That night.

A very deep night.

Arvin Hamlet was as quiet as ever.

After dinner, everyone returned to their own rooms. Noah stayed by the table and chatted with Aelia for a while.

As fellow “ancients” who didn’t belong to this era, they had quite a few things in common.

And Noah had adapted earlier than Aelia, so he had more experience in that regard.

Since he had nothing better to do anyway, Noah decided to just chat for a bit first.

After some light, mostly meaningless small talk, Noah brought up one person.

Aether.

The Aether of Aether Canyon. The Aether of Aether Spire.

He was the hero of the Rockrat Clan, the leader of the liberation revolution, and also the only Mediator in the duchy’s history.

As Aether’s former adjutant, Aelia definitely knew quite a bit about his past.

“The Mediator...” Aelia lifted a cup of black tea, blew on it by her lips, then showed a faint smile. “To be honest, back then, I never imagined Lord Aether would become a Mediator.”

“A lot of things happened after we died.”

Noah held a cup of hot water instead. He wasn’t that interested in black tea. “Like how, when I was buried, I never imagined that crybaby Belial would one day become the first Mediator.”

To Noah, Belial had always just been a dumb kid.

No skill. No looks. No background.

Who knew how Belial had started from nothing, charged all the way up, and ended up crowned with the title of Great Mediator, praised by later generations for ages.

Noah seriously suspected Belial had either latched onto some rich older woman, or picked up a ring with a super old grandpa living inside it. The kind that came with cheat powers.

Thinking about it made Noah feel pretty unconvinced.

How come he never got a system?

“Lord Belial truly was a genius,” Aelia said with a smile. “I imagine he inherited your excellent qualities.”

Noah glanced at her. “Why are you like Monica too? Always saying nice things.”

“That’s the truth.” Aelia looked at Noah seriously. “From what I know of Lord Belial, the two of you are very alike in many ways.”

Noah raised a brow. “Such as?”

Aelia thought for a moment, then smiled. “For example, both father and son think differently from ordinary people. At least, I never expected that at the very last moment, you’d suddenly think of pulling me up too.”

“I just wanted to try it.”

“Perhaps Lord Belial also only wanted to try at first.”

Aelia took a sip of black tea, the smile in her eyes deepening.

“Alright, I’ll admit that makes sense.”

Only now did Noah realize that Aelia seemed even more sharp-tongued than he’d imagined.

She’d probably just never shown it before because there was no room for distraction on the battlefield.

Aelia narrowed her eyes. The corners of her brows curved softly, and her smile was sweet.

Noah smiled too, and felt it was about time to bring it up—

“Speaking of which, I happen to have a question for you.”

He’d come to chat with Aelia partly to help her adapt to modern society, but he also had a small ulterior motive.

“Hm?” Aelia blinked curiously. “What would you like to know?”

Noah looked at her, remembered her straightforward nature, and answered frankly, “I want to know...”

“What exactly is a Mediator?”

...

This was a question Noah had never managed to solve.

He only knew that the words “Mediator” carried enormous weight.

The Equilibrium Guild didn’t worship any god.

What they worshipped was the Mediator.

From that alone, the Mediator’s existence stood almost on the same level as the gods.

Gods did not die easily. In the mouths of many believers, they were eternal and undying.

If the Mediator stood equal to the gods in status, then they should also possess an enduring lifespan.

And yet, up to now, Noah had never heard of any Mediator’s movements.

They existed only in history, praised by the world, yet somehow all seemed to have died, fallen, or vanished into the current of time.

That was strange.

Noah needed an answer.

Pascal and Anna could probably answer this too, but the sister had already gone to sleep. And considering Anna’s shameless, bottomless personality, Noah felt that getting the answer out of her would cost at least five thousand Ayn Coins in rewards, maybe even two or three extra conditions on top.

Rather than let Anna fleece him at the worst moment, he might as well ask the seemingly most honest Aelia directly.

At the very least, Aelia was free.

Aelia tilted her head and didn’t answer right away. Instead, she asked, “Information on the Mediator isn’t hard to find. I saw many books in your guildmaster’s office. Was there nothing about the Mediator in them?”

“There really wasn’t.”

Noah answered honestly, “Probably because every guildmaster throughout the generations was busy worrying about how to climb The Spire. So the shelves are full of books about The Spire. And some are works of art and literature.”

“I see.”

Aelia nodded and drank the last sip of her black tea.

She cleared her throat, then straightened her expression and looked at Noah with direct, earnest eyes.

“As for the Mediator, you can actually think of them simply as the one elected by the gods to hold the scales.”

Elected? Scales?

Noah listened in focused silence.

The Mediator was obviously one of the key parts of how this world was structured. No matter how long-winded this knowledge of the past might be, he had to remember every word.

Aelia knew Noah was waiting for her to continue. She sorted through her memories and began telling the story of the past.

“The gods’ first election began with the first North-South War.”

“I know that one.” Noah’s expression stayed calm. “It’s also called the First Collapse of Divine Authority.”

Put simply, it was basically a world war.

The difference was that the first world war on the Ayn Continent did more than cause countless deaths and injuries.

For thirty years after the war ended, the faith of every religious order was shaken to its core.

Because the power granted to them by the gods vanished.

That’s right.

Whether it was the light-aligned orders or the dark-aligned ones, the gods they worshipped seemed to fall asleep overnight.

No matter how devoutly the believers prayed, no matter how many offerings they made, the gods ignored them all.

They never responded to the faithful of the mortal world. They granted no divine power, and sent down no oracle, as if they had disappeared.

That period was called the Collapse of Divine Authority.

In just thirty years, countless churches fell apart. The number of people who killed themselves after their faith collapsed was impossible to count.

Claims that the gods had abandoned them spread everywhere, across the entire Ayn Continent, and nearly drove the Empire, the Kingdom, and the Duchy to the brink of destruction.

Until that person appeared.

Belial Pulvin.

“He ended the Collapse of Divine Authority.”

When Aelia said that, sincere admiration showed in her eyes.

“In a world suffering that collapse, Belial Pulvin was the only person who could use divine power. And at the same time, he was blessed and protected by all twelve chief gods.”

“His appearance signaled the end of the era of collapsed divine authority. It meant the gods had not disappeared. They were merely disappointed in the world, and so they imposed a punishment that lasted thirty years. At the same time, they weeded out those whose faith was disloyal, laying a solid foundation for the flourishing age of divine authority that followed.”

Noah listened patiently. At first, he didn’t think anything sounded off.

But when he heard that last sentence, he gave Aelia a slightly strange look.

“Did you come up with that on the spot?”

Aelia smiled awkwardly. “No. I memorized it from a history book.”

That explains it.

The whole thing had the unmistakable flavor of a textbook answer.

“But the facts really are like that.” Aelia put away her smile and said seriously, “As the first Mediator, Lord Belial endured countless hardships, yet was never defeated. What he showed in this world was acknowledged by the gods.”

“After passing the countless trials set by the gods, he finally gained their recognition. The gods were then willing to give the world another chance, and spread divine power among mortals once more.”

“And Lord Belial called himself the Mediator, the one who held the Scales of Equilibrium created by the divine power of the twelve chief gods.”

“From that point on, whenever the scales tilted, it meant something had appeared in the world that could shake the foundation of balance. The Mediator would then use the power of the scales to completely erase those things, thus ensuring peace across the entire Ayn Continent.”

I see.

Noah more or less understood.

The so-called Mediator was actually closer to a shared agent of all the gods.

The peace among the many races and factions of the Ayn Continent seemed to rest on the Mediator’s existence.

They didn’t dare go too far against each other. Otherwise, if they affected the scales, the Mediator would descend with judgment, and the consequences would be unthinkable.

Noah narrowed his eyes and couldn’t help asking, “What kind of behavior, exactly, counts as ‘shaking the scales’?”

Aelia thought for a moment, then picked up two biscuits from the table.

“Ordinary little conflicts won’t shake the scales. The only thing that can make them tilt is when balance is broken.”

“The most common example would probably be...”

Aelia separated the two biscuits and placed one in each palm.

She raised both hands at the same time, keeping them level.

“Look. These two biscuits are the light-aligned orders and the dark-aligned orders. Their spheres of influence, the strength of their faith, the number of believers... all of it added together eventually reaches a balance.”

“But if—”

Aelia popped the biscuit representing the light-aligned orders into her mouth in one bite.

She had probably thought of the past when she was burned by the Sacred Flame. Her bite was full of killing intent. At the same time, her left hand slowly rose while her right hand slowly sank.

Noah understood immediately. “Then the balance between the two factions is broken.”

Aelia nodded and swallowed the Holy Order biscuit. “Once balance is broken and the scales tilt, the Mediator will act.”

“Right.”

Then Aelia ate the dark-aligned biscuit too.

This time, she was only enjoying the taste of the snack. Her eyes happily narrowed into slits, like a little cat.

It was obvious she truly liked desserts from more than nine hundred years in the future.

As she ate the biscuit, she said a little unclearly, “So even though there are small frictions between the Duchy, the Empire, and the Kingdom, they’ve always maintained a delicate balance. Each side has its own area of expertise. But even the Empire, with the strongest military power, doesn’t dare start a war lightly.”

“The same goes for religious orders and races.”

Noah lowered his head in thought, then remembered the holy war within the Holy Order.

By all logic, that holy war had been an internal conflict within the Holy Order.

If it really broke out, the losses inside the order would definitely be severe. And as the leading force among the light-aligned orders, if the Holy Order consumed itself like that, wouldn’t it affect the balance of the scales?

Or was that kind of change too insignificant for the scales to care about? Did it take something on the level of a century-defining war to draw the Mediator’s attention?

Just as Noah was thinking that, Aelia added one more thing.

“Ah, and there’s one more thing about the Mediator... something a little regrettable.”

“Regrettable?” Noah hadn’t expected that word. “What is it?”

“Their lifespan.”

Aelia lowered her eyes slightly, her expression a little complicated.

“Even though Mediators are blessed by the gods, they are still flesh-and-blood mortals in the end. They can’t bear the pressure of holding the scales for long... Each Mediator can probably only hold them for two hundred years. After that, they...”

They vanished like smoke.

Between humans and gods, there was, in the end, still a gulf.

That meant Belial was already dead.

And Aether too.

Noah didn’t say anything.

Aelia remembered who Noah was, and guilt immediately filled her face.

“Lord Noah, I didn’t mean to...”

“I know.”

Noah answered with a faint smile. “That was to be expected.”

Of course, even if it hadn’t been, Noah wouldn’t have been too sad.

Belial’s image in his memory was vivid enough, but to Lu Yi, the one possessing this body, the emotions attached to it were still thinner.

Outside the guild headquarters, the night was quiet and soundless. Not a single passerby was in sight.

Candles were lined up neatly on the dining table, their flames lighting Noah’s thoughtful face.

He had heard the story he wanted to hear, so he slowly rose to his feet.

“If Monica comes back, have her meet me in the guildmaster’s office.”

Aelia nodded and agreed.

She wasn’t sleepy yet anyway, so she could snack a little while waiting for the elven maid to return.

That said—

Aelia watched Noah’s receding back, and her mind suddenly blurred for a moment.

In that instant, she saw the place Noah walked through twist out of shape. The doors lining the corridor were torn apart. Countless spiderweb cracks split open across the floor. Even the space around Noah fractured like shattered glass, with wisps of faint black mist drifting out from within.

Aelia rubbed her eyes, only to find that Noah had already gone around the corner.

As for the corridor, nothing had changed at all. Everything was as usual.

“That’s weird.” Aelia lowered her head, looked at the pastries and tea on the table, and muttered softly, “I didn’t even drink any alcohol...”

She stood there in confusion for three seconds. Then, broad-minded as ever, she gave up thinking about it and went back to munching on cookies.

Mm.

So good~