Chapter 1637: Eye

Inside the temple, a handsome man with a bare upper body and a golden crown on his head, Indra, walked toward Gao Changkong with a smile.

"Garuda, I hope you can remember that it was Brahmin who saved you when you were at your most desperate."

His large hand rested on Gao Changkong's shoulder, his deep eyes staring into Gao Changkong's eyes.

"Do not do anything foolish. Otherwise, the Trimurti will absolutely never forgive you! Neither will I."

Gao Changkong felt an enormous pressure.

Although he was now a Transcendent approaching Black Chariot-tier, and ranked near the top among the entire Eight Legions of Heavenly Gods, when facing this true favored child of heaven before him, the possessor of Brahmin's pinnacle bloodline, the number one powerhouse of the Brahmin Alliance, he still had an immense gap to close.

Gao Changkong pressed his palms together in the standard Brahmin salute.

"I will never forget your teachings!"

As he bowed his head, at an angle where no one could see, the corner of his mouth curled into a faint smirk of disdain.

……

A sharp wind howled over the snow plains, cutting through the frozen forest.

Even the enormous coniferous trees could scarcely survive at such temperatures, frozen into row upon row of silver ice sculptures.

Yet deep within the forest, there was a quiet, peaceful area where an ancient Gothic castle stood.

On the third floor of the castle, inside an ancient library.

The red bookshelves carried the air of weathered ages, lined with thick volumes, all of them old editions that had become extremely rare in the outside world.

After all, in this electronic era, most people had essentially bid farewell to reading paper books.

And this library looked to be at least a hundred years old.

Because on the shelves there were even sheepskin scrolls, as well as thread-bound volumes with extremely crude stitching.

An old man with a head of silver-white hair walked alone to the bookshelves, searched for a moment in the section marked Economics, and took down a copy of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. Then he unhurriedly walked to the redwood desk nearby, opened the pages, and began to read.

But as a classic European-style building, and being such an old study, it was unexpectedly missing the almost mandatory Holy Canon from any visible spot.

The old man was dressed with refined taste, his English woolen flannel suit fitting his upper body well, appearing low-key yet substantive.

He had not undergone eye surgery to correct his presbyopia. Instead, he chose to pull out a somewhat aged pair of reading glasses from his chest pocket, hook them over his ears, and slowly leaf through that great tome in the field of economics.

The old man read for a long while, paying no heed to the howling cold wind outside the window. When the wind knocked against the glass, that irregular sound actually brought him a kind of enjoyment.

Vaguely, he recalled his younger days studying business administration at MIT.

"Knock, knock, knock."

Beyond the old wooden door came an unhurried knock.

The old man slowly turned his head to glance at the door, then said, "Come in."

"Creeeak-"

The heavy wooden door, its color nearly black, was slowly pushed open, and a middle-aged man in an expensive suit with refined features walked in from outside.

A Berlini silk handkerchief sat in his chest pocket. After entering, he first carefully used the handkerchief to wipe away the traces he had left on the doorknob.

It looked exactly like a scene straight out of a movie about assassins, yet this gentleman's method was only to prevent his hand sweat from corroding the original 1930s doorknob.

The middle-aged man walked to a spot not far from the old gentleman and bowed his head respectfully. "Chairman, we have received a request for assistance from Huaxu Nation."

Only then did the unremarkable old man on the desk, the sort of old fellow one could find in any university library anywhere in the world, slowly remove his reading glasses, gently close the book with his wrinkled palms, and look up at him.

"Huaxu Nation?"

He confirmed once more.

"Yes."

The middle-aged man bowed his head.

"The thing we feared most has happened ahead of schedule. The mysterious civilization beneath Star Island, having suffered repeated intrusions from the surrounding nations, has proactively launched an attack on human nations."

"The entire four major regions of Huaxu Nation, as well as Colombia's fleet stationed at Neon Harbor, have all come under attack."

The old man leaned back in his chair and slowly nodded.

"We knew this day would come sooner or later."

The middle-aged man said, "Chairman, should we deploy our own forces to help them get through this crisis?"

The old man crossed his hands on his knees, lowered his brows in thought for a long time, and only then slowly spoke: "The purpose of Eye's existence is to defy destiny. And it is precisely because of this that we organized ourselves several hundred years ago, uniting like-minded people from all over the world."

"And I have had the fortune to serve as chairman, always feeling guilt in my heart, fearing that I cannot bear this responsibility."

"This time, it is the first large-scale collision between human nations and the underground civilization. This marks the opening of a new era. In the future, situations like this may become more and more frequent."

"No one can predict how dangerous this war will be."

He said a great deal, then once again fell into contemplation.

The middle-aged man, Wilder Pratt, a Level 32 member of the Eye organization and the Underking, second only to the chairman before him, Charles Louis Montesquieu, spoke in a gentle tone: "Your concerns are correct. Moreover, that Chaos from Huaxu Nation, whom we recently began paying attention to, has a significant conflict with one of the Four Knights."

Montesquieu pondered for a long time while Pratt patiently waited at his side.

About two minutes passed, a stretch of time so long that the air itself fell silent.

Only then did Montesquieu speak: "In our plans, Huaxu Nation is an indispensable force. Whether it is that little girl called Houtu, or Chaos, whom we recently began watching, both have the potential to become one of the Four Knights of Dawn."

"So you mean to mobilize Eye's members to go support them?"

Pratt asked.

Montesquieu shook his head.

"We have no clear understanding of the current situation, and moreover, our greatest enemy is not the human nations, nor even those underground civilizations, but those lackeys who worship the gods."

After deliberating for a moment, he slowly said: "Although we cannot send people, let us at least express our sincerity!"

Pratt said, "You mean to say…"

Montesquieu waved a hand at him. "Speaking of which, we have not yet had dealings with that newly risen young man from Huaxu Nation! This time, let us send him a gift of considerable value!"

Hearing this, Pratt immediately understood Montesquieu's meaning.

Gifts that could be of use to a Black Chariot-tier Transcendent were no longer plentiful in this world.