Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1288: Chapter 1287: Dark Spiral

Gawain and Amber exchanged glances.

On the side, Kamel let out a light sigh, breaking the silence in the room: ”Their warning has finally been conveyed... but I don’t know, as a mortal, how to be truly prepared when facing the ’sentinels’ left behind by the Voyager...”

Gawain didn’t respond; he just slightly lowered his eyelids, gathering and organizing all the clues he had received, delineating the sequence of events and the information they revealed, speculating on the sentinel’s possible objectives and the means ”it” used to achieve those goals, pondering the weaknesses of the sentinels and the cards mortals could play. As he was deep in thought, Amber’s low mumbling came from beside him: ”So, as we guessed, the Elven Twins active in the real world really were replaced... but instead of some indescribable god, they were replaced by a... ancient mind monitoring the gods?”

She couldn’t think of any other words to describe the sentinel that had separated from this ”Mother Harbor,” so she could only call it ”ancient mind.”

Amber’s mumbling reached Gawain’s ears, instantly sparking a flash of insight within him. He suddenly realized a somewhat suspicious question: ”...Yeah, the Elven Twins are active outside... but according to the information left by Fyrna and Lelena here, the sentinel only copied one of them at first and used them as a vessel to leave here... the sentinels that entered the real world had already escaped, so why create an additional entity? Just to restore the ’Elven Twins’ setup?”

”...It doesn’t make sense,” Kamel immediately said in a deep voice, ”It was witnessed entering the real world alone. My colleagues had already concluded that ’one of the twins died in an accident.’ In such a case, the sentinel had no need to take extra action. It could have hidden under the identity of either Reyna or Ferna—creating an extra entity at that time would only increase the Defiers’ attention on it, increasing the risk of exposure... though it ultimately managed to hide successfully.”

”So there must be another reason, forcing it to create an extra ’body,’ even if it meant taking the risk of additional attention...” Gawain frowned and pondered aloud, ”Why did it do this... was there some residual ’obsession’ left when copying the Elven Twins? That seems unlikely... or did it need ’manpower’? Or...”

He stopped, his expression turning serious, speaking in a deep, low voice: ”Or perhaps a single body couldn’t withstand its mind, and it realized this only after entering the real world, so it had to urgently create an additional container...”

”This might be a weakness of it,” Kamel immediately said, ”But how do we exploit this weakness? Overload its mind?”

Amber blinked at Gawain and Kamel and suddenly said, ”Actually... isn’t the ’sentinel’ using two mortal bodies now? No matter how powerful this ’Mother Harbor’ and that spaceship are, the ’containers’ it’s using now are just the bodies of two elves. Wouldn’t finishing off those two elves do the trick?”

Gawain immediately turned to look at Amber, contemplating for two seconds before thoughtfully saying, ”Indeed... what you said makes sense, but what I worry about is... will destroying those two containers really eliminate the sentinel?”

”We might ’release’ it, letting things spiral out of control,” Kamel said from the side, ”Since it can ’inject’ its mind into a shell, it means this mind can transfer and even survive independently for a period. Fyrna and Ferna’s information doesn’t mention the specifics of the sentinel’s mind transfer and injection process. We have to assume it can do this without any external assistance in any situation...”

”Of course, even so, we should include ’destroying the sentinel’s two containers’ in the plan, and it’s probably the only feasible plan we can think of now,” Gawain said seriously, ”Perhaps destroying those two containers can only banish the sentinel from our world temporarily, but at least it buys us some time... and even this plan isn’t easy to implement.”

”The sentinel knows how fragile its current containers are, so it will certainly protect itself carefully. Even temporarily residing in a mortal body, it possesses knowledge and experience far beyond our understanding—and an unknown grand scheme,” Kamel nodded and said, ”The evil cult followers in the wasteland and the dangerous environment of the wasteland itself are probably just its first barrier.”

The room then fell into a brief silence, and Amber rarely fell into prolonged thought. After a while, she slowly lifted her head, looking at the writings left on the wooden wall, couldn’t help but ask: ”You guys say... why didn’t the sentinel kill Fyrna and Lelena sisters after capturing and copying them at the time? It left them here to fend for themselves without action... was it too eager to leave, or did it simply not consider that two ’fragile mortals’ staying here would pose any threat to it?”

”The Fyrna sisters themselves clearly couldn’t figure this out,” Gawain said as he looked at the messages on the wooden wall, ”but I think the reason definitely wouldn’t be the sentinel’s carelessness... it has observed this world for 1.8 million years, directly watching the realm of mortal consciousness, understanding mortal limitless potential, and not tolerating variables... but as the sisters mentioned in their message, probing this question now is meaningless.”

He shook his head, turned away from the inscribed wooden wall, and slowly walked to the column in the center of the room, gazing at the vines entwined around it and the two pink-white flowers. Amber’s voice came from behind him: ”...Have the Fyrena and Leyerna sisters been transformed into this? Do elves turn into these after death? I haven’t heard of this...”

”Elves are also mortals, and they should return to the dust after death, at least normally,” Kamel also floated up from behind, looking at the twin flowers with a peculiar expression, ”But...”

”But here is the Reincarnation Giant Tree,” Gawain said, searching through his memory for myths and legends about elves corresponding to the current situation, theological explanations, ”I once heard from Queen Belsetia that in the ancient Druid teachings of the Elves, Amoen the Giant Stag’s divine power shelters the souls of all Farwakers. When they rest eternally in distant foreign lands, Amoen guides the souls of the Farwalkers home—transforming into seedlings under the Reincarnation Giant Tree, gaining eternal and peaceful dreams.”

”But that’s from three thousand years ago—the Druid religion has disbanded for three thousand years, and everything about the Reincarnation Giant Tree and the God of Nature has dissolved into elusive myth, which we know better than anyone.” Kamel said slowly from the side.

”Yes, it should be...” Gawain gazed out the window, through the simple wooden grid, where he could see the spectacular yet desolate plant remains not far outside, the crown of the Reincarnation Giant Tree dried and collapsed, and the resilient growth of bushes and flowers among those withered branches. He looked at it all as if witnessing a myth ending three thousand years ago, ”...but this is still the Reincarnation Giant Tree.”

”Perhaps residual power from the tree’s death caused this change,” Kamel nodded and said, ”but perhaps the reason behind the transformation of the Elven Twins is less unsettling than another fact they’ve revealed.”

”Another fact?” Amber didn’t react for a moment, ”What do you mean?”

Gawain had already reacted when Kamel’s words fell, he pressed his finger to his chin as the originally vague timeline slowly revealed clear nodes in his mind: ”Amber, do you remember, according to our judgment, the ’thing’ in the Tower of the Inversion Tide should have breached containment through the Deep Blue Rift around six hundred years ago... maybe a bit later, but definitely not earlier than that point.”

”Ah, of course I remember,” Amber nodded immediately, ”because Modir entered the tower for the first time around six hundred years ago, and when he went in, the source of contamination in the tower was still there.”

”Yes, until six hundred years ago, the essence of the Inversion Tide was still trapped in the tower,” Gawain nodded, he watched the flower vine transformed by the Elven Twins, his voice low and slow, ”but the Fyrna sisters were trapped here... a thousand years ago, and the place was already polluted by then.”

Amber finally realized the most unsettling aspect behind this matter, her eyes slowly widened: ”...Oh my god...”

”So the timeline for the Inversion Tide contamination must be pushed forward; its pollution spread among the Voyager’s legacy even before its essence broke free. Moreover, not only does this timeline need to be pushed forward... but its manner of contamination suggests new possibilities,” Kamel said, ”while its essence was trapped in the tower, it could still leak its power here and even contaminate the entire ’Mother Harbor’, bypassing the warning and protective systems left by the Voyagers and eluding the dragons and Dragon God Enya monitoring the high tower...”

Listening to Kamel’s unsettling account, Amber instinctively hugged her arms: ”The more I listen, the scarier it gets...”

”Indeed unsettling, but we can also infer a clear pattern or ’limitation’ from this,” Kamel nodded, ”Although the spread of Inversion Tide’s contamination is shocking, it’s only ’contagious’ among the Voyagers’ legacy—at least until today, we have no clear evidence to suggest that the power of the Inversion Tide has spread to the mortal world. I speculate this might relate to the Inversion Tide’s ’foundational origin’, it originated from the ancient Inverted Tide Empire’s worship of the Voyager’s legacy. In a sense, the Inversion Tide is actually a mutated Voyager relic, so it can easily propagate among similarly sourced ’relics’, but if it wants to contaminate something else, such as a mortal like Modir, it will face immense difficulty, not only needing the power of the essence, but it may even be repelled by ’otherworldly gods’ like Enya... at least partially repelled.”

”Are the strongest Voyager relics instead the easiest to be breached? This sounds almost like a specialized affliction targeting Voyager relics...” Amber couldn’t help but mutter, then halfway through her muttering, she suddenly noticed that Gawain’s expression seemed somewhat peculiar, and immediately asked with concern, ”Hey, what’s wrong? Why did you suddenly get so serious?”

”...I thought of something worthy of seriousness,” Gawain’s mouth twitched inadvertently, casually responding with some perfunctoriness, ”just feeling like Inversion Tide’s contamination is more troublesome than anticipated...”

”Is it because of that?” Amber looked somewhat suspicious, but quickly ignored this doubt, ”Indeed, I can’t think of a way to deal with this thing now... in fact, we can’t even find out where the essence of the Inversion Tide actually is, although we have the clue of Lady Night’s Divine Kingdom, but where is that kingdom...”

Amber mumbled, and just as she was halfway through her words, a sound of footsteps suddenly came from outside the cabin, followed by two figures appearing in Gawain and the others’ sight.

It was Modir, who had just fallen into a state of mental chaos, and Duchess Victoria, who was supporting Modir as they walked in.

”Modir,” Gawain thought of the information left by the Elven Twins, causing him to unconsciously observe the old mage’s mental state, ”have you recovered? How are you feeling now...”

”Your Majesty,” Modir spoke, his voice still sounded a bit feeble, but his eyes seemed clearer and calmer than ever before, he raised his head and surveyed the modest wooden cabin, occasionally lingering his gaze on the items of daily use, before continuing to speak softly after a moment, ”I’ve remembered some things... My name is Modir Vealt, I have been here before.”

Gawain was instantly somewhat surprised: ”You remembered your name?! Then you...”

”I only remembered these things, Your Majesty,” Modir showed a complex smile, he slowly walked into the room, his voice deep and hesitant, ”I remember my name, I remember inadvertently entering here a long time ago, I remember a pair of elf sisters lived here, they helped me and told me a very, very important warning... about the uncontrolled ancient consciousness here, an ancient consciousness called ’Sentinel’, it came with dangerous and maniacal obsession into the mortal world... I only remember these, only remember these...”

He walked in hesitantly, and Gawain immediately noticed an anomaly about the old mage—

With Modir’s footsteps, a gray-white smoke-like dust continuously ascended beside him, but the dust would not fall to the ground; instead, it rose upwards as though losing gravity and rapidly dissipated in the air!

Amber, extremely sensitive to Shadow Sand Dust, immediately widened her eyes: ”Wow—Old man, you’re smoking!”

”Your Majesty,” Victoria suddenly spoke, Gawain had never seen such tense urgency on the duchess’s face, ”my ancestor... his condition isn’t good! Could Miss Amber possibly...”

Without waiting for the duchess’s words to finish, Amber had already stepped towards the ”dissipating” Great Adventurer, then without hesitation slapped the old mage’s arm.

The dust constantly escaping from Modir instantly came under control, stabilized piece by piece and returned to the old mage’s body.

(Book recommendation time, friendly recommendation from Guoweimeow for ’What Bad Intentions Can Casual Players Have’, a web novel based on the Linglong worldview, a story about a god-level elite returning to a pit as a salted fish (really?), a genre I’ve rarely recommended these past two years, anyone interested in this type of novel should check it out.)