Sword of Dawn

Page 609

Speaking of this, she paused for a moment, and slowly said in a very solemn tone: "If a decisive battle breaks out, the whole dragon family can be the vanguard... This is what Speaker Andal asked me to convey."

"...Your 'population' is not much left," Gao Wen said lightly, "If you fight like this, your clan will be wiped out."

"We survived—according to the dragon clan's original plan, we should die during the coming of age ceremony," Melita said, shaking her head slightly, "and for the giant dragon, betraying responsibility itself is no different from death."

Gao Wen didn't say anything more, and there was no need to say anything more.Melita's attitude at this moment not only represents her "person", but also represents the will of the entire ethnic group behind her, the dragon... This special race has always had a tough and united mind, and they can do it for a coming-of-age ceremony. Forbearance for more than 100 million years, engraving a plan of genocide on the bottom of every member's mind, then when they make a new decision... others will not be able to persuade them.

What's more, this is indeed the evil result they created millions of years ago.

"Anyway, now we finally have a clear timeline," Gao Wen said slowly, "The infection and out-of-control progress of Sentinel and Reverse Tide are finally no longer as cloudy as before."

Melita nodded slightly, and at the same time, a clear timeline was gradually outlined in her mind:

At least 1000 years ago, the body of the reverse tide was still trapped in the tower, but its pollution had begun to spread in the legacy of the voyager, and polluted the sentinel system in the deep sea. Sisters Erna and Fierna were transported to the home port of the Sentinel in an accident, captured and copied by the Sentinel who was out of control at the time, and then washed out of memory and trapped in the wreckage area of ​​​​the giant tree of reincarnation, while the Sentinel transferred his mind to the elf twins. Yi copied the body, successfully broke free from the limitations of its own program, and entered the mortal world;

In the following hundreds of years, Sentinel hibernated in the human world, and his identity changed from an academic consultant against the project to a dark priest of the Death of All Things Society. Sister Lena, who was trapped in the Sentinel's home port, gradually investigated the truth and restored her memory and aware of the threat of 'Sentries';

600 years ago, Mordir entered the Tower of Adverse Tide and was polluted by Adverse Tide, and then he was rescued and purified by the Dragon God. However, the effect of this purification was doubtful. In the following ten years, Modir continued to travel around the world on adventures, Until he disappeared on an adventure to the north of the mainland—now it is known that he actually fell into the Sentinel home port in the "deep sea" and appeared in front of the trapped elf twins. At that time, he had already begun to contact the power of Lady Ye , and have signs of memory instability.The twins of the elves informed Mordir of the warning about the sentinel, but the latter split later, carrying the half of the "sentry warning" into Lady Night's divine kingdom, and the other half returned to the mortal world, and began to lose memory. keep wandering;

At the same time, around this period of time, Ni Tide's body finally broke free from the seal of the tower with the help of the dark blue rift—it is still unclear whether it has taken any other actions after breaking free. The only thing that can be determined is that Ni Tide , should be trapped in the Kingdom of Shadow God.

What happened later... is that the death of all things will cause troubles in old Ansu, and the "sentinel" incarnated as the twin elves planned its sinister plan in a low-key way, until Cecil rose and all things died Really perish, the "Sentinel" could no longer find help in the human world, so he retreated into the wasteland of Gondor and continued to make trouble...

While Melita was deep in thought, Gawain did not speak again, but he was not in a daze, but maintained a state of concentration, sinking his consciousness and communicating with the monitoring satellite body and the orbit of the sky on the planetary orbit stand.

The barrier of the "deep sea" environment can't interfere with the advanced legacy of the voyagers. Even though there are countless layers of different spaces between Gawain and the sky station, he still managed to contact his own body and the orbiting space station. After experiencing dizziness and the "sense of separation from the soul", his field of vision gradually expanded, and the familiar satellite monitoring interface and the interactive interface of the sky station appeared "in front of his eyes" at the same time.

Gawain collected himself and began to perform an operation he had performed many times: "Sky, expand all online facilities—including surface units."

In the next second, countless blue light spots and a huge star ring appeared above the planetary diagram in front of his eyes. They were the satellite array in space, the space station group, and the main body of the sky station. After a moment's delay, A tall tower projection representing the orbital elevator also emerged on the surface of the planet-this is all the facilities that the Sky Station can currently contact.

Of course, most of them are just "connected". Those ancient downtime satellites and space stations are basically unable to perform any missions. Compared with the Sentinel system located in the deep sea, the state of those conventional satellites is obviously worse. 01:30 o'clock.

Perhaps only the sky station is in better condition, but Gawain's control over it is very limited.

Gawain silently watched these projections flickering in front of his eyes. After a moment of contemplation, he communicated with the main control system of the sky again: "Aren't there any more facilities for connection?"

The master control system of the sky sent an indifferent mechanical response deep in his consciousness: "The list has been fully expanded."

"...Query the peer system, codenamed 'Sentinel'." After a moment of silence, Gao Wen asked again.

"...Error, 'Sentinel' system is offline, unable to determine status."

Gao Wen's heart moved - the reply from Cangqiong Station was not "no such information", but "the sentinel system is offline", which shows that under normal circumstances, there should indeed be some kind of communication protocol between the main system of Cangqiong Station and the sentinel system of!

His mind was spinning, thinking about what could be useful in the information in front of him, and whether there was a "key point" between the sentinel system and the sky system that he could intervene and use. He knew that he had to be very careful, because the sentry The system and the sky system exist at the same level, and the sky station authority he obtained through the "Bug" may not be able to deal with this situation, and on the other hand, the "reverse tide" that polluted the sentinel system has a huge impact on the legacy of the voyager. He didn't know whether his "foreign soul" would also be affected by this pollution.

If one fails, Gao Wen himself will overturn.

While thinking, he continued to communicate with the sky: "Has the sentinel sent back an error log?"

The sky station continued to respond indifferently and mechanically: "Invalid query, peer systems do not need to transfer error logs to each other."

"How long ago was the Sentinel's last contact?"

"System backtracking...the last data communication occurred 1355 planetary revolution periods ago."

1355 years ago... This is probably the real time when the sentinel system lost control, and it was also the time when the reverse tide pollution spread to the deep sea!

Gao Wen silently recorded this new clue in his mind, and then spoke again after careful consideration: "...If there is some kind of evidence that proves that the Sentinel system has suffered a fatal failure, it must be destroyed to prevent the entire system from collapsing, what should be done?"

He waited expectantly, but the cold and stiff Sky Lord system did not respond to his special question.

This may be beyond the processing capacity of the Sky Station, or...he hasn't found the key "point" yet.

He continued to try, trying to dig out more secrets related to the Sentry from the limited response of the Sky Station, as well as a feasible plan to destroy the out-of-control system...

After a long time, Gawain opened his eyes on Melita's back. He saw that the steel land below was slowly moving backwards. Directly below was a piece of alloy high platform made of countless silver-gray and light-gold prisms. The combined "Tallinn", there is an electric arc flickering deep in the Tallinn, the ancient lights illuminate the surroundings, and Melita's voice comes from the front: "Are you awake from 'meditation'?"

"Ah, yes."

"I heard that you sometimes meditate like you did just now," Melita said. "After meditating, you will solve many problems. Is it the same this time?"

"...In the face of today's super troubles, one meditation may not be enough," Gao Wen said helplessly, and at the same time was a little curious, "Then what's down there?"

"The center of the entire 'home port'. I actually want to find the control center here, but that place looks like an energy node... This 'home port' is too huge, we may not understand its structure for 1000 years .”

Gawain didn't say a word, he just looked down at the "Tallinn" where the lights flashed, and he heard Melita's voice again: "Tell me, if we blow up this place, can we destroy the entire 'home port'?"

"First of all, there is a question - what do you use to blow up this thing?" Gawain sighed, "Use the magic of friendship?"

"...Although I don't know what the magic of friendship is, I guess that the most powerful magic and weapons in the world won't work," Melita said helplessly, "Leaving aside the scale of that thing, it The intensity of the energy floating around exceeds the sum of the output of the great shield of Tarrond in the past. I can't think of any weapon that can break through the energy barrier below it... Not to mention that this 'homeport' may still have some kind of automatic The mechanism of counterattack..."

Miss Blue Dragon shook her head while talking: "We can fly here and there swaggeringly, maybe it's just because we haven't made any threatening actions, and once we show some kind of hostility, this home port I'm afraid that the 'immune' function of my body is about to be activated..."

Gao Wen rubbed his chin with a thoughtful expression: "Immune..."

Chapter 1290 Evacuation

Melita didn't hear what Gao Wen was muttering. She just circled the "central area" full of towers at the end, and then began to adjust her direction and fly towards the direction she came from.

"Our time is limited," she said regretfully, "The scale of this 'home port' is really amazing, even if everyone can fly like me, we have to scout the entire sky over the home port within [-] hours It's not going to be easy - not to mention the maze of subterranean structures and the many cordoned-off facilities and danger zones below."

"Let's go back first," Gao Wen said in a deep voice, "Since that spaceship is cruising according to a fixed procedure, we can send more investigators to explore here. But to be honest, it makes me feel uneasy..."

"Not very practical?" Melita turned her head slightly, "What do you mean?"

"'Sentry system', this home port and that spaceship are still part of the Sentinel system in essence, we can't control it, but can only follow the spaceship that cruises regularly, but maybe when this system will There are other changes, such as the spacecraft changing the cruise program... I don't like this kind of uncontrolled situation, especially when there is an out-of-control 'sentinel' behind all of this."

"I think I understand your concerns," Melita said in a low voice, "but this is a problem we have to face. There are too many things in our world beyond the imagination of ordinary people, and the legacy of the sailor is one of them One, this advanced civilization... They once saved this planet, but the huge machines they left behind are becoming more and more terrifying and dangerous to us today, especially these machines are now having problems... You know what? This reminds me of a holographic story from long ago in Tarrond..."

"Holographic story?"

"It's similar to your ghost drama, but it's a little more immersive," Melita explained casually, "That story is about the mice after the end-the world is over, and a group of mice living in the depths of the industrial area Became the new masters of the world, they live in a huge old factory, and regard the automatic machines in the factory as gods, and as time goes by, the various equipment in the factory are aging, small and weak The rats faced the increasingly abnormal giant machines with fear every day, and tried various ways to please them, or 'repair' them, and even lit incense to try to communicate with the 'machine soul'-but the machines still Aging and collapsing day by day, in the view of the rats, the factory, their whole 'world', is approaching the end, the end of the world after the end of the world..."

She turned her neck and turned her head: "It's actually a very old-fashioned horror and spoof story, but I like to collect this kind of outdated old holograms. Unfortunately, all the holograms in my collection are gone, otherwise I must pull Look... in those ancient times, Tarrond created many good things."

Listening to Melita's casual chat, Gawain just thought for a long time without saying a word, until the horizon of the steel earth appeared in the distance, and the canopy of the giant tree of reincarnation towered like a mountain at the end of his vision. He said slowly as if talking to himself: "We are not mice."

Melita was silent for a while, and when she spoke again, there was a faint smile in her tone: "Yes, we are not mice, and we will not be mice."

Gawain and Melita returned to the wreckage area of ​​the giant tree of reincarnation, successfully reunited with Amber, Victoria and others who were waiting here, and saw Daniel and Mary who had just returned from exploring the depths of the wreckage, and waited until everyone had gathered , he told everyone the details and conjectures that he and Melita saw in the sky.

"...The above is what Melita and I saw," Gawain said slowly, looking at Hu Po and the others gathered in front of him in front of the cabin left by the Fierna sisters, "Now we can confirm that , this home port was supposed to have six spaceships... or warships, but now five of them and their corresponding port maintenance facilities have been destroyed, most of the reason is because of the system conflicts after being polluted by the reverse tide .”

Melita on the side nodded: "I guess that when the reverse tide polluted this home port, it shouldn't be completed in an instant. The sentinel system also had a fierce resistance, and it is very likely that it self-destructed when the resistance failed. However, it was too late at that time, and the out-of-control mind had seized too much authority, so that the main structure of the homeport itself and a spaceship were preserved... Now all the 'normal parts' of the Sentinel system have been removed Completely destroyed by an out-of-control mind."

Gao Wen nodded silently, approving Melita's judgment, and at the same time couldn't help feeling a little regretful.

When he first learned the truth about "Sentry", he actually had some hope left in his heart. He hoped that there was still room for saving this ancient voyager legacy, and that there were still some useful things left in the Sentinel system. For example, the subsystems that were cut out at critical moments, but the shocking wreckage in other ports forced him to dispel all illusions... The sentinel system is over, and the out-of-control mind has destroyed all uninfected parts of this system , the only thing left is the "toxic shell" that has been completely eroded by the reverse tide.

The new truth was so shocking that no one at the scene spoke for a while, but after a few seconds, Amber couldn't help breaking the silence: "Actually, this is a good thing. At the beginning, I killed five-sixths of my spaceship, and also blew up the corresponding port and maintenance equipment. It was equivalent to punching myself half to death—so that even if it restarted that spaceship one day, we will It won't be dealing with an entire fleet..."

Amber's thoughts are always so optimistic, and her heartless appearance really makes people feel a little more relaxed, but Victoria, who is always stern-faced beside her, extinguishes the half-elf's enthusiasm with cold facts: "The situation is really serious. Has there been any change? For the current mortal nations, it may not make much difference whether the main battleship left by a civilization of the level of the Voyager is one or six, and compared with that spaceship, this' The home port' may be the most threatening force of the Sentinel, and with our current technology, even if the home port is left here without resistance, it may take tens of thousands of years for us to dismantle it slowly..."

Amber suddenly opened his mouth and stopped talking, while Modil on the side sighed after thinking about the technological gap between this "home port" that can't be seen as far as the eye can see and the current mortal civilization: "In short, I just can't beat it." ...you can't beat it if you don't move."

As soon as this remark came out, Gao Wen and Amber immediately looked at the great adventurer with strange eyes, which made Modil suddenly a little dazed: "Uh...did I say something wrong?"

"...That's not true," Gao Wen touched his chin in embarrassment, "It's just that I suddenly thought of something else after hearing your words, so don't worry about it."

Victoria on the side also showed a rare embarrassment on her face. As a descendant of the Wilder family, she also devoted herself to studying the "Modill's Travels" left by her ancestors. At this moment, she naturally thought of something disrespectful to her ancestors, so Immediately coughed twice, and looked to the side while changing the topic: "Your Majesty, what are we going to do next? Should we continue to search the depths of the giant tree of reincarnation? Or start exploring the Voyager facilities near the home port?"

"...Let's return," Gawain looked towards the port, and after hesitating for a while, he still had to order to leave—although the secrets buried in this home port made him want to continue investigating here, but strictly following the procedures The spaceship will not take into account the wishes of a group of "stowaways", not to mention the limited amount of supplies they carry this time, "We can continue to send people to explore here, and we can have a long-term plan about the sentry after we go back. That ship Spaceships don't wait for people."

Victoria bowed her head and accepted the order: "Yes, Your Majesty."

"Then... what should I do here?" Amber looked around, and her eyes finally fell on the small wooden house in front of her. Pink and white flower, "I mean... what about 'them'? Let's just leave them here?"

In fact, there is no need for Amber to remind, Gawain has not forgotten what happened in the hut. He looked at the twin flowers in the wooden hut, as if he saw two pioneers standing opposite him after hundreds of years—mortals confronting each other. Heralds of their own destiny: "We shouldn't have left them here."

"But how should we take them away?" Mary, who had been following along obediently in the line without opening her mouth, couldn't help breaking the silence at this time, her voice seemed quite nervous. She had already heard from Kamel just now. After learning about the elf twins, there was a hint of sadness in the eyes when looking at the hut at this moment, "I mean... if you pick the flowers or pull the flower vines down, will it hurt them instead?"

"...This is really a blind spot in my knowledge," Gawain sighed helplessly, "It would be great if Amorn was here, he must know about this matter."

He shook his head, and just as he finished speaking, it seemed that an invisible wind suddenly blew through the surroundings, and the shrubs, flowers and plants attached to the remains of the giant tree of reincarnation suddenly swayed slightly, and small rustling sounds came from all directions. passed it on.

Everyone was immediately attracted by this change, and Gao Wen heard a voice faintly sounding in the back of his mind at the same time as those rustling sounds came from the surroundings - it was a strange and deep voice, distant but clear : "Take them away..."

"Did you hear any sound?" Gawain immediately looked around and said in a low tone.

"Sound? Didn't hear it," Humber immediately pricked up her ears, and her pointed elf ears sensitively shook twice in mid-air, "...didn't hear anything."

Gawain didn't speak, but frowned slightly and looked in the direction of the cabin. The voice that suddenly appeared in his mind had disappeared, as if it had never appeared before, but Gawain didn't think there was a problem with his judgment.

He walked towards the hut, and Amber hurriedly followed behind: "Hey, what are you doing?"

"Bring them." Gawain stepped across the door and looked at the two small flowers quietly blooming on the flower vine. "Give them to Amorn immediately after you go back."

"Ah... but how do I take it?" Hu Po subconsciously pulled out her two precious daggers, but encountered difficulties when she walked to the flower vine, "Just pull it down or..."

"Try to bring the flower vine as intact as possible... strip it from the root," Gawain glanced at the vine that seemed to be fused with the pillars of the hut, "it shouldn't be difficult for you."

"Okay, it's not difficult...well." Amber murmured casually, she raised her dagger after a little concentration, and began to quickly but delicately peel off the vines wrapped around the pillar, and the two flowers hanging on the vines The pink and white flower at the end trembled slightly with her movements, silent but seemed to respond——During this period, Amber looked up and curled her lips, "Hold on, I will try not to hurt you... Tsk , so stupid, I actually chatted with Hua..."

After chanting, Amber's movements were extremely fast, and the flower vines were stripped off the pillar almost in the blink of an eye. At the same time, Victoria also walked into the house. She glanced at Amber's "results" and stepped forward quickly. Gathering the fallen flower vines together with the flowers, while being careful not to cause damage, finally she quickly drew a few runes on top of the coiled flower vines, and the thick ice was instantly formed out of thin air, connecting the two flowers and The vines were frozen together.

"This can guarantee vitality—there won't be any damage," Victoria nodded to Gao Wen. "I often use this method to preserve various creatures, from plants to nephews, with great success."

Modil, who followed behind into the room, saw this scene and muttered to himself: "I seem to be doing this back then..."

Gao Wen nodded to Victoria, then turned and walked outside the house: "Let's leave—time is running out."

A group of people walked out of the hut and were about to walk in the direction of the spaceship at the port, but Hu Po seemed to have discovered something suddenly, and pointed to the distance with wide eyes: "Hey! Look!"

Gao Wen immediately looked up and saw a bush not far away rapidly withering in front of his eyes.

There were rustling sounds from all around.

Everyone looked around, and as far as they could see, the vegetation, fruit bushes, and shrubs that had grown from the remains of the giant tree of reincarnation were all withering and decaying at an alarming rate. With Sister Fierna's cabin as the center, this giant tree The remaining vitality in the tree is rapidly dissipating.

It is as if a garden that has been stagnant for hundreds of years is rapidly dying in just a few minutes.

The nursery nursery that Fierna sisters had taken good care of also withered, and the vines growing around the nursery also broke and fell down. She blinked: "All the vitality here is just for..."

A loud sound of dry and broken wooden structure came from not far away, the sound was like thunder, interrupting Hu Po's speech.

"The canopy is about to collapse!" Gawain quickly reacted, "Evacuate immediately!"

Before he finished speaking, Melita had already turned into a dragon in a brilliant light curtain, and a deep and majestic voice sounded in the open space: "Everyone come up! Let's fly out!"

The bang of the broken wooden structure continued to come from the surroundings, filling the entire port area like increasingly dense thunder, and the whole ground trembled slightly, and in the distance, the edge of the crown of the giant tree of reincarnation faintly The smoke and dust of the contract has begun to rise, and the fragile branch structure continues to collapse in the eyes of everyone!

The dragon soared into the sky.

Chapter 1291 Homecoming

The entire port area was shrouded in a rising smoke and a loud crash like rolling thunder.

The giant blue dragon soared into the sky and rushed up to the sky in a cloud of dust. The crown of the giant tree of reincarnation collapsed behind her. Those huge wooden structures that had supported for thousands of years were like a giant city broken in a dream. The branches as thick as a bell tower, the huge leaves withered and shrunken, and the vines that had just died broke off in a series of loud noises and fell to the ground of the home port. It trembled, and rolled up one after another larger-scale smoke and dust.

Gawain and the others stood on the edge of Melita's broad back, lowered their heads and looked down at the earth. The sight they saw was so spectacular that everyone was dumbfounded.

It was as if a whole city collapsed from the sky in front of my eyes, thousands of years of history were shattered into pieces in a few minutes, and the entire port area was shrouded in it. In the thick smoke and dust clouds, even the lights left by the sailors were wiped out. covered up.

A big funeral.

"Everyone, stand still!" Melita's voice came from the front, as if she was struggling, "The smoke and dust below are rising too fast, we have to speed up!"

As soon as Miss Lanlong finished speaking, Gao Wen and the others felt a shaking coming from their feet. They immediately ignored the spectacular scene below, but immediately stabilized their respective figures. The dust also began to be accelerated and thrown behind Melita, and she rushed out of the most serious area of ​​the collapse at the fastest speed, and the spaceship parked in the port finally appeared in front of everyone.

Where the spaceship is connected to the port, the spreading dust has covered all kinds of lights, and the remains of giant trees on the spaceship and the shrubs and flowers in the wreckage have also been reduced to pieces, but fortunately, the entire spaceship The scale is huge, and the dust-shrouded area only occupies a small area on the edge of the deck. Melita directly crossed that deck, skimmed among a bunch of ship buildings, and finally landed on an open alloy platform.

Gawain was the first to jump onto the deck. He stood on a high place and looked towards the direction of the home port. Under the hazy lights and the background sky light brought by the energy barrier, the majestic crown of the giant tree of reincarnation and the Disappeared, only a "sea of ​​clouds" rose from the original place, like a continuous, rapidly growing mountain range, covering the port where the giant tree used to be.

"...In this way, the investigation team we send here may not be so easy to act next time," Kamel floated from the side, and said in a low voice, "The collapsed giant tree of reincarnation seems to be completely sealed. In the entire port area, if the investigation team wants to explore the home port in depth, I am afraid that they will have to make a way through the collapsed ruins first."

Amber, who jumped down next to him, let out a long sigh: "That's a huge pile bigger than the giant tree of Thorin... Even if the engineering troops are sent over, I'm afraid it will take forever to dig..."

Hearing the words of Amber and Kamel next to him, Gao Wen just quietly stared into the distance without saying a word.

Until after a while, a low mechanical hum suddenly came from the depths of the deck of the spaceship under everyone's feet, the mechanical locking devices between the ship and the port were unlocked one by one, the huge ancient engine started suddenly, and the ship itself The protective barrier rose automatically—the port area in the distance gradually moved away from the view, and the spaceship under his feet embarked on a cruising journey among many kingdoms of the gods again. Gao Wencai seemed to wake up from meditation, and said lightly: " The spaceship has set sail, let's take a rest first—eat something and recover your strength."

Ever since the spaceship left the Kingdom of God of War and the team embarked on this unprecedented journey of exploration, everyone's nerves have been highly tense. Feeling tired, and now they have finally left the "Sentinel Home Port". Although the next return trip will be spent on this spaceship, at least the most uncontrollable and risk-prone part of the journey It's over, everyone can relax their nerves more or less.

The exploration team found an open space suitable for rest near the entrance to the passageway inside the ship, took out the food and water they had brought, and began to eat and recover their strength. In order to prevent accidents during the last part of the journey, Melita did not return to her human form. Instead, he maintained the form of a giant dragon and rested on the nearby deck. The huge body of the giant dragon was like a raised city wall, which brought a convincing sense of security out of thin air.

Melita was lying on her stomach on the deck, her huge scale-covered tail slightly bent, surrounding the temporary camped exploration team like a barrier, but her head went around to the other side of the team, her huge head resting on an alloy platform On the edge, one eye was watching the movement on the side of the deck, and the other was watching Kohaber and the others who were resting, looking a bit bored.

At this moment, Amber walked over holding a piece of sweet bread, and shook it in front of Melita's eyes: "Hey, don't you want to eat something?"

"Are you talking about my dragon form or my human form?" Melita raised her eyelids, and a rumbled low voice came out of her throat, "In dragon form, your dough is not enough for my teeth—but the dragon form itself There is no need to eat frequently, I ate before leaving yesterday, and the next meal can be eaten next week."

"...you Dragon Clan are amazing," Hu Po was stunned, she stuffed the bread into her mouth and said vaguely while gnawing, "I can't, I'm most afraid of going hungry."