The air in the room was stagnant and heavy, mixed with the scent of old parchment and ink.
Amos was slumped over the large wooden table, her face buried in a pile of scattered manuscripts.
For three consecutive days, she had barely closed her eyes. The food sat untouched in a corner of the table, long since cold and hard.
Her thoughts were like a caged bird, trying again and again to solve a single question: how to make the King understand, how to make the King change.
Deep, dark circles were branded beneath her eyes. Her skin was pale and dry from lack of rest, and a few strands of white hair were stuck to her forehead and cheeks with sweat.
Her sleep was shallow, filled with nightmares. Countless words of admonition crashed through her mind.
Just then, a sound pierced her thin consciousness.
At first, it was a blurry hum, like a distant swarm of bees, but it quickly became clear and loud, coalescing into waves of sound.
Amos's eyelids fluttered a few times as she struggled to lift her head.
The sound struck her eardrums: "Crush the tyrant, tear open the storm wall!"
An icy chill instantly burst from her heart, spreading rapidly through her blood vessels to every limb. Her fingers dug violently into the rough paper on the desk.
Crush the tyrant? Someone wanted to kill the King? The very people she had tried to speak for, the people she had hoped to win back, actually wanted to kill her god?
"How could they..." she murmured, her voice hoarse and dry.
Horror struck her stomach like a physical blow, making her dizzy.
She shot up from her chair, stumbling from the sudden movement, and rushed outside, wanting to hear more clearly.
Outside, the sound was even clearer. The four words, "Crush the tyrant!" were sharp and true, each one piercing her heart.
She immediately turned and rushed back into the room, her gaze sweeping to the wall. Her beloved longbow, the weapon that had accompanied her for countless years, was supposed to hang there. However, the weapon rack was empty.
She froze, her pupils constricting slightly. For the past three days, she had been completely immersed in thinking of how to advise the King, and had completely forgotten about retrieving her weapon from the foreigners.
She gritted her teeth and rushed out of the room, trying to assemble the King's personal guard.
But the corridor was empty. The guards who used to stand solemnly were long gone, only the constant clamor of the uprising could be heard from a distance.
The personal guard had all fled.
She didn't give up, rushing to the armory to find a replacement.
An ordinary bow and crossbow would probably be no match for the two foreigners' strange abilities. Her gaze locked onto a menacing-looking heavy crossbow.
The crossbow was forged from a dark, heavy metal. Its arms were thick, and the string was made from the tanned sinew of some monster, gleaming with an oily sheen. It required the strength of one's waist and a windlass to draw, and the bolts it fired were enough to pierce heavy iron armor.
She shouldered the heavy weapon, grabbed a quiver of specialized bolts, and turned to rush toward the stone bridge that led to the High Tower's perimeter. These stone bridges encircled the tower, occupying the high ground.
She crouched at the edge of the stone bridge. Below, the crowd of rebels was like a swarm of ants, trying to approach the base of the High Tower.
She pulled the trigger. The heavy crossbow let out a dull roar, and the bolt became a black line, shooting into the crowd with a shriek that tore through the air.
Cries of alarm and pain came from below, and the formation fell into momentary chaos.
Someone raised a simple wooden shield, but it was like paper before the heavy crossbow's terrifying piercing power and was instantly penetrated.
Her sharp gaze swept the battlefield, and she soon locked onto a small squad.
They were escorting Hector, another of the King's attendants. The rebels clearly wanted to coerce Hector into opening the secret passage to the High Tower's interior.
I can't let them succeed!
With almost no hesitation, she quickly reloaded and aimed. The next moment, the bolt left the string, accurately piercing Hector's head. Hector fell without a sound.
The surrounding rebels escorting him clearly hadn't expected a long-range sniper and scattered to find cover.
Just then, a wisp of cyan light from below caught her attention.
Around the light were two exquisitely armed foreigners, the red-haired and blonde leaders of the resistance, and a young man running at the very front, his movements nimble and excited.
Sensing an immense threat, Amos raised the heavy crossbow again, aiming at the figure of the young man charging at the very front. She pulled the trigger!
Venti followed closely behind his friend, Himmel.
The young poet was fired up at this moment. His thirst for freedom and his yearning for victory made him charge far ahead of the group, his face beaming with a cloudless, excited smile.
Venti watched his agile back when suddenly, his body shuddered violently. He sensed a high-speed object tearing through the air, heading straight for Himmel!
He almost instinctively mobilized the Anemo element around him, trying to form a barrier in front of Himmel to push the object away.
But it was too late!
The crossbow bolt's speed was beyond imagination, and the power it carried instantly pierced the wind wall he had hastily condensed.
He couldn't stop it!
Venti's heart sank, and a cold sense of powerlessness seized him.
Himmel first felt a sudden, strong wind rush past his side, lifting the ends of his hair.
Immediately after, an unimaginably huge impact struck his right chest, as if he'd been hit by an iron hammer.
His running momentum came to an abrupt halt, and his body was thrown backward uncontrollably.
The intense pain only became clear afterward, but even more terrifying was the suffocating feeling that followed. He opened his mouth but couldn't make a sound, only a liquid with the metallic smell of rust surged up his throat. Every attempt to breathe brought tearing pain and deeper suffocation.
"Himmel!" Venti shrieked, his cyan light flaring.
Almost a second after the bolt hit, Columbina and Coppelia had already arrived.
Columbina activated her authority. Several huge stone slabs on the ground, with a slight hum, broke free from gravity and rose abruptly, blocking the path before them.
With a dull thud, the second crossbow bolt fired by Amos slammed deep into a stone slab, failing to penetrate.
Coppelia's gaze instantly locked onto the figure on the high stone bridge.
Without hesitation, she raised the bow in her hand. The string vibrated, and an arrow of light condensed from Pyro and Electro elemental energy shot from the string, flying toward Amos.
High above, Amos was about to attack again when the corner of her eye caught the unusual light.
She dodged sideways and back.
However, the light arrow wasn't aimed directly at her, but at the bridge surface beneath her feet.
Boom—!
The Pyro and Electro elements clashed violently, and [Overload] triggered an explosion! A fierce shockwave carrying rubble spread in all directions.
Amos hadn't expected the arrow to explode at all. Her dodge was not large enough, and she was viciously thrown by the blast wave.
She slammed heavily onto the bridge surface, nearly sliding off into the eternally swirling wind wall below.
She desperately gripped a protrusion on the bridge, her nails breaking, just barely managing to steady herself.
Elemental arrows kept shooting over, suppressing Amos and preventing her from getting up. The elemental power exploded on the wind wall, stirring up a chaotic flow of energy.
At the pinnacle of the High Tower, Decarabian, who had been silent, seemed to be disturbed.
A fierce gale swept out from within the High Tower, blowing toward the inner ring area.
The rebels below were intimidated by this sudden divine might, and their charge faltered, many showing fear on their faces.
"Protect the wounded! Hold the formation!" Gunnhildr's voice rang out, calming the army.
Lumiere rushed over, carefully avoiding Himmel's wound, and moved him to a relatively safe spot behind a broken wall.
Gunnhildr quickly ordered a nearby physician to come forward, then she too rushed to Himmel's side, her expression grave.
Himmel lay on the ground, his face a terrifying bluish-gray from lack of oxygen and blood loss.
He struggled to open his eyes, his vision already blurry. Every weak breath was accompanied by bloody foam.
He used his last ounce of strength, trembling as he raised his hand and pointed upward.
Lumiere, Gunnhildr, and Venti, who was hovering by Himmel's side, all followed his finger and looked up.
That grayish-white storm wall that sealed off the sky and suffocated them all hung before their eyes.
Gunnhildr shot to her feet, shouting to Coppelia and Columbina, who were still defending and counter-attacking, and to Venti and Lumiere, who were immersed in grief over their friend's grave injury:
"Let's go! We can't delay any longer! We must eliminate the Solitary King as soon as possible, and let him... let all of us, see the real blue sky!"
Lumiere wiped his face, suppressing his sorrow and anger in his heart, and nodded heavily, gripping his greatsword.
Venti's cyan light flickered violently. He circled Himmel once, and then resolutely ascended into the sky.
Coppelia's expression was cold as she nodded. Columbina remained silent, facing the High Tower, and activated her authority once more.
The explosions finally ceased. Amos caught her breath, her ears still ringing.
Just as she was about to get up again and counter-attack with the heavy crossbow, she saw a conspicuous ball of cyan light, enveloping four figures, shooting toward the stone bridge she was on like a reverse meteor, finally landing steadily on the bridge not far away.
It's them!
The red-haired captain who defected from the Knightly Order, the blonde leader of the rebels, the two foreigners with strange abilities, and... that foreign god.
Alarm bells screamed in Amos's heart. She immediately raised the heavy crossbow in her hand, trying to draw the string.
Lumiere's movements were faster. He closed the distance and swung his heavy greatsword with precision. With a crisp clang, he knocked the heavy crossbow from Amos's hand. It spun as it fell toward the wind wall below, where it was instantly torn to shreds.
Four people and one spirit approached her.
Amos staggered back, subconsciously drawing the sword at her waist and pointing it at them.
Lumiere swung his sword again, this time a precise upward strike. The sword flew from her hand, tracing an arc as it disappeared beyond the bridge.
Amos retreated to a set of stairs.
Gunnhildr stepped forward, looking at her, her gaze calm.
Amos leaned against the cold stone railing, her long silver-white hair somewhat disheveled, her eyes a mix of madness, despair, and an almost fanatical protectiveness.
"Why?" Her voice trembled with emotion. "Why must you kill a god? For the past four hundred years, it was the King who built the storm wall, who sheltered you from the ice, snow, and monsters! Isn't what the King has given you enough? How could you... how could you be so ungrateful!"
Gunnhildr met her gaze. "The Solitary King of the past did indeed provide shelter, no one denies that. But now, this storm wall has become a prison, and the Solitary King's tyranny is the root of all suffering! The people cannot breathe the air of freedom, cannot see the real sky! We must eliminate him to survive!"
"No! It's not the King's fault!" Amos retorted fiercely, trying to grasp at the last straw. "It's the nobles! It's those parasites who twisted the King's will and brought direct suffering! You've already taken the noble district, you've gotten what you wanted, that's enough! Stop! Return to the King's shelter, believe in him again! I will go persuade the King, I will definitely make him change his mind! Give me time!"
Gunnhildr looked straight at her and asked the most crucial question:
"What makes you think the Solitary King can be persuaded?"
Amos opened her mouth but found she couldn't make a sound.
What makes her think so? Yes, what makes her think so? Deep in her heart, she had always harbored a humble yet fervent fantasy: the King cared about her.
She was now the King's only attendant, the person closest to him. The King just needed time... As long as she worked hard enough, was sincere enough, the King would surely see her, hear her, change for her...
She took a deep breath, mustering all her strength to say something she herself could hardly believe anymore: "The King... the King still loves his people..."
"Loves his people?" Gunnhildr's voice was sharp with a hint of mockery. "He only loves his fantasy of the 'people,' a blurry illusion! He has never loved any specific person, any living person! Like you, Amos! You have served him for so many years, accompanied him by his side, has he ever once looked at you with his own eyes?"
"No, the King, he..." Amos started to retort, but the words caught in her throat.
Fragments of memory churned uncontrollably in her mind.
From the day she was chosen as an attendant, walking toward the throne with reverence and adoration; to the countless times she knelt on the ground, reporting the situation, offering advice; to the nights she silently stood watch outside the High Tower...
Decades flashed by like a fast-forwarded scroll. In every scene, the King's figure was high on his throne, his gaze cast toward a void in the distance, or his eyes were tightly shut. Never... not once, had his gaze truly fallen upon her.
Gunnhildr's words were like the final key, unlocking the deepest despair: "I'm afraid he couldn't even tell you the color of your hair!"
Amos's white hair was her most striking feature among all the King's attendants.
"No... no... no..." Amos shook her head, backing away step by step until she fell onto the cold stairs.
Her mind went blank. All her anger, all her resolve, crumbled before this cruel question.
More than suppressing the rebellion, the answer to whether the Solitary King loved her was like an abyss, swallowing her whole.
Gunnhildr took a step forward. "You don't know either? Then come with us, to the Solitary King's presence, and ask him yourself whether he loves you or not!"
A trace of dazed and frantic hope flashed in Amos's eyes. She almost instinctively turned to run toward the archway at the tower's entrance.
Coppelia stepped forward, placing a hand on Amos's shoulder. Then, under Amos's confused gaze, she placed an exquisite longbow, shimmering with a faint purple light, into Amos's arms.
A strange thing happened. The moment the bow touched Amos's hand, the string suddenly erupted with a dazzling white light, tinged with a cold blue halo. At the bow's tips, the previously dull golden patterns quickly spread and lit up.
At the same time, Columbina activated her authority.
An invisible force field enveloped the five people present. Gravity vanished in an instant.
Venti's cyan light shone with unprecedented brilliance. He spiraled upwards, gathering all the wind power around him, transforming it into a powerful updraft that fiercely blew toward the five weightless individuals!
Whoosh—!
Five figures shot from the stone bridge, ignoring the battle still raging below, and sped toward the very top of the High Tower!
___
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