Thousand-Faced Dragon

Chapter 310 Song of Peace
The rusty sword, stained with blood, lies dormant on the stone; children searching for their families shroud their fathers and brothers.

The battle cries of a century ago have faded, and the battle banners and crowns have lost their masters.

The hymns of the sanctuary still linger, the lamentations of the dead turn into frost on the earth beneath the stars, and what makes the living on this scorched earth live—for the crowns and banners of the past, or for the bones of their loved ones in the underworld?

The ancient songs were shaped by the ancient Elvish language, and without the "Sabah" dialect, it would be too difficult to understand, let alone pronounce them correctly.

This is a poem that sounds convoluted even when translated.

The general meaning is that war brings nothing; participating in war only brings pain and meaningless losses. This is extremely rare for a bard.

After all, heroes, princesses, and dragons are the bards' favorite tunes in the tavern.

A simple story—the hero defeats the dragon, rescues the princess, and lives a good life—is enough. Overly complex or unexciting stories are simply too unfriendly to tired adventurers looking for a break.

They love all sorts of heroic epics—simple, direct, and exhilarating.

This is perhaps the root cause of the popularity of Hero Cards and Mage Chess.
"Uh, this is a lethal dose, isn't it? Even I would say that's going too far. Give me an explanation."

What does it feel like to be hit by a fireball in front of your mentor? Rean felt a little dizzy. He took a deep breath to suppress his anxiety and the possibility of flames erupting at any moment.
"boom!"

A sneeze produced a ball of flame, resembling a small dragon's breath.

Rean's heated brick bed is indeed a bit outrageous.

The Grand Mage was still panting heavily. This was a rare amount of exercise for him, especially since he was really anxious when he heard that Rean was trying to "make peace".

He roughly knew what Rean had obtained, and seeing him speaking in ancient Elvish, he instinctively interrupted.

"This bard's hymn is a true 'plague' that can destroy everything. I don't know where you got it from, but it must never be sung if it's related to that person."

What? A song that's even related to the plague?

The Grand Master is not a riddle teller and has no intention of beating around the bush.

Having confirmed that no one had heard the poem yet, he finally sighed and relaxed.

Tell Rean to find a place to chat privately.

"Luckily, you hinted that you had found his inheritance, so I asked some knowledgeable people in the clan."

The archmage wasted no time and directly showed the secret letter to Rean. He originally thought that he would need to decipher this difficult Elvish language, but he did not expect that Rean could understand it at a glance.

"Wow, this is such a rip-off!"

This little tune, or "Song of Silence and Peace," was invented by Festerion.

He stole the Elf King's artifact to stop the elven civil war, becoming a sinner. But this is not the end of the story; it is only the beginning.

As a criminal, he was subjected to the most cruel form of torture.

In historical records, elves are the embodiment of torture.

His eyes, hearing, and tongue were stripped away; his eloquent and singing mouth was sealed; his handsome face, which allowed him to eat, was ruined; and even his arms, which he used to play musical instruments, were cut off and hung on the wall of the royal court, waiting for him to dry up and die.

Everyone thought he was dead, but he struggled for a whole month and still lived.

One night, he went missing. The Elf King suspected that some half-elves had rescued him out of pity, and thus took his anger out on the half-elf race, banishing a portion of the half-elves from the royal court.

Looking back now, it was probably just an excuse to vent his anger.

"So far, there has still been no massacre of half-elves?" Rean was a little surprised, as this was different from the description of the "great sinner".

The Grand Master shook his head; he hadn't expected that a "childhood fairy tale" would be so different from reality.

"In fact, it wasn't just the half-elves who were slaughtered. Three years later, Fisterion reappeared."

At that time, the elven civil war had already broken out in full force, and losing one artifact would not affect the course of the war for too long.

Even the life or death of an Elf King could not stop this destined war; the internal conflict had reached the point where it was destined to erupt.

At that time, the battlefield was no longer limited to villages and cities; any elves of different races and bloodlines would kill each other.

Gods fought gods, heroes clashed with heroes, and even ordinary elves took up hoes and struck their neighbors.

"The glorious ancient royal court has become a pool of blood. The current Elven Blood God was born from that slaughter. The Elven era has come to a complete end, and the bloodline of the same origin has become a guide for killing each other." The scene recounted by the archmage was unsettling.

In this moment of despair, on the main road of the royal court, the bard who had been robbed of everything returned.

A bard with wooden prosthetics hides his disfigured face behind a smiling mask. His artificial limbs still manage to play the lute, and joyful songs echo through the mad and sorrowful royal court.

"The rusty sword stained with blood sleeps on the stone," and this is the opening line of the lyrics that Rean obtained from the spirits of the fallen.

This is a cheerful heroic hymn, a song that recounts the tragedy of war and the emptiness of life.

The content itself was nothing special, but the extraordinary power that moved all the listeners when the song ended.

"War is indeed meaningless." The audience recalled the pain and helplessness of war, and even more so, the cycle that would repeat itself after everything ended.

"My people died, all for those royalty."

That piece of music will awaken the listener's most painful memories of war and battle, making them instinctively abhor war.

"Isn't this a good thing?" Rean was a little puzzled. This heroic spirit was very powerful and kind. Wouldn't it be a good thing to stop the war?

"It's a good thing that it's over. The song spread throughout the royal court, the warriors laid down their weapons, and the mages stopped their spells. The war just stopped in such a strange way."

Up to this point, it was just a particularly powerful "song of peace," but Rean had already noticed something was amiss.

"Even if Wangting is a small city, it's still a city. Can he, as an individual, make everyone hear his singing?"

Alcaster sighed. That was the problem.

"That song is special. Normal bard poems also have similar 'bewitching' abilities, but this song has no prerequisites."

What does "no preconditions" mean?
The next moment, Rean suddenly realized what it meant.

"You mean, anyone can sing this?!"

"Not only can anyone sing it. If you are in a state of anxiety and anger, you will instinctively sing it out. And this effect will continue to accumulate, until eventually you will sing it out even if you have a little bit of negative emotion, soothing your unease."

At this moment, Rean was numb. He understood why this song was considered a plague.

The "enchantment effect" of a spell can be stacked continuously.

During the war, the song was played in a certain area, and people who heard it stopped and started singing along. Then, it spread from one person to another throughout the entire city.

"Who doesn't experience pain, anxiety, or negative emotions? This song can soothe everything and calm down those who are emotionally agitated."

Sounds like a good thing? Just imagining it makes Rean's scalp tingle.

A perfect city, free from negative emotions and arguments, filled only with the sounds of singing.

Greed, ambition, anger, and hatred are indeed terrible negative emotions. But they are also one of the driving forces for life to move forward and take action. If everyone lost this driving force, what would become of cities and civilizations?

"The royal court and the six surrounding large cities have all become ghost towns, devoid of anything but singing. It even suppresses appetite and the desire to mate, leaving people doing nothing in the silence."

Clearly, this whole thing has gone completely wrong.

The plague began to spread, cleansing cities one by one, bringing everything back to calm, ending the war, and stripping ordinary people of their motivation.

Since ambition and desire are the source of war, then he took it all away.
"How was it ultimately resolved?"

Professor Alcaster was not exaggerating; this was indeed a "little tune" capable of destroying the world.

But the moment he uttered those words, Rean had already guessed the answer. History had already reflected part of the truth.

"The massacre was not only a massacre of the half-elves, but also a complete massacre of the royal court, the surrounding cities and villages, and all intelligent beings capable of singing this song."

The great sinner succeeded; he halted the all-out civil war that was destined to bring destruction, and he himself became the target of all the cities and the Elf King.

“This song.” Rean paused. Actually, there was no need to say more. This deadly “plague” was naturally sealed in history. Releasing it would not benefit anyone.

Rean suddenly felt that he hadn't been wronged at all by the fireball that hit him; in fact, it had been a little too mild.

But suddenly, Rean remembered something and asked.

"The Elven Civil War"

"It was delayed for about thirty years, but we still fought, died, and were destroyed."

It seems that some things are destined to remain unchanged.

Even at a terrible cost, those destined to die could not be stopped.

(End of this chapter)