Sword of Dawn

"My God..." Hu Po stared wide-eyed, looking at this silent giant island of steel, "How did this thing be made... Can the mortal race really make this kind of thing?"

Gawain patted her on the shoulder lightly: "In the eyes of the ancients thousands of years ago, our mechanical bridge standing on the Baishui River is like a miracle, and it will make them as amazed as you are."

Amber showed a thoughtful look, while Gao Wen looked at Modil who was standing on the other side of him: "How do you feel? Do you remember anything?"

"...No," Mordir shook his head slowly, "I don't feel anything, and I don't think of anything, but...I vaguely feel that this place seems a little familiar, a kind of familiar...I can't put it into words."

"It's expected," Gao Wen nodded lightly, looking at the darkness in the distance. They are standing on a straight and flat road. The tall metal piles, the mottled traces on the ground seem to still have traces of some kind of traffic sign, "Go along this road, the end of which I saw from the sky just now is at the foot of that tower."

As he spoke, he stepped forward, and Amber and Modil followed closely behind him.

"Buzz-"

At this moment, some slight buzzing sounds suddenly entered Gawain's ears.

In an instant, the three of them were on guard. Gawain casually pulled out the Pathfinder Sword that he had specially brought during this operation. Modil had an extra battle staff in his hand at some point, and Amber even had a leg. He had already stepped into the shadow rift, and the next second, Gawain saw the half-meter-high metal piles on both sides of the road suddenly change in the darkness——

The structure at the top of them opened quietly, and a bright white ball of light rose from it, and rose to a height of several meters. Under the light of the ball of light, the road that was originally covered by darkness became as bright as day.

This is a street light.

It started by itself.

Chapter 1260 A Familiar Scene

Under the starry sky of the polar night, the giant steel island that has been silent for nearly 200 million years, the mottled ancient prehistoric civilization creations, the steel road that stretches straight in the dark - and the self-activated street lights.

Amber disappeared in front of Gao Wen with a groan, and it took half a minute before she revealed half of her head in the shadow gap in the air, looking at the movement outside in fear, looking around and muttering cautiously: "Nothing came out?"

Gawain held the pioneer long sword in one hand, stepped forward to pull Amber out of the shadow rift, and at the same time kept vigilant about the surroundings and said in a low voice: "No... but it seems that something here has noticed our arrival……"

The top of the battle staff in Mordir's hand was condensed with strands of magical light flow. The old mage had covered himself with at least dozens of layers of protection in the half a second just now, and it was accumulated in the staff at this time. The remaining energy was dissipating into the atmosphere little by little, and he watched the movement in the steel ruins vigilantly. After hearing Gao Wen's words, he didn't know whether he was nervous or excited and murmured: "Such an ancient The ruins can still be 'alive'... I have never seen such a bizarre thing in my life!"

Gawain glanced at the old mage, but before he could speak, Modir muttered again: "Oh, I may not have seen it... Maybe I have seen it many times, but I forgot..."

"You are really proficient at this." Gawain casually said something to ease the atmosphere, and then he refocused on the ancient ruins in front of him - those balls of light rising from the metal pillars beside the road are quietly Floating in mid-air at a height of several meters, the constant light emitted illuminates the road in the darkness, and extends along the road for a long distance. Gawain looked far away and saw not only the road in front of him, but also the road in front of him. Some street lights in the distance are also starting up sequentially. From this position, he has no way of judging how many areas the lighting system is restarting at this moment, but one thing he can be sure of is that the scale must not be small.

Because within a short while, the communicator worn by Amber's waist rang, and Byron's nervous voice came from it: "Your Majesty! What's going on with you? I saw that many areas at the foot of the tower were suddenly illuminated. Bright!"

"Even your side can see it?" Gawain opened his eyes wide in surprise, and then shook his head, "Don't worry, I just activated some ancient lighting. Keep vigilant on your side, and I will notify you immediately if there is any situation .”

The communication with the Cold Winter was temporarily suspended, and Gao Wen and his party began to continue activities in this ruin that suddenly "moved"—Gao Wen, holding the pioneer sword, walked in the front of the team, followed behind him and put a mask on himself. Dozens of layers of protection were applied, and Mordir was also applied to Gawain and Amber. Amber had already transformed herself into a shadow-friendly state. In the ever-changing lights and shadows, her figure appeared The team appeared and disappeared in front, back, left, and right, paying attention to movements in all directions.

Mordir's gaze couldn't help but be attracted by this half-elf whose shadow control ability can be called terrifying. No matter how well-informed the old mage was in his life, he had never seen a fierce man who could use shadow jumping like a walk. He couldn't help staring. Eyes widened: "...This is really the most skilled stalker I have ever seen in my life, she alone is enough to keep an eye on all the troubles in the night!"

Gawain glanced at Amber who was scurrying around in his sight, and said casually, "Don't be fooled, she runs back and forth, left and right mainly to be one step faster when running."

Mordir: "...?"

Amber obviously heard Gao Wen's comments, but she has long been used to it and is shameless about it, so her face didn't change at all, and after running around for a while, she could confidently run to Gao Wen and express her hard work: "I I searched around and found that only these street lights were activated, and there was no more movement."

Gawain nodded, he was also paying attention to the surrounding situation, and everything was indeed as Amber said:

Everything in the ancient ruins is dead and silent, only the waves in the distance and the wind in the ears stir the tranquility under the night, and it is in this deadness that those abruptly lit street lights look extraordinarily strange and make people feel vigilant.

"I think we'd better avoid these places illuminated by street lights," Amber said suddenly, her expression a little nervous. "It doesn't feel like a good idea to act in such an environment that is illuminated in all directions."

"All the areas leading to the tower have been illuminated by these streetlights," Gawain looked up into the distance. Of course he knew that Amber's nervousness had some reason, but after observing the situation in the distance, he realized that his party People may have to bite the bullet and walk under these strangely lit street lights, "The lighting system is activated around the tower, and the closer you go to the central area, the less dead ends the light coverage will have - let's go, at least we have a clear direction .”

Amber could only suppress the tension in her heart, shrank her neck and continued to follow behind Gawain. They walked towards the foundation of the tower on the wide and straight road, while Mordir kept looking around, curiously. Look at the signs that occasionally appear on the side of the road, or the ground markings that have been defaced and incomplete.

"Such a wide road... is wider than the central avenue of Cecil City..." Amber couldn't help muttering, "Who do you think this road is for? Could it be that the sailors were giants several meters tall? Is it?"

"It may also be that the scale of the vehicles they use here is huge," Gao Wen shook his head, "Enya said that the Voyagers are a race that is almost indistinguishable from humans in size, and their appearance is even similar to most humanoid creatures, but They have a lot of huge and amazing machines - in the temporary base built by the voyagers, there are often more intelligent vehicles that shuttle back and forth than people. When this facility was still in operation, most of the people running on these roads were probably They're all mechanical vehicles they built... maybe most of them are engineering."

"Here is a road sign that can still be seen clearly," Modil seemed to have suddenly discovered something, pointing to the mid-air above the crowd and said, "Above... oh, I don't know a single word..."

Gao Wen immediately looked in the direction of the old mage's finger, and he saw a horizontal alloy beam spanning the road, on which were fixed a huge sign and several devices that had no function and whose purpose was unknown. There is additional lighting at the bottom of the , illuminating the mottled but still recognizable characters on the sign.

Those are mysterious and unknown characters, connected by short dots, lines and graceful arcs, with indicative arrows beside them. I am afraid that no one in the current Loren Continent can decipher those characters—Enya may Know some, but she's not here at the moment.

Gao Wen raised his head and stared at the road sign for a moment, and then he was about to look away, but at this moment, the characters that were unfamiliar to his eyes suddenly trembled, and then he saw them deform in his eyes as if they had come to life, Wandering, in the rapid reorganization of the lines, the meaning of those characters emerged in his mind——

"Front Access - Production Center B-17 Entrance;

"Driving safely, keep your heart in mind, and slow down in the production center;

"20 order points will be deducted for speeding here and a level 2 negative behavior will be recorded once."

Gao Wen blinked, and subconsciously raised his hand to rub his eyes. Amber next to him immediately asked curiously: "What's wrong with you? Are you old enough to cry against the wind?"

Gawain slapped the guy on the top of the head casually, looked up at the base of the towering giant tower illuminated by lights in the distance, and said thoughtfully, "It seems that we are going in the right direction."

Further ahead, apart from the increasingly dense and bright lights, there was still nothing threatening in the ruins. A group of three people slowly accelerated their pace and came to the last section of road around the base of the tower. As they approached the tower body, the building facilities around them became denser than before. There were many large and small alloy structures like pillars standing on the nearby platforms, pointing straight into the sky under the night, while There are also various thin alloy beams connected between the pillars, interweaving together to form a complex three-dimensional structure, and some curved thin plates like domes cover the tops of some of the three-dimensional structures. Under the night, these towering pillars and Connecting and jointly cutting the night sky of the North Pole, faintly revealing some kind of..."architectural art" of the Voyager civilization.

"It's so beautiful..." Amber couldn't help but raised her head, looking at those things that looked like large urban sculptures—in such an industrial center, they certainly had more important functions than urban sculptures, but those functions had all been annihilated. In the long history, what they can present to future generations today is only amazing architectural skills and unique aesthetic style, "I thought that the sailors would only build cold machines or powerful weapons. The thorough fighting race, so they also understand art and aesthetics..."

"Don't be led by prejudice," Gao Wen reminded at the right time, "the sailors are also intelligent civilizations, and as long as they are intelligent civilizations, they will always develop their own art and aesthetics, even if the aesthetic standards of different civilizations may vary greatly. different. Like these pillars here, they..."

Gao Wen raised his head and spoke, but stopped suddenly in the middle of speaking, his eyes suddenly became serious, and his eyes quickly swept across the pillars and connecting structures, then he lowered his head, just in time to meet Amber, who was also looking at him. The serious eyes that came over.

"Look familiar!!" The two said almost in unison.

Modil next to him was a little dazed for a moment, and subconsciously said, "Ah? What? Have you seen anything similar?"

As soon as the old mage finished speaking, Gawain and Amber set their gazes on him again at the same time. Modil was startled by the stare, and subconsciously wanted to ask, but was confused by the extremely solemn expressions of the two in front of him. I didn't know whether I should speak, so I could only spread my hands in a daze.

And Gao Wen and Amber have already confirmed one thing in this brief eye contact and memory confirmation.

Their "sense of familiarity" is correct, they have seen things similar to these pillars and connection structures here not long ago, and all of this is related to Mordir - it is the shadow sand that Amber took from Mordir. The "stage" presented by Dust is the mysterious place where the old mage and the two suspected elf twins meet in Dust's phantom!

There, too, stood pillars and vaults similar to those here!

"The styles are more than [-]% similar, but they are not in the same place," Gao Wen quickly compared the memories in his mind, then looked up at the scene in front of him, and said to Amber very firmly and quickly, " It should be in another ruins of the sailors."

"Are you sure?" Amber couldn't help but confirm, "The scene shown in those dust phantoms was not clear at that time, and there were many details between these pillars that were difficult to remember, or I will..."

As she spoke, she raised her hand and prepared to summon the shadow dust again for confirmation, but she stopped the impulse just halfway through, and shook her head cautiously: "No, this place is weird, how can I say so?" It may cause some unforeseen changes..."

Gao Wen saw Amber's actions just now and wanted to stop him aloud, but he didn't expect this guy who usually looked carefree to be so cautious at the moment. He also felt that it was logical after being surprised - obviously it was the guy deep in his soul. Counseling played a role.

"There is no need to confirm, I am confident in my memory," he said, and temporarily wrote down the matter, "Go on, this place is getting more and more interesting to me."

While talking, he turned his head to look at Modil again: "You always pay attention to whether there are any changes in yourself, and tell me as soon as you see or hear anything that you think is abnormal."

"I try my best," Mordir nodded helplessly, he followed Gao Wen's footsteps, and said as he walked, "but in many cases, if the spirit is polluted, it is difficult for the polluted person to realize his There is something weird about what you hear and see..."

"Then you take this," Gawain said as he casually stuffed something into Mordir's hand, "but don't look at it frequently, just keep it by your side."

Modir took the thing that Gawain had stuffed over, and after a glance, he found that it was a talisman that was no bigger than a palm. The surface of the talisman had complicated and wonderful lines. He only had one look at the talisman, and he felt that there was something wrong with it. The inspiring and high-spirited power flowed into the depths of his heart, but the instinct accumulated over the years of adventure prevented him from indulging in this positive spiritual influence, and instead immediately became vigilant: "What is this thing? ? It seems to affect my mind..."

"Portable divinity protection rune array, a gift from the sea - all operators of 'Contact Level' and above of the Theocracy Council are equipped as standard," Gao Wen explained casually, "The concept behind these special terms is explained for a while. If you can't tell clearly, you can simply understand that this is an item specially used to fight against mental pollution. But the so-called "fighting poison with poison", its own protection principle is actually a kind of spiritual pollution, although for ordinary people this kind of Mental 'pollution' has only positive effects, and its negative effects can be ignored with a little adjustment, but your situation is special, your resistance to spiritual pollution may be much lower than ordinary people, so I didn't give you this until now , and you'd better not let this talisman appear in your sight too often..."

"I understand," Modil said as he carefully put away the "gift from the deep sea", and at the same time couldn't help muttering, "Spiritual pollution... No wonder, when I looked at this thing just now, it turned out to be There is an urge to turn around and jump into the sea!"

Chapter 1261 In the Cracks of Light and Shadow

After realizing that the architectural structure near the base of the Tower Against the Tide was in the same style as the scene in the original "Dust Illusion" where Mordir met the "Twin Elves" many years ago, Gawain Then I realized that the harvest brought by this "Operation Against the Tide Tower Exploration" is very likely to exceed expectations.

Those fragmented ancient clues are emerging and reorganizing in his mind. Although the subtle connection between the clues is still in the fog, at this moment he seems to have felt the mutual attraction between these clues-their overall appearance is still ambiguous , but overall, a huge jigsaw puzzle is gradually emerging from the fog.

And the tall tower standing in front of me since ancient times... will undoubtedly be the biggest fulcrum of this "puzzle".

Gawain took a deep breath, calming down his somewhat turbulent mood, and at the same time heightened his vigilance. Holding the pioneer sword in his hand, maintaining the maximum external perception, he took the first step towards the faint road under the base of the tower. He walked towards the open alloy door, and behind him, Mordir and Hu Po, who were also fully alert, followed closely behind.

They reached the end of this "highway", where an amazing door stood.

It is even bigger and grander than the tallest city gate of Saint-Sunil. The door cast from some unknown metal is solemn and heavy. The whole door presents a very textured silver-gray color. mirror, and under the extremely smooth surface, you can faintly see straight lines from top to bottom—this door is embedded in a high wall like a cliff, with a gap that can hold a lot of space in the middle. Judging from the structure, the "gap" through which people pass side by side should be able to slide sideways into the wall under the action of some mechanical device.

Amber stood in front of the gate in a daze, looking up at its high top. The whole goose was in a state of being stunned. Some kind of shocked and curious eyes looked at Gao Wen: "I wanted to ask just now, why do you say that the door of this ancient ruin is always opened a crack? Did the sailor forget to close the door when he left?"

Upon hearing this, Gao Wen couldn't help but look sideways at the shame of the alliance, and said in his heart that this guy really deserves to be professionally skilled and dedicated to his work - he was so shocked that the first thing she paid attention to in her mind was that the door was not locked. ...It's thanks to the fact that the Tower Against the Tide doesn't have any windows, otherwise she would have already climbed through the windows and entered by herself by now, right?

"It was opened by the Dragon Clan," complained in his stomach, Gawain still shook his head and explained the information he got, "After the sailors left, the Dragon Clan managed to open the entrance of this tower, and they got a piece of information from here. A small part comes from the knowledge of the sailors...and this also laid the seeds of disaster for the later 'Rebellion against the Tide'."

While speaking, he had already stepped forward, and before he was about to pass through the "gap" and enter the tower, his eyes couldn't help falling on the towering door again—this is a place that has gone through millions of years of wind and frost. The barrier is still extremely strong today, and on the smooth alloy surface, the stars in the distance are faintly reflected, as well as the distant deep space where the sailor never returns.

Gawain subconsciously stretched out his hand to gently caress the gate, as if through this cold contact, he felt the distant past years, as well as the stories that happened here and surrounding this tower.

A faint stream of light suddenly flowed from the position where his palm touched the door, and quickly flowed upwards along the edge of the door. A buzzing sound from nowhere suddenly reached the ears of everyone present. The sound seemed to be A certain system that had been silent for many years was activated. In the next second, the surface of the originally quiet gate suddenly glowed with light, streams of light traveled along the lines buried in the gate, and a large number of flickering light spots appeared abruptly. Suddenly appearing in front of Gao Wen and the others, these dots of light flickered rapidly on the surface of the gate and combined, gradually showing clear patterns and characters!

Amber was shocked by this change in an instant, her whole body flickered back and forth between the shadow form and the material form several times as if she had a bad connection before she stabilized, while still shouting loudly: "Ah... ah, ah, this thing It’s bright! Why does it light up when you touch it!”

Gao Wen didn't expect such a sudden change, but he quickly suppressed the surprise in his heart, and while keeping calm, he put his hand on the top of Amber's head: "Don't be so surprised when you explore the ruins—you just now Didn’t you also see those street lights suddenly turned on?”

While speaking, his eyes fell on the image that was floating on the surface of the gate. Those characters and pictures had gradually stabilized, and began to refresh line by line, and just like the characters on the road sign just now, when When Gawain stared at this "display screen", the meanings represented by these ancient characters of the Voyager also emerged in his mind——

"The facility is offline and access has been frozen;

"Access authorization port detected on Sky Station, re-authorizing access... access has been enabled.

"Serious system warning, shutdown of the factory area, the reason for the shutdown is unknown...the core database is missing or locked...the cumulative error log has overflowed, and the production management center is offline.

"Affiliated systems are available, the gate has been authorized, and the facility structure is being re-uploaded..."

The text on the embedded door display screen was refreshing quickly, and lines of characters slid past Gao Wen. He stared at this scene with wide eyes, taking in all the changes in his eyes. The next moment, he suddenly felt some kind of deeper step. The "connection", which pointed to the orbiting space station far away in space, was forwarded to his memory through the authorization agreement between the satellite and the space station. The whole process lasted no more than three to five seconds, and Gawain slowly moved away. Sight, and blinked at the direction inside the tower.

In the next second, the building structure behind this gate appeared in his mind like a translucent holographic image, which marked all authorized gates and roads.

He heard a series of noises from inside the tower. It was the collision and friction sound of the heavy and ancient mechanical structure in operation. Amber also heard this movement. She first showed a nervous expression, as if afraid Something suddenly rushed out of the tower and immediately knocked herself off, but soon she noticed the calm and indifferent expression on Gawain's face, and she also calmed down, while the old mage Mordir on the other side was stunned It took a while to realize, he stared at Gao Wen with wide eyes: "This...this is you..."

"Yes," Gawain looked at the old mage, nodded with a smile, "some inconspicuous tricks."

After saying this, he walked towards the tower.

Gao Wen was not worried about what Amber or Mordir would think, let alone the so-called "exposing his own special features". One of them was of course out of trust in them, and the other was that he knew very well what he was doing now. He is not a prudent "traveling Mengxin" in this world, but a person who has been hanging in the sky for millions of years and is in the coffin. Lying for more than 700 years (in the eyes of others), he is now ruling an empire and leading a national alliance. Among all the things he faces and all the people he contacts on weekdays, the "satellite's little secret" is almost The most meaningless little things.

Anyway, the identity of "outsider wanderer" has been used many times.

Inside the tower, the lights are bright.

As recorded in Mordir's travel notes, some systems in this tower are always in operation. Even when Gao Wen and his party did not come, the lights here probably never went out.

A muffled hum came constantly from all directions, some unseen system still operating deep within those ancient floors, walls, or vaults, and not long after passing through the gate and the short corridor behind it, Gao Wen and his party arrived at an unusually wide cylindrical hall.

As recorded in Mordir's travel notes, the hall is extremely empty, and in the center of the hall there is a conveying system of astonishing scale, which looks like a large elevator with a complex structure, quickly going up in some kind of pipe or guide rail. Moving up and down, conveying materials with unknown functions, and around the hall, you can see many dazzling ancient devices that cannot be named. Some of those devices are still operating, and some display complex instruments Holographic projections of data floated above them, and various hums or beeps sounded from those devices.

If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, who would have imagined that there is such an extremely advanced ancient facility on the surface of this planet, which has been running silently for nearly 200 million years, outside the sight of mortal civilization? !

Gao Wen felt his heart beating fast, his eyes swept over the devices that were still running silently, and whenever his eyes stopped, some information would appear in his mind——

This is the logistics distribution system, this is the central energy monitoring, this is the inspection entrance for facility maintenance personnel, and there are communication stations and data interfaces above. In the scorching magma...

The red warning signs representing system downtime or error log overflow also kept popping up in his "vision", covering almost all the devices he could see, only those with less load or simpler functions were barely maintained Good running status - at least there are no scalp-numbing errors.

Like those satellites and space stations in space, the situation in this production facility is not optimistic.

It's been out of service for too long...it's time to scrap it.

At this moment, Amber's voice came from the side, interrupting Gao Wen's thoughts: "So... what about the 'thing' in this tower? We have already entered and saw a really magnificent ancient facility , but I don't feel that there is something like spiritual pollution entrenched here..."

Gao Wen came to his senses in an instant. He frowned and looked around, and whispered thoughtfully, "'That thing' may be invisible and intangible. We may not be able to see anything here..."

In ancient times, the mortals of the Reverse Tide Empire collectively worshiped and believed in this high tower of voyagers located near the North Pole. Their firm collective thoughts gave birth to a "god" in this high tower, but apart from themselves In addition, no one knows what kind of characteristics this god born in the high tower has. According to Enya, the "god" who died young at the beginning of his birth may not even have a physical body. He is most likely just an empty space. The reverberation, a vague shadow, and even a strong thinking tendency—occupied in this tower with an invisible and insubstantial posture, merging and co-existing with the steel, light and shadow here.

Even so, Gao Wen gradually frowned.

Even if that thing is invisible... The current state of the tower is too "normal and quiet".

He subconsciously looked at Modil next to him: "Did you feel anything? Or recall..."

He stopped in the middle of his speech, because he found that the old mage was raising his head at some point, staring straight at the extremely tall and magnificent alloy dome in the hall as if he was strongly attracted by something—— Gawain felt something was wrong.

And at this moment, Modil finally blinked, and the old mage's lips trembled, as if he was struggling to wake up from a weird dream, he uttered a series of short and vague syllables. After repeating this several times, his voice It finally squeezed out from his throat: "No...it's not right...it's not there, it's not here anymore...it's not here anymore! It should be here, it should be here!!"

"Calm down, old man." Amber was startled by the strange reaction of the old mage, and hurriedly tried loudly to wake up Modil from his weird state of mind, "What's gone? What did you say should be there?" here?"

"It's that thing!" Modil woke up suddenly, he took a breath of cold air, raised his finger and pointed to the towering dome of the hall, but even though his eyes were clear, his words were still confused, "I remember there should be Something, very, very big... something that words cannot describe, that stared at me with countless eyes, spoke to me with countless mouthpieces, it's gone, it's gone!! And can't you see? There's something trace!"

The old mage spoke loudly anxiously, Gao Wen's heart suddenly tightened, and he raised his head in the direction of Mordir's finger. He stared at the position of the other's finger, but he could only see the intertwined support structure and the fast Transport system that moves up and down.

But a strong intuition surged up deep in his heart. Gao Wen always felt as if he had missed something. He stared at the high place, and his eyes swept over the clear structures at the high place of the hall. Suddenly, his mind The structure diagram of the high tower reappeared again, and in the corner of his line of sight, somewhere on the dome of the hall, a piece of silver-gray wall seemed to "shake" for an instant.

It was as if the two overlapping images were temporarily misaligned, as if the rendering layer that was originally covered had accidentally had a texture error.

Gao Wen did not ignore this brief visual signal.

And as he noticed these abnormalities, the large walls and supporting structures above the dome of the hall suddenly flickered in his eyes. During the flickering of light and shadow, some vague shadow structures seemed to be emerging from the air, and the misplaced lines were faint. It presents a huge crack-like structure!

Gao Wen was shocked for a moment, and a lightning-like inspiration exploded in his mind. In less than half a second, he realized a certain possibility.

He suddenly turned to Amber who didn't seem to react: "Amber! There is a 'truth' that we can't see, hidden in the cracks of the real world!!"