Steel steam and flame

The white ash was not very thick. Cassia made sure to move as gently as possible, and then patrolled the various books scattered on the bookshelves and long wooden square tables, looking for what she wanted.

Everything is still in the same state as it was perhaps a few years ago. From the plain room, it can be seen that no one has been here to take care of it for a long, long time. Every book also has an old feel, as if it is about to step into the earth, and then a mound is built, and a corpse marked with a cross is added, with traces of dilapidation and decay all over it. But thanks to the excellent environment and state of maintenance in the Imperial Library, none of them have been infested by insects.

Walking very slowly, Cassia read the names of these books one by one. Many of the books inside were not distributed through the Imperial Printing Factory. Most of these books were compiled by book lovers themselves, and then tied with tough threads to look like a book, and were collected here by the old man. There are many manuscripts written by hand, and the handwriting is different. Some of them have become blurred due to the erosion of time.

The answer that Cassia had already identified in her heart was also found in one of the manuscripts.

The book was very old and was sandwiched among the many books on the shelf. The book cover is made of cracked oil paper, with a mottled yellow color on it, and dotted with bacterial colonies and mildew spots that can still be used as specimens, giving it an ancient atmosphere and the taste of time.

The pages inside were as hard as fossils excavated from the depths of the earth. Cassia felt that with just a little bit of strength, the book would turn into a handful of fragments in his hands. There is no bibliographic name, but the compilation of it is very formal and formal - there is no indication of who copied this book, but there is a line of annotations in the corner, saying that this is the tenth book. Transcribed three times.

Perhaps this book can be handed down because of these thirteen people in the long history who no one knows.

The recorded things are very mixed and not systematic at all. The things written on them are also written in one piece in the east and one in the west, with no connection at all. It is more like the daily essays of a person in history, or a diary written by a person when he has nothing to do.

The text Cassia needed was recorded at the end of the book. It only took a piece of paper to write, and the words were simple enough. The person who originally wrote this passage may not have known the reason for it. It may have been his own guess, or it may have been rotting in everyone's stomach at the time.

"Today, it is more than a month later. The communication is not good, and the news of Knight King Grot's death reached us. Everyone is very sad, not only the person my son admires, but also the person I admire the most so far. His death is a heartbreaking thing for us. My comrade-in-arms lives in a town far away from the small town of Grote’s family. When he heard the news of the death of the King of Knights, he also As a fanatical believer in the King of Knights, he is also an injured veteran who returned to his hometown to recuperate. He is going to visit Grote's family. Although he feels that he may not even be able to see the King of Knights' family members, but this does not mean It hinders his desire to go and have a look."

"He said that he arrived there at night and saw that there was no light in the small town, only darkness and silence. People had left there, and it seemed that there had been a period of time, and the streets had grown overgrown with weeds in a short period of time. The simple house belonging to the Grote family was even more desolate. The door was not locked and there were signs of panic inside the house. The situation there told him that Grote's wife and his teenage daughter had left. We have been here for a while and left in a hurry. I thought there was something wrong, but later I found out that they were all taken to Manoma by the eldest son of Knight King Grote..."

There are a few lines at the end that seem to have been added decades later by the person who wrote these sentences.

"But after that, no one saw Grote's family again. The eldest son, who originally joined the army, seemed to have died on the battlefield. The reason was not announced. My comrade-in-arms was there for a while. , also went to Manoma to look for traces of them. He always felt that things were not as we knew. Just yesterday, we just got together for a comradeship meeting that happens every few years. After drinking, he said to me, "Grote He didn't die at the hands of the enemy, he died at the hands of his own people. His family and everything else had completely disappeared from the entire empire at that time',,,"

Seeing this, Cassia closed the book, and there were bits and pieces added at the end, all about the follow-up to this incident. But those things were no different from the history books in the library, and some of his own conjectures were similar to Cassia's own thoughts.

It's enough to see this. Cassia's purpose is actually just to know if Grote has a daughter that never existed. In the history books, Grote's wife and children only include his only son and his only wife.

Not in a hurry to get out here, Cassia stayed in this small warehouse for a while. Until he was sure that there was no more usable information, he closed the door tightly and went down the stairs.

There was no trace of the old man on the first floor of the building. Cassia, who wanted to say thank you, could only walk out of the Imperial Library with regret. The sunlight outside became much stronger, and the light brought enough heat that it began to burn everything it covered.

Walking out of the square surrounded by flower beds in front of the library, Cassia waited for a while before stopping an unoccupied limousine, said the name of the hotel, and went back to meet Julien and the others.

The car window glass filters out the excess heat in the sun, making Cassia feel warm when it shines on her body.

But this physical warmth could not thaw his frozen brain at the moment. A branch appeared here. On the one hand, it was the fact that Grote was talking to him in the spiritual world, and on the other hand, it was the conjecture that he suddenly caught in his chaotic thoughts. Cassia couldn't decide which side to believe.

"In a thousand years, the only people who can talk to Grote may be the saints who have been passed down from generation to generation. So in terms of collecting and processing information, Grote may have no other way." Cassia closed her eyes and said in her heart , "If the Holy Emperor who was treated as a puppet by Grote is true, and is passed down from generation to generation like the Holy Lady, and is not a beneficiary of the operation, but is an ordinary person throughout his life. Then they are extremely talented. , I wonder if in the process of continuous resistance, will you think about paving the way for those who come after you, instead of just thinking about redeeming yourself? No matter how talented a person is, if he is not as burning and dazzling as the sun, he can only pass through the stars. Such a way to light up the dark night sky. And if they know that the strength and savings of one generation alone are not enough to overturn this infinite cycle, those who die with reluctance and hatred towards the Holy Emperor Hall or the Empire will Are the generations of Holy Emperors secretly like the four forces, superimposing their ambitions on the Holy Emperor who knows how many generations later? The Four forces are waiting for the opportunity, and those Holy Emperors may also be waiting for the opportunity. Waiting for such an opportunity. They are Holy Emperors, and it is not a position that can be filled by just randomly selecting someone from ordinary people. Except for the puppet level, each of them has talents and powerful qualities that are as blooming as flowers. .”

There was no clear answer, and Cassia did not make a judgment on his conjecture. In other words, it’s not possible right now.

The limousine stopped at the entrance of a hotel. There was no time to think about it, and it had already reached its destination unknowingly.