Sword of Dawn

Gao Wen hummed, shook his head lightly to dispel the last bit of discomfort, and the last bit of reverberation from the dream also vaguely emerged and quickly dissipated in his movements: "...Brother, I got into trouble..."

He frowned strangely, but in the next second his expression returned to normal, but Amber, who had just been pushed away, came over in a bluff: "Hey, what's wrong with you, your expression was serious just now..."

Gao Wen had no choice but to push away the shame of all things again.

Why is this guy who doesn't know what to do usually only have such keen senses when he doesn't need it...

"It's nothing, a little dizziness, it's gone," he said casually, ignoring the "special medicine for dizziness and headache in middle-aged and elderly people" recommended by Pittman, and began to order the next action, "The action team is here, Bud is here The following exploration missions have achieved the expected goals—let’s go down to meet them.”

"You want to go down in person?" Margarita, the female knight next to her, was taken aback. She was already surprised when she saw that Gawain came to the entrance of the giant tree's root system. Going down, I immediately felt that something was wrong, "I'm afraid it's dangerous down here, you..."

"I have already gone down once, and the risk factor of mental wandering is not lower than that of personal exploration." Gawain smiled, and interrupted the female knight with a wave of his hand, "I have already destroyed the dream 'trap' below, which is a special technique. If that The trap is cast manually, so the caster must be dead. If it is cast by some kind of magic device, the device must be completely scrapped, and there will be no more danger. As for whether there are physical threats other than dream traps ...Didn't everyone see the images that Bard sent back all the way down?"

Margarita seemed to want to say something more, but Gawain interrupted her again: "Speaking of which, your character is really similar to Philip, and it's quite serious."

Margarita immediately raised her chest, and said loudly with a serious face: "Conscientiousness and prudence are essential qualities for a knight..."

"Yes, that's what I said."

Margarita: "..."

The female knight failed to keep up with Gao Wen's topic again, and after a moment of stupefaction, His Majesty the Emperor passed her and walked towards the entrance not far away.

Amber leaned over to Margarita who had just recovered from her dazed state, and opened her mouth to babble: "Hey, to be honest, I always think that you and that Philip are very suitable for something to happen... Do you want me to help? I know so many people!"

Margarita's face turned serious immediately, and she was about to rebuff the other party's statement that she didn't care about the rules of chivalry, but Amber was already jumping up and down to keep up with Gawain's footsteps, and ran into the entrance not far away. , while running, she yelled: "Hey! You wait for me! You must not bring a shadow master with you in such a dark place, I am God's Chosen, do you know that I am God's Chosen Dozens Years..."

……

Bud opened his eyes and finally saw the real scene around him clearly.

He hadn't entered any chamber at all—he had entered a magical chamber he had never seen before.

This is a mysterious room full of runes. The ceiling, walls, and ground are densely engraved with complex magic symbols, and other than that, there are only two standing on the ground that are also engraved with magic symbols. Wen's black stone pillar has no other furnishings.

At this moment, all the runes have been extinguished.

Bud didn't know when this room appeared. He only knew that it didn't exist here when he left the base camp—or maybe he didn't have enough authority, so he didn't know the existence of this secret room.

He guessed that some of the rooms and corridors were misplaced due to the underground collapse, and those criss-crossing roots affected his ability to judge space, which led to him accidentally going to the wrong place, entering this secret room by mistake, and being affected by the magic here. device impact.

But anyway, it seems that with the end of the dream, the device here has stopped working.

He kept Gao Wen's order in mind. Although the runes that can be seen here and there made him a little uneasy, considering that he was already close to the deep layer, and the hidden dangers caused by walking around would be much greater than these extinguished runes, he still honestly He stopped, found a corner of the room with a wide view, and quietly waited for the arrival of the reception staff.

He waited a long time.

The passage of time will cause ordinary people to accumulate pressure, and the dark and strange environment is even more disturbing, but Bud, who has experienced more terrifying challenges and tempering, has already been hardened. Compared with those indescribable situations he has witnessed, The darkness here can almost be described as gentle - he stood quietly in the corner, keeping his spirit and body in top condition, counting the beating times of his artificial heart to estimate the time, until some flickering lights appeared in the outside the room.

Gawain followed the road signs left by Bard to the depths of the lair.

The scale of this underground palace is astonishing, and its architectural style that does not conform to any human kingdom made him even more confused and guessed.Although the palace was severely damaged in the collapse, and the cultists of the Doom Society have destroyed or changed most of the original features in the hundreds of years of reconstruction and additions, he can still learn from the solid wall materials and buried Ancient runes in the floor and roof indicate that the palace was not built by the Ansu.

Not even built by the Gondorians.

But now is not the time to explore the detailed origins of this palace. He has already seen Bud Wendell standing by in the room, as well as the densely packed magic runes and two magical devices that look like stone pillars in the room.

As an old Yinbi who has devoured the knowledge and memory of the eternal sleeper, and can move freely in the spiritual network of the eternal sleeper, and even personally participated in the construction of the eternal sleeper's insecure system, the network rubbing laboratory, and the loophole cluster of the spiritual network, he is very concerned about these things It's so familiar.

"It's the technology of the Eternal Sleeper," Gao Wen stepped forward to check the two extinguished rune stone pillars, "...it should be an auxiliary device to project the user's spirit outward. Don't worry, it has been completely scrapped, all The core rune is melted down, so it can't be repaired."

It wasn't until this time that Bard finally breathed a sigh of relief, and then subconsciously asked, "Do you... know the technology of the Eternal Sleeper?"

Gao Wen smiled: "I understand a little, I understand a little."

Bud froze for a moment, quickly adjusted his expression, and cautiously lowered his sense of existence.

He came into contact with "His Majesty's Little Secret" again.

But Gao Wen didn't care about these, because as Daniel thoroughly grasped the security structure of the Eternal Sleeper's mind network, as the various dark hands, backdoors, and springboards he set up in the mind network gradually developed into a large scale, forming a huge and complex network. The "Shadow Network", he is no longer as worried about the Eternal Sleeper being aware of this invasion as he was back then.

He's got a bunch of ways to reconnect, a bunch of ways to disguise himself and Daniel, even a bunch of ways to make it look like it's safe, that it's safe, that it's been ruled out, that it's never been intruded...

He has even set "Gavin Cecil", "Extraterritorial Wanderer", "Ansu Trailblazer" and so on as hidden keywords, as long as someone mentions these keywords in the entire spiritual network, he will know immediately , and determine whether they have been exposed before the information is passed on, so as to take further action.

Of course, if possible, Gawain still hopes that the Eternal Sleeper will never notice his intrusion, but based on this "little secret" that Bard has come into contact with, he still can't deduce the connection between Gawain and the Eternal Sleeper's mind network. What's more... Even if Bud gets out alive today, he will definitely be closely monitored for a long time.

Under the current situation where the cultists of the Eternal Sleepers in the southern region have basically been completely wiped out, the unspoken secret hidden in the heart... will always be a secret.

Gawain turned his head and looked towards the exit of the room.

"Now, let's continue our search."

The device of the Eternal Sleeper can amplify and project people's dreams, but the device itself cannot dream.

In this dark and deep place, there are... people who can dream.

Judging from what Bard saw in the dream, these dreamers may not be in a good state, and most of them have even lost the ability to control their mind and body.

This is easier to deal with.

Chapter 0712 Plants

From the room full of mysterious runes and the magic device of the eternal sleeper, there are two ways.

One is the path that Bard took when he came down, connecting the slopes of the upper area and the middle area, and the other continues to extend forward to the dark and chaotic middle and lower areas.

Standing in front of the corridor leading to a deeper place, Gawain slightly concentrated on sensing the distribution of magic power in the surrounding environment.

The subtle energy field covering the entire Solinburg area still exists here, and a steady stream of life force escapes from the roots of the giant tree, as if someone is releasing endless healing techniques, within the range All organisms are being affected by this energy field, and even Gao Wen feels slightly lifted.

Besides this energy field, he didn't perceive any other threatening aura.

The team that came down together gathered behind Gao Wen, and the team commander quickly issued an order: "A group of five, form a one-two-two exploration formation, advance cautiously."

The fully armed mana warriors took action immediately, and formed several groups with a vanguard shield guard, two observers, and two firemen, and began to advance in this deep and long corridor. The comprehensive tactical eyepiece brought Their magic power vision allowed them to clearly and intuitively see the distribution of magic power in the underground palace, and the rune light emitted by the magic equipment on their bodies soothed everyone's tense mood.

There were only waves of orderly footsteps left in the underground palace.

Amber followed Gao Wen, her eyes widened all the way.The dim environment in this underground palace has no effect on her who was born in the shadow realm, and she can even see as clearly as daytime, but she still activated the extra shadow vision, because what she sees here is not only what the naked eye can see Landscapes, and...something that only shadowvision can see.

Her eyes slowly turned golden, and a thin shadow mist rose around her. This appearance was somewhat close to her "shadow fairy" form in the shadow world, but it was obvious that she had deliberately controlled it to ensure that the highest shadow was maintained. Fix yourself in the material world under the premise of affinity.

Gawain noticed the behavior of this "half-elf", and asked in a low voice, "What did you see?"

"Didn't see anything, but it looks more professional this way..."

Gao Wen: "..."

"Okay, just kidding," Amber noticed that there are hard-looking stone walls all around, and once it is photographed, it may be really difficult to get it off, so she quickly restrained her inappropriate jokes, "There are indeed some 'things' here , are the shadow dwellers... they are everywhere, more in number than other places."

"Shadow dwellers?" Gawain frowned suddenly, and subconsciously looked around - of course, with his human vision, he would definitely not be able to see those creatures hidden in the shadows, "What are they doing? Is there any threat? ?”

"There should be no threat. They are all on the side of the shadows, and they don't seem to care about our visitors from the material world." Amber blinked, "They are wandering in this corridor... It seems that they are very interested in this underground palace, But nothing more has been done.”

As she spoke, she paid attention to the "landscapes" that only she could see.

In the deep and dark corridors of the underground palace, the world gradually turned black and white. In the faded world, groups of phantom human figures wrapped in rune cloth belts were wandering around. They rubbed shoulders with Gao Wen and others. However, they completely ignored the visitors from the material world, but only when they passed by Amber, occasionally there would be shadow dwellers who stopped and nodded or grunted as a greeting.

Amber shrunk her neck, and suddenly felt a shuddering feeling in these creatures that were kind to her in the past.

She withdrew part of her shadow power, pulled herself away from the shadow world, and fixed herself more closely in the real world.

She belongs here, and she doesn't want to go back to that world.

At the same time, the team had already walked through a long corridor. After passing through a collapsed and cracked door, Gawain found himself walking into a hall.

The hall is wide, with a high-hanging roof, and stone (or some artificial material similar to stone) walls and ground can be seen with extinguished runes and cooled channeling metal. This place should have been a solemn and important place, But it was already a mess at the moment, the long table used for the party was torn apart, the seats fell to the ground in a distorted manner, and a large number of roots drilled from the ceiling and the ground almost completely occupied the entire space, criss-crossing in the hall, It's like a jungle.

In fact, if it weren’t for these ubiquitous roots that entangled and wrapped almost the entire underground palace, this huge underground relic would have collapsed long ago. After all, when the man-made god came out, he had already severely damaged the underground stratum structure of Solingborough. , After that, a plant bigger than the castle was drilled out here. This underground palace can remain stable after such a toss, which can only be said to be the credit of these roots.

It is true that plant roots can hold water and soil (fog).

Gawain scanned the hall, vaguely recognized some features, and then realized that he had "seen" this place before.

This is the "deliberation hall" presented in the dream that Bard fell into, but what Gawain saw in the same dream was the appearance of the hall when it was complete.

"It seems that I've only really entered the meeting hall now..." Bud also recognized this place, and he muttered with some emotion, his eyes swept between the messy tables and chairs and the jungle of roots filling the hall.

There is no presidency holding a meeting, no bright magic spar lights, there is only a mess here, and the slight friction sound from the depths of the roots of the plants.

Subtle friction sound?

Gawain and Bud heard those weird noises at the same time, the former immediately raised his head and looked vigilantly at a dark corner deep in the hall.

The soldiers also reacted one after another, all kinds of weapons were pointed not far away at the same time, and the slight click of the weapon safety opening rang out instantly.

"Stay vigilant—be careful of fire." Gawain reminded in a low voice, then raised the pioneer sword in one hand, and walked forward with concentration.

Amidst the messy beams of light from the personal lighting equipment, a group of tangled and twisted roots (or vines) slowly squirmed in the corner of the hall. Gawain pushed back with his hands, signaling the soldiers not to fire rashly, and then watched quietly. As the vine turned and transformed, in a light green streamer, a female figure slowly emerged from among the plants.

Bertila Augustus - in the real world.

Her eyes were slightly closed, and her appearance was still familiar to Gao Wen, but her body seemed to have merged with the plant. Her body was covered with a "dress" that seemed to be a mixture of plant horniness and leaves. Her back and legs There are roots and vines growing out of the spine, cervical spine, etc., connected to the roots in the hall. This weird posture is not so much that she is connected to these roots, it is better to say...

Her current body is part of this giant tree, and part of the structure of this giant tree mimics Beltera, or... she becomes the giant tree of Thorin.

Gao Wen didn't know what kind of situation it was, he could only judge that the "Beltera" in front of him was not awake.

She closed her eyes slightly, and did not respond to the uninvited guests and the flickering lights around her. She was holding a strange thick book in her hand. It seemed that the book was what she tried her best to protect before she lost consciousness. Beside her, Gawain sensed a very clear wave of magic power.

It is indeed a cure.

She is constantly releasing healing skills to the outside world, and the entire Sorin giant tree is also communicating with the magic power of nature under her influence, forming an uninterrupted life field, which directly caused the entire Sorin region Full recovery, vitality rebuilding.

"It seems that there is no response..." Amber carefully observed the strange woman in front of her. She knew that the other party was once a dark and cunning fallen druid, but now the other party's form is closer to a dangerous monster. "She is releasing healing Is it surgery... close your eyes and open the knife to cure diseases in your dreams, and save lives and heal the wounded when you sleep?"

Gawain frowned and observed the strange scene in front of him, guessing the reason for Bertila's strange state, he looked up at the pile of twisted and tangled roots, and had some vague associations.

"There should be something behind here," he said suddenly, "open these roots."

Immediately, a soldier stepped forward and began to clean up the tangled roots. Gawain turned his head and glanced at Bertila, who was still sleeping with his eyes slightly closed. On the latter's face... he didn't see the slightest change in expression.

This dark patriarch seems to have become a real plant, and plants are bloodless and tearless.

The intertwined roots were tougher than expected. The soldiers finally opened a gap after cleaning it for a long time. A soldier who probed in took a look and immediately shouted: "There is indeed something behind here! It's a secret room!"

Behind the entrance covered by the roots is a secret room.

The secret room is full of black "objects" whose original shape can no longer be seen, and only the outline of the human body can be roughly seen.

The sight is scalp-numbing: hundreds of humanoids are piled up in the secret room, and countless criss-crossing vines grow around them, connecting their flesh and blood, connecting with the roots on the nearby walls, their The vitality has obviously been cut off, but the vines connected to them are all lush, and Beltira outside the secret room...

He is still casting healing spells on these dead believers of the death of everything over and over again.

These healings were not in vain: she forcibly maintained the lifeless humanoids in a state of immortality, and imprisoned the last remnants of their minds within the monstrous plant.

Now, Gawain finally knew how the dream Bard encountered came about.

Amber also poked her head to look at the secret room. The weird scene inside gave her goosebumps all over her body. The half-elf quickly came back and whispered next to Gawain: "This thing is too evil... Although I don't like it... These cultists don’t like it, but it’s too scary for them to become like this in the end, right?”

"The lunatic finally got a crazy end," Gawain withdrew his gaze from the secret room, and sighed softly, "Judging from the timetable when the crystal cluster army lost control, it took about half a month for the man-made god to go crazy and completely drill out of the surface. Imprisonment time, during this period of time, this underground palace was sealed, and the last believers of the death of all things and the terrifying monsters they created were locked in the dark underground together... After madness, distortion, and after distortion, mutation, this A giant tree covering less than half of Thorin's region is their final end."

Now he has vaguely figured out the birth process of this giant tree.

"How should we deal with this?" Amber looked at Gao Wen, "Let them maintain this state? Or set it on fire?"

"Although they are already dead...but if this continues, no one knows if unexpected changes will happen to them," Gawain shook his head. "As for setting fire...it may not be necessary."

While speaking, he came to the side of "Beltera" who had turned into a plant.

Plants are indeed bloodless and tearless.

But it is not plants that dream.

"Stop it, they are all dead." Gawain said to Bertila.

Bertila still had her eyes slightly closed, not responding to external sounds.

Gao Wen raised his eyebrows: "Pretending to be asleep won't solve the problem, or do you want me to teach you the principles of life again in the real world?"

After a few seconds of silence, Hu Po and the others were surprised to find that Bertila's healing technique actually stopped.

The "life force field" filling the surrounding space is still maintained, which seems to have become a certain characteristic of the "Giant Tree of Thorin" and cannot be easily dissipated, but the healing technique maintained by Beltira in this underground space has really stopped .

She finally opened her eyes slowly, looked at Gao Wen and said in a strange, slow and low tone, "As expected...it's you..."

Gao Wen knew that the other party was referring to the "dream encounter" at the border of the Gondor wasteland. At that time, he deceived and fooled the past by pretending to be the image of the founding monarch of Augustus, but obviously, Bertila now finally realizes the truth.

It's just that it doesn't make sense for her to understand everything at this time.

Gao Wen suddenly felt a little emotional.

He really didn't expect that he would see Beltira again under such circumstances, and would witness the final outcome of these dark druids under such circumstances.

These crazy, paranoid, and extreme cultists finally buried themselves with their own twisted magic.