Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1139: Chapter 1138: Flickering Like Fireflies

Listening to Enya’s gentle sigh, Gawain knew that the Dragon God’s words were sincere, and he smiled lightly and nodded, "I thank you on behalf of Queen Belsetia for your blessings, but these matters are not that related to you anymore. Let them go their own way."

"Indeed, after all, I’ve ’retired,’" came a light laugh from the golden egg, a sound filled with relief, "It’s rare to have some downtime, so it’s best not to keep too many things in mind."

Gawain looked at the new furnishings in the room, his gaze sweeping over the Magic Web Terminal and Neural Coupler in standby mode, seeing faint glows still lingering on the rune trigger and crystal structures and sensing the subtle Dark Wave from the depths of the devices. This was the result of prolonged operation, and he couldn’t help but say, "It seems you quite like our neural network?"

"Dragons once created a larger and more complex Omega network, but even Omega started as a simple prototype," Enya said softly, "Your neural network reminds me of the early days of Omega... young, raw, imperfect, yet growing rapidly every second, seemingly confirming the thriving vitality of an entire civilization... yes, I quite like your neural network."

"I wonder how surprised the Dragonkin would be to know that the deity they once revered actually has an interest in ’surfing the net,’" Gawain couldn’t help but laugh, "After all, this is entirely a ’technological product.’

"As you already know, the instincts and nature of gods are not aligned," Enya said, the golden magic symbols on her eggshell gently moving again, "Even Heragor doesn’t know that all these years, I’ve always wanted to try their Omega network, to browse like an ordinary dragonkin, write down my thoughts, and talk normally with the children... I have always wanted to, but I could not."

"Now you have the chance — although our neural network might not seem as advanced as the Omega network in your eyes," Gawain nodded and said, "The growth speed of this network is rapid, and our next plan is to let it run throughout the entire Loren Continent, and if we succeed in establishing communication with the Talronde Continent, its nodes will certainly reach over there — then dragons will become its users too, and you will have the chance to realize what you’ve always wanted."

A voice came with a hint of joy from the golden egg: "I am very much looking forward to that day, and if you need my help, feel free to ask."

Gawain smiled and nodded, casually pulling a chair and sitting down, then suddenly looked curiously at the golden egg in front of him: "So, have you encountered any interesting people or things when you first used our neural network?"

Actually, he didn’t need to ask Enya face to face — the monitoring group at the computing center has been watching the data flow of the three ’special users’ in the neural network, he could easily inquire from Yuri, Wendy, or Selena about what the three retired deities did online, but he felt that would take away much of the fun; face-to-face conversation was more interesting.

If he had time, he wanted to ask Amon and Goddess of Magic about their internet experiences.

"Most of the time, I’ve just been wandering in the dream city and took a detour to visit the Spider Girl who was resting there, but I haven’t interacted with too many people," Enya recalled, speaking slowly, "That little girl is quite interesting, she seemed very curious about how I would run, knowing that my real-world form is an egg, and she even had a magical theory about judging running speed by the number of legs... unfortunately, in the end, I couldn’t understand that theory.

"I also visited the ’Pyramid’ located at the Dream City Center, and was received by a network immortal named Selena Gerfen, but she seemed quite tense about my appearance... I guess, she might be one of the ’insiders’ behind your ’project’? Ah no, I have no complaints, this is a normal arrangement as expected.

"Apart from that, if there’s anything interesting to tell..."

Enya paused here, as if in thought, then cheerfully said: "In a news report about Talronde, I found a message vaguely related to me; the commenter seemed aware of the secret behind the war in Talronde and has some knowledge of my existence... I guess it’s a member of the theocracy Authority Council? Some researcher? Or an archive manager?"

"Something like that?" Gawain, who had been listening indifferently, suddenly frowned, "What’s the name of the commenter?"

"Highspeed Stag," Enya said casually, "An unusual name, I remember it quite well."

Gawain: "..."

"What’s wrong? Do you know who that is?"

"No, I’m not sure," Gawain’s mouth twitched, already running through seventy or eighty thoughts in his head, quickly speculating the identity behind the name — after all, throughout the world, there’s only one existence associated with such a title, "But I have some guesses, and if everything matches, I could even introduce you guys someday. He does actually count as a member of the theocracy Authority Council. But then again, I didn’t know the Old Deer had such a dynamic mind..."

Enya didn’t understand the meaning of Gawain’s self-murmuring at the end, but she vaguely guessed something from his attitude, after all, although the existence of Amon and Goddess of Magic is still a secret from the public, in the theocracy Authority Council, related materials have long been openly shared, and as one of the new technical advisors for the theocracy Authority Council (mainly serving as a research subject), she has a certain level of access to those materials.

Perhaps this topic sparked his interest, Gawain suddenly curiously looked at Enya and asked, "By the way, what name did you choose for yourself in the neural network?"

A voice came from the golden egg: "Tea Egg."

The Hatching Room fell silent instantly, and after a long pause, Gawain’s voice broke the silence: "...Huh?"

"Tea Egg," Enya seriously repeated, "I remember you mentioned this name once, I should have spelled it correctly?"

"Are you serious?" Gawain’s eyes widened immediately, the muscles on his face twitching twice — he never imagined a casual joke he made one day would come back so seriously from the Dragon God’s mouth, leaving him unsure how to respond as the origin of the joke, "I mean... you actually took this name as your..."

"Is this name inappropriate?" Enya was confused by Gawain’s reaction, "I didn’t receive any system alert when creating it, it shouldn’t involve blocked terms, right?"

"It’s not a matter of blocked terms," Gawain awkwardly rubbed his chin, "It’s mainly that the name doesn’t quite match your temperament. I thought you would choose something more elegant and noble... I mean, you see, you were once a Dragon God..."

"I referred to the naming habits of Dragons in the Omega network, this kind of free naming suits the anonymous network atmosphere better," Enya said solemnly, "And I hope to use this approach to make my personality a bit livelier — I’ve wanted to try for a very, very long time."

Gawain blinked, feeling that he had finally touched upon an undiscovered side of the Dragon God’s personality—a more genuine side. Yet the awkward atmosphere made him cough lightly, touch the tip of his nose, and say, "If you want to be less serious, the first step is not to sound so earnest when discussing such topics."

"Am I very earnest? Sorry, I hadn’t noticed," Enya replied immediately with sincere seriousness, "Understood, I’ll try to adjust—great, now I have another direction to work on."

Aren’t there a bit too many directions you’re working on recently?

Gawain couldn’t help but think, but this time he dared not speak his thoughts out loud—he had roughly grasped the Dragon God’s character and feared that one casual remark might make her take it seriously, and then she’d find yet another "direction to work on" for him in the future... those directions were already plentiful enough.

"Ahem," he cleared his throat twice, finally deciding not to let the topic veer into a strange direction, "Enough chit-chat, actually I’m here to discuss some business with you today."

"Business?" Enya’s tone carried curiosity, "What are you referring to?"

Gawain composed himself, quickly organizing his thoughts while adjusting his emotions back to a serious state before breaking the silence with a solemn face, "There’s something you should already know, we have a long-term ’monitoring’ project aimed at tracking a mysterious signal of unknown origin..."

"I know," Enya immediately said, her tone carrying a feeling of sentiment, as if she had been waiting a long time for this topic, "I knew about it even before the battle in Talronde erupted—the earliest it was Melita who brought this message back to Talronde."

"Melita?" Gawain was taken aback, but quickly recalled, "Ah, yes, after first confirming the signal’s existence, I had confirmed with various parties about its source, including Talronde... but at that time, the Dragonkin hadn’t responded."

"They wanted to reply," Enya said softly, "but I stopped them."

"You stopped them?" Gawain’s expression turned serious as his gaze fell on Enya’s eggshell, "Why?"

"Because at that time, the Dragonkin were still in a dangerous blockade state and were approaching a pivotal moment of destiny. I had to prevent them from focusing too much on the stars and avoid them giving out knowledge about the stars to outsiders—otherwise, in the circumstances then, I was likely to lose control prematurely."

"About the stars..." Gawain blinked as a strange yet unsurprising feeling welled up from deep within. He slowly took a breath, "So that signal really is from the stars? Who, exactly, is sending it out? How far are they from our planet? How much do you know about the sender?"

"You’re asking too many questions at once," Enya said calmly, her gentle and serene voice quickly soothing Gawain’s slightly agitated mood, "I might know more about the stars than you do, but it’s not to the extent of knowing everything, so it’s best if you lower your expectations a bit so we can continue."

"Firstly, about your first question—the signal’s source... Yes, as you’ve already thought, the signal comes from the stars, from a planet that is incredibly distant to mortals now but not so far on a cosmic scale.

"As for that planet’s specific information and the signal sender’s information, I don’t know much more than you."

"You don’t know?" Gawain instinctively furrowed his brow, "As the most powerful deity on this planet, even you can’t see it?"

"Precisely because I am a deity on this planet, my gaze is destined not to stray too far from it," Enya said with a hint of amusement, "This is precisely the greatest limitation of the gods that you must understand; I believe you’ve actually researched this far, but you tend to subconsciously overlook it—gods might be powerful, but they can only be strong within their own domain, the more specific and intense mortals imagine gods to be, the more specific and restricting the god’s domain becomes.

"Until my fall, the Dragonkin had never stepped foot off this planet, so my gaze could only ever fall on it, no matter how thoroughly I could understand everything about it, I couldn’t look beyond it... In this respect, I’m much like that giant ’Sorin Giant Tree’, our sight constrained within specific fields.

"Hence, the mortals’ ’step off the planet’ has such a strong impact on the gods; you must understand from basic principles why this is."

"A god can only be strong within their own domain..." Gawain mused, "That’s a very crucial piece of information, I’ll note it down. Now, back to the signal, you know nothing about its source and sender... What else can you tell us then?"

"Though I can’t see situations on other planets, at least I witnessed the Voyager’s expedition and experienced the era of the ’sky opening its gates’," Enya said, "As for you, Wanderer from Outer Realm, you come from the stars, so we’re both well aware: this universe is not dead and silent, and we beings on this planet are not the only ones in the stars, so the appearance of other intelligent voices in the universe is a very normal thing.

"And with such normalcy, it certainly won’t happen just this once.

"Before you received this signal, there were at least a hundred incidents in my memory of this planet capturing ’voices from the universe’, these signals wandering in the darkness like fishing lights abruptly lighting up in boundless chaos. They demonstrate that this section of the stars is far from being as cold as it seems; beneath the protection of many stars are many intelligent creatures just like you—capable of thinking, observing, and gazing at the stars, and quite a number of them have already reached a very high level. At the very least... they already know how to let their ’greetings’ leave the land beneath their feet and traverse such a vast starry sky."

"Not... less than a hundred?!" Gawain finally widened his eyes in awe, "This planet has received so many extraterrestrial signals?"

"Not received deliberately—most of these signals are indiscriminate dissemination, like ripples undulating in the universe, with some just passing by here. And my memory spans a million years, so hearing some greetings over such a long time is no surprise."

Gawain couldn’t help but take a gentle breath and hesitantly asked, "And... what happened to those signals later?"

"The vast majority extinguished, like the flickering of fireflies."