Sword of Dawn

In the next second, the scene in front of him stunned him on the spot.

Inside the gate is a large semi-circular room. Rows of neat seats are arranged in the room along an arc, and on the rows of seats, there are corpses one after another. !

These people had obviously been dead for many years, but instead of being reduced to bones over time, they had turned into some kind of mummified existence, dressed in ancient The robes or tunics of the magicians of the Gondor Empire, and this costume is enough to explain their identity:

They are the people who stayed in this ancient facility after it was closed!

Hetty's eyes widened. The shocking scene in front of her made her unable to speak for a long time. It was not until more than ten seconds later that she muttered to herself: "They... are all here... they all died here..."

"Why are these people left here?" Tire also heard about the origin of this facility from Gawain, and she was puzzled by the existence of these people. Are people forgotten in it?"

"It's impossible for there to be such a big mistake," Gao Wen frowned and shook his head. "The evacuation operations back then were obviously orderly, and there were no conditions for mistakes in the rush, and the warehouses we discovered before are also clues... those The material shows that the people stranded here are planned."

After he finished speaking, he began to walk cautiously among the seats arranged in a semicircle. After passing through rows of seats, he came to the front end of the semicircular hall.

Gawain turned around here, and he saw the rows of seats neatly arranged in front of his eyes. Nearly a thousand silent corpses sat on those chairs. Due to the arrangement of these seats, the "line of sight" of those corpses The focus is exactly where he is.

This weird feeling made him break out in a layer of cold sweat, but it also made him notice his feet: on the ground under his feet, there was an inconspicuous raised device, and between the runes on the surface of the device , there are still some residual magical radiance flowing slowly.

He recognized that thing—it was the technology of the ancient Gondor Empire, and it was a magical device used to transmit messages. With the help of the huge power of the Deep Blue Well and the magic deflectors throughout the empire, these devices can turn every inch of the empire They are closely connected, but with the explosion of the Deep Blue Well, this communication network has completely collapsed and there is no possibility of reconstruction, and the communication spells and magic communication towers used by human countries today are just a remnant of this ancient technology Afterglow only.

This device can still be used. Although it is impossible to send or receive any messages after it is separated from the "Dark Blue Magic Network", the shimmering light on its surface shows that there is still a little residual energy inside, and the information it stores Nor is it lost.

According to the memory of 700 years ago, Gao Wen tried to inject some magic power into this device, so this ancient device that had been silent for thousands of years was "resurrected" in an instant, the runes on its surface flickered violently, and a beam of light Then it was launched from the top of the device and shot towards the wall behind Gao Wen.

Gawain turned around and avoided the projected light beam. He saw that the ancient device projected a message on the wall in front of the nearly thousand corpses in the hall. It was a series of words written in the ancient Gondor common language, It's surprisingly short:

"You are the last survivors, live and don't come back."

There is only such a sentence saved in the communication device, which is obviously the content of the last communication, while other early content was either deleted by someone, or failed to survive the passage of time.

"The last survivor..." Tire saw the message, the sea monster who lived for an unknown amount of time could recognize the characters of the ancient Gondor Empire, she arched her head up curiously, "What does this mean? "

"...This is the last communication sent here from the empire when the demon tide broke out," Gao Wen said slowly, "I have already guessed what happened here, but there are still many mysteries to be solved."

Chapter 0238 The Last Survivor

As more and more clues are discovered, the secrets hidden in this ancient facility seem to be gradually revealed. For the well-informed Gao Wen, it seems that it is necessary to piece together the truth of what happened here from these clues. It's not difficult.

Obviously, this ancient relic built at the end of the Starfire Era is not as simple as he had guessed at first—this relic is not a frontier development base, nor is it just a taboo research institute for studying the secrets of gods. The hidden facilities in the heterogeneous space reveal its true purpose: it is a kind of "fortress" built to resist disasters and continue human civilization.

Whether it's the "scientific research" that happened in the ruins in the mountains, the flesh and blood of the gods in the seal, or the dry corpses in front of them and the last communication from the empire, they are all evidence of fighting against the disaster.

This disaster is most likely the "Magic Tide" that destroyed the Gondor Empire 700 years ago.

His previous speculation has been confirmed: as early as the age of Starfire, the magisters of the Gondor Empire were aware of the existence of the magic tide and made preparations for it 300 years in advance. Considering the scale of this ruin, There must be the support of the Gondor royal family behind this whole incident, but there are many things he can't figure out:

If humans in the Spark Era were aware of the existence of the Demon Tide, why did this information fail to survive?So much so that when the demon tide really broke out 700 years ago, the human empire was caught off guard and collapsed almost without resistance.

If the information stored in the communication equipment came from the territory of the empire after the outbreak of the demon tide, then obviously the imperial family at that time knew the existence of this frontier fortress, so they should have known that the demon tide was coming, but why did they never hear it? Take action?

Or... In fact, the royal family of Gondor at that time had already taken action, but there was no evidence or news spread out?

This is not impossible, because the demon tide broke out centered on the imperial capital, and destroyed the communication network of the entire kingdom in the first instant, and then no one came out alive from the hinterland of the empire, even if the emperor of Gondor did at that time, I'm afraid no one will know...

But in any case, a disaster that was predicted by scholars as early as 1000 years ago, and the rulers of the empire at that time carried out such a large-scale "preservation project" in private, but no information remained in the end. When 700 When the disaster really broke out years ago, the entire empire was at a loss, which is really incomprehensible.

Even if he was thinking about "controlling the leakage of news because he was worried about causing panic", Gao Wen felt that this was too unbelievable.

In addition, he is also curious about the "survivors" in this facility-the ruins in the mountain were sealed off 1000 years ago, and the magic tide officially broke out 300 years after that, and there are three full centuries in between. Time, the survivors in the facility have been alive?

This has completely exceeded the limit of human lifespan. Even if a powerful extraordinary professional can use magic power to extend his lifespan, it can only be extended by two or three hundred years. However, judging from the content of the communication, the people in this facility not only Live for 300 years, and live on even after that?

Despite the fact that they were all dead...

Gawain's eyes wandered in the hall, trying to find more clues that might give him hints, but at this moment, Hetty, who was using the magic light ball on the top of the staff to illuminate the surroundings and carefully studied the remains of the ancient magisters, suddenly had an idea. Discovery: "Ancestors! Come and see this!"

Gawain came to Hetty's side and saw Hetty pointing to the back of the chair behind one of the corpses: "Here is a line of writing!"

Gao Wen frowned, and read the line: "Benjamin Horston, Gondor 1760."

The surrounding soldiers also turned their attention to those seats, and immediately, everyone noticed the handwriting that they had ignored: "There are also here!" "And here!" "On the backs of all the chairs!"

Gawain thought of something in an instant, he looked at the names written on the back of the chair one by one, and read quickly: "Claude Pirin, Gondor 1790...Laurene Pardini, just now Dudor 1782... Melia Hoston, Gondor 1809...Pal Burindi, Gondor 1920..."

"These are..." Hetty opened her mouth in surprise, "These people..."

"There is only this explanation for their names and the year of their death," Gao Wen said in a deep voice. "These people didn't die here at the same time, but were carried here after death. The person who carried them also On their seats were written the names and dates of the dead. If I'm not mistaken...the last person to die did the job, or the living took over."

He raised his head and looked around the semi-circular hall with nearly a thousand seats, imagining what kind of mentality the survivors who stayed here spent the long years: "These seats... Their graves..."

"Gondor 1760...Gondor 1790..." Hetty looked at the years on the chairs and suddenly realized, "The Gondor calendar ended in 1740! The magic wave broke out in that year, and after that... ..."

"Yes, the earliest year we have seen so far is also after 1740 in Gondor," Gao Wen nodded heavily, "These people started to die one after another after the outbreak of the demon tide 700 years ago. The most recent year to come is Gondor 2130, 300 years ago."

Hetty showed a sad expression: "In other words, at least some of them lived to that time... At that time, Ansu had been established for 400 years... But they didn't know what happened outside. They were sealed here, thinking that The outside world has been wiped out..."

Gawain was also deeply saddened, but he found that Tire's behavior not far away was a bit weird: Miss Siren coiled her tail in circles, supporting herself in the air like a spring, she was looking around there, with a smile on her face. With a look of curiosity and alertness.

He couldn't help asking curiously: "Tyl, what did you find?"

"Hush!" Miss Siren immediately leaned down, and quickly leaned over to Gawain's side, "I don't know if it's an illusion, but just now I seemed to feel a magical reaction flashing past here."

"Magic reaction?" Hetty frowned, "Why didn't I feel it?"

"No matter how powerful you are, can elemental creatures have a keen sense of magic power?" Tyr looked at Heidi with disdain, "And there are many special magic power reactions that you humans can't feel at all!"

Gawain didn't take Tyre's words as a joke, he immediately activated his magic power perception skill cautiously, and asked the surrounding soldiers to be more vigilant, but in the field of magic power perception, all he saw was foggy fog, and there was nothing at all. Special magic reaction.

After turning off the magic power perception, he looked at Tyre, and was about to ask what kind of magic power the other party sensed, but at this moment, a sudden alert made him turn sideways suddenly, and at the same time, the opener in his hand The old man blocked his long sword in front of him——Almost at the same time, two dazzling electric arcs also appeared out of nowhere in the air, one electric arc was hitting the position where he was standing just now, while the other electric arc hit firmly. The blade of the pioneer sword!

With two snaps, the two electric arcs vanished invisible, and the magic power reaction that was completely hidden before was finally no longer concealed. Accompanied by a burst of powerful energy fluctuations, Hetty saw that suddenly appeared above the open ground at the front of the semi-circular hall. A shadow filled with brilliance appeared, it was a creature with a vague human outline, his whole body was shrouded in bright thunder and lightning, some kind of violent energy formed his body and internal organs, and each piece was engraved with mysterious The armor piece of the magic rune is floating on the body surface of this creature out of thin air, just like the rune shackles summoned to the elemental creature in this world, there is some incredible way to maintain the shape of this "mana figure".

This creature just emerged out of thin air. The powerful energy escaping from his body even twisted the air around it with scorching heat. This creature was obviously full of anger and hostility. The two lightning bolts just now were his masterpiece, and After showing his form, he immediately brewed a new round of attack: two balls of bright spherical lightning quickly condensed on both sides of his body!

"Be careful ancestors!" Hetty immediately cast the most powerful mana shield she could release at the current level on Gao Wen's body, and then began to chant various incantations that could enhance magic resistance— ——She felt the magic power that can be described as terrifying from that incredible creature. In the face of this magic power, she didn't know how effective her spells could be.

The soldiers behind Gao Wen realized after a short moment of astonishment that the strange creature was indeed frightening, but the conditioned reflex produced by long-term training still made these elite soldiers subconsciously raise their weapons. , more than a dozen scorching rays bombarded the strange creature covered in electric light.

The creature probably didn't expect the counterattack to come so soon, and it was a continuous wave of magic attacks. He was hit one after another in astonishment, and the spherical lightning gathered around him disappeared with two pops—however The scorching ray with only the second level is obviously unable to cause fatal damage to this powerful mana creature that may have survived for hundreds of years. The surface of his body formed by arcane energy rippled layer after layer, all attacks were resolved, and then the new The lightning balls gathered around him again.

However, within this short time difference, Gao Wen had already released the body paralysis caused by the lightning strike on the long sword. Before the new attack came, he had already raised the long sword, and his body turned into a continuous afterimage during the high-speed charge. , and all the afterimages gathered in front of the mana creature in the next second - a layer of magical light floated on the surface of the pioneer sword, and the blade slashed heavily on the largest piece of silver-white armor on the surface of the enemy's body Chip.

At the last moment, this powerful mana creature condensed an extremely strong shield. Although Gawain's attack destroyed the opponent's shield, he didn't completely split the armor piece. He just smashed the mana creature completely. He flew out, and the latter left long scorched marks on the ground with a series of electric lights, and before he got up, Gawain had charged up again.

The magical creature condensed a criss-crossed icicle in embarrassment, blocking the sharp sword in Gawain's hand, and the next second, the exclamation from his body made Gawain stop suddenly.

The mana creature exclaimed in disbelief: "Are you real?!"

Chapter 0239 Kamel

"Are you real?"

The humanoid creature that seemed to be made of arcane energy uttered a surprised cry, and his cry immediately stopped Gawain and everyone else's actions.

This creature can talk!This creature can communicate!

Gawain abruptly stopped the "Steel Storm" that was about to be released, and leaned his long sword guardedly in front of him while staring at the mana creature in front of him, while Tyre, who was behind him, opened his hands, a hazy Water mist shrouded the mana creature—although the effect of this layer of water mist couldn't be seen, it was obviously a powerful magical effect, because the electric light all over the mana creature was dimmed by more than half in an instant.

"You can talk?!" Gao Wen asked in a low voice, "Who are you? Why are you here?"

However, the mana creature didn't seem to hear the others' words at all. He just looked down at the sunken cut marks on the armor plate on his chest, and then at the guarded Cecil soldiers around him, and kept muttering to himself: "Is it true? Is it fake? Is it true? Is it fake? Is it true..."

"Hey, what's the truth!" Till couldn't help but shouted, "If you don't make it clear, I'll let you taste the pincers of a sea crab!"

"I...I..." The mana creature seemed to have finally realized the change in the surrounding atmosphere. However, he probably hadn't communicated with people for too long, and even if he still had the ability to speak, he was seriously lacking in logic. Shaking on the ground, he didn't know how to answer other people's questions, and he didn't know how to express his own thoughts. After violently contradicting for a while, he suddenly let out a sharp howling and shouted, "I Go check the barrier! I'm going to check the barrier! I'm going to check the barrier!"

Accompanied by the yelling that seemed to be losing its mind, the figure of this humanoid creature formed by arcane energy gradually became unstable, and then under the eyes of everyone, he suddenly turned into a flash of lightning, jumping and flashing cracklingly disappearing in front of everyone.

Leaving Gawain and the group of people looking at each other in blank dismay, Tire was still posing with his hands up in the gesture of spreading the wings of the roc (shark fin). However, it was obvious that the water mist barrier she created could not restrain that weird mana. biology.

"What's the situation..." Miss Siren shook the tip of her tail in confusion, "Where's that electric man?"

"I don't know, but I doubt he will come back." Gawain didn't put away his long sword, but watched vigilantly for any signs of trouble in the hall. "If I'm not wrong, he should be..."

Before Gao Wen finished speaking, a series of strange sounds suddenly came from the depths of the facility.

The sound was noisy and chaotic, it was unclear whether it was the noise of rolling boulders or steel rubbing, as if a lot of chaotic machinery and equipment were starting deep in the building, and with the chaotic noise, the semicircular hall suddenly flickered again There was lightning, and after a series of crackling movements, the humanoid creature filled with lightning reappeared in front of everyone.

Till immediately became another big roc spreading its wings (shark fin)...

But before the formation of the water mist barrier, the humanoid creature suddenly raised its hands—or two jumping arcs shaped like arms, and a strangely trilling cry came from between his armor plates : "Wait a minute! We are not enemies!"

"You took the initiative to attack just now," Hetty pointed at the opponent with her staff, "Who the hell are you...a person?"

"Sure enough... Sure enough... hallucinations won't have so many variables... hallucinations won't be so logical..." However, the humanoid creature just muttered to itself, sometimes sober and sometimes crazy, until Gawain repeated After repeating Hetty's question, the creature suddenly realized, "Ah... ah... yes, introduce yourself, introduce yourself, I am... I am..."

However, this creature "I am" failed to say a clear name for a long time. After trying to recall for a long time, he suddenly fell into restlessness: "Who am I? Who am I?! I have a name... I should It’s right to have a name! Who the hell am I?!”

Crackling electric light escaped from his body again, and the whole space began to be filled with disturbingly powerful magic power. Hetty opened the magic power barrier in an instant, but the constant cold sweat and pale face showed that she was not at all. The opponent of this magic.

But just before the situation got worse again, Gawain suddenly shouted loudly: "Kamel, your name is Kamel Slane."

The mana creature was stunned immediately after hearing the name. These few syllables seemed to press a certain switch, pulling him from the edge of losing control. He murmured the name in a low voice. He raised his "head", and there were two bright lights turning in Gao Wen's direction: "Why do you know?! You know me?!"

"The armor on your chest," Gawain pointed to the armor piece on the opponent's body, "it has your name written on it."

The "mana creature" lowered his head a little dullly, and he saw that there was indeed a piece of text engraved on the rune armor pieces floating on his body surface, which was a sentence:

My name is Kamel Slane, and I am the Warden of Fortress "Disobedience".

"My name is Kamel Slane, I am the watchman of the 'Rebel' Fortress..." The mana creature named "Kammel" slowly repeated the words on the armor plate, accompanied by this In other words, his state also stabilized incredibly quickly.

A moment later, under the intense gaze of everyone, he raised his head again. The arcane energy surging in his body was much calmer than before. He looked around in confusion, and suddenly floated in Gawain's direction, while asking hastily: "Who are you? Humans? Imperials? Survivors? Anyone else survived? What happened to the outside world? What happened to our empire?!"

Hetty raised her staff subconsciously: "Ancestor!"

"Don't worry!" Gawain waved his hand to calm the people around him, while he took two steps slightly to the side, and regained the distance from "Kamel", "Calm down first, and answer me first." One question—are you the Gondor Empire magister who entered this facility in the age of Starfire?"

"The Age of Sparks..." Kamel was stunned for a moment, as if he hadn't heard this word for a long time, and he responded slowly after a while, "Ah, yes, the Age of Sparks... I was at that time... at that time I'm still human..."

The guarding soldiers around suddenly became agitated slightly, and someone couldn't help but exclaimed in a low voice: "Human? He was really a human once?!" "How did humans become like this?"

Tyre was also taken aback, and turned to look at Heidi: "You humans can also transform?"

The idea of ​​this seafood is not on the same frequency as everyone...

Gawain ignored the whispers around (and Tyre's loud voice), and he focused on looking at "Kammel" in front of him: "You can rest assured, we are human beings—except for this long one, She is our ally. We are indeed descended from the empire of Gondor."

"Humans! Descendants of the Gondor Empire! You survived! Our plan back then worked!" Kamel suddenly became excited, but this time he controlled the energy escaping from his body well, he just cracked After rattling for a while, he settled down again, "So the empire has been rebuilt? How many years have passed now? Who is leading everyone? Is it Norton's blood? How is the situation in other parts of the mainland? Are they all rebuilt? "

"Kamel" asked one question after another, and he himself was in a state of extreme agitation. Gawain had to pour cold water on this ancient soul (although it seemed to him quite young) to calm down: " I have bad news - the Empire of Gondor is history."

"……What does it mean?"

"The tide of magic destroyed the empire, just in 1740 in Gondor. Although many descendants of the empire escaped from that wasteland, it is impossible to rebuild the empire - the deep blue well has been destroyed, and the civilization of the empire The foundation is gone. I don't know what your plan was, but I'm afraid it didn't take full effect. Those who survived fled on their own.

"The survivors fled the empire in four directions, and each established a new country. The place where you are now—or the place where the main facility outside is located, we call it the Dark Mountains, is the Kingdom of Ansu. territory, and the current year... is already 700 years after the outbreak of the demon tide, and it is a full thousand years from the time when you were active."

"Kammel" fell silent.

Gawain thought that this ancient soul might have suffered a heavy blow, because the electric lights all over the latter's body dimmed to a degree visible to the naked eye, and half a minute later, he heard Kamel's deep voice: "Is everything you said true?"

Gao Wen shook his head: "I don't need to lie to you, it's pointless to fabricate four kingdoms to attack you."

The arcane energy on Kamel's body flowed quietly, and after a long silence, the light on his body became brighter again.

"Great," cheered up the ancient watcher, "so many survived!"

Gawain looked at this ancient Gondor Empire magister who somehow transformed into such a form in surprise, and he said after a long time: "I thought you would be hit hard."

"It's better than anything else for people to survive. This situation is much better than our worst expectation," a voice with trembling and crackling came from Kamel's body, "It's great, it's really great ..."

"What happened here?" After seeing that this ancient man didn't lose control of his mania, but became easier to communicate with, Gao Wen couldn't help asking the question he was most concerned about, "What is this facility for? What is the plan? And you, why... did you become like this?"

Kamel was silent for a longer time this time. He seemed to be sorting out his messy and broken memories. After a long time, he broke the silence in a low voice: "In order to continue our race, we stole the power of God.

"Here is the place of 'White Star Falling'."

Chapter 0240 The Truth

Accompanied by a flash of arcane sparks, Kamel turned around and quietly watched the nearly thousand seats in the hall, as well as the 970 former colleagues who had fallen into a long sleep.

"It's been 1000 years... 1000 years ago, I was one of the chief researchers of the Imperial Royal Magisters. A secret order issued by His Majesty the Emperor himself transferred me from the imperial capital to this fortress on the northern border. The first time I saw When it was, I was as surprised as you are now.

"The empire secretly built this facility, and this plan has already begun as early as 1000 years ago. Yes, as you just said, we are to resist the tide of magic—the royal family realized it a long time ago. When the tide of magic is approaching, and has been looking for a solution, this is a huge and secret plan, the royal family and the entire magister group are involved, but very few people really know the whole picture of the plan, even as a member of the royal magister group Chief researcher, I can only know the part I am responsible for in this project.

"My task is to analyze the power of the gods and find a way to combine the genetic factors of the gods with human cells...

"Please don't interrupt me, I know these things sound incredible to you, but 1000 years ago, it did happen.

"When I came to this fortress, this plan has been in operation for 200 years, and we found the exact location of the 'White Star Fall', which is not in the present world, but needs to pass through the Shadow Realm and reach the edge of the Shadow Realm , so we built a space gate at the bottom of the 'rebel' fortress, this space gate broke through the barriers between several 'boundary layers' with the power of the gods, and the exploration team brought back the god of nature from there Blood samples..."