Chapter 1558: Bidding Farewell to the Past

After a long standoff filled with silence, all of Gawain’s swirling thoughts finally condensed into a single, deep sigh.

“I wanted to say that you could have chosen a better path,” he said softly, nodding slightly as he gazed at the apparition before him, “but history’s course never cares about what might have been ‘better.’ And the facts have proven that your original decision has, for now, brought about a somewhat more hopeful situation. Though uncertainties remain, I have successfully reunited the scattered remnants of Gondor’s people. Along the way, we’ve found ways to resist the divine calamities and the magical tides. We’re preparing for the final challenge. Mortals are far from guaranteed victory, but this time, we are better prepared than any civilization before us.”

“This is the best outcome we ever imagined,” Gawain Cecil, sitting opposite him, smiled. “I’m sure Charlie would be comforted to know this.”

Gawain blinked in surprise, then realization dawned. “Charlie knows about this too?”

“How could he not? He’s the king, and I guard the border for him. Without his tacit approval and support, how could a southern duke suddenly take a ship full of people out to sea and vanish for half a year?” Gawain Cecil chuckled. “And if I’m right, after I ‘died,’ countless legends about me must have spread—some true, some false, tangled and confusing. Numerous poems and conflicting historical records have shrouded my life in a thick fog, and my journey vanished entirely from history. All of this was to make the resurrection of a mysterious ancient hero plausible decades or centuries later.”

“Then, besides the king, who else could have orchestrated such a plan across such vast lands and through such a long stretch of time?”

Gawain stared, speechless for several seconds. After years of decrypting history, he thought he understood most of the story behind Gawain Cecil’s sea voyage. Aside from the gaps in memory, he never imagined there were so many secrets—secrets that Cecil had deliberately erased from his own mind before dying.

Two sets of memories—one from Gawain Cecil, the other from a wandering soul trapped in a satellite—each incomplete but complementing the other. Some parts were intentionally deleted, others lost in data arrays for centuries due to system failures. Now, these lost fragments slowly surfaced from the river of time, piecing together a complete picture before Gawain’s eyes. He pressed his fingers to his forehead, trying to calm his racing mind. After an unknown stretch of time, he looked up at the apparition and said, “Alright, Charlie knows. I should have guessed that… But what else did you leave me as a ‘surprise’?”

“There’s a letter,” Gawain Cecil’s lips curled slightly. “Charlie left it for you.”

“A letter?!” Gawain’s eyes widened. The day’s unexpected revelations kept coming one after another, shaking even his years-honed composure. “Charlie left me a letter?”

“Is it really that surprising? Since he knew everything, he certainly knew you existed. Though you two could never meet, he had things he wanted to say to you—specifically to the you of today. Leaving a letter with me was the best way we could think of back then.” Gawain Cecil’s expression was calm as he raised a hand. Without any visible movement, the letter materialized in his palm. “I stored it deep within my soul. Originally, it should have come with your memories when you descended to the world, but an accident delayed it until now. Finally, I have the chance to hand it to you.”

Gawain hesitated, then reached out and took the letter. Before opening it, he glanced once more at the figure identical to himself, who simply smiled and nodded gently.

Taking a deep breath to steady his heartbeat, Gawain unfolded the letter—words penned centuries ago now appearing before his eyes:

“Friend, I hope this letter does not startle you too much. With our limited wisdom, we could find no better way to communicate with a being who might not arrive in this world until decades or even centuries after our deaths. Human lifespans are too short, and souls too fragile to endure. I was unwilling to entrust my mind to necromancy or the elusive blessings of gods. After much thought, I could only write you this letter.

“You may think this ‘communication’ meaningless, since by the time you read this, I may have long since returned to dust. But for us, short-lived creatures who cherish this world, many acts that seem pointless are worth doing. Even after death, there are things we cannot let go.

“If you are reading this, then you have likely fulfilled the promise Gawain Qing spoke of. You have descended to the earth and begun to revive this shattered world, haven’t you?

“Is the Holy Spirit Plain’s harvest enough now? Are the northwest borders no longer freezing people to death? Anthony has long wished to build a strong city in the east—has it been built?

“I truly want to see what your era’s world looks like. My imagination falls short; I cannot sketch the future’s landscape. But I hope it is at least a better time than ours.

“Our era… is not good. Don’t misunderstand—I still love this land, every person on it, and all we have built together. But even so, we live in harsh times. Food is always scarce, and the north is colder than when we set out. Warm places lie too close to wastelands; safe places are frozen solid. We have cultivated this strange, hard land for many years, yet it still regards us as strangers.

“But by your time, these should all be memories, right?

“Friend—I don’t know if you consider me one, but I choose to call you that. Gawain Qing said you would inherit his memories, his body, and his name. In your time on earth, you will be another him. Though for beings like you, this may be a temporary vessel, he told me you are trustworthy, worthy of many responsibilities. I have always trusted him, so now I trust you.

“I believe—if you honor this promise across time, if you care for a people who may seem fleeting in your eyes, then you will surely achieve the dreams Gawain Qing and I once shared.

“So I entrust all this to you: a mess, a broken world, a struggling race, a civilization shattered to pieces. Call it what you will—but please cherish it. No matter how broken, this is all we have built to this day. It is our most precious treasure.

“Your friend, C.”

The letter was brief. It was no secret revelation, no testament of state affairs. It was simply an ordinary letter, a greeting destined never to be answered. Like a deliberate mark left in Gawain’s memory, Charlie had left these words. And as Gawain finished reading, the words began to fade into darkness.

After all, they were not physical matter, but projections cast by memory.

Gawain looked up and saw the figure sitting before him begin to fade and dissolve.

This was, after all, only a consciousness forcibly preserved for centuries by the Lady of Night—not even a fragment of a soul.

“Looks like it’s time to say goodbye,” Gawain Cecil’s apparition stood, a trace of relief on his face. “I stayed here just to deliver this letter. Now that it’s done, I’m finished.”

Gawain rose as well, silently watching the fading figure. After a moment, he finally broke the silence in a low voice: “You know, Charlie and the ‘Kingdom of Ansu’ you entrusted to me ceased to exist years ago. That kingdom was terminally ill—I had to personally see it to its end.”

Gawain Cecil’s ghostly eyes locked with Gawain’s, then suddenly he laughed. “I know. The ‘Lady’ told me. But you know, centuries ago, Charlie and I already suspected this might happen.”

Gawain frowned. “You suspected?”

“Yes,” Gawain Cecil nodded gently. “No dynasty lasts forever. A kingdom hastily cobbled together by refugees has even less foundation. We had no Deep Blue Well to support royal authority, no Gondor Empire’s millennia of strict systems and detailed records. The founders were heroes, but what are their descendants? Just descendants. We dared not imagine what Ansu would rot into after decades, centuries, generations.

“So we thought, if it were you—if you truly saw the ‘scenery’ you described to me—you probably couldn’t bear such a mess. And even if it wasn’t a mess, the foundations we laid capped the kingdom’s potential. That ceiling was far too low to resist the magical tides and gods.

“So if Ansu is gone, it’s gone. The living cannot control what comes after. Charlie never expected his kingdom to last forever—though I don’t know if he still thought that in his old age. I left while he was still young.

“But tell me, what about you? After inheriting my memories, when you personally dismantled that dying kingdom, did you hesitate? Now, standing here, do you doubt your decision?”

“I never hesitated,” Gawain smiled, looking calmly at the apparition. “And after meeting you, I am even more certain—there is no point in clinging to a dying kingdom. Besides, what you and Charlie entrusted to me was never really the ‘Kingdom of Ansu.’ You entrusted me with the land, its people, and their future. In that, I believe I have done well.”

Gawain Cecil’s apparition widened his eyes in surprise. He stared at Gawain for a long moment, then suddenly laughed. “If Charlie were here, he’d surely applaud your words. Guess how he’d judge your calmness?”

Gawain raised an eyebrow. “How?”

The tall apparition stepped forward, raised a hand, and patted Gawain’s shoulder.

“Gawain Qing was right.”

Then, the apparition vanished.

…

Gawain blinked. He found himself standing in a vast city shrouded beneath a chaotic sky. Endless rows of buildings stretched into the distance, their bizarrely styled spires jutting upward like a forest of jagged teeth. At the heart of this colossal city stood a towering figure, gazing down upon the land below. From the misty clouds, a pair of amber eyes fixed steadily on him.

“Looks like you’ve finished your conversation,” Lady Night’s voice descended from the sky—calm and gentle.

“How long did we talk?”

“Just a moment.”

“I could’ve sworn it felt like much longer…”

There was a pause, a few seconds of silence before she spoke again. “How do you feel? Having reclaimed your memories, and seeing that lingering consciousness—do you have anything you want to say?”

Gawain thought carefully. As his expression softened, he let out a quiet breath. “It feels like I’ve stepped up a rung in life, like I’ve finally set down a heavy burden.”

“That’s good. I was worried those memories might trouble you,” Lady Night said, a hint of a smile in her voice. “Looks like my judgment was right.”

“Your judgment?” Gawain raised an eyebrow. “How did you figure that out?”

Her voice came down from the sky again: “You’re a pretty open-minded person.”

Gawain was speechless.

For a moment, the Lady Night before his eyes seemed to overlap with a certain shadowy assault goose he once knew. But before he could dwell on it, that lazy yet commanding voice spoke again: “Alright, now that a personal matter is settled, it’s time to move on.”

Gawain inhaled softly. The experience had already made him realize this “Ancient God’s Pact” was far more outrageous than he’d imagined. Lady Night had just pulled a major move on him, and who knew what heart-stopping challenges still lay ahead? He composed himself, steadying his heartbeat, then looked up at those amber eyes in the sky. “What’s next? The Voyager’s message?”

“Oh, that’s saved for last,” Lady Night chuckled lightly. “Next, we’re still talking about you. Trust me, your story is no less complicated than the Voyager’s—or the fate of this world.”

Her words immediately sobered Gawain’s expression. He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

“Over the years, you’ve achieved great things,” Lady Night said deliberately. “Revitalizing the southern lands, uniting the nation, leading an era, even bringing together the civilizations of this entire planet—you reclaimed the wastelands, defeated gods, and now you will lead this world against the demon tide, completing civilization’s final trial before reaching the stars…

“What an astonishing legacy. And in the hearts of many, all these feats are embodied in you. So tell me—at any point, even for a fleeting moment—did you realize you had become… like a god?”

(End of chapter)