Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1046: Chapter 1045: Awakened From a Great Dream

When Gawain stepped into Office One of the Administrative Office, Aunt Heidi, who was in the middle of reviewing documents, immediately sensed that something was off about him. The "Cecil Clan’s Great Steward" raised her head and looked at his expression. "Ancestor, did you not rest well last night?"

"...A bit of insomnia," Gawain found it hard to explain to Aunt Heidi how he’d been jolted awake in the middle of the night by an alarm from the satellite, and then lay there wide awake watching a suspected mechanical dragon-like thing blaze its way across space towards the distant horizon—what that did to his state of mind—so he could only wave a hand, slightly fatigued. "It’s nothing serious. I’ll adjust on my own."

For a powerful Transcendent, a bit of fatigue from insomnia naturally wasn’t much of a problem, but Aunt Heidi still couldn’t help feeling a little worried. "Do you need some calming potion? Pittman should have some..."

"Really, no," Gawain immediately waved his hand, then turned his gaze to the neatly arranged stacks of documents on Aunt Heidi’s desk, quickly shifting the topic. "Any new developments?"

To be honest, his head was still full of the images he’d seen through space surveillance the previous night—the mysterious silhouette that had streaked across the stars, and the countless tangled thoughts that followed. But he was also very clear that he lacked the conditions for further investigation, at least at this stage—right now, the power of the Administrative Office was of no use here, while the Empire’s daily affairs still had to be handled.

Aunt Heidi glanced at Gawain’s expression again, as if confirming the health of the ancestor. Only after making sure there truly was no problem did she flip through the few documents at the top, organizing her thoughts as she answered, "Yes, we’ve already received feedback from several national or regional leaders—including the tribal country of Augari, all the countries in the north, the Silver Empire, and a reply from the Dwarf Kingdom. From the feedback, the leaders of each country are very interested in the ’Commonwealth Alliance’ you’re advocating..."

"As expected." Gawain smiled. This was finally a good piece of news, at least enough to dispel some of the bad mood brought on by the insomnia. "These countries are either already in the Cecil Settlement, or will soon join the northern circumcontinental routes, or are engaged in technological exchanges and close contact with us... The bridges are already in place. It’s an inevitable trend that connections between kingdoms grow tighter."

"Just as you said," Aunt Heidi nodded, then picked up a document that had been placed separately to one side. "In addition, this is a long-range letter forwarded just this morning through the sentinel towers, from Her Majesty Belsetia Morningstar of the Silver Empire—addressed specifically to you as a private letter."

"Belsetia..." Gawain froze for a moment. Unbidden, memories from seven hundred years ago surfaced: a lively figure who was always trailing behind him causing trouble, slipping from camp to camp during the Pioneer Covenant’s meetings. But he quickly shook his head, set those seven-hundred-year-old memories aside, and reached out to take the letter Aunt Heidi handed him.

Of course, this letter wasn’t the original. It was a "copy" transmitted and forwarded using the sentinel towers’ communication links together with the Magic Web Communication system. Though the reproduced image was slightly distorted, the handwriting on the paper was still clear and familiar. Compared to seven hundred years ago, the "Silver Empress’s" script hadn’t changed much—just a bit more mature and graceful:

"To the emperor of Cecil Empire, and to my long-unseen Uncle Gawain—"

Seeing that peculiar opening line, Gawain’s eyebrows rose involuntarily. Then he lowered his eyelids and carefully read the letter through.

A few minutes later, he set the paper down. Aunt Heidi cast him a curious look. "What did the Silver Empress say? Ah, of course, if it’s private I won’t ask..."

Gawain gave Aunt Heidi a strange look; for some reason, her wording sounded odd to his ears. Then he shook his head. "Nothing major—some routine pleasantries, and a personal response regarding this upcoming summit... She’s coming in person."

It took Aunt Heidi a second to process what "in person" meant. Then her eyes widened in shock. "In person? Are you saying the Silver Empress herself is coming to Outpost 112 to attend this summit?"

She was clearly surprised, and with reason: although the summit scheduled for Revival Month this year was, in principle, an invitation for the leaders of all kingdoms to come for talks, in reality the situation on the Loren Continent was complicated, and many regions had only recently opened their borders. As such, several countries whose journeys were long, or that had only recently joined the Cecil Settlement, were actually preparing to send the King’s deputy or Court Officials with substantial voice instead. Meanwhile, the Silver Empire lay at the southernmost end of the Loren Continent, separated from the northern states by all of the Gondor wasteland. Coupled with the Silver Empress’s exalted status and her centuries-long habit of rarely leaving her realm, almost everyone believed that this distant, Ancient Empire would only send an ambassador—Aunt Heidi had never imagined that the one coming would be the Silver Empress herself.

Gawain, however, wasn’t nearly as surprised as Aunt Heidi; he even seemed rather calm. "This summit will redefine the entire world’s order. Its long-term impact will be no less than that of the Pioneer Covenant back in the day—for the Silver Empire, it’s worth having their Empress bear witness to it in person. And..."

Aunt Heidi asked curiously, "And?"

Gawain lowered his head and glanced again at the letter in his hand, his gaze resting on several of its passages:

"...Many years ago, the elves lost the favor of the God of Nature, and our scholars and theologians have debated this for many years... I myself am particularly concerned with the changes in the northern continent over the past two years, and through my correspondence with Sonia I’ve come to understand the reformed Church of the Holy Light, as well as the Cecil Empire’s restructuring of the various churches..."

He raised his head and said thoughtfully, "The elves may become the first another race to join the theocracy Authority Council—that’s something I hadn’t anticipated."

Listening to Gawain, Aunt Heidi quickly caught on as well. "...The silver elves... Right, their mainstream faith used to be the God of Nature, but ever since the White Starfall three thousand years ago, their religious structure has changed dramatically. The Empire’s original state religion slowly transformed over several centuries into a purely academic institution focused on researching Druid Technology, while the priests who split off led small groups of followers to establish one scattered religion after another based on primitive nature worship. But I’ve heard from Sonia and Soldrin that these religions, which spread only in small pockets through the jungles, have never caused even the slightest wave—no nature theurgy has ever manifested in the real world, and no new God has ever responded to their prayers...

"To this day, there still isn’t a unified, recognized mainstream faith within the Silver Empire. The Elven Royal Family is nominally the supreme leadership over the Druids, and the Silver Empress herself is nominally the Supreme Priestess, but this has been reduced almost entirely to ceremonial and traditional symbolism. Most elves no longer believe in Amon, while a minority of elves have come under the influence of human being kingdoms: some worship the War God, some are shallow followers of the Goddess of Magic, and a few believe in the Holy Light..."

Gawain’s facial muscles twitched slightly. "...It seems their current religious situation isn’t exactly promising..."

Aunt Heidi thought carefully, then also showed an odd expression. "...Indeed."

"Let’s set their crisis of faith aside for the moment," Gawain exhaled and pulled the topic back. "All this time my attention has been overly focused on the northern continent, on human beings themselves... The Silver Empire has been in contact with us for so long, yet it’s always been in my ’blind spot’. Now, it appears that those warm jungles conceal a vast ’sample library of divine influence’. The silver elves’ unique situation... might be able to push our research forward by a major step."

His gaze once more passed over Belsetia’s composed, elegant script, while his thoughts seemed to cross the boundless wasteland and fall upon the Elf Kingdom at the other end of the continent. He thought of what Aunt Heidi had just described; in the silver elves’ three-thousand-year "journey of faith-seeking"... he faintly sensed many points that might connect to the mysteries of the gods.

After a brief bout of contemplation, he set the elves’ matter aside in his heart and began to consider another line of concern—Talronde.

Ever since last night’s "insomnia," that silhouette streaking through space had been lingering in his mind. Though the thing he’d seen was bizarrely shaped—modified to the point that no trace of its original form could be seen—Gawain had still, from its general outline, discerned a hint of a "dragon’s" shape. And it was this small thread of a clue that had, since early morning today, kept him constantly turning over Talronde’s situation in his thoughts.

Following this line of thought, he thought of the Sacred Dragon Kingdom, and subconsciously asked, "The Sacred Dragon Kingdom should have received our invitation long ago... Has that Grand Duke of Dragonblood given any response?"

"I was just about to tell you about that," Aunt Heidi said immediately. "The reply from the Sacred Dragon Kingdom has arrived as well, but... I find it a little strange."

Gawain frowned. "Strange?"

"There’s no word from Duke Balogar himself. The letter was sent in the name of the Dragon Blood Council and Sir Golosh Hickel," Aunt Heidi pulled a document from the desk and handed it to Gawain. "Their wording is very polite, but they state that they cannot attend the meeting in the Revival Month—because they are busy dealing with some ’special domestic circumstances’. Of course, they did not mention any details."

Gawain took the document, opened it, and quickly skimmed through it. Its content was basically exactly what Aunt Heidi had said. It was a perfectly worded official letter, courteously expressing refusal and apologies, while revealing nothing of the real internal situation in the Sacred Dragon Kingdom—there was nothing more to see.

"Amber," after thinking for a moment, Gawain turned his head and spoke to the air beside him, "do we have corresponding intelligence?"

As soon as his voice fell, the Director of Intelligence surfaced out of the air. The half-elf girl jumped to the floor and spoke quickly, "We don’t have many agents infiltrated into the Sacred Dragon Kingdom, but we’ve still received some useful information: Duke Balogar has not appeared in public for several days in a row, and Dragonwatch Keep, the capital of the Sacred Dragon Kingdom, has recently been under martial law. Rumor has it that the Grand Duke of Dragonblood’s health has suddenly deteriorated and he is unable to appear in public, and there are also rumors that he has already left the duchy, but in any case, the Dragon Blood Council and the Court Officials of the duchy don’t seem to be panicking. They have the situation under control, and the Sacred Dragon Kingdom appears calm throughout—only the Grand Duke is gone.

"Oh right, there’s one more piece of news: it’s said that the residents living around Dragonwatch Keep once saw a gigantic silver dragon circling over the mountains and flying straight toward the north. Local traveling merchants mostly think this is just a rumor, but I suspect... it’s directly connected to the Grand Duke of Dragonblood suddenly going missing."

The intelligence was very fragmentary, but the conclusion seemed ready to present itself.

Only that conclusion was still not enough for anyone to deduce the true situation in Talronde.

Gawain frowned, speculating about what exactly had happened in the distant north, and just then, a special Magic Web Terminal beside Aunt Heidi’s desk suddenly chimed.

Everyone in the room fixed their gaze at once on the machine that had started to emit sound and light.

This was the special direct line of the Grand Chancellor of the Empire—it would only sound when some major incident occurred along the borders, or when one of the other two Grand Governors needed to establish an emergency link with the imperial capital.

"Put it through." Gawain spoke to Aunt Heidi as he walked toward the desk.

Aunt Heidi quickly connected the communication terminal. Along with the flicker and stabilization of a holographic projection, the figure of Victoria Wilder appeared before Gawain and Aunt Heidi.

"Your Majesty, and Grand Governor Heidi," the expression of this Ice and Snow Duchess looked especially grave, and she spoke rapidly as soon as the communication was established, "the Eternal Storm has disappeared."

For a moment, Aunt Heidi didn’t even react. "...What did you say?"

"The Eternal Storm has disappeared," Victoria Wilder repeated patiently. "That giant storm over the northern sea—this has been confirmed by the last visual observation taken this morning: the wall of clouds formed by the storm has completely vanished, and the monitoring station set up near Northport confirms that the flow of Magic Power in the ocean currents and atmosphere is changing."

At this point, her gaze fell on Gawain, and her tone was more serious than ever before. "Your Majesty, beyond the borders we know, there may be other major events taking place in this world."

Gawain did not immediately respond to Victoria Wilder. He only subconsciously lifted his head, his gaze suddenly falling on the large map hanging on the nearby wall—on the north of the map.

...

When the sun of the polar day once again swept past the lowest point of the horizon and slowly rose to a third of the sky, sea wind blew over the land of Agondale, carrying the smell of the sea and the breath of smoke and dust toward the distance.

Melita Ponia woke from her sleep, feeling as though she had had a very long, very strange, very bizarre and very terrifying dream.

In the dream, she had been armed into a bloodless, tearless war machine, using a will of steel to fight an enemy more invincible than any natural disaster; in the dream, the gods she had once revered and feared in equal measure had become a destructive calamity, sweeping across the land and devouring everything; in the dream, she saw the glorious and magnificent Agondale crumble and shatter, the towering palace walls and pavilions of the Five Kings Council tumbling from the mountain peak, turning into ruins together with the ancient, crowded lower city of Lower Talronde. The Dragon Nest she had meticulously tended for tens of thousands of years collapsed along with the mountain, and everything in the nest burned fiercely in the flames...

She sank and rose in that dream, yet could not awaken, nor could she think freely, as though her spirit had been frozen in a piece of murky amber, able only to watch all this flow past before her with cold detachment, while her own mind was as still as if dead.

But suddenly, she heard the howling of the wind and felt the cold that swept over the land.

Amid the ruins of Agondale, the battered blue dragon opened her eyes.

"...What the—...?!?!"

The dream was real.jpg.