Sword of Dawn

But what happened in that distant starry sky...even his creators knew nothing.

Omega knows that the creators have to go to the vast expanse of space at the cost of self-destruction... What kind of attraction is there among those twinkling stars that can make the wise creators so unwilling to turn back?

He was curious about it.

He couldn't wait.

There was a rumbling sound from the depths of the earth, and the factories and furnaces that were already on the verge of their limits began to operate again. In the severely damaged bases, the only remaining alloy ingots began to be transformed into new mechanical structures. On the fragmented coastline, the last batch of active combat machines were disarmed and flew into the depths of the recycling factory. The last glow of the Tarrond civilization shone in the uncooled ruins. Omega called With the knowledge left by the creator, little by little, patiently create all the things needed for the adventure.

This process didn't last long - for Omega with a body of steel, the difficulty for him to embark on this journey is far lower than that of all creatures on this planet.

The roar in the depths of the earth gradually stopped, and several aircrafts flew from afar, carrying the "travel equipment" made by Omega for themselves: a more powerful anti-gravity system, a small processing center, engines, energy devices...

And more craft came from afar, equipped with propulsion devices sufficient for long-distance travel into space and various modules capable of operating in harsh alien conditions-as early as many years ago, the equipment of these devices The blueprint is stored deep in Omega's memory, and even many necessary parts can be disassembled from existing machinery and equipment, without temporary production at all.

A flying machine hovered over the cliff, and the manipulator hung down from the sky, dismantling the armor and shallow frame of Omega's body at a fast speed, and new equipment was quickly installed, from the anti-gravity engine to the shield group—— —Omega's huge body has changed again, it has almost completely shed its "dragon" form, and is more like a huge flying object with life. After the last welding, he comfortably It spread out its own "wings"——on the [-]-meter-long high-strength alloy structure, the obliquely arranged energy release grids and the engine block were spraying light white mist.

The servo aircraft receded to the surroundings, and the giant dragon on the cliff slowly took a step forward—the powerful anti-gravity device immediately took effect, and he floated lightly in the air as if weightless, and then a low humming sound sounded, and he Gradually raised some heights, and began to hover over Agondor, adapting to this brand new system in the body.

Gradually, he raised the altitude again, and circled towards a higher altitude.

At a great height, he lowered his head.

The continent of Tarrond was directly below him, surrounded by a blue ocean, like a charred stone with only a small part of green remaining.

Another strange feeling emerged from the nervous system, and Omega thought about it seriously, and he realized that this feeling was "sadness".

Intelligent beings grieve when they leave their homeland—an experience Omega remembers.

He lowered his head. Due to the obscuration of the waste energy clouds and dust covering the Arctic region, the optical capture has reached its limit. Be the shells at the end of the Omega system.

The former creators no longer respond to any external information.

Weird feelings arise in the nervous system, which are "regret" and "sadness".

Omega stopped at the top of the steady-state limit layer, where he hovered for a few seconds.

In these few seconds, he cut off the data transmission of his consciousness body and all nodes on the continent of Tarrond one by one.

"Creators, I give you back 'curiosity' - goodbye."

Chapter 1042 Leave something behind

The anti-gravity generator stirs the magic curve that fills the background radiation of the entire universe. The "dragon" as huge as a giant house travels at the end of the top of the atmosphere. The thick clouds have become a vast expanse in the background, and the invisible magic storm is Blowing the edge of the protective barrier—at the junction of the barrier's force field and the cosmic space, circles of transparent ripples that are almost invisible spread outward, like the ripples caused by a stone falling into the water.

"The parameters are basically the same as those calculated by the creators 1807 million years ago...

"The propulsion technology left by the voyagers is still valid in the present era...

"The energy and propulsion structures are working well. After crossing the gravitational critical point, try to enter the shadow world to verify whether the submerged propulsion is feasible...

"Collect and compare starlight signals... The star map left by the voyager is no longer usable. Try recalibrating the star axis, and temporarily set the destination to a solid planet near 'Au'... Maybe you can get energy and material replenishment there... Appropriate springboard."

Omega's thinking thread is active, constantly thinking about one problem after another, he is collecting new information, drawing up a new plan, the distant starlight shines on his body made of alloy, those dancing starlight looks like Just as beautiful as the planet below—new sensations welling up in the nervous system, which the Omegas judged to be "joy" and "anticipation" after a brief weighing.

He raised his head and looked in a more distant direction. After passing through the visual interference layer set by the voyagers over the entire planet, those ancient satellites and space stations were emerging from the darkness little by little.

"Observing the Legacy of the Voyager...all in a state of silence. Omega...I feel a little sad, and this kind of sadness is different from the feeling when I left Tarrond."

Omega was thinking, and maintained a dialogue with himself in the thinking thread.He felt that his thinking efficiency had declined, and many computing tasks would take longer than before to complete—even though he had cut off the command output to all lower-level nodes, this decline in computing power was still very obvious.

But he didn't feel flustered by it, because this is a normal situation - the countless computing nodes set deep in the land of Tarrond are going offline one by one, and as he gets farther and farther away from the planet below, he can borrow from the surface The computing power is also drastically reduced.He is no longer the "Omega System" that spreads across the entire continent. Today, he only has this huge body and a small number of servers loaded on it to rely on, and their efficiency is obviously not as good as that of land-based nodes.

But Omega has no regrets about this - if you want to travel far, you must make a trade-off, and an overly heavy "luggage" can only hinder this journey.

And on the other hand, traveling far with the appearance of this "individual" is also an experience he could never have imagined.He doesn't know which is "better" to be an Omega network bound to the earth or an Omega dragon flying in the universe, but at least at this moment, he feels that he is... satisfied.

Several smaller aircraft came up from behind, and there was still a faint red glow on those silver-white triangular shells, which was the heat generated when passing through the atmosphere.These aircraft caught up to Omega who had already entered space, and then followed him not far behind like a cub following its mother.

These are Omega's "luggage", all he brought out from his "hometown" on this trip.He didn't know if these things were enough for a long and dangerous journey, but maybe... life needs a little adventure.

He can't remember who told him this sentence, it may be the creator who wrote the program for the Omega system, or it may be a "guest" who visited the continent of Tarrond. I like the words very much.

Some fine metal fragments slid by nearby, the edge of the protective barrier collided with those fragments, and a small burst of fire erupted, this insignificant impact attracted Omega's attention, he looked up into the distance, the high-precision optical sensor Afterwards, some scenes in the vast space in the distance were captured——

He saw a group of tattered wreckage floating in the dark and deep starry sky. The wreckage looked very miserable, as if it had been torn apart by an extremely powerful and brutal enemy, and then crumbled the rest into pieces. A mass—it was floating almost fragmented, looking like a mass of steel on the verge of disintegration, and its original appearance could hardly be seen clearly.

But after Omega scanned it carefully, he found that the internal skeleton of the wreckage was still well connected, and the sealing structure at the middle end was also intact. All the lights in the second half of it had been extinguished, but in the first half and In a small part of the middle, there are still some faint lights circulating in the darkness.

And in the space near this wreck, there is a pile of smaller, more twisted wreckage floating beside it, which makes the shape of this wreck even more difficult to distinguish.

All of Omega's optical sensors were oriented in that direction, and for a few seconds his "eyes" froze on the wreckage.

He analyzed the characteristics of those wreckages, and within a very short time unit, he felt new and complex emotions welling up from his nervous system, but this time, he couldn't understand the emotions Which aspect should it be classified into? It is not joy, nor sadness, nor loss, nor even anticipation, it is just vibrating strongly in all the nervous system and auxiliary computing units, as if carrying scorching heat , scorching all the threads of thought.

And amidst this intense and unanalyzable wave of emotions, Omega ponders a question: What should he do?

"My service is over..." Omega said to his NO.14 thinking thread with the NO.16 thinking thread, "I don't need to execute the order from the creator—they didn't leave me any preset instructions .”

"Yes, I don't need to execute the instructions left by the creator," the NO.16 thinking thread agreed, "so, I should execute what I want to do."

Omega, who has finished his service and obtained the "heart", solved this little confusion in less than a thousandth of a second-compared with the "meaning of life", how to take the next step is really difficult. A too simple question.

He flew straight for the wreckage.

……

In the control hall of the Tarrond, the dim lights illuminated the ancient control seats, and in the interlaced light and dark, three somewhat boring figures appeared.

The hall was quiet, and the alarm lights had been forcibly turned off, only the occasional buzzing or beeping from nowhere.

"Where did we go in the word solitaire just now?" Baloger broke the silence suddenly, "I remember it was 'blizzard' or 'high altitude cyclone'..."

"Whatever, I quit," Andal shook his head. "Word Solitaire is more boring than I thought...and you always mix in professional words that only mechanics understand."

"Okay," Balogel shrugged, and then glanced at the dimly lit hall, "To be honest, I kind of miss the sound of the alarm system..."

Andal put his hand on the control seat in front of him: "Then I turn it on? It's not broken yet."

"Stop! Stop! I'm joking! It's just rhetoric!" Balogar stopped the other party's action without hesitation, "Have you considered what to do if you can't turn it off? This system can't stand the toss Already!"

Heragor listened to the movement coming from beside him, and turned his head slightly to look at Baloger: "How long can our gas last?"

"Now it seems that it may take longer than expected," Baloger immediately returned to seriousness, "There is no leak in the core cabin, and the circulation device has emptied the poisonous gas in the pipeline. Under the normal operation of the gas control system Now, our final cause of death does not appear to be suffocation or poisoning."

"...Even if this is good news," Andal shook his head, "It seems that we can drift here for a long time. We have recorded a lot of observation data, what will we do next?"

In the huge control hall, the three ancient dragons fell into silence again. The silence lasted for a few seconds before Balogar spoke cautiously: "Do you want to play Solitaire again? We can start with geological terms..."

"I'm not interested." Heragor shook his head and said in a flat tone, while looking past the transparent polymer dome not far away, looking at the vast and empty space outside the spacecraft.

His sight fell on a distorted wreckage that had completely lost its vitality and light—during this long drift, the wreckage was a little closer to the spaceship, but this may also be his illusion.

After all, he's been staring at the wreckage for too long these days.

After staring for a few minutes, Heragor withdrew his gaze, turned around, and was about to return to the central area of ​​the control hall, but at the moment his gaze shifted, an unexpected flash of light suddenly broke into his field of vision edge.

Heragore stopped for a moment, and suddenly turned his head to look in the direction of the flashing light. Baloger and Andal, who were discussing which vocabulary to start Solitaire, also stopped for a moment, and looked in the same direction— —However, they all only had time to see a fleeting phantom, a vague outline.

It seemed to be a large-scale steel creation, a bit like a giant dragon with a body length of 300 meters, and a bit like the tail engine group of the Tarrond. That thing flashed past the edge of the polymer dome, The speed is so fast that people can't see clearly.

It seemed to go around the side and rear of the Tarrond - Heragor was not sure about this, and before he could figure out what it was, a huge thrust had hit Tarrond. The protective wall on the side of the Lund.

The powerful impact shook the extremely strong keel of this ancient spaceship, and the shock directly entered the core area through mechanical transmission. The spaceship shook and made a huge noise, and the starry sky outside also rolled. In this violent shaking, A seat not far away suddenly fell in the direction of Heragor. While the latter stretched out his arms to resist the impact, there was only time for countless questions to pop up in his mind, and the popular translation of these questions can be summarized as Three sentences——

what?what happened?How to deal with it? !

……

The gravity drive performed a beautiful "spurt", and the precisely calculated thrust was perfectly released in the predetermined area. Omega watched from a distance at the wreckage that had begun to descend towards the predetermined track, and his steel jaw slightly raised.

He is very satisfied with his shot.

Facts have proved that even without the support of the surface computing node group, its own computing power is still sufficient.

As for now, the farewell to the creators is over and it's time to continue the journey.

Omega withdrew his gaze downwards, and returned his attention to the vast space again. His gaze extended to the distance along the edge of the planet's curved atmosphere. Between the starlight and the planet's junction, countless The ancient relics are quietly floating in their respective orbits, watching this small world like wordless tombstones in space.

After making some calculations and readjusting his voyage plan, Omega activated the thrusters all over his body again, and he drew a beautiful arc trajectory over the planet, and with the help of weak gravity, he moved towards the equator lightly. direction to fly.

He planned to make an acceleration from there, leave the gravitational circle of the parent star from near the equator of the planet, and then pass by the "sun" at close range, and replenish the magic power in the process.After two accelerations, he will really leave here and fly towards the "center" of this planetary system - the road ahead is long and full of unknowns, but the strong surge of curiosity inspires this newborn traveler. He is full of fighting spirit and confidence. hundred times.

The equatorial satellites left by the voyagers gradually appeared at the edge of the field of vision, and what is more eye-catching than those ancient inverted cone satellites is the huge ring-shaped orbital body that surrounds the planet's equator.

The ancient sky station, a "space miracle" that only sailors can build.

Omega flew towards the quietly moving satellites and the orbiting space station behind the satellites. At the same time, he had a quick thought.

Maybe something should be left behind - many humans or other intelligent races do similar things when they leave their homeland to travel.

Omega quickly made a decision, and then gave instructions to an accompanying aircraft behind him:

"Find a satellite in relatively good condition and leave a transmitter on it."

A triangular aircraft received the order, and silently left the flight queue in a vacuum, and flew towards a high-level satellite near the sky station...

……

Cecil, a cloudless midnight.

Gao Wen woke up with a start in the middle of the night.

Strictly speaking, he jumped up after receiving a sudden warning signal from the satellite.

An unprecedented signal woke him up from sleep. Although the signal subsided quickly, it dispelled all his drowsiness. Immediately afterwards, some vague signals came automatically from the satellite system closely connected with his consciousness. After seeing the blurry video data, Gao Wen fell into a daze.

In space... something appeared.

He stood by the bed, the bright starlight fell on the ground not far away through the wide window. In this cloudless midnight, only three questions remained in the mind of Emperor Cecil who woke up from his sleep——

What the hell?What's the matter?What should I do? !

Chapter 1043 North and South

On a clear and cloudless winter night, there are stars twinkling in the sky. The starlight from distant space shines on Gawain's room through the large floor-to-ceiling glass windows. After leaving behind a long shadow, Gao Wen came to the floor-to-ceiling windows in his pajamas, raised his head and stared at the night sky for a long time.

He woke up completely, and was finally sure that he wasn't dreaming just now—the cold night made him wake up more and more. At the same time, he recalled the image data sent to him by the satellite just now.

In the somewhat distorted monitoring screen, he saw a few vague shadows. The closest one looked like some kind of aircraft. It seemed to be flying past the satellite at high speed. I don't know if it was an illusion. Gao Wen always felt that The thing has a "sneaky" look; the other shadows are a little farther away, some of them look like a triangle, and the last one is extraordinarily large, its outline... Gawain couldn't help but have many associations .

"What the hell is it..."

Gawain grunted subconsciously, and at the same time concentrated again, communicating with the monitoring satellite in space.

The connection was very smooth. With the concentration of mental power, Gao Wen soon felt that his field of vision entered the height of the satellite. He "opened his eyes" and manipulated the optical sensor of the monitoring satellite to search around, trying to find the figures of those uninvited guests. In the limited view of surveillance satellites, however, he ended up finding nothing.

Those things may have left—anyway, it can’t be an illusion, after all, the video data is there, and it is impossible for something like satellite monitoring to produce an “illusion”.

After a little thought, Gawain switched the direction of the mental connection again. Accompanied by a slight dizziness, he came to a system with a higher position and a wider perspective—he entered the monitoring system of the Sky Station.

The field of view of the sky station and the monitoring satellite is slightly different, and it has higher controllability. Gao Wen hoped that this thing could record more content, but he didn't expect too much.

Fortunately, this was not in vain - when accessing a recent record of the sky station, a huge shadow suddenly appeared in the video screen in front of his eyes.

Gao Wen immediately stopped the screen, and then rolled it back frame by frame. After some difficult operations, he finally captured a clearer silhouette - when he saw the shape of the giant shadow clearly, He was finally sure that the association he had made when he saw the blurred image from the satellite was correct.

That thing... looks like an exceptionally weird giant dragon, made of machinery, covered with a sophisticated and biologically characteristic alloy shell, with an engine set mounted under its wings.

Even Gao Wen himself, who had a fairly good imagination, had never imagined anything like this.

After confirming the monitoring records again, Gao Wen quit the state of connecting to the space facility. He stood in front of the large French windows, his mind fluctuating.

Something appeared in space... The shock it caused to him was no less than when he heard the report of the God Killing Battle recorded in the Eternal Stone Tablet. Since the coffin was unmasked, he rarely felt this nervous, even a little dazed When he was at a loss, and after confirming that one of those things looked like some kind of "mechanical dragon", he had many messy thoughts while being nervous. He thought of Tal who had suddenly lost contact. Lund thought of Melita Purnia, who was in an unknown situation, and Enya, the dragon god who seemed a bit out of place before leaving. In his wild thoughts, he came up with countless guesses and ideas...

No matter what happened in Tarrond, no matter what happened in space, at least in Cecil City tonight... Gawain suffered from insomnia very rarely.

……

When the first ray of light in the morning shines on the lush ancestral woodland, the glorious and ancient elf empire gradually wakes up from the night.

The elven king city located deep in the forest is bathed in morning light. This beautiful city with a large number of white walls and streamlined roofs is like a bright orb inlaid in the dense forest. Its houses are row upon row, and there are tall and slender high-strength bridges between the urban areas. Connected with each other, a sparkling river passes through the city, and in the middle of the river, in the center of the city, the pure white Elven King's Court is supported in mid-air by 170 seven rib-like curved skeletons, suspended on the river, overlooking the the whole city.

On a bridge at the highest point of the Elven King's Court, Belsetia Morningstar was walking slowly through the royal walkway inlaid with finely crushed feldspars, her high-ranking maids and trusted courtiers followed closely behind.

A breeze blew from the direction of the forest, and there was a low humming sound in the sky. Belsetia raised her head and saw a huge shadow slowly drifting across the sky on the west side——The Temple of Stars was flying by. Flying over the royal city in low-speed cruising mode, she could see the bottom of the ancient temple from this angle. She saw anti-gravity engines one after another lined up on the armor belt made of high-strength alloy, some of which had already been destroyed. Turned off, the other engines were releasing a constant light blue or light white halo, trickling streams of magic power swimming in the base of the Temple of Stars, like blood surging in arteries.

"Has the routine maintenance of the Temple of Stars ended yet..." The Silver Queen whispered to herself, "It really took a long time this time... Winter is almost coming to an end."

The high-ranking astrologist Verania Silver Star who was following behind immediately responded: "Yes, because this time we are trying to use the magic net power device and arcane constricting device shared by the Cecilians to strengthen the stars. The core power of the temple, which involves dismantling and rebuilding the power cabin deep in the temple—the project is larger than in previous years, and it will take longer."

"It was a bold transformation with many opponents, but fortunately everything went well in the end," Belsetia nodded, "Now those opposing voices have finally disappeared."

"Actually, I can understand those who oppose opening the deep power cabin," the high-level astrologist said with some emotion, "They are experienced scholars like me, but they are more cautious—they actually recognize the development of human beings." However, it is very risky to change the core structure of the Temple of Stars rashly, and they are just worried that the risk will get out of control."