812 - Tide and Wind (1/2)

Wind blew from afar amid the sound of waves.

Above the endless blue sea, the flag of the Red Dragon hung high on the ship of steel, riding the wind and breaking the waves together with the fleet. The fleet stirred up mighty waves and advanced in a straight path.

”How much further is it?” someone asked.

”We're arriving soon, Your Majesty.” Christine replied, ”Soon.”

So Mary's expression returned to tranquility and calmness once more. Her Majesty the Empress was dignified as usual, and unless one knew her very well, one would be unable to notice that she seemed nervous and restless.

She had asked the same question for many times along the way, and Christine could only repeat the same answer to her. Fortunately, this time round, the outline of the distant city could finally be seen from afar.

”It's only been three months.” Christine put down the binoculars and sighed softly. ”It has already become completely different from the past.”

Geraint, who had returned from inspecting the deck, smiled. ”After all, he's the Hand of God, even if he creates a miracle, it will not be surprising.

”It's a pity that, at such a young age, he has stepped into the 'grave'...”

At the moment, Geraint's 35th birthday had just passed. He no longer looked young, but he was still full of handsome male charm. Moreover, his personality was not as stiff as his predecessor, Tristan. As he said so, he couldn't help but say a little somewhat teasingly.

As a result, just as he finished his words, he sensed two displeased gazes landing on his face.

”Sir Geraint!” exclaimed the Empress.

Christine cast an angry look at him. This idiot just had to bring up the wrong topic!

Geraint, who realized his blunder, immediately bowed awkwardly to the Empress and dared not stay any longer. He gave an excuse and intended to go strolling along the deck for another round.

But just as he stepped on the deck, he heard the harsh alarm coming from the observation ship.

In an instant, the entire Royal Fleet which was escorting the Empress immediately entered a state of alert. Firebird even appeared on the flagship, namely the Royal Pride. Violent bestiality emerged from the reflection in the sea, coldly gazing at the sky.

And just above the sky, a huge shadow suddenly emerged.

It was as if a behemoth had suddenly shattered the sky. In the rumble of the hurricane sweeping across, clouds were torn apart, and a shadow so thick it seemed tangible was cast toward the surface of the sea.

It covered the Royal Fleet.

For a moment, even the navy which had secretly gotten ready to open fire did not react.

What... is that?

In the surprised expression of everyone, above the sky, a grand melody sounded from the huge city, echoing the pulse of the heavens and the earth, and the city moved forward rapidly, despite appearing as if it was moving slowly.

Wherever it passed, the sea of aether, which was under the city and flanking it, stirred up layers of silver waves.

A magnificent and grand miracle had descended upon the mortal realm.

”Don't act rashly!” Geraint, who was the first to react, announced to the whole fleet. ”They are the winged people, who have been invited to the Cloud Tower, just like us. Stay alert, but it is probably just a misunderstanding.

”Musicians of the school of revelation, first, ask the other party to clarify what they are doing here, then warn them of the risk of accidents happening, and request the other party to quickly withdraw from our naval defense region.”

Despite saying so, as a royal guard, Geraint inevitably felt displeased.

The Royal Fleet of Anglo, and even the ship Her Majesty is on, is now being literally ridden on the head by a group of bird-like people with wings. If one takes it seriously, such an incident cannot even be considered a foreign-affairs-related blunder, can it?

In a sensitive period of time, it can almost be considered a declaration of war.

Moreover, it's just a matter of traveling, yet the winged people has gone to the lengths of transporting their entire country here from across hundreds of thousands of kilometers via the realm of aether... How free their empress is!

If you really want to show how much you care about the event, it's alright to bring your family over, but who the heck would bring even their house?

Reacting almost as fast as the Royal Fleet, a team of winged people, circling the sky and guarding the territory, slowly approached and stopped at a safe distance. They bowed and apologized, then quickly turned to leave and catch up.

Millions of birds flanked the city floating above the sky, speeding up and leaving the Royal Fleet's shooting range.

The alert was lifted.

Geraint wiped the cold sweat off his head and started getting a headache over how to report the incident to Her Majesty.

Meanwhile, on the bridge of the ship, a silent Mary suddenly spoke. ”Christine?”

”Your Majesty —” The serious female knight leaned over. ”How may I help you?”

”Speed up the fleet.” Mary said, expressionless. ”We must reach before them do.”

”Yes, Your Majesty.” Christine nodded, turned and gave the order, but from the corner of her eyes, she saw her empress quietly biting her lips, murmuring softly. ”In hindsight, I should have brought the islands surrounding Avalon over as well...”

In the end, she is angry because her pageantry has been outcompeted, isn't she?

Christine couldn't help but smile resignedly.

Despite being so dignified at all other times, but when it comes to Prince Ye, Her Majesty becomes very childish...

As the fleet accelerated, the shadows cast by the distant city were gradually enlarged. The huge city seemingly forged by steel revealed its outline.

It was completely different from the original Cloud Tower.

Since the Hand of God took over the city of the Cloud Tower from House Liu, claiming it to be the fief of House Ye, the old city of the Cloud Tower was bulldozed overnight. No, rather than to say 'bulldozed', 'rooted up' would be a more accurate and literal depiction. The old city was then thrown into the nearby seabed to serve as the foundation of the satellite city.

On the original foundation that was completely empty, new crustal movement was triggered, which caused the seabed to rise. Overnight, the area of the city of the Cloud Tower expanded by several times.

Then, on the new foundation, steel grew out of the ground like trees. The unprecedented musical movements of modifications almost exhausted all the iron ore within a few thousand nautical miles. What was created was the majestic city that was shining in a cold iron gleam at the moment.

Which the destructive power of the Hand of God brought fear to the various nations, then his present means of creation had impressed countless.

Since the fall of the god, the Hand of God had become the most powerful mortal the world had ever seen in the past 100 generations. As long as he was willing to, he could at any time forcefully subdue all the countries and become the new god in the mortal realm.

Fortunately for everyone, after his trip to the Caucasus, the Hand of God left Anglo and settled down in the city of the Cloud Tower, leading a hermit lifestyle. He even provided almost free of charge access of the Net of Aether to the whole world, sharing the power that he could have monopolized with everyone in the world.

Since the destruction of the Holy Cauldron, other than the musicians who had attained the Level of Scepter and converted half of themselves into aetheric form, musicians would find that the difficulty of communicating with aether had increased by tens of times, and the stability of the musical movements became so low that it was frightening. They tend to explode easily, causing unpredictable and unknown outcomes.

In just three days, God knew how many musicians got bombed into the air together with their own labs.

The rules established by the Three Kings of the first generation were completely abolished along with the destruction of the Holy Cualdron. Meanwhile, the Net of Aether, which had risen, completely dominated the operation of the realm of aether.

Even the scepter musicians who were arrogant in the past must bow to the Net of Aether at the moment.

In order to show that he did not intend to use the power to dictate the world, the Hand of God even separated the institute responsible for running the Net of Aether from the Royal Institute of Research.

All the necessary backbones of the institute, including Newton, no longer possessed their original nationalities and became international citizens who were not a part of any country.

Meanwhile, recruitment for the operation of the Net of Aether had been opened to the whole world, and any qualified musicians could participate in it.

All the technology used in the Net of Aether were fully disclosed. In principle, each country could maintain and operate the local Net of Aether.

After taking over all the music theory and channels left in the Holy Cauldron, the Net of Aether had become the only way for humans to use the aether presently.

Musicians also ushered in the biggest change in a few centuries, and they turned from demigods of the past to new engineers.

The power would be owned by all mankind and would never be monopolized by individuals and organizations... Well, that was what he claimed, and it was up to each individual to decide whether they believed in it.

Anyone with eyes could see that in the next few decades, most issues in the world, be it war or peace, or even prosperity and the creation or abolition of a country, would probably be decided single-handedly by the Hand of God.

It was even more alarming because the Hand of God had already set off a wave of unprecedented bloodshed throughout the various countries before killing the god.

At the moment, after the various nations had waited nervously for three months, the Hand of God finally did something.

—The countries received a wedding invitation.

Yeah, the invitation was from the city of the Cloud Tower.

I, Ye Qingxuan, am getting married.

You all can bring some gifts and come take a look, don't expect anything else.

The elegant and graceful content of the invitation more or less meant something like the sentences above when translated.

Get married, it's good to get married!

God knew how many people exhaled in relieve.

Although definitely no one can profit from it, and the nations cannot be stingy with the gift money, from all perspectives, a married person will definitely act more mature than an unmarried person, and will not act rashly on impulse occasionally.

Moreover, combining the information above with Ye Qingxuan's recent development of the city of the Cloud Tower, it seems that he will stay at home to enjoy life after marriage and will not leave the place without reason.

Moreover, maybe after a while, the Hand of God will begin a sophisticated, health-conscious middle age life... Many things can be solved with whiskey and wolfberry, isn't it great!

It's simply worth celebrating with the whole world!

Be it the countries that were secretly relieved, or the common folks who were simply grateful to Ye Qingxuan for saving them, everyone gladly offered their blessings for the wedding.

It could be said that other than the Ministry of Ceremonies belonging to the Aurora, no one was unhappy about it.

After all, the problem still lay with the wedding.

Of the two leading roles in the wedding, one was the Hand of God who could descend upon the mortal realm as a god as long as he was willing to, and another was the supreme emperor of the Aurora, the head of the Dragon Bloodline, the descendant of the Dragon Bloodline closest to perfection in the past 100 generations.

So, here was the problem —

The empress couldn't marry into another family. Even if all the ministers had been beaten to death for opposing her marriage, she would never be able to marry into another family. Otherwise, the sovereignty of the Aurora would be immediately at risk, yet Her Majesty was unwilling to give up her throne... Surely Lord Ye wasn't going to drape a red cloth over his head [1] and marry into the royal family?

So, who was the one marrying into the other one's family?

Although everyone knew the answer well, because of the ego of Her Majesty and various other reasons, no person without a death wish would say the answer directly.

Therefore, after spending so much effort to solve the problem to the extent that he almost had a brain hemorrhage, Tai Changqing finally thought of a way.

Everything will be solved if the wedding is held in Western style!

Lord Ye even had a bishop title as well! Although the Church now exists in name only, a church-style wedding will still be recognized by both the East and the West.

Although the idea is kinda bad, but isn't the problem solved by letting the foreigners worry about it instead?

By then, the marriage is official, will the question of who marrying into which family still be important?

After all, the empress will still be the empress, as for the other matters, it's best not to care about them.

With the political wisdom of everyone in the imperial court and the approval of Duke Ye, and after several reputable wise men submitted memos jointly, everyone pretentiously went through the required procedure in court and finalized the matter.

The final result was a wedding that seemed to be in the global spotlight for a short period of time.

Although the date was set to two months later, many people had already arrived one month in advance, hoping to 'coincidentally' meet the Hand of God before the wedding. But more than 20 days had passed, and they received no benefit.

Meanwhile, the actual important guests only arrived on the day of the wedding itself.

When the Royal Pride docked, it was just behind the Burgundian delegation.

Mary, whom Christine had somewhat calmed initially, immediately hid back into her cabin after stepping on the deck and seeing the Prince of Avalon talk happily with the first citizen of Burgundy at the harbor. She tried hard to resist the desire to look in the mirror.

”Christine, how do I look like in this dress?” She tugged at her knight, as if she was seeking help. ”Is it demure enough?”

Christine sighed helplessly.

”Alright.” Mary bit her lip, breathed in deeply twice, and tried her best to calm down.

”Let's go.” She coughed twice in a pretentious manner. ”Well, after all, it's not good to make people wait for too long.”

Just as she descended the ramp, she saw the male lead of the wedding waiting on the pier.

He was all dressed up to welcome the guests. He smiled and bowed to his former empress.

”It's been a long time, Your Majesty, you look just as good as you did.”

”You flatter me, Mr. Ye, you are the one who looks great.”

Mary tried to make small talk, but for some reason unknown, when she spoke, she couldn't help but tear up. ”You know, I...”