Chapter 427 — The War Machine Turns Again

Rebecca did not follow at once—her geography teacher had been lax in martial arts, and so her geography marks had never been good, and naturally she could not guess what Gaoyang had in mind. "You have an idea?"

"We can use river water to cool the device. I have seen Camille's prototype and discussed it with him somewhat. This approach should be feasible."

Rebecca was taken aback for a moment, then her eyes slowly lit up. "Oh! That is a good idea! I will go back and discuss it with Master Camille!"

Gaoyang smiled, then placed his hands on the table before him and let his gaze sweep slowly over each person present. "There is one more thing—this time I will go to the front myself."

At those words, the people present exchanged glances. Clearly they had truly not expected this.

To be sure, in this era it was the norm for noble lords to take the field in person, yet Gaoyang had been absent from the battlefields of the Gravel Ridge bombardment and the Whitewater River interception. Only when the aberrations had attacked the city earlier had Gaoyang personally gone to war, twice. In other words, except when defending the homeland, Gaoyang had no habit of leaving his domain. His attitude and self-definition on this point had always been clear: a ruler should sit firmly in the rear, and charging into battle at the front should be kept to a minimum.

So everyone had habitually assumed that the Mystic Vein Sect would remain in the rear this time as well, and none had imagined Gaoyang intended to go to war in person.

"A mature and functioning civil administration can maintain order during a lord's brief absence, and I trust Hetty to look after the rear while I am gone, and the troops left at home to defend against the threat of the Dark Mountains," Gaoyang explained his reasoning. "The attack on Rock Fortress will be a battle of great importance—more important, even, than dealing with Count Horsman's seventy thousand ragtag troops. It determines whether we can secure a stable and undisturbed base of operations. In any case, I will not permit any mishap in this campaign, so I will be there in person to oversee it."

Gaoyang paused, then continued: "And there is a significance even greater than that—the original purpose for which Rock Fortress was built, as all of you surely know."

Hetty looked at her ancestor, her tone complicated. "To lock the Cecil family away in the Southern Region…"

"So when Rock Fortress falls, I must be on the battlefield."

Symbolic meaning and outward display—Gaoyang himself could care less about such things, but the basic rules and public opinion of this era cared very much.

That being so, on an occasion of such importance, Gaoyang did not mind making a bit of "symbolic meaning" himself.

The pre-battle meeting lasted deep into the night. By the time it finally ended, Amber was yawning again and again. Looking at Gaoyang, who still seemed full of energy, she could not help curling her lip. "I really do not know what your brain is made of, always coming up with so many ideas…"

"I'll take that as a compliment," Gaolan said, then rose and walked toward the door. "Next I'm going to have a talk with Tyre. Coming along?"

Amber blinked. "You're going to call on her in the middle of the night? Is that really appropriate? She's bound to be asleep..."

Gaoyang turned his head and glanced at Amber. "Do you think day and night mean anything to Tyre? She's asleep every hour of the day—there's no telling when she isn't!"

Just as Gaodai had said, Tyre, a siren stranded far from the sea, had essentially only one thing to do on land: sleep. When Gaoyang and Amber reached her room, the mermaid was floating on her back in her great pool, looking for all the world like a corpse. To be honest, this saltwater fish had far too many eccentricities of style—not only did she walk with a swagger that acknowledged no kin or stranger, her sleeping posture was just as brazen. It had taken the maids of the lord's manor a long time to get used to the fact that the "mermaid" floating belly-up was not dead, but merely backstroking...

Waking Tyre was no easy task. Amber went at it for ages and the fish slept on as soundly as ever; in the end, Gaoyang was just hesitating over whether to leap in and split her with a jumping chop to get the salted-fish spirit up when Tyre finally stirred and slowly woke.

The instant she opened her eyes, the mermaid saw Gaoyang and Amber standing before her, and gave a great start. She spun around and slapped a tailful of water into Gaocen's face. "Don't you people know how to knock?!"

"Like hell we do! Even if we blew the door off its hinges out there, waking you up would be a miracle!" Gaoyang wiped the water from his face in distinct annoyance and turned to glance at Amber, who had ducked behind him at the first splash to avoid the spray. "Do you have any idea that we were one step away from pouring boiling water into the pool to get you up?"

"Boiling water is nothing. I've been near undersea volcanoes before," Tyre said with a sidelong glance at Gaocen. "Well, out with it—what do you want with me in the dead of night? It is night now, isn't it?"

As she spoke, Tyre looked around her, and only when she saw that it was indeed pitch black beyond the window did she confirm that it was night. "So it really is night... Then I've only just fallen asleep..."

"You went to bed last night!" Gaoyang said, eyes glaring, and began to seriously doubt whether coming to see this saltwater fish had been a mistake. Still, he stated his business. "I came to tell you something—we're about to attack Boulder Fortress."

Though Tyre spent most of her time asleep, she was at least aware that the Cecil Territory was at war with the outside world, so she showed no bewilderment now—only a trace of puzzlement. "And so?"

"Would you be interested in going to have a look?"

Tyre was taken aback for a moment; then her fish tail swayed gently in the water, stirring up sprays as she said unhurriedly, "Have you forgotten what we agreed in the beginning? I can tell you what I know of the deep sea, and I can help when those so-called 'Aberrants' attack cities, but I will not involve myself in your human wars. Such things are far too boring for me."

"Of course I remember, and I don't intend for you to join any human war. I only want you to carry a few things north for me—then you can just stand by and watch."

"As simple as that?" Tyre looked at Gaoyang with suspicion. "I know you. You're a cunning one—you've dug your pit already, haven't you?"

Gaoyang did not answer her question. Instead he prompted: "Aren't you interested in the magical arts of the land? Haven't you sirens run into a bottleneck in your own system of craft? Perhaps at Boulder Fortress you'll see something that interests you—it will be a head-on collision between humanity's traditional magical arts and Cecil's arcanotechnology. I believe that even for an advanced civilization like yours, a clash of that magnitude would be worth seeing."

Tyre's expression shifted slightly; she seemed tempted. But after a moment she shook her head a little. "Honestly, I'd still rather sleep..."

"I've given it careful thought. Amorn the Giant Stag is so huge—it wouldn't hurt to let you gnaw a few bites off him..."

"Deal!"

Gaoyang and Amber: "..."

:.