Nietzsche was plainly asking to die. Yet his roar made Gelie's heart shudder, as though something had clenched it tight. Gelie was a priest of the Temple of Enlil; Enlil was the chief god worshiped by the kingdoms of Hatti and Assyria, and the god Gelie had believed in all his life. And from what the old madman said, this disaster had actually been brought by Enlil—and that god was above the clouds at this very moment!
Gelie could not believe his eyes, and even less the words he had heard. The old madman flew up into the sky, and at once countless bolts of lightning were drawn to strike at him; bright golden threads lit up all around his body—the golden bands of light thrown out by his staff—like a dense net that drew the lightning away.
Nietzsche was over a hundred and fifty years old this year, and had cultivated divine arts for more than a hundred and twenty years. He had never managed to advance to ninth-rank mage, but his mana was tremendously deep; now that he was spending it utterly, with no regard for his own life, the wind and rain and thunder truly could not touch him for the moment. He was already flying into the clouds—and the thick electric serpents that kept flashing among the rolling black clouds were the deadliest threat of all.
Then Gelie's eyes flew wide. He had noticed something inconceivable: the fiercest gales and thunderbolts in the cloud layer seemed to be under someone's control—they were all shying away from Nietzsche's figure.
Nietzsche flew toward the Xuya Plateau, swinging his staff without ceremony; thousands of golden, thread-like bands of light danced and savagely tore apart the lightning-laden clouds, as if he meant to punch a hole in the firmament, hack a passage open by main force, and drag that god above the clouds out into the open!
"Enlil, you filthy, cowardly pig! Why don't you dare face a mortal? Are you afraid? The clouds up here are trembling—is that you shivering before me!" Nietzsche seemed to be searching the sky for some trace of him; having found nothing, he fell to cursing at the top of his lungs.
Gelie was trembling again without meaning to, and even the staff in his hand shook faintly; never in his life had he heard anyone dare curse a god like that. Yet Nietzsche raved on without a care. What he was doing was begging for death—but he wanted to force the god above the clouds to strike the blow himself.
At last a majestic voice came from the air: "You madman—how dare you offend me like this! Do you really think I don't dare kill you? Poor mortal, you do not understand the secrets of the gods!"
Gelie's first instinct was to fall to his knees. The voice pressed on his very soul with an indescribable weight; he had never heard it before, yet in that instant he simply knew that the speaker was Enlil, the god he had worshiped all his life. The feeling could not be put into words.
The old madman only laughed uproariously: "Enlil! Great god worshiped by countless multitudes—I've finally cursed you into showing yourself! ...Come on, come on, let's see whether I can hurt you. I hope you won't dodge, and I hope you won't be afraid."
The old madman flew roaring toward the place the voice had come from and launched his strongest strike. He hurled the staff from his hand, and it burst in midair into a blinding mass of golden light that nearly tore apart every cloud shrouding Duke Town. In that instant Gelie seemed to see a figure standing above the clouds—no! A god.
Nietzsche had finally seen a god, and against that god above the clouds he had loosed the mightiest blow of his life, casting away even his staff, caring nothing for whether he would fall out of the sky. Gelie too had seen the dim divine figure, but only for the briefest instant; then countless thick bolts of lightning converged from every direction, with thunder that shook heaven and earth.
In the next instant Gelie could see nothing and hear nothing at all. And Nietzsche in the sky became a ball of fire, blazing bright as the sun for a moment—then he was gone in a scattering of ash.
Quickly everything returned to what it had been: the torn clouds closed up again, and the flood and the torrential rain still raged. The Deep Blue Boat suddenly pitched violently; stunned as he was, Gelie nearly lost control of his mana, and coming to himself he hastily swept his staff to bring the artifact back under control.
"Great Enlil, I have sworn my life's faith to you, and this is how I am granted to see you. ...Did you really bring this disaster? Have you gone mad? ...Nietzsche, so that is how you die? Before the wrath of a god, no one could have saved you." Gelie turned his staff, and the Deep Blue Boat swung around and went cutting through the waves toward the city-state of Xuya. Sigh after sigh rose in his heart, and he looked back one last time at Duke Town, vanished beneath the flood.
Then he saw another strange sight: a glittering shoal of something came flying up out of the water—godstones, one after another. Not the godstones of the mountain deposits, but those the miners of Duke Town had already dug out: some not yet handed over to the city-state, some privately hoarded by ordinary folk, along with the great store of godstones cellared in Duke Town's temple. All of them were now seized by some wondrous power and flew up into the clouds.
Do the gods on high need godstones too? The wealth of the mortal world ought to mean nothing to them—but Gelie knew very well that godstones were more than an expensive currency for passage. They were also the medium through which divine arts were worked; if the power of a divine art was too great, it could even destroy the godstones. Is a god working a divine art, then, drawing on godstones to make up for the power he spends?
On the way back, the racing floodwaters were naturally no obstacle to the Deep Blue Boat piloted by an eighth-rank grand divine artist; yet Gelie kept every shred of his mana gathered tight, not daring to relax for an instant, as though on guard against something terrible.
Carried along by the waves, the Deep Blue Boat drifted two hundred li and came directly to the foot of Xuya's walls. The city, ringed by its high walls, had become a vast island in the flood. The waters had spread from the northeast, submerging the fields on every side, and by the look of it were about to reach the base of the walls. Every gate had been sealed, and behind each one earth-filled straw sacks had been hastily stacked to keep the flood from seeping in.
Gelie planted his staff and carried the whole boatload of men straight up onto the city wall, then beckoned the Deep Blue Boat back to him. The artifact shrank to its form of a little over a chi long; the Deep Blue Water Heart was still intact, but the four godstones set into its sides were webbed with cracks, and crumbled to powder the moment they were taken out.
Xiaomo had been anxiously keeping watch on the eastern gate tower with his assistants, and when he saw Gelie return safely he hurried forward: "Honored grand divine artist, you're finally back! In half a day's time the flood has swallowed half the wilderness of the city-state of Xuya, and our city is surrounded by the waters. ...Look, the water is still rising!"
His voice was close to tears; if Gelie had not come back soon, he might have been minded to jump off the wall himself. Gelie had no time to waste on chatter and snapped out an order: "Gather every divine artist in the city!"
Walet answered, "The divine artists? They're leading everyone in prayer to the great god Enlil in the temple."
Gelie had no way to explain, so he only said in a heavy voice, "There's no time for prayer. Assemble them at once and lay down the largest divine art formation we can. ...Provincial Lord Xiaomo, take men and bring out every godstone cellared in Xuya Temple, and every godstone in the treasury vaults of the city-state as well—get them up onto the wall and set them out in a ring. ...Walet, you go lay the formation along the wall; the simplest protective divine art formation will do, so long as those godstones are set where they can be triggered."
Xiaomo gaped at him: "A-all the godstones of the city-state of Xuya?"
Walet was no less astonished: "Even if we lay a ring-shaped divine art defense formation along the whole wall, there's no way to trigger the power of a grand formation that size—much less drive the flood back!"
Gelie waved a hand. "I have no intention of triggering its full power. Even one part in tens would be enough. Tell every divine artist to husband their mana; all they have to do is keep every godstone in a state of being triggered by mana, merged with the formation. ...Go and do it—that's an order! Have Cosman preside over the formation."
Just then Raphael came panting up onto the wall and called out, "Honored master, Cosman is gone! He used a high-grade flight scroll and that flying artifact of his to carry his whole family away. He left word that he was returning to the royal capital to report the disaster here and request relief."
Xiaomo stamped his foot. "Reporting a disaster and requesting relief is for Lord Gelie and me to order and assign! How could he go off to the royal capital on his own? He's plainly run away with his family! ...Yesterday I saw him in the temple attempting the prophecy divine art, trying to divine how the city-state of Xuya would end in this flood. Does he think the city is going to be destroyed?"
Walet swore, "Him? Work the prophecy divine art? Divine an event that size? What a shameless—"
Gelie had no time for chatter; he cut them off with a wave of his hand and said to Raphael, his youngest disciple, "I am sending you to the royal capital to report the disaster and to request relief from the nearby city-states. Take these three scrolls. Use the white scroll to catch up with Cosman—ask him nothing—then use the gold scroll to kill him outright. Then go on to the nearest city-state, and from there all the way back to the royal capital."
He shook two tiny divine art scrolls, less than three cun long, out of his sleeve—one white, one gold—and handed them to Raphael together with the other high-grade air divine art scroll he had not used earlier. Then he said to Xiaomo with a dark face, "Cosman, high priest of Xuya Temple, abandoned his post when the crisis came and fled the field. I have ordered him killed outright. Proclaim it through the whole city."
Having said all this, the grand divine artist seemed already very tired; leaning on his staff, he walked down from the wall. Xiaomo called after him, "Grand divine artist, where are you going?"
Walet called out as well: "Honored master, Cosman has fled—who is to preside over the great divine art formation on the wall?"
Gelie answered without stopping: "Walet, you are already the strongest divine artist here apart from me. You preside over the formation; don't force it to any great power, just meet my requirements. ...Provincial Lord, put every divine artist on the wall. I mean to pray alone to the great god Enlil in the temple, and no one is to disturb me."