When the king entered, everyone in the chamber straightened… everyone except for Sunny, naturally, who was the only person sitting comfortably on a wooden chair. Anvil spared him a short glance — which was heavy enough to make Sunny pale behind the mask — and took his seat calmly.
Once the King of Swords was seated, the rest of the Saints took their places behind the round table. Because of its peculiar shape, everyone here seemed to be an equal… however, that equality was merely an illusion. Anvil did not do anything, and yet his suffocating superiority was painfully apparent.
Consequently, those who sat closest to him were above the rest. Morgan sat to his right, while Nephis sat to his left. As for Sunny himself, he was almost on the other side of the table.
At the same time, he was standing near the wall with the rest of the Fire Keepers. The Masters and a few Awakened who had been invited to participate in the war council did not get a spot behind the table.
There were a few moments of silence before Anvil's deep, strangely enthralling voice resonated in the stone chamber. He spoke evenly and plainly, in a strangely calm tone — as if what he was talking about was a mundane matter, not a war that would shape the future of humanity… or maybe even destroy it. ƒгeewёbnovel.com
"Welcome, warriors of the Sword Domain. We have carved out a piece of this cursed land and established a fortress atop the ancient bones of a dead deity. Our blades are sharp, and our will is triumphant… for now. The forces of Song have had a hard time achieving what we had achieved with relative ease, but there is no wisdom in belittling their valor. Those who underestimate the enemy are destined to fall. The cost of arrogance is death."
He gazed at them coldly and continued in an indifferent tone:
"There is no one in the world who knows Ki Song, the Queen of Worms, better than I do. So, I tell you this: there is no end to the insidious schemes woven by that woman. You should prepare yourself to taste bitterness as her machinations unfold. However, I also promise you this — at the end of it all, we will taste the sweetness of victory."
Hearing those words, Sunny couldn't help but sigh.
At that moment, he suddenly realized how tragic this war must have seemed to the rest of humanity — for reasons entirely different from the ones he himself had considered before.
Anvil said that there was no one in the world who knew Ki Song better than him, and it was most likely true. Sunny was used to thinking about these two as nebulous and sinister figures — as tyrants of immense power who secretly controlled the fate of humanity. The Sovereigns.
But they had been mere mortals before attaining Supremacy — Awakened warriors no different from him. More than that, they had been members of the same cohort.
So, this was a bitter war between two people who had once braved the horrors of the Nightmare Spell together, and fought side by side in the depths of hell. It was no different from Sunny raising an army against Cassie, to kill her and take her kingdom for himself.
'It's actually… quite sad.'
These people had been the hope of humanity once. Now… the Smile of Heaven was gone. Broken Sword was dead, as well. Asterion was who knew where, and the last two were determined to destroy each other.
It made Sunny wonder what would happen to his own cohort in the future.
He could not know the future, of course… but he did know that, at the very least, they would never end up as the Sovereigns. Not the least of all because the Sovereigns were there, in front of them, as a cautionary tale — without their appalling example, Sunny and his companions might very well have unknowingly ended up becoming them.
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