Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1290: Chapter 1289: Searching for Weaknesses

Civil War...

Gawain stood at the edge of Melita Ponia’s back, his gaze crossing the enormous dragon wing to fixate on the distant ”horizon” where the port lay torn apart, alongside the wreckage of a spaceship shattered into three by some great powerful weapon. The scale of these remnants was so incredible that a fragment floating weightlessly in the void seemed nearly as vast as a castle, and thinking of how invincible it must have been in perfect condition made the force that destroyed them all the more terrifying.

Indeed, only the weapons of the Voyager could so cleanly and thoroughly destroy their own legacy.

”I have closely observed this destroyed wreckage,” Melita Ponia’s voice came from ahead, ”some of it was clearly destroyed without resistance, with the spaceship docked in the port, while the defensive weapons of nearby facilities were still locked down. Others were mutually destroyed in internal conflict, with the port attacking the spaceship and the spaceship bombing the port, creating a pile of wreckage shards with collision marks... It almost feels like the command system here suddenly went mad, fighting against itself, and the horrible ’civil war’ resulted in only one intact ship left within this ’Mother Harbor’...”

Gawain listened to Melita Ponia’s words in silence, momentarily unsure whether to sigh in relief from the serious damage Sentinel suffered from system conflict or be struck with terror by the terrible destructive power in front of him. He could only remain expressionless, his voice low: ”You’re right... the command system here has indeed gone mad.”

”Really gone mad?” Melita Ponia slightly turned her head, not having been in the cabin earlier and thus unaware of the information left by the Elven Twins, ”What does that mean?”

”...The Mother Harbor you see before you is ’Sentinel’, and those destroyed ships should be under the control of the ’execution and reconnaissance agency’ of the Sentinel,” Gawain began to sort through the intelligence he had just acquired while slowly speaking his thoughts, ”This ancient system was built by the Voyager 1.8 million years ago, yet at least a thousand years ago, it was already corrupted by the Inversion Tide, producing an intellect within the originally mechanized system, a malign and hostile mind...”

His voice was deep, articulating everything he saw inside the cabin, covering not only the origins of ’Sentinel’ but also issues concerning the Elven Twins and Modir, Wilder. During his narration, Melita Ponia appeared particularly solemn and silent, except for occasionally flapping her great wings to maintain flight, her entire focus seemingly immersed in the astonishing truth and large volume of information Gawain brought.

Although unable to see Melita Ponia’s expression from this angle, Gawain could sense this Blue Dragon lady’s emotional changes—clearly, she was greatly shocked and seemed frightened.

”The basic situation is like this,” Gawain concluded, ”Now, based on the existing information, we have made some inferences, thinking that the Inversion Tide that escaped the high tower should be held up by Lady Night, and the ’Sentinel’ that successfully entered the real world, unable to meet the Inversion Tide, is likely taking new action—actions mostly related to changes within The Deep Blue Webway.”

”Inference huh...” Melita Ponia slowly said, then obvious loss permeated her emotions, even serious self-doubt, ”At least a thousand years ago the contamination had already leaked out... So what exactly had Talronde monitored over all these years...”

Monitoring just emptiness—Gawain nearly blurted out, but considering Melita Ponia might take it hard on the spot, he didn’t dare to speak out.

”Talronde’s surveillance at least ensured the Inversion Tide couldn’t directly spread outward in the real world; if this disaster was destined to happen, then it has been postponed by you guys for 1.8 million years,” Gawain shook his head after brief contemplation, ”Its spread among the Voyager’s legacy shouldn’t be avoidable. Neither you nor your God could’ve monitored the Sentinel System back then, so you’ve done everything you could.”

”But this disaster’s roots initially lied with us dragonkin,” Melita Ponia said soberly, as a dragon, her pride left her unable to evade the mistakes her kin committed, ”If we hadn’t rashly initiated the Inversion Tide plan, then a runaway monster wouldn’t have been manufactured within the Voyager’s legacy, and none of the present outcome would’ve happened...”

At that point, she paused momentarily, then solemnly spoke slowly: ”If the decisive battle erupts, all dragonkin can serve as vanguards... this is Speaker Andar’s message for me to convey.”

”...you guys don’t have many ’family members’ left,” Gawain said faintly, ”Recklessly fighting could lead to clan extinction.”

”We exist on survival alone—according to the original plan of Dragonkin, we should die at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Melita Ponia shook her head slightly, ”Moreover, for dragons, abandoning responsibility itself is tantamount to death.”

Gawain said nothing more, nor was there a need to say more. Melita Ponia’s attitude represented not just herself but expressed the will of her entire clan; dragons—this unique species have always had resilient and united minds, enduring over a million years for a coming-of-age ceremony, engraining a clan extermination plan into each member’s mind unconsciously. Now that they’ve made a new decision... outsiders would fail to dissuade them.

Besides, this was indeed the malign effect they created a million years ago.

”In any case, now we finally have a clear timeline,” Gawain said slowly, ”Sentinel and Inversion Tide’s infection and loss of control process is no longer hazy like before.”

Melita Ponia slightly nodded, while simultaneously a clear timeline gradually emerged in her mind:

Over a thousand years ago, the Inversion Tide’s entity remained trapped within the tower but its contamination had already begun to spread among the Voyager’s legacy, polluting the Sentinel System situated in the deep sea. Subsequently, the Gondor Empire’s defied plan experienced a laboratory accident, with Reyna and Ferna sisters being teleported to the Sentinel Base during the accident, captured and replicated by the at-the-time-runaway Sentinel, then their memories erased, trapped within the Reincarnation Giant Tree relic zone, while Sentinel transferred its intellect into one of the Elven Twin’s replicas, successfully freeing itself from program limitations and into the mortal world;

In the centuries following, Sentinel lay dormant throughout the human world, transforming from a defied plan academic advisor into a dark priest of the Oblivion Association, with the Reyna sisters trapped within the Sentinel Base gradually investigating the truth, restored their memories, realizing the threat of ’Sentinel’;

Six hundred years ago, Modir Wilder entered the Inversion Tide tower, suffered contamination, later salvaged and purified by the Dragon God, but this purification effect was questionable, and within the ensuing decade, Modir continued adventuring worldwide until he vanished during a northern continent expedition—now known he fell into the ’deep-sea’ Sentinel Base and appeared before the captive Elven Twins, while at the time began tapping into Lady Night’s power, with memory instability signs manifesting. The Elven Twins informed Modir of Sentinel warning, yet Modir subsequently split, with half carrying ’Sentinel warning’ onto Lady Night’s kingdom, another half returning to the mortal world, roaming in memory loss;

Similarly, around this time, the Inversion Tide’s entity finally leveraged the Deep Blue Rift to escape the high tower seal—whether it took any other actions after unblocking remains uncertain, the only confirmed piece: the Inversion Tide currently should be trapped within the Kingdom of Shadows.

Further events followed... with the Oblivion Association stirring trouble across Old Anzu, while the ’Sentinel’ incarnated as the Elven Twins cautiously concocted its sinister plan until the Cecil Clan rose, truly obliterating Oblivion, leaving ’Sentinel’ failed to find support within the human world, hence retreated into the Gondor wasteland to continue meddling...

While Melita Ponia sunk into contemplation, Gawain didn’t utter any words, but he was not daydreaming. Instead, he maintained a focused condition, sinking consciousness to connect with his surveillance satellites positioned along the planetary orbit and the Firmament Orbit Station.

The deep-sea’s environmental barrier couldn’t interfere with the Voyager’s advanced legacy, even if Gawain at this moment was separated from the Firmament Station by countless layers of Otherworld, he still managed contact with his own ”body” and that Orbital Ring Space Station. After a slight dizzy sensation and ’soul displacement’ feeling, his vision gradually expanded, the familiar satellite monitoring interface alongside Firmament Station’s interaction interface simultaneously appeared before his ’eyes’.

Gawain gathered himself, starting a procedure he had executed many times: ”Firmament, deploy all online facilities—including surface units.”

The next second, countless blue light points and a huge star ring appeared above the planetary schematic in his eyes, representing the satellite array in space, the space station cluster, and the body of Firmament Station. After a moment’s delay, projections representing the orbital elevator towers also appeared on the planet’s surface—these are all the facilities currently connectable to the Firmament Station.

Of course, most of them are merely ”connected”, as those ancient crashed satellites and space stations can no longer carry out any tasks. Compared to the Sentinel System located in the deep-sea, the state of these conventional satellites is evidently in much worse shape.

Perhaps only the Firmament Station is in a slightly better state, but Gawain’s control over it is very limited.

Gawain silently watched the flickering projections before him, and after a moment’s contemplation, he once again communicated with the main control system of Firmament: ”Are there no more facilities available for connection?”

The main control system of Firmament sent a cold mechanical response to the depths of his consciousness: ”The list has been fully expanded.”

”...Query the parallel system, code name ’Sentinel’.” After a brief silence, Gawain asked again.

”...Error, ’Sentinel’ system offline, status cannot be determined.”

Gawain’s heart stirred—the response from Firmament Station wasn’t ”no such information”, but ”Sentinel system offline”, indicating that normally, there should indeed be some communication protocol between the main system of Firmament Station and the Sentinel System!

His mind raced, pondering what useful information might be found within the pieces before him, thinking about whether there was a ”key point” between the Sentinel System and Firmament System that he could use. He knew he had to be very cautious, as the Sentinel System and Firmament System were equals, and the ”BUG” through which he obtained Firmament Station privileges might not be sufficient for this situation. Moreover, from another perspective, the ”Inversion Tide” contamination affecting the Sentinel System poses a great threat to Voyager’s legacy, and he wasn’t sure if his ”alien soul” would also be affected by this contamination.

If things go wrong, Gawain himself could also end up in trouble.

In his thoughts, he continued communicating with Firmament: ”Has the Sentinel ever returned an error log?”

Firmament Station continued with its cold mechanical response: ”Invalid query, parallel systems have no need to exchange error logs.”

”When was the last communication from the Sentinel?”

”System backtrace... The last data communication occurred 1355 planetary revolution cycles ago.”

years ago... this might be the true time when the Sentinel System lost control, also the time when Inversion Tide contamination spread into the deep-sea!

Gawain silently noted this new clue in his heart, then, after careful consideration, he spoke again: ”...If there’s evidence proving the Sentinel System has suffered a fatal malfunction, and it must be destroyed to avoid a total system collapse, how should it be done?”

He waited eagerly, yet the cold, rigid Firmament main system had no response to his special question.

This might be beyond Firmament Station’s processing capacity, or possibly... he still hadn’t pinpointed the critical ”point”.

He kept trying, attempting to extract more secrets regarding the Sentinel from Firmament Station’s limited responses, and to find a feasible plan to destroy the out-of-control system...

After a long time, Gawain opened his eyes on Melita’s back, seeing the Steel Ground slowly moving underneath, directly below was a ”forest of towers” built on alloy platforms, composed of countless silver-gray and light-golden prisms. Deep within the tower forest, electric arcs flickered, ancient lights illuminated the surroundings, as Melita’s voice came from ahead: ”Have you awakened from ’meditation’?”

”Ah, yes.”

”I heard you occasionally meditate like that,” Melita said, ”and after meditating, you solve many problems. Is it the same this time?”

”...Faced with today’s super trouble, one meditation might not be enough,” Gawain said helplessly, but with some curiosity, ”What is that below?”

”The center of the entire ’Mother Harbor’. Actually, I wanted to find the control hub here, but that place looks like an energy node... This ’Mother Harbor’ is too vast; it might take us a thousand years to understand its structure.”

Gawain didn’t reply, silently bowing his head to look at the flickering electric light of the ”forest of towers”. He heard Melita’s voice again: ”Do you think, if we blow this place up, it could destroy the entire ’Mother Harbor’?”

”First, there’s the question of what you’re going to use to blow up this thing,” Gawain sighed, ”With the magic of friendship?”

”...Although I don’t know what the magic of friendship is, I guess the strongest magic and weapons in this world won’t work,” Melita said helplessly, ”Not to mention its scale, the intensity of energy surrounding it surpasses the output of the former Great Shield of Talronde, I can’t think of any weapon capable of breaking through that energy field screen below it... Not to mention that this ’Mother Harbor’ might still have some sort of automatic counterattack mechanism remaining...”

The blue dragon lady shook her head as she spoke: ”Right now, we can fly around here at our leisure, perhaps merely because we haven’t made any threatening moves, and once we show any hostility, the ’immunity’ function of this Mother Harbor would probably activate...”

Gawain touched his chin, expression thoughtful: ”Immunity, huh...”