Winter Lord: Starting with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 428 Golden Feather Flower

Chenxi Square was bathed in a light that seemed otherworldly.

It is a translucent amber glow, formed by precisely filtering out the intense sunlight.

In such light, the shadows of the buildings are so short they almost disappear.

The reliefs and murals on both sides of the street are neatly arranged.

Their content is highly unified, including the recurrence of miracles, the suffering of saints, and the descent of glory.

The lines are precise and the composition is rigorous, yet no personal trace of the creator can be found.

Any attempt to inject personal emotions is considered an impurity in the soul and will be gently and thoroughly erased.

A faint scent of pollen floated in the air, neither sweet nor cloying, yet sharp enough to invigorate.

Golden feather flowers were blooming on the edge of the square.

These flowers do not grow randomly, but rather open and close slowly at a strange, uniform frequency.

Each opening and closing was so precise it was unsettling, as if an invisible hand was setting the rhythm for the entire square.

There were no vendors hawking their wares or children chasing each other on the streets here.

A woman pushing a cradle walks across the square.

The baby in the cradle opened its eyes, neither crying nor laughing, but quietly gazing at the dome above, its pupils clear and blank.

Just then, a series of crisp metallic sounds came from the other end of the street.

A group of golden-feathered knights approached.

Their steps were perfectly synchronized, and the sound of their armor clashing was like the gears of a fine clock meshing in sync, without a single extra echo.

The sunlight fell on them, reflected off their golden full-body armor, but it appeared cold and empty.

These armors weren't worn on; they grew on them.

Through bio-alchemy, the consecrated metal is directly fused with the knight's flesh and bones, making the armor an integral part of the body, impossible to remove and requiring no maintenance.

On their breastplates, runes glowed faintly, rising and falling rhythmically, mimicking the breathing rhythm of the lungs.

Eduardo stood at the heart of the knightly ranks, his pure white clerical robes appearing even more noble against the backdrop of his golden armor.

The edges of the robe were embroidered with intricate golden feather patterns, the highest symbol of the Holy See Secretariat.

In Avalonia, this robe signifies his power to mobilize the Inquisition and that he is one of the closest candidates to the Pope.

Everyone within a hundred meters who saw Eduardo knelt down at the same time.

As if some invisible boundary had been triggered, everyone realized at the same moment that they should kneel down.

Commoners, priests, monks... there is no difference.

Their movements were synchronized and natural, their foreheads touching the ground, their backs bent in a uniform arc, and even their breathing rhythm unconsciously became synchronized.

This wasn't the kind of fear of nobles typical of an iron-fisted empire; it was more like a sense of entitlement.

Eduardo was already used to this.

Having grown up in the Holy City, he was used to this kind of order, where everyone's edges were smoothed out and they were placed in the right positions, only responsible for bearing the weight from above.

But he also knew that this feeling was not innate.

Because he doesn't always stay here.

As a key executor of the Papacy, he spends most of each year being dispatched to the Iron Blood Empire on missions.

In the towns of the empire, crowds quarrel, fear, and lose control due to interests and hatred.

The soldiers there hesitated under orders, and the civilians there trembled before the powerful, yet they would also secretly look up and peek.

In comparison, the prostrations in the holy city seemed far too smooth.

Each time he returned to Avalonia from the Empire, it took him some time to readjust to this unquestionable obedience.

Over time, he realized that this habit itself was not right. However, as his rank increased, the abnormality not only did not disappear, but became clearer.

His gaze lingered briefly on an elderly pastor.

That face reminded him of a memory from long ago.

In his childhood, the archbishop who taught him the scriptures was a talkative old man who would tell anecdotes about the old empire after class, sometimes with inappropriate satire.

And now, the old man is sitting upright in a high-backed chair in the Cardinal's Chamber.

Eduardo secretly read his memories.

There are no emotions or personal stances left there, only passages of doctrinal texts that have been repeatedly calibrated and replayed, like a humanoid object that has been polished to perfection.

At that moment, he realized for the first time that the holy city was not a high ground of faith, but a constantly operating filter.

Strain out doubt, strain out desire, strain out all noise that cannot be explained by divine authority.

He didn't like this feeling.

It wasn't out of fear, nor out of aversion to order itself.

It's not because he subconsciously wonders what these kneeling people are thinking.
This idea is not popular in the Holy City.

It stubbornly remained in Eduardo's mind, like a fine thorn that was never removed.

He didn't hate the city, nor was he in a hurry to destroy the system, and he understood that he couldn't change anything for the time being.

However, deep in his heart, a grand idea slowly took shape.
If this system is destined to be unable to be overthrown, it may be able to be modified.

That is why, for the first time, the white throne was no longer just a goal given to him by his family, but a path that might be worth taking.

But the image of her father appeared in her mind.

When Duke Calvin sent him to the Holy City, his ambitions were not high; he wanted to leave his family a way out that did not depend on any empire.

At that time, he was only judged to be talented, so that the white throne was not his father's original goal.

It was only later, as his rank rose, that the possibility gradually became apparent, and his father wrote to him urging him to fight for it.

…………

Inside the Temple of the Sacred Curtain, the three candidates stood side by side.

The dome hangs high, with layers of white-gold arched beams extending upwards as if there were no end.

The temple itself does not need any decoration to show its majesty; the sheer scale of the space is enough to make people instinctively slow their breathing.

The cardinals stood in the shadows of the higher cloisters, their faces obscured by hoods and the interplay of light and shadow, leaving only a faint, spiritual gaze.

Eduardo stood in the center, his expression calm.

He could sense that the woman on his left, known as the Forest Saintess, was synchronizing with the life network in the temple in an almost instinctive way.

Her breathing, heartbeat, and even the faint spiritual flow on her body were unconsciously drawing closer to the golden feather flower array.

At some level, she has already been partially accepted by the system.

On the other side, the Arbiter, clad in a platinum robe, had a completely different presence.

His divine battle aura frequency was unusually high; even when he tried to suppress it, it still caused subtle tremors in the air.

It is a power that has been repeatedly refined and exists solely for execution and judgment.

The adjudicator's gaze briefly swept over Eduardo.

There was no hostility in his gaze; if this was a trial, he was certain he would be the last one standing.

There were no words exchanged between the three, but an unspoken rivalry had already begun.

Eduardo could sense that the gaze from above was constantly shifting focus, comparing the three of them back and forth.

This is the most outstanding individual that Avalonia could produce in this era.

It is this system that, over the long years, has selected the best candidates for itself.

They are all geniuses, and that's precisely why they stand here as candidates.
At this moment, the Cardinal Archbishop slowly walked up to the three candidates. His skin was so pale it was almost transparent, as if he had been deprived of sunlight for a long time, and his veins were faintly visible beneath his skin, like silk threads soaked in water.

With each step he took forward, the gold feather flower reliefs embedded in the floor beneath his feet would tremble slightly.

The sound spread along the grain of the stone, extending throughout the entire floor of the Holy Temple, causing one's bones to resonate involuntarily.

The cardinal archbishop stopped in front of the three.

He spread his withered fingers and pulled a sacred decree forged from gold leaf from his sleeve: "According to Book One of the Code of Avalonia, the will of the anointed one must not be looked upon directly, and the transmission of divinity must not be profaned."

His speech was steady and emotionless, as if he were reading a manual he had memorized a thousand times.

"For the next two hundred days and nights, you will be in eternal silence together with the current Holy See."

As these words were spoken, a barely audible echo resounded from the depths of the Holy Curtain Temple's dome.

That wasn't an echo, but rather a slow confirmation.

The cardinal slightly raised his chin, his gaze sweeping over the three men one by one.

"These two hundred days are not a period of waiting. Your consciousness will be in frequent contact with the crown."

Those who persevere are gods; those who cannot are dust.

The sacred decree slowly closed, and the ceremony began.

Twelve cardinals appeared from both sides of the temple, lined up in two rows, and walked backwards while maintaining their posture facing the throne.

The distance, speed, and angle of every step were so precise it was unsettling.

They all had the same expression on their faces.

It was neither joy nor piety, but a serenity that had been calibrated over a long period of time.

It was as if confirming that a certain process had finally entered the scheduled stage.

As the last cardinal left the temple, the massive white stone gates slowly began to close.

The door hinges turned, emitting a heavy and long rumble.

The massive white stone gate, weighing tens of thousands of tons, closed little by little. The runes covering it gradually lit up, and the flowing light patterns, like chains, completely blocked out the last ray of natural light.

Only four people remained inside the door.

The current pope sits atop the white throne.

His body was suspended by countless golden threads, like a carefully manipulated puppet.

The silk threads extend into the depths of the dome's shadow, their origin unseen.

When he opened his mouth, the sound did not come from a single throat.

It was a series of overlapping whispers, as if thousands of people were sighing in my ear at the same time: "Come...who can share this...great love?"

Eduardo felt a sudden, sharp pain in his right palm.

It was as if an alarm, deliberately buried deep within the soul, was violently sounded at this moment.

Divine grace is screaming.

The ability to access memories went out of control under this stimulus.

It wasn't that Eduardo went to see it on his own initiative, but rather that everything around him opened up to him.

In that instant, his vision was forcibly torn apart, and the surface structure of the temple, like a fragile shell, was made transparent.

The towering white stone pillars that reach into the dome are no longer load-bearing structures.

There was no stone inside the pillar at all. It was a nauseating sight.

Countless golden nerve fibers densely filled the entire stone pillar, intertwining and writhing, their surfaces covered with a translucent spiritual membrane, like blood vessels that were not yet fully formed.

These fibers are not static; they are pulsating.

With a steady yet cold rhythm, it contracts and expands again and again, as if the entire temple itself is breathing.

Eduardo observed that these fibers extended in all directions.

But all the destinations eventually converge on the single core along the thick main trunk lines beneath the floor.

The white throne, on a feathered crown covered with thorn patterns.

The thorn-like wings opened and closed at an extremely slow pace, as if adjusting their breathing, or as if waiting for a suitable signal.

Every subtle pulsation triggers a synchronized tremor in the entire temple's internal neural network.

Eduardo could not understand the purpose of this structure.

It has no religious symbolism and does not conform to any known alchemical logic.

This is a huge organ that has been debugged and kept in standby mode for a long time.

It is now evaluating each node that can be connected.

The air inside the temple began to sink.

It was as if the entire space was being compressed inward by some invisible weight, and even the light was being dragged and bent towards the ground.

Breathing became difficult, thoughts began to stagnate, and even time lost its linear progression, leaving only a kind of repetitive stillness.

Sylvie, the Forest Saintess, was the first to give out.

Her breathing unconsciously synchronized perfectly with the rhythm of the temple.

The spiritual fluctuations on the body surface are gradually smoothed and weakened until they approach zero.

Her pupils slowly dilated, and her gaze lost focus.

There was no pain on his face, but rather a dazed satisfaction, as if he had finally found his right place and was allowed to merge into a larger whole.

Her body leaned slightly forward, as if listening to some kind of call that only she could hear.

The next moment, her heart stopped beating.

There were no violent convulsions, no screams; the body lost its support and fell quietly to the cold ground, without even a ripple.

The adjudicator Gabriel stepped forward almost simultaneously.

Driven by instinct, his divine battle aura erupted violently, and platinum light burst forth from the gaps in his armor.

However, before that power could spread, it was violently suppressed by a higher-level being.

Gabriel's expression changed drastically for the first time, a sign of utter cognitive collapse.

His fighting spirit, his beliefs, everything he used to define himself—all of this was proven meaningless at this moment.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but his pupils suddenly contracted the next second.

A golden nerve fiber burst forth from beneath the floor and pierced his chest like a venomous snake.

Without any blood splattering, the fibers synchronized with the divine battle aura the moment they entered the body.

Gabriel's body stiffened for a moment.

Then, like an empty shell, his entire body slowly collapsed to the ground.

Two bodies lay quietly beneath the temple steps.

Eduardo stood still, without moving an inch.

The pain in his right palm was no longer just a simple stinging sensation.

The golden pattern symbolizing divine grace went completely out of control, its color rapidly deepening to red, as if it had been branded directly onto the soul by a red-hot iron.

The intense burning pain spread along the nerves, reaching deep into the depths of consciousness.

It was a pain at the level of his soul forcibly issuing him his final command.

escape.

(End of this chapter)