Sword of Dawn

Page 325

Bertila was taken aback.

Her senses are spreading, her spirit is spreading in this twisted body.

She could feel the dark and deep earth, she could also feel the cold air of autumn, she could feel the water rushing through her roots, and she could also feel the birds falling on the branches, the bold little animals had begun to Settled among the tree branches, bushes, and grass pits, preparing for a new home.

A wind blew across the sky of Solimberg, the leaves on the outer edge of the giant tree rattled and shook, and the huge canopy stretched in the sunlight, covering the scorched land at a very high place.

She takes root here, and this is her new home and her eternal prison.

In the meeting hall of the Dark Underground Palace, Bertila—or some of Bertila's mimetic communication individuals bowed their heads to Gawain: "Then what do you think of me as a wanderer outside the territory?"

"I want to make sure first." Gawain thought for a while, then looked down at the pioneer sword in his hand, "If I cut you down here, will you die?"

"...I'm afraid not," Bertila shook his head, "You will only cut off one of my roots. The correct way is to completely destroy the whole tree... This whole tree is my body. Use Your powerful explosive props, use your magical flames that can burn everything, completely burn the entire tree including the underground structure, in order to kill me.

"It's not easy. In terms of pure survivability, my life has achieved a 'great evolution', but I know this is not difficult for your army. You can do it.

"And burning at the stake... is indeed suitable for cultists."

Gao Wen glanced lightly at the long sword in his hand, and sighed slightly.

"We've set enough fire here, this land doesn't have to burn a second time," he said as if talking to himself, "and you... stay here quietly, your roots , it may be of some benefit to the people of the Holy Spirit Plain."

Bertila lowered her head, not knowing what she was thinking. It was not until a few seconds later that Gawain heard her voice: "I see, Gawain...brother."

Gao Wen raised his eyebrows.

It's a deal done.

He nodded and brought the topic back to the right track: "What else is in this palace? What's on the lower level?"

"There is nothing worth exploring at the lower level. When the body of the false god broke free from the shackles, it destroyed the support structure at the lowest level. In order to temporarily imprison him, the last remaining priests blew up the large passage area and the rock bottom area. Bertila shook his head, "If you don't believe me, you can go down the corridor on the east side and have a look. I can sense a gap there, and you should be able to see the collapsed passage and the stacked rock formations. In fact If it wasn't for the rock formations on both sides of the underground rift to form new supports, and my roots maintain the structure of the underground palace, this place would inevitably end up collapsing with the bottom."

Gao Wen frowned, this is a regrettable situation - he is still looking forward to digging out more secrets and even lost technologies from this ancient underground ruins, but now it seems that with the man-made god All the ancient secrets here have been buried underground with the Great Collapse...

"Don't be too sorry," but Bertila said immediately, "the bottom layer itself doesn't have much—this ancient palace was not built by us, it came from an ancient civilization that has been lost for an unknown number of epochs , its deep layers are entrenched with forces that are difficult even for us to resist, so for hundreds of years, our main activity areas are basically in the middle and upper floors——most of the rooms and corridors in the lower floors are completely sealed off, inside Nothing but decaying air and hollow echoes.

"The only two valuable areas on the lower floor are the Grand Priest's room and the rift area where the false god's body was created, but the false god's body no longer exists, and the most valuable in the Grand Priest's room..."

While talking, Bertila raised her hand and handed the big book that she had been holding in front of her chest to the front.

"It's it."

Gawain's attention shifted to the book following Beltira's movements.

The moment he saw it, he felt an unspeakable feeling——

He vaguely felt something familiar from this book. This feeling was slightly similar to the "spiritual resonance" when he contacted the satellite, but there was a significant difference, as if... some kind of fake, although Trying to imitate, but after all, it is not the real thing.

Or to put it another way, he can feel a clear mental shock when he resonates with the satellite, but he can also feel a similar resonance when facing the book, but it is much more blurred and confused.

"What is this?" Gawain asked curiously.

"The Ultimate Book, the only thing we found in the lowest level of this underground palace that is safe and can be controlled by mortals," Bertila said, "For the past hundreds of years, it has belonged to our Grand Priest."

"The Ultimate Book...sounds extraordinary." Gawain looked at the big black book cautiously while talking - he knew that curiosity is one of the driving forces of human progress, too much curiosity But it will also bring danger. Although he doesn't feel threatened from this book, the origin of this thing is unknown, and it is exuding a strange atmosphere, which really makes people feel vigilant.

...Do you want to touch it?

"The Grand Priest gave it to me before merging with the body of the false god, hoping that I would lead the End of Everything," Beltira continued, "but as you can see—the End of Everything has disappeared, I...have become like this. This book is useless to me, Outlander, if you want it, you can take it."

After thinking about it, Gao Wen finally took the book and carefully opened its cover.

The next second, a voice came from his mind:

"Illegal media logging into the system has been detected."

Chapter 0717

The mechanized voice made Gao Wen stunned for a moment.

He is no stranger to this sound—the first time he heard it was when he was separated from the satellite, it was the synthetic sound warning and announcing the activation of the escape system, and then it was the system sound he would hear occasionally when connecting to the satellite. Certainly the sound belonged to a satellite in space—or to an entire complex of space facilities.

He raised his hand, and then tentatively touched the big black book again, this time, there was no response.

Bertila couldn't hear the voice in Gawain's mind, but she saw the expression on the latter's face change instantly, so she was naturally curious: "What happened?"

"This thing..." Gao Wen concealed his embarrassment, "What is it used for?"

Bertila stretched out his hand to the big black book, and let it fall into his hand, while flipping the other hand casually over the sky: "It records countless knowledge, and it can be set in the bar... 噫?"

Driven by the magic power, the pages of the big black book flipped by itself, but no strange images appeared when the pages were flipped. On each page, there were red cross marks and a line of dazzling red words: "Agent visit disconnected, please check authorization validity."

Gao Wen also saw the words that surfaced on those pages, and now he is finally sure: this thing probably seems to be... broken by himself.

"This...how did this happen..." Bertila also showed a rare expression of astonishment and even a little panic, "it has never happened in hundreds of years...it has never..."

"Hmm...don't worry about its state," Gao Wen said in a blunt tone, "tell me what this thing does first, and tell me about its origin, so I can see if I have any clues."

Bertila was startled, and then remembered Gawain's identity as a "Wanderer outside the Territory"—although she kept reminding herself, she would always forget this every time she saw Gawain Cecil's face—as A "rogue outside the territory" must be well-informed, right?

"The Ultimate Book... as I said just now, is a supernatural item we found in this ancient ruins. It is tightly protected in a complicated device, but that device was already dead when we discovered it. Damaged by the passage of time. This book records a seemingly endless knowledge, and will present the most suitable language for different readers-when we first discovered it, it was full of unrecognizable symbols, but After opening it a few times, it began to present us content in the common language.

"Its first function is to present all kinds of knowledge according to the reader's needs, but only limited to things that exist in the world and can be seen, such as the position of a certain mountain or the length of a certain river. ——There is another detail about this point. In fact, it can present very little knowledge at the beginning, and a lot of content has errors and omissions, or directly tells the reader that "the information is incomplete and needs to be updated", but as time goes by, it can describe things started to grow more and more, as if it had been learning somehow;

"And its second role is even more incredible than the first: after setting specific conditions, it can even deduce the evolution of certain things, such as the success rate of an experiment with certain conditions, Its accuracy in this regard is frighteningly high, and it can even deduce changes in the situation on the mainland, such as... Ansu's civil war was partly deduced under its deduction..."

While Bertila was talking, Gawain's brows were already furrowed. He never thought that the end of all things would hold such a powerful "artifact" in his hands, and when he heard about the "deduction" After the part, he couldn't help asking: "So, is Cecil's development also in its deduction?"

"...No, this is also a point that confuses me," Bertila shook his head, "It can't answer all the questions about wanderers outside the territory, and it refuses to deduce the development of all things centered on wanderers outside the territory. The hint is... Dangerous access, authorization denied."

Gao Wen's mind was already running fast.

Unable to answer the question about the wanderer outside the territory... This is easy to understand, because first of all, he, the wanderer outside the territory, is not from this world, and secondly, almost all the "information" about the wanderer outside the territory is compiled by himself and the eternal sleeper No matter how powerful this thing called "Ultimate Book" is, it should not be connected to the brain hole of the Eternal Sleeper, but it refuses to deduce the development of things related to wanderers outside the territory... This is a bit "initiative". factor out.

The first thing he thought of was the sentence he heard when he touched the Ultimate Book: Illegal media detected to log into the system.

There can be two explanations for this sentence: Gao Wen, the traveler, is an "illegal medium", so he cannot log in to the Ultimate Book, or... The Ultimate Book is an "illegal medium", so he cannot log in to Gao Wen, the "satellite essence"!

In addition, the deduction function of the Ultimate Book mentioned by Bertila also reminded Gawain of the origin space, the virtual world created by the Eternal Sleeper, or strictly speaking, the "simulation calculation" based on virtual world technology. Function".

The Ultimate Book was dug out hundreds of years ago by the End of Everything, and the spiritual network of the Eternal Sleeper was completely completed recently, so this book is definitely not connected to the spiritual network, so it should be connected to another A super system with powerful computing power and capable of performing simulation calculations...

Of course, it is not ruled out that this deduction ability is a function of the Ultimate Book itself, rather than being linked to any other upper system. With the characteristics of slowly updating the database as if downloading something in the background, Gao Wen still couldn't help but think that this thing is just a second-hand dealer of information-the things it presents are linked from other places.

Seeing that Gawain was deep in thought, Bertila suppressed her thoughts even though she was full of doubts. However, the squirming vines and slightly trembling roots in the hall revealed that she was not in a calm mood—Gao Wen also noticed that Hearing these movements, he forcibly ignored them.

He has thought to the critical stage:

If it is assumed that the Ultimate Book is linking to another data source, then this data source is known to include the following characteristics:

There is a large amount of data, mainly about various things on the continent (mountains, rivers, flowing plants, distribution of mineral characteristics, etc.), and it is suspected that it can accurately scan the earth;

It should have powerful computing power, which can be used to deduce events or conduct simulation experiments;

The information is updated at any time, so the Ultimate Book, which has not been activated for a long time, took a long time to update and synchronize these information after it was suddenly activated by the End of Everything;

Gawain doesn't know how many things that fit all these characteristics exist in this world, but he knows at least one—the black technology satellite group in the sky...

Although these are all his own conjectures, the more he thinks about it, the more he thinks it is possible. When he finally looked at the Ultimate Book, his eyes inevitably became weird:

Oh my god, I'm afraid this thing has been secretly rubbing his net all the time!

I have traveled through time and become a human being in two lifetimes, yet I still encounter the situation of being stalked by the Internet!And what rubbed the net was a book!Where does this make sense?

Knowing that those Zentraedi star fleets that have long since disappeared are unlikely to return to deal with after-sales issues for this matter, Gao Wen could only curl his lips in his heart, and secretly decided to turn around and let Daniel start again on the spiritual network of the eternal sleeper. several ports...

Bertila had been waiting quietly until now, and finally couldn't help but speak at this moment: "Do you...have any clues?"

Gao Wen finally woke up from his thoughts, and while he casually agreed, he couldn't help but stare at the ultimate book again—at this time, he thought of the voice he heard when he touched this book, and the sound of this book after touching it. When the book loses its effect, the truth seems to be clear at a glance:

Apparently, a black IP that has been on the Internet for a long time suddenly met the physical connection of the security system, and was directly killed by the self-defense mechanism of the genuine system... No wonder it refused to deduce events related to "rogues outside the domain". It is a mechanism to avoid danger!

It should be a good thing to get rid of an Internet scammer, but Gao Wen still couldn't help feeling a strange feeling of regret:

Although this ultimate book is from the Internet, it seems... After it is connected to the satellite system, it can find more things than this "satellite expert"...

This may be because of some mysterious ancient technology, or it may be because I can only link to one satellite, but the ultimate book is linking more data sources, but in any case, this thing seems to be a very useful tools—at least Gao Wen himself currently does not have any functions for data deduction and historical data query except for mobilizing satellite surveillance cameras...

Gawain's expression became weird again, so that Bertila next to him thought that the "outside wanderer" in front of him was too emotional when facing a book - this might be "outside wanderer" "It was caused by some unique ethnic characteristics, but she still couldn't help but say again: "Are you..."

"It's nothing." Gawain finally got rid of a lot of thoughts this time, he waved his hand and looked at Bertila with a somewhat embarrassed expression, "According to my knowledge, this book should be a 'fake', so……"

"You actually saw that it was a fake?" Gao Wen said casually, wanting to find a reason for the damage to the Ultimate Book, but he didn't expect Beltira to say in surprise immediately, "The rogue outside the territory really has mastered A lot of occult lore... Indeed, it's a fake, that's what it says about itself."

Gao Wen concealed his embarrassment, and asked curiously: "A description of yourself? How does it specifically describe?"

"A false key, used to pry open the door of truth, this thing is a fake, but the method is also very useful - this is the first sentence that emerges every time the Ultimate Book is activated. Of course, even this Words are gone."

Gao Wen: "..."

This is the first time he heard that "cracking the net" can be described so poetically...

Yes, through the "self-report" of the ultimate book, he can be more sure that this thing is a scam.

He shook his head and brought the topic back to his own rhythm: "Because it is a counterfeit, it is far more fragile than the original. In fact, when you get it, it is already on the verge of its limit."

Bertila blinked.

Gao Wen continued: "And the dangerous experiment you conducted here has further accelerated its damage - its refusal to deduce the incident about me, an 'extraterritorial wanderer', is actually a warning, it is telling you, It's reaching its limit, and some features are starting to break or be limited."

Bertila blinked again.

"So unfortunately, it has been completely damaged from overuse and I can't fix it."

Bertila didn't blink her eyes this time, she just looked at Gao Wen seriously for a while, and then asked blankly: "Is it true that you didn't break it?"

"……no."

Bertila: "...Oh."

Gawain pulled a stiff smile from the corner of his mouth, and said slowly: "It's regrettable that it was damaged, but as the 'artifact' that the Doom Society has always relied on, it may be the best destination for it to be damaged after it finishes its service. .You also said that this thing is useless to you—I will accept it as some kind of souvenir."

Bertila's expression seemed a little stiff, but he still nodded: "It's been yours since just now."

Gao Wen thought for a while, and asked seemingly casually, "Do you care?"

Bertila shook her head: "No... maybe this is its fate."

……

At the same time, on the surface, Knight Margarita, who was on standby, suddenly raised his head and looked at the giant tree's huge crown in surprise.

Countless huge leaves with faint runes on the surface suddenly fell off from the branches for some reason. A gust of wind blew by, and large pieces of beautiful leaves fell to the ground as if dancing. Due to the huge size of the "Shorin Giant Tree", For a time, the landscape of fallen leaves can be described as magnificent.

"Why did the leaves suddenly fall?" the female knight murmured to herself in a daze.

"God knows," muttered Pittman next to him, "maybe it's just too cold."

Chapter 0718 Rooted

Bertila looked at Gawain with a calm expression.

Although all the distressed leaves have fallen, she still has to maintain a calm and indifferent posture. This is the last dean she retains when facing the "outside wanderers" as the last headmaster of the Death of All Things Society.

The Ultimate Book, which has played countless roles for hundreds of years and helped the End of Everything to complete countless key projects, has finally ended its long service. Probably... this is indeed its destiny.

The Grand Priest handed this book to her, and also passed on to her the inheritance of the end of all things. Now, it is time for this wrong inheritance path to end.

Next, it may be the era of the gods, it may be the era leading to perdition, or it may... really belong to the era of wanderers outside the territory and the new order created by him, but in any case, since she is in this posture If you survived, then you should be prepared to face the next fate, no matter where this fate... leads to.

She showed a slight smile——she tried her best to make herself smile like a human being, but the face imitated by plants made her every expression stiff: "In this way, we have reached some kind of... cooperation Is it gone?"

"I think so," Gawain nodded slightly, "In the Cecil Empire, the death of all things is no longer a threat, and I don't mind if there is an extra plant that can heal the earth on the land I rule— —As long as the plant is willing to obey the basic law of the empire. And you... I hope you can cooperate and cooperate with our further investigation of the end of all things."

"Of course," Bertila said softly, the wooden structure around her squirmed, and those flexible vines and roots differentiated again, turning into countless twigs, and the twigs slowly entangled again, outlining something little by little, " This...besides the Ultimate Book, my second 'sincerity'."

Those twigs finally gradually condensed into outlines. Gao Wen was surprised to see that they formed a large three-dimensional structure, and its area could cover almost one-third of the hall. In this three-dimensional structure, there were corridors and rooms. , sections of broken walls and compartments are clearly visible.

"This is……"

"The structure of the underground palace perceived by my roots," Bertila said with a slight smile, "I know you have found the 'guide', but Bud doesn't know the entire structure of this underground palace, and it has also experienced collapse. And deformation, about half of the rooms and corridors are no longer in the original position, or hidden structural risks, I hope this map can help you - the reddish-brown room is our laboratory, the gray-white room is the archives All our materials—the most advanced and the bloodiest—are in these rooms, please take them as you please. As for which one to choose...it's up to you."

The most extreme and advanced biochemical technology laboratory in the human world finally opened its door to Gao Wen.

"I'll make good use of it," he said with a smile.

Hu Po and the others who had been waiting outside the hall for a long time finally received Gawain's instructions. After returning to the hall, they saw the wooden three-dimensional map that occupied one-third of the hall at first glance. However, they should have stood on the "map" The nearby Beltira was nowhere to be seen.

Amber moved to the side of Gao Wen in two or three steps, looked around vigilantly, and then asked curiously, "Where's the vegetative person?"

Gao Wen: "Vegetable?!"

"Yes, people who grow with plants..."