Election day had arrived, and Ave was invited to attend this meeting that would decide the future direction of Ophira and even the entire Western Continent.
She would serve as a witness.
However, outsiders had no voting rights, and their seats were arranged at the far end of the venue.
Senators entered one after another, including familiar faces like Lewis. The "populist" senator’s face was no longer smiling or composed. A series of recent troublesome events had made his situation quite precarious, and Jacob’s expression was even more gloomy.
But they were not the protagonists of this meeting. To the senators’ astonished glances, diplomat Richard ascended the podium with an ancient parchment book. He was about to announce a secret concerning everyone present at this crucial occasion.
An inevitable disaster and the Ark, along with the unfinished business left by the Master of Tides.
He intended to expose how the Speaker, as the Guardian of these secrets, had completely ignored the Master of Tides’ instructions.
With Richard’s opening words, the venue fell into silence almost immediately, and the senators looked at each other, shock written all over their faces.
"I always felt something was off."
Ave murmured. She had been watching the Speaker’s actions but found that the man holding the highest power on the Western Continent took no action, allowing Richard to reveal these secrets in the assembly hall and point the finger at him as an incompetent Speaker.
She almost immediately thought of Pope Julius’s struggle, who would resort to plotting a coup with two other members of the Council of Seven to keep his power, preferring to die than be stripped of it. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ NoveI★Fire.net
These days, Ave had been studying Ophira’s political system as a reference for the new cabinet system, discovering many puzzling details as she delved deeper.
For example, the Western Continent also had charges similar to "worship of the Evil God," and they were even more stringent than the Empire. The council had decreed that anyone spreading the Evil God or Doomsday, regardless of status, would have their property and rights confiscated and sent to prison, which was undoubtedly the easiest charge to pin on someone. If it were Julius, he would have arrested Richard on this charge long ago, giving him no chance to publicly spread these ideas.
Ave couldn’t help but ask, "Could the Speaker have some sort of trump card?"
"Their faith is stronger than anyone else’s."
This was a question Ethan had recently figured out, "They believe not in the Divine Spirit, but in the system left by the Master of Tides."
In Ophira, election day was sacred, and all the senators’ efforts were focused on the time before election day arrived. No matter the final vote count, no one questioned the final result, and if a senator intended to impeach the Speaker during a meeting, the Speaker absolutely could not use power to make them submit.
The Master of Tides seemingly foresaw that power would lead to decay, so they explicitly wrote these contents into the "Enlightenment."
Richard’s passionate speech concluded, and all eyes were focused on the Speaker.
Affected by Richard’s emotions, everyone became anxious and restless, even losing interest in their own votes. If Ophira was about to face destruction, how many votes they could get became meaningless.
The policies they pushed, the visions for Ophira’s future, were all drowned by the flood.
The Speaker walked up to the podium, and everyone held their breath at that moment.
Deep within their hearts emerged a voice, like a devil’s whisper, reluctant to believe everything Richard had revealed—indeed, if only the Speaker would deny Richard’s words and call him a deceitful liar, they would surely believe in the Speaker and then throw Richard into prison.
Thus, their lives would not change, and power would rest in their hands.
They could still hold banquets, living a life of extravagance and indulgence.
Tonight, they could start a banquet, listen to the melodious tunes, and forget all these troubles.
"Everything Richard just mentioned..."
The Speaker looked around at the senators in the venue, seeing the expectation in their eyes, as if waiting for him to pronounce Richard a criminal.
From a young age, he was adept at interpreting others’ thoughts through their expressions, making him a natural politician. Coupled with a family legacy of being Deep Sea Council members, his political career could be described as smooth sailing, and after a pivotal speech twenty years ago, he almost seamlessly became the new Speaker.
The vote percentage showed that this was the result everyone wished for, leaving his competitors without a chance.
And now, he faced the first crisis of his political career.
The furrowed brow slowly eased, and the Speaker took a deep breath, saying, "Everything Richard just mentioned is all true, and this book indeed comes from the Master of Tides!"
The venue fell into prolonged silence, even Richard was full of astonishment.
In his imagination, the Speaker would undoubtedly try hard to refute, even deny the truth. He was prepared to argue, but never expected that the Speaker would candidly admit to his narrative.
The result brought panic to the venue.
Because the Speaker also acknowledged the advent of Doomsday, the apocalyptic flood written only in history books was set to return.