Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1264: Chapter 1263: Scars of History

The traces of corruption and contamination could not have formed overnight; they are most likely the "nursery" of the initial gestation of the "Inversion Tide" born within this tower or the aftermath left by the activities of the "Inversion Tide." According to the intelligence provided by the Talronde side, these traces could very likely be traced back to ancient times—back to a million years ago, on the eve of the destruction of the Inverted Tide Empire by dragons.

But when did that rift appear?

Gawain did not know, and perhaps no one knew; the rift clearly exhibited a state of "non-interference" with the entire hall, penetrating the material world like a phantom, traversing steel and air. Gawain was completely unable to determine how long the rift remained here from the surrounding traces. It might have existed long before this tower was built, or might have only taken shape an hour ago... As an "illusion" unable to be observed by conventional means and not interacting with its surrounding material environment upon appearing, its emergence could have occurred at any time.

But Gawain had an instinctive guess; he believed that the thing had been hovering above the hall for many years, and had become a means of escape.

There were no signs of divine reaction within the tower, nor traces of mental contamination discovered so far, which in itself was a disturbing signal.

It is worth noting that Modir, back then, had succumbed to Inversion Tide contamination moments after entering this hall, plunged into an obsessive acquisition and worship of ancient knowledge. If not for the "intervention protection" executed by the Dragon God outside the tower, he wouldn’t have awoken until transformed into a complete Inversion Tide disciple.

However, now they had explored this hall for such an extended period without any signs of mental contamination—of course, Gawain and Amber had unique constitutions, and Modir carried protective runes, making them less susceptible to contamination. Yet, the current situation showed that not even the highly sensitive protective devices issued any warnings.

"Melita mentioned she witnessed a massive rift from outside... although lacking your Shadow Sand Dust, she shared the young dragons’ vision," Gawain said offhandedly. "The young dragons born under the influence of The Deep Blue Webway can see the ’Deep Blue Rift’ unseen by ordinary people... it’s reasonable enough. Now, the key is how these rifts came to be."

His gaze was no longer fixed on the floating rift and blue streams above the hall but had shifted towards a certain alloy gate on one side of the hall. After a brief contemplation, he strode in that direction: "We should check the upper levels."

In the "structural diagram" that emerged in his mind, the structure behind that gate was labeled "personnel elevator," amidst a plethora of devices flashing "system failure" in red warning frames, the equipment line for that corridor was remarkably marked in green.

Observing Gawain’s actions as if extremely familiar with the surroundings, Amber and Modir showed no signs of doubt, instead promptly following him to the silver-white alloy gate.

After a brief review of the operation instructions, Gawain raised his hand and placed it on the wall beside the gate, causing a series of uneven colored light spots to emerge on the previously blank wall. The ancient dormant system was reactivated, and amidst a series of unstable, unsmooth start-up processes, the spots gradually formed an image, with a few simple buttons and characters flickering like loose-contact lights before stabilizing.

Gawain operated a few controls on the panel, hearing a "ding" as the system alert sounded beside his ears, the locked alloy gate silently sliding apart to reveal the spacious elevator cabin inside.

Three people stepped into the cabin, followed by the alloy gate closing, and with a slight vibration beneath their feet, an abrupt mechanical synthetic voice suddenly sounded amidst the cabin’s ascent—a peculiar and brief pronunciation in a language unintelligible to the world today; Amber and Modir were startled by the unexpected sound, yet in Gawain’s mind, the voice transformed directly into comprehensible information: "Elevator ascending."

"Don’t worry, it’s just the elevator’s alert sound." Gawain casually reassured Amber, who was a bit ruffled, and gave a light nod to the serious-looking old mage beside him.

Just as he finished speaking, a lucid image suddenly appeared on the cabin wall opposite him, displaying a boundless, vast plain—a city laden with numerous silver-white domes and skyscrapers, looking extremely advanced and prosperous, embedded like a colossal jewel within the plain, at the plain’s edge a heavenly body was slowly rising—the planet with a glow, a luminous spheroid akin to the moon, and distant, unfamiliar galaxies.

Amber and Modir were startled again but had somewhat become accustomed to the strange ancient devices within this tower; they quickly realized this was likely a very normal interface for conveying and recording information. So after a brief surprise, they calmed down, watching the scenery with serious curiosity depicted on the screen.

Then, the images started to shift, showcasing varied cities of differing styles, or breathtaking or wondrous or mysterious alien views, different skies of scenery, unfamiliar and vast star seas, some form of launch structures standing on the ground, vehicles whisking through the heavens and earth...

On certain images, Gawain could even see text akin to promotional slogans—they endlessly refreshed, describing routes deep into the stars or certain extraterrestrial development project plans. Amidst this constant refresh, one image abruptly appeared before his eyes, causing his pupils to instantaneously contract—

He saw a planet with azure oceans and yellow-green land silently suspended against the dark and profound space background, above the planet’s equator floated an astonishingly massive, unfinished ring-shaped megastructure. The incomplete sections gave the impression of bony frames extending into the sky, and amidst those frames, countless points of light could be seen bustling through, copious space machinery was transporting materials for this megastructure or installing new structures for it.

Gawain’s gaze shifted towards the bottom of the screen, seeing the corresponding promotional text—

"The next expedition will set sail from here, may this star, weathered by hardship, heal over time, may ’Firmament’ and ’Sentinel’ witness this star’s next dawn."

Gawain’s gaze fixedly stared at the scene displayed on the screen before him, at the apparent unfinished Firmament Station’s space megastructure, alongside the text in the image’s footer, focusing on the two most crucial words—"Firmament" and "Sentinel"!

At this moment, the images before him suddenly vanished, and a slight vibration arose from beneath his feet; the elevator system’s synthetic voice entered his ears, interrupting his whirlwind-like thoughts: "Arrived... second floor, elevator door opening."

The elevator cabin’s door slid open, Amber noticed the anomaly in Gawain’s expression, and couldn’t help but ask with some concern: "Hey, what’s wrong? Did you see something earlier?"

Gawain steadied his mind, speaking in an unusually serious tone as he turned to exit the cabin: "Those images earlier mentioned ’Sentinels’!"

He did not conceal his discovery; not only did he not plan to hide it, he was already prepared to return and disclose all his findings here to the Theocracy Authority Council, to all member heads of state—the matter involved the safety of the entire world, holding back served no benefit.

He is Gawain Cecil, one of the main leaders of the alliance. He has no need to explain to anyone how he extracted clues from these ancient relics that others cannot understand, nor does anyone in the alliance have the qualification to require him to explain the source of his information.

He only needs to ensure that those who need to know are fully informed, and then let them do their best.

The clue of the "sentinels" points to the Voyagers—although Gawain still has no evidence to prove that the "sentinels" mentioned in the image earlier are the same as those mentioned in the warning Amber obtained from Lady Night’s kingdom, he is almost certain.

Moreover, the image mentioned not only the sentinels but also the "Firmament."

Gawain is one hundred percent sure that it refers to the orbital ring space station around this planet, the "Firmament Station"—evidently, when the Voyagers were constructing this tower, the space station had not yet been completed.

But what the image presented was only the space station, and there was nothing that might be the "sentinels"... Is it because the elements displayed on the screen were incomplete? Or did the sentinels actually appear on the screen, but I didn’t recognize them?

His thoughts surged up and down in Gawain’s mind, with various speculations continuously emerging and being overthrown. He organized his memory, convinced that he had not seen anything labeled as "sentinels" in that image and many subsequent images, so he temporarily concluded that the "sentinels" mentioned in the "slogan" did not officially appear in any image.

Now he could only determine one thing—the monitoring system left by the Voyagers on this planet, although comprising a large number of satellites and small space stations, clearly has a core composed of two parts, one of which is the orbital ring space station located above the equator, and the other part... is the "sentinels"!!

A strange feeling surfaced in his heart, and the corner of Gawain’s mouth twitched instinctively.

Currently, his physical form is one of the auxiliary satellites of the Firmament Station, and due to the missing higher-level system permissions of the space facilities cluster, he utilized a breach in the satellite data link to connect his consciousness to the main system of the Firmament Station and successfully secured partial authentication of the main system. In a certain sense, he maintains a near "trinity" state with the space satellites and the Firmament Station; however, unfortunately... this "trinity" cannot be directly transformed into a means or power to counter the sentinels.

Gawain felt a bit of a toothache.

Amber’s voice sounded at this moment from the front, interrupting his boiling thoughts: "Look ahead—there’s indeed a situation!"

Gawain immediately gathered his mind, looked up in the direction of the voice, and saw another expansive hall outside the elevator. The general structure of this hall was similar to the first floor of the tower, with a central area that revealed a rail transport system that seemed to run through the entire Tower of the Inversion Tide. However, unlike the first floor, this hall featured numerous cylindrical structures slanted around the transport rails, forming a huge circle. From time to time, bright streams of light rapidly slid across these inclined cylinders’ surfaces, as if conveying some information, and a low humming noise came constantly from within them, as though some ancient system was still operational inside.

What Amber referred to as the "situation" was among those cylinders.

A large number of scorched marks, left by erosion and corruption, were scattered around the bases of some cylinders, and dead, seemingly biological structures were entangled near the rail transport system not far off. Amid these disquieting traces, the most striking was a blue crack that pierced through the floor, as if embedded in the air.

It was the rift Gawain and company had seen in the hall on the first floor. Part of its structure had evidently "penetrated" the heavy, solid floors inside the tower, forming a ten-meter-long, three or four-meter-wide opening on the second floor. Now, abundant blue luminescence surged within that opening, the mesmerizing magical brilliance standing out prominently amid a pile of dark corruption marks.

Evidently, the range of Amber’s "Shadow Sand Dust" extends beyond the first floor’s hall, and the effect of "lifting the veil" has spread here too.

Gawain frowned slightly and, after a moment of thought, walked towards the crack.

"Hey! Be careful!" Amber exclaimed in surprise from behind, hastily warning him, "This place looks creepy. Don’t touch anything recklessly!"

The fact that a half-elf who once pried open coffin lids in seven-hundred-year-old tombs was nervously cautioning him to "not touch anything recklessly" brought an odd smile to Gawain’s face. He waved his hand without looking back at Amber, indicating that he knew what he was doing, although his steps didn’t stop, and he soon came to the area occupied by the corruption marks, standing less than two meters in front of the "Deep Blue Rift."

He crouched down, carefully scanning the unsettling dark stains on the floor.

The dents and pits covered the Advanced Ancient Alloy, invulnerable by mortal means, with dark shades seeming to have seeped into the metal plates. These dent marks connected into a whole, sketching a more complete, larger outline.

Gawain squinted slightly, imagining the events that transpired here—a massive entity with a bloated and shapeless body, possibly possessing thousands of eyes and hundreds of throats, along with countless indescribable appendages and tendrils. It had already taken a corporeal form, but its "birth" was not yet complete, so it retained an intermediate state between reality and illusion, allowing it to pass through the tower floors in this form. However, the power of the mental tide confined it within this tower, so this blind, thoughtless creature could only wander here endlessly, continuing a seemingly never-ending wait in chaos.

And it possessed some unknown power that could hide its existence and the traces of its activities behind a veil of illusion. Therefore... even though the tower occasionally welcomed a few visitors, none of them had ever detected the horrible entity above them.

"This was once the main activity area of ’that entity,’" Gawain said in a deep voice, having heard Amber and Modir’s footsteps reaching him from behind, "Of course, there’s nothing here now."

He slowly stood up, turning to look at Amber behind him.

"Contact the Winter, and let’s send what we’ve found so far back to Agondale."