Chapter 220: Heart in Chaos, Heart Stirred (Part 2)

  "Your heart is already in chaos."

  The cup shook in mid-air, and the tea inside had already begun to spill from its swaying. Stephen looked at Sandro and said lightly.

  Sandro did not move, the expression on his face as indifferent and cold as an ice sculpture.

  "You are just like those young ones, your heart filled with hostility and impetuousness. In this state, do you still think you are a match for the two of us?"

  "Probably not." Sandro thought for a moment, then finally opened his mouth to answer lightly. Although he answered this way, the magical fluctuations around him were still surging.

  "Then sit down and have a good cup of tea first." Stephen raised his hand slightly, and the teacup before Sandro floated up a bit. Neither he nor Valthor had shown the slightest killing intent from the very beginning, and at this moment, they were completely indistinguishable from two ordinary old men persuading a friend to drink tea.

  Sandro was slightly taken aback: "You really want me to sit down and drink tea? Are the two of you not here to deal with me?"

  It wasn't that these two were incapable of poisoning the tea to deal with him, but he knew they would not. Perhaps others in this world might poison him, but these two alone would not.

  This was not based on things like friendship or trust; he couldn't speak of such things between him and these two. The reason he could be so certain was that these two were, in the truest sense of the word, worthy of their title: Necromancer.

  Even if they might indeed fight him to the death to uphold the iron rule of no fighting in Diya Valley, they would never use such means. Therefore, for them to offer him tea in a situation where they held the absolute upper hand in terms of momentum, mentality, and strength, it could only mean that they truly just wanted him to sit down and have tea.

  "Deal with you? Sandro, you truly disappoint me somewhat…" Valthor struggled to sit up straighter. Looking at Sandro, he said intermittently between coughs, "Have you forgotten what is most important for a Necromancer?"

  These words were calm and slow, mixed in with the sound of coughing, making them somewhat hard to hear clearly, but the tense aura around Sandro, who was permeated with killing intent and magical energy, faltered once more.

  Stephen picked up another cup of tea from a nearby stone chair, took a sip, and said to Sandro, "I can see that your heart is also filled with something, and it's filled to the brim. You didn't come looking for that fellow just for yourself; there are other reasons, reasons not for your own sake. You are already somewhat unable to control yourself, unable to suppress the hostility in your own chest. That is why you see the two of us as your enemies."

  Sandro turned his head to look at Stephen. The light in his eyes was colder, more lifeless than before, and also somewhat dazzling. He sneered and said, "I didn't know your insight was so good, that you could even see through me. What? Do you think you've seen through me?"

  But Stephen didn't seem to mind this gaze, not even paying too much attention to Sandro. He leaned back in his chair and began to slowly look around, his gaze sweeping over the surrounding mountains, the clouds in the sky, the grass, trees, and flowing water beside him. His gaze was very casual and gentle, and so was his voice: "How could I possibly see through you? It's just that I remember you haven't looked carefully at your surroundings since you came in. Diya Valley is such a beautiful place; I've been back for a whole day and still haven't had my fill of looking, yet you haven't spared it a single glance in twenty years. That can only mean your heart is stuffed with something."

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Sandro was taken aback, and the intensity in his gaze slowly relaxed. Unconsciously, he also followed Stephen's gaze and looked around.

  The morning sun was sprinkling down from the highest point of the Peak of Whirling Shadows, illuminating this large, beautiful scene in the valley with vibrant life. Exotic flowers and rare grasses were planted in every corner of this valley in a very artistic way. In the middle were scattered three or four large, sturdy trees with lush foliage, a stream from the mountains accumulated here to form a pool of emerald green water, and there were also rockeries that blended seamlessly with the environment. Looking at this scene from every different angle offered a different sense of beauty. The Necromancer who designed and planted the vegetation in this valley was known to few in the mortal world, but those who knew his name were the most famous landscape artists on the continent, and they all revered him as a god.

  The stone benches and stone chairs placed under the shade of the trees or by the pool were all carved by the hands of Necromancers. Each piece was enough to drive the most discerning art collector mad, and the cup currently floating before Sandro was no exception.

  Here, beauty, elegance, and transcendence were already a state of being, a feeling. An atmosphere. There was no need to deliberately feel it; it was omnipresent in itself. Even a butcher who slaughtered pigs and sold meat could feel this atmosphere, completely different from the mortal world, upon coming here.

  "It's been twenty years since I came back... Although I'm a person completely out of touch with any damn art and aesthetics, this is indeed the most pleasing place to the eye." Sandro nodded, his gaze having softened considerably.

  Stephen said lightly, "Diya Valley can be so beautiful because it transcends the people of the world. Here there is no utility, no desire, no terror. A Necromancer can stand above all living beings also because of a noble heart."

  "No utility, no desire, no fear, transcending life and death, lucid and lofty—this state of mind is the most precious legacy left to us by the great Archibald, and also the most important thing for a Necromancer." Valthor struggled to cough, looked at Sandro weakly, and asked, "You, do you still have that lucid and lofty heart now?"

  "Indeed, I no longer have it." Sandro sighed, finally picked up the cup of tea before him, and drank it all in one gulp.

  "You actually sent people to monitor him?" Ethan looked at the three people before him in disbelief.

  "You're mistaken? How could a man like Mr. Sandro be monitored without noticing?" Sophia said coldly. "After the alliance gift from Sedros to the Empire, the complete Star-Eye, was reinstalled in the teleportation magic circle, I just had the High Priest order someone to go to the library to get books from old priest Tom every half an hour or hour. When he suddenly disappeared, the High Priest would naturally send someone to inform me."

  "You even want to scheme against him?" Ethan shot to his feet, his voice carrying an irrepressible anger, but in the end, he suppressed his anger again and said, "It's useless for you to know about those things."

  Sophia also stood up at once, looked at Ethan and said, "This is the Royal Capital, the heart and mind of the entire Empire. We have the right to know what unspeakable, dangerous thing is buried beneath our feet. I don't care what Mr. Sandro is guarding, nor do I care what the hell kind of remarkable ghostly thing that damned Diya Valley has. What we must guard is this Empire's territory of hundreds of thousands of miles, and its tens of millions of citizens."

  The gazes of the two who were standing met. The original anger in Ethan's heart had dissipated, replaced by a sudden, inexplicable sense of loss. The face before him, even when angry, with its slightly flushed cheeks, was still as beautiful as a peach blossom. The eyes, which were not smiling, still seemed to be smiling, still so beautiful.

  Still the eyes of a lover, but now they were the eyes of the Empire's Chancellor.

  In fact, he had already felt this way when Sophia made that hint about Sandro earlier. That hint was filled with a shrewdness unique to a politician, a scent he had sensed before from the former Duke Mrak and from Rodhart, only deeper and more hidden.

  Of course, he knew this didn't mean Sophia was becoming like her father. He certainly knew that what she was doing now was what an Empire's Chancellor should do, should say, and should think, and that displaying it so nakedly before him was a form of intimacy... but that scent, that cold, harsh scent like metal scraping against metal, produced after weighing, analyzing, and calculating everything, he had already smelled it too much, too heavily on Duke Mrak and Rodhart. To smell it again now irresistibly evoked a sense of disgust in his heart.

  Discovering this scent, to which he had already become somewhat allergic, on the person in whom he had placed the most emotional hope, the huge contrast made him somewhat angry. But when he immediately understood that this was unavoidable, his heart suddenly became completely empty with loss.

  Sophia also seemed to have noticed the strange change in his eyes. She too fell silent, her expression also showing a strange dejection and unease. The two of them simultaneously averted their gazes and quietly sat down again.

  Sedros and Regiment Commander Roland exchanged a few glances with each other, then coughed, let out a long sigh, and said, "Previously, Ronis didn't even tell me, nor did he tell Regiment Commander Roland, about that thing in the dungeon. I can also roughly guess that thing is so important that we could not be allowed to know about it. Otherwise, why would he not return to The Radiant Citadel to become Pope and stay here instead? Why would Mr. Sandro condescend to be a corpse-keeper in this Royal Capital for twenty years?"

  Sedros paused, then changed the subject again: "But now, too many people know that there is something in the cellar. Lies probably won't fool those with intentions for long. And judging from Bishop Javi, he is probably not the only one who knows the true identity of this thing and is watching it covetously. Sophia is right, this is the Royal Capital after all. No matter how important that thing is to Diya Valley or to Sandro, to Regiment Commander Roland, to Sophia, and to me, nothing is more important than the safety of the entire Ainfast. So I am asking you here, please make the matter clear to us. We do not want to offend Mr. Sandro, but even more so, we do not want to endanger the entire Empire and Oufu because of Mr. Sandro's personal secret."