Silent Crown

Now Ye Qingxuan understood what Mary meant. It was not Leviathan that

was to be resurrected. It would never be…

Ye Qingxuan deciphered the alchemy metrics, reading the remained

messages in there to dig out the dark facts that had been buried there in the

long history of time and piece them together to get the facts.

No body knew exactly why Arthur had failed to finish his path of godly

ascension. However, the path didn’t seem to have failed, it was rather paused

due to some unexpected cause.

All the alchemy metrics that were running smoothly indicated this. everything

was running perfectly as anticipated by Hermes. All the steps were taken,

except the final crucial step – to turn Arthur into a catastrophe.

The consciousness of the Leviathan was wiped out and all its power

separated from her, waiting to be endowed upon Arthur.

Yet the path stopped right there. And with this one final step less, the path

went nowhere.

Although no one knew what happened exactly, the result was as seen by

everyone. The failed Arthur was sealed in the palace in the Shadow of Avalon

and the power of Leviathan, separated from its owner, turned into a periodical

phenomenon and tried to converge to its core to finish the last step of the

path.

That as the cause of everything. The hundreds of years of suffering and pain

began.

As long as Arthur was alive, the power of Leviathan would never disperse and

would come back again and again. And what’s the funniest, was the fact that

it was the descendants of his – his descendants who had inherited the dragon

blood and the curse that had been stopping Arthur taking the last step in the

hundreds of years.

On one hand, every generation of the royal family had tried to reinforce the

seal of the Shadow of Avalon. Yet on the other hand, they sucked the power

of Leviathan out with their dragon blood royal family members as bait, and

then destroy the power together with the family member to postpone the last

step of the path of godly ascension.

This was a paradox. Without the dragon blood, the royal family member could

not control the defense line of Anglo to stop Leviathan’s power from coming

back. Yet anyone with the dragon blood could not resist the order given by

Leviathan, or we should say, Arthur. The bloodline of Leviathan endowed

them with power, and with it, the curse.

Just like Ye Qingxuan, he could not fight against even several drops of blood

of Leviathan, not to mention Leviathan itself. Ye Qingxuan could never get rid

of the threat of the curse without the Blood of Deva which was not afraid of

the iron of decay.

Once the dragon blood got dense enough to wake up the firebird, the beast

nature in the dragon blood would gradually control the consciousness of the

host. It would break the stability of the host’s mind and cause wickedness and

madness. Mary was the example for this.

Ye Qingxuan fell silent. After a while, he suddenly raised his head and looked

coldly at the bottle in Shi Dong’s hand. “Is there anything you haven’t told me

yet?”

The shadow in the bottle shivered and said frightfully, “I’ve told you

everything! I’ve told you everything that I know.”

Ye Qingxuan heaved a sigh and waved his hand. Shi Dong smiled and raised

his hand. Then, he began to shake the bottle violently. He liked this so much,

and would never miss any chance to do it. While playing with it, he felt he

could live for another hundred years.

The fire writhed like water, bringing suffering and pain beyond the limit. This

was the fruit of hundreds of years of wisdom of the Religious Court of

Inquisitors, and it was inflicted upon the Dark Sovereign without any mercy.

He shouted curses; he roared in pain; he moaned in weakness; and finally, he

could not give any sound. He was like dead. Shi Dong stopped shaking the

bottle.

Looking at the bottle coldly, Ye Qingxuan said, “is there anything you want to

say now? like, why did you make so many efforts to control Mary and bring

her to the Palace in the Shadow of Avalon?”

The figure in the bottle twitched in pain and managed to say, “body… Arthur

needs a new body…”

The figure in the bottle didn’t dare to hide anything anymore and spilled out

everything he knew, “Arthur cannot hold it any longer. His body is dying and

was jointing with the seal…To get freedom, he must have a new body…”

Silence fell. Sitting on the ground, Ye Qingxuan lit up the cigarette on his lips.

“You should tell earlier.”

Understanding the order, Shi Dong went to the side and began to shake the

bottle like crazy.

Ye Qingxuan smoked the cigarette in silence, looking grim. He finally figured

out why Maxwell rebelled: he had to kill Mary. He had to do it because the

dragon blood in Mary’s veins was too dense. She should have died 15 years

ago after all the suffering and pain. Yet Hermes prolonged her life, together

with the curse – the dragon blood would grow stronger with time. If Ye

Qingxuan got it right, Elizabeth’s dragon blood was too dense, it was beyond

the limit. To pass the throne down to Mary smoothly, she turned herself into a

monster.

Yet at the same time, she became a spare body for Arthur.

After Maxwell’s assassination, Elizabeth got killed by the Lance of Dragon

Slayer. The dragon blood in her body began to deteriorate and the body was

thus unusable. That left Arthur only one choice.

Mary.

To control Arthur, the Dark Sovereign struck first. He planned to take Mary in

his hands and use her to threaten Arthur. Otherwise, if Arthur was resurrected

and took control of Leviathan’s power, he would have the combined power of

the scepter of heaven and the power of the king of hell and there would be no

chance to have him under control.

Yet, he planned everything except one thing – he was abandoned by Arthur.

Or, Arthur had never trusted him from the very beginning.

Ye Qingxuan raised his head and gazed at the dark sky above.

Is it too late now?

–

In the darkness, Lancelot lit up a fire. The fire lightened up his face and the

withered man by the throne ten steps away. On the throne, there sat the king,

who was no longer breathing.

As if sensing something was coming to him, the withered man raised his eyes

and looked at Lancelot.

Showing no expression at all, Lancelot, lowering his head, lit up the lamp and

put it on the ground. Gentle light lightened up the shabby hall.

Raising his head, he looked at the old man on the other side of the barrier of

the Stone Sword. “Maxwell, long time no see.”

Maxwell sneered and shook his head. “As expected, it was really you.”

“Em.” Lancelot nodded his head. He didn’t show any sign of shame when he

admitted it. He was calm and indifferent as usual.

He looked at Maxwell and the ancient sword tossed on the stairs. After a long

while, he heaved a sigh and said, “for all those years, there was one thing that

I could not figure out: why the Stone Sword had picked you instead of me.”

“What is that you cannot figure out?” Maxwell said coldly, “you should have

gotten the stone sword. But there was original sin remained in your heart.”

“Me?” Lancelot laughed. “Compared with you, I think, I’m intact in terms of

morality.”

“Stop insulting morality, Lancelot.” Looking at him coldly, Maxwell said, “if my

guess is right, you chose the clan instead of the happiness of your sister,

right? White raven…You sold out Ye Lanzhou to the Church secretly, so that

your father had to make the tough choice between the family and his

daughter. He had to exile his daughter and killed himself due the guilt brought

to him by that. At last, it was you that had it all.”

“My father was too weak. He had forgotten the destination of the Lancelot

family.” Lancelot was still calm, “the existence of Ye Lanzhou would destroy

everything. The family had to be saved at any cost.”

Maxwell couldn’t help but sneered. “I should congratulate you, then. You’ve

gotten everything you want. You had you family. So why did you ask for

more?”

“The Lancelot of every generation were dead fulfilling their duties to the royal

family. I am no exception.”

“Yes. But the king you serve is different from the one that others have

served…”

“This has been the destination of the Lancelot family from the very beginning.

It was the curse on the family line…It was not only the nation and the royal

family that were cursed. We are cursed too…”

Lancelot asked coldly, “what had we done wrong? Nothing! We have

sacrificed everything for Anglo, and now we don’t even have anyone to

continue the bloodline. We have to force ourselves into the cage after we

were born. Every head of our family was only a prisoner of this armor. We

have to struggle and sacrifice everything, even our kids. When Christine was

born, everyone was dancing and singing. But do you know how painful I felt?

She always felt ashamed that she was not a man and could not inherit the

Lancelot armor. Yet, I didn’t want her to have this tragic fate at all! You tell me,

Maxwell, what have I done wrong? I just want to find our relief!”

“So that you stamped the glory of your ancestors? So that you sold everything

out? You surrender to the catastrophe?”

Lancelot laughed, finally. It was a sneer. “Wasn’t this country made by

catastrophe?”

Maxwell didn’t answer. He lowered his head and laughed self-mockingly. “It is

my fault. I should not talk about those meaningless things with you. After all

those years of intrigue against each other, your have become muddleheaded

and have forgotten your initial intentions. You may fool yourself with that set of

excuses of yours, but that was nothing but bullshit to me. I almost forgot if not

reminded by someone else. A mistake is a mistake, even when it was made

for the so called ‘big picture’. Mistakes must be punished. Otherwise,

‘correctness’ would lose its meaning. We have lived too long so that we’ve

forgotten why everything became like this.” He paused for a moment, a shiny

of coldness sparkled in his eyes. “I should have figure all this out earlier,

Lancelot. It was a pity that I made up my mind too late.”

“Yes. You chose to slay the king.” Looking at Maxwell, Lancelot said, “I

underestimated you…There was only some trivial signs, yet you put on your

guard. I once thought that I could never defeat you. Your vigilance and your

determination are both terribly beyond me. You are so frightening, Maxwell.”

Maxwell shrugged. “Sorry, I am born like this.”

Lowering his head, Lancelot heaved a sigh. “If it were not you, his majesty

should have been resurrected long ago. It should not have taken so long.”

In the silence, Maxwell got transfixed. He raised his head after a long time.

“What were you just saying, Lancelot?”

“Is there anything that you’ve forgotten? Glanced at Maxwell, Lancelot turned

his head and wave at outside the gate. Then he said gently, “please come in,

your highness.”

Then, a thin boy came in from outside the gate, holding an iron box too big for

his size and looking around timidly.

Maxwell’s expression changed when the boy showed up.

He was the prince! The prince that had been forgotten by everyone, the prince

with birth defect, the retarded…

Caressing the hair of the prince, Lancelot raised his head and looked at

Maxwell. “I know that you have poisoned him to prevent him from being the

carrier of Arthur’s power. However, he was after all the blood kin Arthur.”

“Uncle Lancelot, where is my sister?” hiding behind Lancelot in horror, the

prince looked at Maxwell timidly and finally looked at the throne. “What’s

wrong with my mom? Why didn’t she speak?”

“Don’t be afraid. Her majesty is asleep.” Comforting him gently, Lancelot

raised his hand and pointed at Maxwell. “It is the guy with the beard that has

killed her majesty.”

“Lancelot!!!” Maxwell shouted, “do you know what you are doing now? It’s not

late to give it up now!”

Ignoring him, Lancelot lowered his head and whispered by the prince’s ears,

“do you want to protect your mother, your highness?”

Glancing at Maxwell in terror and frightened by Maxwell’s anger, the prince

nodded his head, “I do.”

Lancelot smiled.