Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 189: The Videos That Selena Gerfen Left Behind

The tenth day after winter set in, the New Cecil Territory’s brick-kiln yard and Magic Crystal Refinery completed their overall expansion.

Mining machinery being put to use ensured a steady increase in the output of steel, and steady increase in steel output guaranteed successive commissioning of machine equipment in other areas of the territory. In the brick-kiln yard and magic-crystal refinery, an improved tamping machine, a crusher, a tunnel kiln, and a Honeycomb Magic Web that was of higher power output replaced the old equipment and impelled a renovation of these factories in advance. ——Although in the eyes of many, those “factory sites” that took up considerable ground space in the territory were already extremely amazing large-scale buildings, in Gawain’s eyes, they had always only been slightly bigger work sheds. Only when all the factories had been expanded once would they, to a certain degree, carry some traces of the “factories” in his mind.

Changes were taking place in the territory every day. Ample reserves of food and supplies to keep warm ensured the maintenance of personnel labor, while Nicholas Egg’s nature-defying level of metal control allowed the machine equipment to walk out of the blueprints in batches into reality like they were being printed. Gawain would see a big heap of progress reports on his work desk every day. Though reviewing these reports were significantly draining to his mental power, he found pleasure in doing so.

Reading reports was certainly much more comforting than carrying a knife to go hack heretic cult believers —— the latter only meant there were people being assaulted by those villains, while the former meant that the lives of every person in the territory were getting better and better.

However, apart from reading reports, Gawain also had something else to do.

He had placed the “soul lantern” that he had retrieved from the Kant territory on his desk. The lantern was radiating a weak yet pure white glow.

When they first left the Kant territory, this lantern always appeared to be not too “stable”. It constantly emitted the kind of faint purple light fog that was like starlight, and so long as a person came into contact with it, he would hear indistinct weird sounds, let alone other influences such as triggering illusions and nightmares. In addition, it could not be activated and put to use according to the method in Gawain’s memories. It seemed that even after leaving the “user” Lilith Kant, the negative power entrenched in the lantern still would not dissipate. Thus, Gawain had no choice but to seal this item up temporarily and left it in a certain storage shed in the mountain vault.

However, the soldier keeping guard suddenly reported yesterday, saying that the lantern’s purple starlight had faded.

It had returned to normal —— at least, that was what it looked like on the surface. It seemed that the kind of evil rituals that the heretic of the Eternal Sleepers carried out could not accumulate energy for a long time. So long as the ritual had ended, the forces of nightmares in the lantern would swiftly decline too.

Gawain lifted the lantern and carefully examined its crystal outer case as well as the exquisite brass base. Through that translucent crystal case, extremely complicated ruins could be seen slowly moving inside. Everything was similar to how it was 700 years ago.

This lantern wasn’t a product of the ancient Gondor Empire. In fact, its techniques came from the Dwarf Kingdom in the west of the continent. Those stumpy mining enthusiasts often gave one a boorish feeling, but in actuality, they were experts in working on sophisticated articles and were especially skilled in combining crystals and metals into unbelievable magical tools. The “dream lantern” was the proud work of a well-reputed dwarf craftsman then.

In Gawain’s memories, other than strengthening dream theurgies as well as protecting the consciousness of the user, it also had some peculiar little functions.

He placed his hand on the lantern and slightly infused magical power, yet not completely activating it. And in this process, he sketched out the figure of Selena Gerfen in his mind and silently recited her name in his heart.

A few seconds later, some messy and broken images began to emerge in his mind.

He “saw” himself floating in a position about one meter above the ground. His vision swayed slightly. From his peripheral vision, he spotted a female figure dressed in a moon white priestess robe, and slightly farther, objects resembling tents and simple houses could be seen.

Excitement surged in Gawain’s heart: this information indeed had yet to disappear!

This was the unique function of the “dream lantern” —— upon infusing suitable magical power, it could be used to record some images and sounds, and through a particular method of retrieval, it could reproduce the record in the user’s mind. Back in those years, Selena Gerfen often used this function to record images on the way during the journey of pioneering, and for a few times, she’d even successfully passed on crucial intelligence using such a method.

The only thing Gawain worried about was whether the new owner had also activated this function after Selena Gerfen’s death —— in this case, Selena Gerfen’s “videos” would have been overwritten by the new user’s. But now, it seemed that it was indeed only Selena and himself who knew of this secret function.

The very first images were scenes of the pioneering journey. These things were present in Gawain Cecil’s memories too, so Gawain quickly skipped past them. Soon, he found the records near the end.

He hoped that Selena Gerfen retained her habit of recording images of significance at any time and recorded the scenes that he wanted to know most badly.

Finally, another image appeared. Gawain “saw” Selena Gerfen walking on a rough mountainous path, and many solemn-looking “pilgrims” dressed in priest garments or church armors could be seen ahead and behind.

In the next image, Gawain saw an open space at the peak of a mountain. A huge altar had been set up, and many priests and church Knights stood silently around the altar. In the distance, cloud and mist could be seen lingering; the mountain range in ups and downs were partly concealed in the sea of clouds.

It was the Ancestral Peak! That ceremony 700 years ago where the higher ranks of the respective sects pooled efforts to communicate with the gods!

“I’m a little nervous. Everyone’s expression is very tense. I hope everything goes smoothly.”

Gawain suddenly heard a fuzzy yet soft female voice in his mind. After faltering for two seconds, he then realized that this was Selena Gerfen’s voice —— the dream priestess seemed to be doing a voice recording, taking down her feelings at the actual scene of the ceremony.

This was also a habit of hers.

Then, the image swayed for a while; Selena seemed to be moving and when the image stabilized, Gawain saw a familiar figure beside the large altar in the middle of the empty space.

He saw the Pope of the Church of Holy Light, the Pope of the Sect of the God of War, the Archbishop of the Church of the Holy Spirit, as well as each and every bishop and saint…

They were the top leaders of all the sects.

At this point in time, the “religion peace agreement” or the “ancestral peak agreement” had not been signed. The various sects were still in an opposing state, but this scene on the Ancestral Peak was totally not as blustering and aggressive as the outside world had guessed. Although the air around the various leaders was tense and solemn, it was in greater part due to this ceremony itself and not their religious standpoint.

It seemed that before reaching out to the gods, these religious leaders had arrived at a consensus of peace? Even the Church of Dreams, Church of Storms, and the Druids who later fell to become dark sects had also agreed?

All sorts of guesses emerged in Gawain’s mind, and in this process, he saw a religious leader step out from the crowd.

The person was dressed in sombre black robes and wore a wooden mask painted with designs of constellations and eyes. Gawain hesitated briefly before he recognized that this was the Pope of the Church of Dreams 700 years ago —— Megal III.

This Pope stood before the altar and then removed his mask and robes, standing there in only his shirt and casual clothes. And he began receiving the blessings from the leaders of the other sects, and what happened next had Gawain puzzled:

After the other religious leaders blessed Megal III, there were actually several Archmages who came forward. ——These non-priest spellcasters began releasing spells one after another at Megal.

They were all kinds of protection; almost all the protective spells that Gawain could name had been released on this dream pope. From the magic robes that those Archmages wore and their dispositions, each of them was extremely powerful. The effect of those protective spells would be unimaginable then.

After receiving the support of these protective spells, Megal III started putting on a set of unusual “clothes” with the help of the others. That clothing didn’t have the resplendence and elegance of a priest’s long robes at all. Instead, it could only be described as ugly. It had a thick and multi-layer structure and connected gloves and shoes. Everywhere was tightly covered, and incomparably complicated magic patterns could be seen on every layer of fabric.

Only when Megal III put on an odd-looking, crystal ball-shaped helmet did it finally strike Gawain what that was:

It was a magical edition of a spacesuit!

Selena’s voice sounded from outside the scene simultaneously. “…The Pope has already accepted the blessings and magic support. He has also put on the protective magical suit that can withstand the might of the divine realm, specially tailored according to the ‘god-sent’ hints. To be honest, that clothing is very ugly, but it has all the functions it needs to have. Hopefully, everything goes smoothly…”

Alongside Selena’s soft prayers, Gawain saw Megal III walk onto the altar, and at the same time, another two people stepped out and stood at the spots of two special nodes on the outer edge of the altar.

They were the Pope of the God of Storms, and the Druid Archbishop of the Church of the Holy Spirit.

They seemed to communicate something to the Pope of the God of Dreams who stood in the middle of the altar, but their voices weren’t in the recording. Due to the angle of the image, Gawain was also unable to read any information from their lips; he could only judge from the shape of the altar that those two church leaders would be participating in the subsequent ritual and might shoulder certain risks.

Then the ritual began.

The runes on the altar lit up one after another. The majestic energy released by the theurgy circle had the surrounding air all slightly warped. Megal, who was shrouded in the spacesuit, lifted his hand and waved hard to the popes, bishops, and saints around the altar.

Following that, a white light descended from the sky, and Megal III’s figure vanished instantly in the white light.

And the image sank into darkness at the same time —— the recording ended.

It seemed that a certain powerful force had ended Selena Gerfen’s “recording” ahead of time.