Chapter 448: Ancestors and Unworthy Descendants (Part 1)
One month later, the capital of the Shurima Empire.
Early in the morning, Azir walked out of his towering palace built of yellow sand and inspected his great capital.
The sky here is filled with a majestic sun disk, and the ground is filled with gurgling springs, full of vitality.
Following the rumors of water sources and the resurrection of the Eagle King, the tribesmen who came from all over the desert in search of shelter are now bathed in the immortal light cast by the sun disk, working hard in the oasis of rebirth at dawn with happiness and satisfaction.
After a month of development, this new empire finally... looked like a large, messy refugee camp.
Yes. Although the sun disk was back in the sky and the springs were overflowing the river called Mother of Life, the city was still a long way from being completely reborn.
First of all, the time is too short.
Although Azir has personally performed miracles in several important oasis cities to advertise the new Shurima Empire.
However, due to the difficulty of information dissemination in the vast desert and the small population in Shurima after the decline of agriculture, not many warlords and tribes have come here to join Azir in the past month.
Second, even though the city’s population is not too large, these people are still not something that can be managed by the Shurima Empire, which has no administrative system and only has Azir as the lone commander.
He had to let a noble Ascendant like Nasus personally handle mundane affairs, and even pulled out a criminal like Xerath to serve as an administrative officer. He also selected as many knowledgeable people as possible from the surrendered tribes where everyone had not received any education before, and only then was he able to maintain the institutional framework of an empire on the surface and prevent himself from becoming the leader of a primitive tribal alliance.
Third, and most importantly:
This empire and this city have been abandoned for too long.
It is not that as soon as the sun disk rises to the sky and the healing fountain gushes out from the ground, Shurima can immediately revive and return to its former strength and prosperity.
The explosion 3,000 years ago turned this majestic ancient capital into a pile of irreparable construction waste, and the long 3,000 years have also turned this once fertile land into a complete desert.
The water source has been restored, but it will take a long time for the sand to turn back into soil and for the oasis to become green again.
"It will be fine." Azir was full of confidence.
Water is the source of life. With water, the flower of life will naturally sprout slowly on this land.
His empire will rise again, it just takes time.
Azir thought so, and then he took the proud steps of the desert emperor, fully displaying his heroic and majestic appearance as an ascender in the respectful and awe-inspiring eyes of the people.
Walking out of the city that was still in ruins, Azir came to the oasis outside the city.
This fertile land, known as the Oasis of Dawn, once stretched for hundreds of kilometers from the city center. It was the agricultural center of the Shurima Empire in the past and the fundamental guarantee for this magnificent city to stand in the middle of the desert.
At this moment, the Shurima people gathered under Azir are working hard to completely revive this oasis.
They are busy dredging canals and underground aqueducts -
The water conservancy network left by the empire on this land has now been buried under thick yellow sand.
If these river channels are not cleared, even if the sun disk draws enough water from the ground, the water cannot be transported far away, and this vast oasis that once stretched for hundreds of kilometers cannot be truly revived.
This water conservancy restoration project is undoubtedly a large project. Given the current strength of the Shurima people, it is unknown how many years it will take to complete.
But the tribesmen who work here now have no complaints at all.
Because they knew that every inch of clearing the river channel forward would help them reclaim an inch of land from the desert. And a piece of land with sufficient water and arable land was a priceless treasure that they could not even imagine in the past.
When people have hope in life, they no longer feel it is hard.
"Dawn Oasis will regain its vitality, and Shurima will revive." Azir looked at these people who were working hard for the empire, and his heart was filled with lofty sentiments and ambitions.
Moved by emotion, he even lowered his status to the level of poetry, and used the court music of ancient Shurima to compose a series of hymns in his heart for these mortals working under the scorching sun: "The dawn breaks in the east, the earth is shining, my loyal subjects..."
"Sivir!" Suddenly, the Emperor's smile froze.
Because among the group of hard-working "loyal subjects" before him, he saw a familiar figure.
That was his only blood descendant, the future successor to the Shurima Empire, the master of Charikar, Princess Sivir who possessed the noble blood of ascension.
Sivir's identity seemed so transcendent to Azir, but...
She actually mingled and laughed with those mortals, and used her newly mastered magic of wind to clear the sand from the river in front of people, half working and half performing with air currents.
"What nonsense." Azir walked over with a deep voice: "How can you get involved with these civilians?!"
The light reflected by his golden armor was so dazzling that people dared not look directly at him. When the people around saw the great emperor coming, they prostrated themselves on their knees.
Azir habitually bathed in the awe of the crowd and approached Sivir with an unpredictable look on his face: "My child, how can you work here?"
"Have you forgotten who you are? You are..."
"I am a special envoy of the Wind Leader Association and Zaun's diplomatic ambassador to the Shurima Empire." Sivir stated her identity slowly.
After the Void War ended a month ago, Kai'Sa followed her father Kassadin back to Zaun to attend elementary school.
Taliyah also returned to Vikaura to reunite with the investigation team, continuing her social investigation in the Shurima region while searching for her lost tribal family.
Only Sivir received the organization's mission and was left here as a bridge of communication between Zaun and Shurima.
"Don't make a mistake, old man." Xiweier raised his chin unceremoniously: "I am staying here because the organization has a mission."
"I have no interest in being the princess of the Shurima Empire!"
"So, I can be with whoever I want, and do whatever I want - and your shitty rules don't apply to me!"
"You?!" This choked Azir.
But he just couldn't teach Sivir a lesson.
Because he had tried it in the past month. Whenever he scolded Sivir in the tone of a patriarch, Sivir would impatiently ask him back: "Where were you when my parents and family died?"
Then Azir was speechless.
He owed his descendants so much that he didn't even have the confidence to act like a parent in front of Sivir.
"This is my empire! I am the emperor! You should listen to me, daughter of Shurima." Azir had to put on the airs of an emperor.
Xiweier laughed: "What emperor?"
"Dawn Oasis has become what it is now, isn't it because of you and your 'good brother'?"
"Now we are all desperately trying to clean up the mess you left behind, and you still have the nerve to make suggestions?"
Azir: “…”
As soon as Sivir spoke, he spoke fluent Zaunese, a language that he had learned without any instruction. As an emperor, he had lost all his dignity.
The subjects around him wanted to laugh but didn't dare to, so they tried to kneel deeper and bury their heads in the sand like ostriches.
"You, you..." You unfilial descendant!
Azir was so angry that he almost couldn't help but use his sand soldiers to carry Sivir back and put her in solitary confinement.
But Sivir was not afraid at all, and instead criticized him: "Azir, I don't know what you are thinking."
"This Dawn Oasis stretches for hundreds of kilometers , and the rivers and canals that need to be cleaned up add up to at least thousands of kilometers long. You actually let mortals do this kind of work? How long will it take?"
Azir frowned when he heard this: "If we don't allow mortals to do it, then who will do it?"
"You!" Sivir pointed at Azir and said, "Isn't your ability to control the sand? When it comes to clearing the sand, you alone are more efficient than 100,000 civilians."
"If you don't go, who will?"
"Me?" Azir's face darkened.
How is this possible!
In Shurima, the Ascended Ones are transcendent beings who are half-human and half-god. They are the gods of the world who are invited into temples by mortals to be worshipped.
It was the mortals' infinite worship of the Ascended Ones as if they were gods, and the absolute submission that followed, that formed the foundation for the rule of the ancient Shurima Empire.
And now, Sivir actually wants him to do the work himself?
The canals and ditches of Dawn Oasis are thousands of miles long in total, and it would take him several days to complete the work even if he did it himself.
An emperor, a god, digging sand in the wasteland every day to open up wasteland...is this acceptable?
If common people see the ascended ones working in the fields, wouldn’t they downgrade the ascended ones from “supreme gods” to “useful tools”?
The laws of our ancestors cannot be changed, and those who have ascended to heaven cannot engage in menial occupations.
Azir would rather wait and let the mortal laborers do it.
Anyway, for the ascenders with infinite lifespan, decades are just a blink of an eye.
All he had to do was wait patiently, and the mortal laborers would naturally complete the task.
Many great projects of the ancient Shurima Empire, including the pyramid tombs, the temple complex in the capital, and the network of canals and culverts throughout the country, were also completed in this way.
In this world where personal strength is everything, the level of productivity does not affect national defense strength much.
As long as there are Ascendants, even if the canal is dredged a few years later and the Oasis of Dawn recovers more slowly, it will not affect Shurima's "re-greatness".
So, Azir also has the patience to wait.
"But this is your empire!" Sivir asked disdainfully, "Now your empire needs strength, but you don't want to go and let others do it?"
"Childish!" Azir raised his head proudly: "I am a descendant of the sun and a warrior of the gods. It is a grace for the gods to protect mortals. How can I ask the gods to work for mortals?"
"Yes." Xiweier curled her lips.
She pointed at the blue bird avatar that the organization had assigned to her as a special envoy standing on her shoulder: "Look--"
"Our gods can stand here and serve as 'radio' for mortals!"
Azir: “…”
He looked helplessly at the blue bird incarnation on Xiweier's shoulder and couldn't help but sigh: "My child, you are really bewitched without knowing it!"
"I asked you to read less heretical texts and learn more about the ancient Shurima classics from Grand Maester Nasus. Did you never listen to me and never go to him?"
“No, I went to find Nasus.” Sivir shrugged.
“Oh?” Azir asked, “You went to study with Grand Maester Nasus?”
"No." Sivir shook her head again.
And just at this moment...
"Death is coming!" At another construction site in the distance, a figure as towering as a mountain suddenly appeared in the desolate sea of sand.
That was Grand Maester Nasus.
I saw him using the broad axe blade as a shovel, bending over with full concentration, clearing the accumulated sand in the canal channel shovel by shovel .
He is like a hard-working farmer. Every hoe he digs is like sowing the seeds for the future, and he brings with him the joy of a heavy harvest.
Only then did Sivir say, “I have convinced Grand Maester Nasus to come dig with me.”
Azir: “…”
