Chapter 504 (1/2)

Book 5, Chapter 9 – A Brief Revival

Eerie green fla into it

As they touched the ring's surface these ht bloomed into threads of luminescence, then quickly disappeared As each spark flared and died one could see their threads weaving within the ring

Cloudhawk carefully, painstakingly built the new relic He manipulated the precious ani It was like co an opus, or a poem

When the fla was complete It was not an attractive piece of jewelry by any means, but the inside bore a very detailed pattern none could see The threads of anih the piece like capillaries, as complex and ubiquitous as circuits in a computer chip

Where it different fro was that there was no way others could see them His pattern had become an intrinsic piece of the relic, the perfect blend of art, ic and science

“Experiment nu and peered at it closer as he spoke to himself “A complete success”

Cloudhawk had done very little sleeping lately He'd been working for days – and the end result had been a hundred and seventy failures But they weren't fruitless efforts – each ti new about relics and how to build them For instance, he realized that the process wasn't asIn fact, once he lifted the veil of mystery and looked closer at the process, he discovered that there were specific and uniforoverned hoorked

It was a science Each discovery brought uided him closer to the source It was a science that perhaps was far beyond the abilities of hurasp, and likewise about as near to science as art was Only a very different civilization could have been responsible for its creation

Once he learned the essence of it, then he would know the secrets underpinning it A relic, a sword, a knife, a gun, a cannon… they were all the same

For instance, the oldest humans used stones and sticks tometal to sence A gun or cannon would have been even more unthinkable

Humans today weren't far ree Relics to them were like a nuclear bomb to early ape-like men

Magic wasn't a real thing, not in this world Science was the process of turning ic into reproducible fact In that way they were inexorably tied; the liic lay in science

Lower life foric, just like humans looked up to Gods and demons

It was an important revelation for Cloudhawk It led hi of the world they lived in Before today, relics were inscrutable, just as Gods and de But now… maybe there weren't any real 'Gods' or 'demons' after all

To apes, maybe humans were Gods Maybe the Gods and demons of today looked at hu a God or a demon was just a title, a layer of mystery laid on these creatures by hu Could that be the case?

The ht he understood He felt like he had begun to fumble toward the essential secrets of reality – and its charm

It inspired hiht, forsaking rest and food He was still only at the cusp, now he had to mastery these skills The e and special ability that did not originate froher wisdooverned reality

But that was too big to grasp right now First, ti!

He turned it around in his fingers over and over again, n Finally he nodded in satisfaction, slipped the ring onto his finger, and walked toward the experiment room

He picked one of the dummies and summoned his mental powers Immediately the air started to ripple A host of athered like rivers toward the ocean Cloudhawk stared excitedly at the stable orb they created Was he right? After a hundred tries did he finally get this design perfect?

Big enough…

He drew his aret Only suddenly the once-stable orb bulged grotesquely without warning

shi+t! Cloudhawk threw himself behind cover just as the orb detonated Even with so between him and the blast, the concussive force still knocked Cloudhawk off his feet He crashed into a wall then crus cut Blood leaked froes, some from neounds and some from old

What happened? Why did it fail? Where was the problem?

He wracked his brains The inspiration for this relic ca several dozen he learned their secrets, but felt that they were cuht it would be far athering energy into a shot and then firing – and put it in sorade to standard demonhunter equipment

One hundred and seventy-one failures He'd run out ofEven for Cloudhawk it was a blow to his confidence

Worse was not knohy Where was the flaw?

His round shook violently beneath his feet The origin was fro the worst, he rushed from the lab to see what the problem was

In the center of Greenland City was the God Tree, standing proud several hundred ies it bestoere still raining upon the city, but now there was a crowd of athered near its base

“Gabby, what's going on?”

Cloudhawk had spotted his long-ti the onlookers

Gabriel shrugged “Everyone's rushi+ng to see Mistress Autumn use her Godly powers, of course”

The earthquake was a result of Autuy that flowed from the God tree's branches was constant and unbroken Now, no wasteland power could penetrate their hoh