm my predicament?"

The Ironspine Duke didn’t answer directly. He took two steps forward, positioning himself fully within the last warm halo of light cast by the windowpane. His graying temples looked as though they were coated in a thin layer of frost under the light.

"I came to ask you a question, Elizabeth."

"Do you truly believe that Saint Cyril, and the Cardinals behind him who have been scheming for three hundred years, will actually do as they now proclaim once they ring the Morning Star Bell, crown a new emperor, and retake supreme authority? That they will relieve the poor, curb injustice, and truly spread the light of faith to the dark corners of the world?"

Elizabeth was silent for a moment.

The antechamber was exceptionally quiet. The faint chanting from the distant main hall sounded as if it were passing through a thick curtain of water.

She raised her eyes. In the depths of her dark pupils, a faint spark seemed to flicker.

"I know," her voice was soft, yet exceptionally clear. "I have always known."

The Ironspine Duke’s brow twitched almost imperceptibly.

"Cardinal Cyril and the others..." Elizabeth’s tone was as flat as if she were stating a fact that had nothing to do with her. "They need a banner, a symbol, a tool that will allow them to legitimately seize power and reshape the order. The Morning Star Bell is a tool. The status of a Saint is a tool. Even the slogan ’unite the Church Court and restore its glory’ is itself a tool. What they see is authority, is domination, is turning the Church Court into a more efficient, more centralized behemoth that can better carry out their will. As for whether that behemoth stands on fertile soil or on bones... that is not among their primary considerations."

The twilight made the deep wrinkles on the Ironspine Duke’s face even more distinct. "Since you know, why continue down this path? Why let yourself become a part of that tool? Why are you even willing to risk attempting to ring that bell?"

Elizabeth tilted her head slightly, her gaze returning to the window.

The spires of the Holy City were like black blades aimed at the firmament in the twilight. "Because a tool, in itself, is neither good nor evil. What matters is who wields it, and what they use it for."

She turned her head back, her gaze falling once more upon the Ironspine Duke’s face. Her dark eyes were startlingly bright in the dimming light. "Cyril wants to use it for his coronation, to centralize power. But I... I want to use it to do what Holy Throne Noe VII once wanted to do, but could not fully accomplish."

"Noe VII..." the Ironspine Duke murmured the name, an unreadable emotion flitting through his gray-blue eyes. "He failed, Elizabeth. He had power, he had wisdom, and at one point, he even had his chance. He tried to use the resources he had cleared out from within to mend the holes that Fuer II had pointed out, to build a system that adhered more closely to the teachings of the Holy Scripture. But he underestimated the stubbornness of the old networks of interest, he overestimated the time he had, and he overestimated the resilience of human nature in the face of power. In the end, he was forced into the Sanctuary, and you saw what happened to everything outside."

"I know he failed." Elizabeth’s tone was unwavering. "But failure does not mean the Path was wrong. And it certainly doesn’t mean those who come after should give up."

She paused, her voice rising slightly. "He failed, but now there is me. If I fail... naturally, there will be others. As long as suffering remains, as long as injustice continues to spread, as long as there are still people who remember the teachings of compassion, justice, and guidance in the Holy Scripture, someone will always try to walk this Path. They may stumble, they may fall again and again, but as long as the direction is clear, someone will always be moving toward it."