First Light of a New Age

Chapter 132: Dominion of Sylva'Anor

Second Civilization Zone, Dominion of Sylva'Anor, Gloria City.

1st Year of God, Friday, 3rd Week, Month of John.

In the Dominion of Sylva’Anor, deep within the southern regions of the Second Civilization Zone, lay the resplendent capital, Gloria City.

This legendary metropolis stretched across an astonishing 175,000 square kilometers, a living testament to millennia of magical mastery and urban harmony.

With a population nearing 9 million, the vast majority were high elves with their lifespans counted in centuries. The remaining ten percent was a blend of low elves, highland dwarves, merfolks, and beastkin, tolerated if not fully embraced by elven society.

The city itself was a wonder of naturalistic grandeur and magical innovation. Towering ivory buildings entwined with blooming arbor metal climbed toward the heavens.

Airships the size of whales gilded silently between skyport platforms. Streets were lined with soul-lamps, and magic glyphs pulsed in the cobblestones, forming ever-shifting patterns that directed the city's flow of traffic and energy.

Magical transport networks, from lightning-fast leytrams to crystal gates enabling instant travel across districts, made movement seamless.

It is also the place where they coexist with Magic Beast and tame them into their partners and fight as one.

At the city's heart within the Verdant Heights District stood the Sanctum of the High Council, a vast domed citadel of radiant white marble.

The chamber of deliberation, the true seat of power, was a sanctified place that few mortals had ever laid eyes upon with magical runes in the alabaster floor radiating quiet pulses of equilibrium magic, casting a calm over all who entered.

Above them, the magical crystal dome shimmered with a permanent starlit sky, a relic of the First Era that defied even daylight.

At the far end of the long crescent-shaped table of living aetherwood was King Velantheris Syldorein IV.

His robes flowed like liquid light, woven from threads of moonsteel and aether-silk that glowed with the hues of the Verdant Moon Forest, a mystical place only the oldest elves remembered walking.

His golden eyes, flecked with motes of starlight, watched in solemn silence. Though he spoke rarely in council meetings, his mere presence was a reminder enough of ancient power and older wrath.

Before him stood the Five High Councilors, each a master of their domain.

Bruna Mendez, the Prime Minister, was the first to speak. “Your Majesty. Honored Councilors. The situation no longer allows for any questions. The humans who seized the entirety of the Third Civilization Zone in a matter of months call themselves the Austronesia People’s Empire. The scope and precision of their conquest... is unnatural.”

A heavy silence followed, broken only by the low thrum of the floor’s runes.

Jade Elliryn, High Councilor of Tradition and one of the youngest elves on the council, crossed his arms and leaned against a pillar entwined with soul-thorns.

“They are manaless. Mortals without the Gift,” he said with disdain in his tone. “They possess no access to mana, wield no true power of their own, and yet we shudder at their name? Shall we abandon our dignity and cower from this… brutish anomaly?”

Bruna narrowed her eyes and brushed a lock of silver hair behind one pointed ear. “You confuse wisdom with cowardice, Jade. These humans have crushed several nations, Elven and dwarven, in weeks. Their armies march with gods of steel and their flying constructs rain death from beyond range. They even make the Orc Warboss Goreaxe Strurruilk flee for some reason.”