117 The Congress of Magic (1/2)
Chapter 117: The Congress of Magic
Translator: Kris_LiuEditor: Vermillion
Under the moonlight, the many beautiful flowers in the garden looked a bit hazy.
Lucien and Rhine were walking through the flowers side by side, both of them remaining silent.
A while later, Lucien could not hold himself back anymore, ”Can you tell me where the headquarter of the Congress of Magic is now, Mr. Rhine?”
Rhine looked at Lucien and smiled, ”What do you think? Take a guess.”
”I thought about it.” Lucien nodded, ”I thought it was on the other side of the Dark Mountain Range, or at least deep in the mountains. After all, the Church failed to march further westward across the range. Does it make sense?”
”A good guess,” Rhine grinned, ”but if you go there, what you can find deep in the mountains will be a bunch of crazy and gloomy sorcerers and sorceresses who survived the violent suppression, or say, slaughter, done by the Church. People call them ‘ancient sorcerers’.”
”Really? How come they live that long?” Lucien was a bit surprised.
”They are survivors.” Rhine explained, ”They managed to survive because they are powerful. Many of them are archmages and even legendary archmages. They’re cruel and crazy. You can easily become their subject for experiment if you piss them off and die from their brutal torture.”
”Then… is the headquarter in a certain country? I mean… in one of the countries which doesn’t follow the God of Truth?” Lucien made another guess.
”Nope…” Rhine shook his head again and again, ”Have you ever heard of the Kingdom of Holm?”
”Yes, I did…” Lucien did not quite get it.
”The headquarter of the Congress of Magic is in the Kingdom of Holm,” said Rhine, ”or, to be more specific, in the floating city called Allyn, close to the kingdom’s capital, Rentato.”
”Allyn… in Sylvanas it means sky.” Lucien murmured. Then his eyes suddenly opened wide, and he said, ”Wait… it’s impossible! The princess’ mom came from Holm, and this is a country that follows the God of Truth! The grand duke even visited it many years ago! How come…”
”I knew the answer would shock you, Lucien.” Rhine slowly explained, as if he was telling a rather interesting story, ”Among all these poems and stories and music works that praised the romantic love between the grand duke and the princess’ mom, neither of them specified why and who was trying to separate them. Don’t you feel strange?”
”I never thought about it…” Lucien was confused, ”Was it the congress? But why?”
”If you had ever learned about the philosophy of ruling,” the corner of Rhine’s lips curled up, ”you’d understand that it’s all about the balance between nobles.”
”Can you explain it a bit more, Mr. Rhine?” Lucien had some thoughts but was not quite sure.
Rhine walked slowly, ”In the last two hundred years of the War of Dawn, the power of the Church reached its peak. Even the emperor needed to kneel down in front of the pope and kiss the pope’s shoes. At that time, the Church could easily dethrone an emperor, not to mention deposing those dukes, counts and viscounts.”
”So, those nobles…” Lucien rubbed his chin a bit with his fingers, ”they decided to support the cardinals who wanted to separate from the Church?”