Outworld Liberators-Chapter 209: The Banquet That Changed The World

The new disciples began filing out of the Sword Pavilion School while the attendants, with Calyx, led them farther up the terraces.

The eighth and ninth levels had always been off-limits, so even the climb itself carried a strange weight.

When they reached the great archway, Calyx placed a hand against it.

At once, a screen of light descended, thin as silk and bright as water under the sun.

The moment they passed through, the disciples were struck by a fragrance unlike anything they had ever known.

Here, precious tea shrubs grew beside fruit trees heavy with ripeness.

Beds of rare vegetables spread in neat rows, and every branch and leaf seemed richer, cleaner, more vivid than anything below.

Youngbanners was the first to step closer. He stared at a cabbage whose leaves gleamed like green glass, and for a moment he simply stood there, unable to believe such a thing could be real.

The others soon followed, looking about with the wide-eyed wonder of people who felt they had just seen a hidden corner of the world.

Fay, Oswin, Lifara, and Thaddeus, by contrast, walked on with practiced composure, as though such sights were ordinary to them.

To the new disciples, it only deepened their air of mystery.

What none of them knew was that even those four were not truly free to wander here.

Only Lifara, because of her alchemy studies, had any regular cause to enter this place, and even she was not permitted to touch the plants at will.

The garden’s caretakers were no ordinary attendants either.

These ghosts had once been masters and grandmasters of herb tending in the Ghost Realm.

As Radeon expanded the Ghost Realm Fragment, more and more of their memories had returned, along with the skill in their spectral hands.

Before long, another great arch came into view.

Beyond it, the scenery changed at once.

There were no lush plants waiting on the other side.

Only open ground and stretches of pristine grass.

Here and there stood dead trees, pale and stark against the calm earth.

The rich fragrance of the eighth layer had thinned away until only a cool breeze remained.

It was a sharp contrast, so bare that it almost felt sacred.

Yet what drew every eye was the same thing they had glimpsed from below each time they climbed the Radeon Terraces.

Radeon’s golden statue.

It towered more than two hundred meters high, with twelve great arms and open palms raised toward the heavens.

Like the shrines on the sixth floor, it carried the weight of worship, though this one held nothing in its hands.

At its feet stood two pavilions, one black and one white, facing the world in perfect stillness.

Calyx led them into the white pavilion.

Inside, low dining tables had been laid out in neat order, each paired with a square, flat cushion for seating.

t the far end of the hall, the floor rose above the rest for a few inches, and there stood seven back-supported floor chairs facing the gathering below.

Calyx took the second seat from the center.

Eldric sat in the matching place on the other side.

The disciples were stunned at once. It was not hard to guess what those seats meant.

The arrangement was one of rank, and rank here was no small matter.

Then two men stepped in from outside and took their places. At first glance, they looked almost identical.

Both wore grey robes. Both had scraggly hair and languid eyes, the sort of men who seemed half asleep even while walking.

Only their eyes marked them apart. One had irises of deep purple. That was Oisin.

The other burned with a fiery orange. That was Elsin.

After them came two old men.

Their white robes were threaded with flowing letters that seemed almost alive in the cloth.

One carried a tail whisk and wore the same kind of long beard as Eldric, though his manner was far warmer, almost inviting. This was Maeron.

The other held a strange orb with moving parts that turned in and out of one another without pause.

It was no ordinary sphere. Set within it were organs, shifting eyes, fragments of mouths, ears, and noses, all revolving in uncanny harmony. This was Ewan.

The sight of these elders left the new disciples both curious and shaken.

If these men were all as strong as Calyx, then the whole of Radeon Terraces might well have had the strength to swallow the entire Goldkeep Crownmarkets if it wished.

Yet that only sharpened the larger question in all their minds.

Who would sit in the middle?

Then another man stepped forward.

His hair was long and white, flowing like a pale river down his back.

His eyes were gold. His face was calm as still water.

He was clearly young, yet there was something about him that made youth feel like the least important thing in the room.

He sat in the central seat.

It was Radeon.

Many of the disciples gathered here had been watching Radeon Terraces for a long time, seeking every advantage they could before the tournament.

In that pursuit, they had come to know the image of the peak’s deity well.

They had seen the face on statues more times than they could count.

They had handled the coins bearing that same likeness until it had become almost ordinary to them.

Now that face sat living before them.

Their hearts lurched.

It was him. The man cast in gold, carved in stone, stamped in metal.

The figure they had looked upon for so long had been real all along.

Radeon let the silence stretch for only a breath before speaking.

"Let the banquet begin."

As soon as he spoke, trays of food were brought in beneath small defensive array domes.

There was no aroma at first, the dishes still sealed beneath shimmering veils of light.

The ghost attendants moved swiftly, setting the food across the tables with practiced ease.

A few of the newer disciples, unable to help themselves, reached out and touched the arrays, then quickly glanced toward the host seats with apologetic faces, suddenly aware of their own curiosity.

Radeon snapped his fingers. At once, the arrays dissolved.

The fragrance that burst free swept through the pavilion like a living thing.

Spices, fresh vegetables, roasted meats, rich broths, and warm bread filled the air so suddenly that more than one stomach growled in open protest.

Even so, the disciples held themselves back and looked toward the host seats, expecting some solemn opening to the feast.

Instead, Radeon raised a lamb shank high in one hand, the sort of rough tavern gesture no refined cultivator ought to make and yet one every mortal born disciple understood at once.

"Anyone sitting there pretending to be full can go home," he shouted, then tore a great bite from the lamb shank.

The illusion shattered.

Their senior sisters, who had looked so dignified only moments ago, immediately fell upon the food with the enthusiasm of starved beasts.

The new disciples stared as if they had stepped into a dream.

Almsgiver, who had never been one to waste time on gloomy reflection, grabbed a roasted duck and bit into it with both hands.

"So good. Truly divine. Truly immortal," he cried.

Sackmace, Reelfisher, and Lonequiver rushed not to be left behind, each claiming great cuts of pork for themselves, while Ropefist made straight for the drink tables, where more than fifty kinds of liquor, wine, fruit juice, and water had been set out in glittering rows.

Every dish on the tables had been infused with spiritual energy, not for immediate cultivation, but to improve one’s aptitude over time.

The attendants kept everything flowing.

More ducks were carved and brought in.

Whole pigs were sliced with impossible precision.

Bowls were refilled before they could empty.

The attendants did all of it while eating along with everyone else, and the disciples could not help but feel that, at least within this feast, there was a strange equality to the room.

Even the elders, Eldric and Calyx included, ate as though tomorrow had been abolished.

This was a formal Ghost Realm rite known as the Overflowing Blessing Banquet, a meal meant to bind those present by letting them eat to their hearts’ content and on toward the brink of bursting.

Oil splashed. Sauces streaked across sleeves. Leaves of rare greens flew from one table to another.

Fay snatched an entire pork leg from Raxutus and held it out of reach.

"Eat your vegetables. They are good for you," she said, then stuffed a fistful of glass cabbage into his mouth before darting around to hide behind Radeon.

Raxutus sat there dumbstruck, but he chewed anyway and discovered, to his own shock, that it actually tasted good.

It was the first time in his life he had willingly eaten a vegetable.

Radeon, caught by one of his rare mischievous moods, lifted a small red berry with his chopsticks and held it out toward Fay.

"Come. Open wide," he said.

Fay froze. For all her bright laughter and careless charm, she had been trying, in her own way, to grow into a more womanly grace.

That single gesture struck much deeper than she expected. She accepted the berry and chewed slowly.

A heartbeat later, her whole face flushed red with sudden heat.

She fled at once, seized a pitcher, and drank from it in long gulps before turning back to shoot Radeon a wounded, resentful glare, still clutching the ham in one hand.

Elsewhere, Eldric strode over to Irongrit and, with all the natural ease of an overfond elder, pressed a generous handful of meat and vegetables into the younger man’s mouth as though feeding a grandson.

"You should eat more," Eldric said, giving Irongrit’s thin bicep an appraising squeeze. "Forget cultivation for a moment. How are you supposed to slay your enemies with no muscle on you at all?"

To prove his point, Eldric drew back and flexed his own lean arms, then waggled his brows with such absurd confidence.

Irongrit flushed at once. He was a grown man, yet he still accepted the food and chewed obediently, looking up at Eldric with the quiet, uncertain warmth of someone being shown a kind of rough affection he had never quite known how to ask for.

Handlefiddler soon found himself approached by Lifara, who began feeding him grapes.

He had never been this close to a beautiful cultivator before.

Women like her had always been figures to admire from afar, never the sort who would lean near and smile as though such things were natural.

Even so, some stubborn part of him only wanted to cultivate harder.

He accepted her beauty for what it was, then awkwardly offered her a slice of the roast duck from the table in return.

After an hour, the host table had ceased to exist as anything separate.

In its place stood one great shared table, with people rising, shifting seats, and settling elsewhere again and again as the feast wore on.

Almsgiver, kindhearted and curious as ever, ended up seated near Radeon.

"You’re the one in charge here, right?" he asked with innocent directness.

The sharper ones nearby did not turn their heads, but their ears might as well have done so.

They kept their relaxed postures and listened all the same.

Radeon simply nodded.

"Then you’re the strongest here too?"

Radeon nodded again.

"How strong are you?"

"Strong enough that I will not stop until I get what I want."

The words were simple, but they carried enough weight to leave a thoughtful silence in their wake.

Calyx, who had once treated every breath like part of some sacred task, had been told by Radeon to loosen his grip on the world and stop taking every passing moment as a decree from heaven.

That was why he had changed. His speech had softened. His manner had loosened. Even his bearing had become easier to sit beside.

"How strong, you ask?" Calyx said, lifting his cup. "If I can defeat the Five Emperor Peaks with one arm tied and a blindfold over my eyes, then he would only need to glance at them."

"A single look, and even Uncle-master Eldric would vanish with a pop."

Almsgiver’s eyes widened.

"That strong? Just one look?"

"Do you want that kind of power?" Radeon asked.

Almsgiver shook his head. Then his gaze drifted upward, fingers resting near his lips as he contemplated.

"What I want," he said at last, "is the power to stop all the fighting in the world."

Radeon raised his cup, and this time he toasted not one person, but everyone at the table.

"To bringing peace to the world."

No one there knew it, but in the eyes of certain beings beyond them, this gathering had already been marked and opposed more than a million times over.

For the people seated at that table would one day bring the greatest storm the cultivation world had ever seen.