Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 225: Slipping Into the Dream With the Wind

Gawain almost couldn’t exactly recall how he finished the rest of the interaction with Tiel. He only knew that he barely managed to drag that deep-sea comedian god with intriguing values to complete a series of tests —— mainly to test the various reactions of the divine flesh after sea demons came into contact with it.

Through the tests, he found that although Tiel didn’t fear the effects of the divine flesh like him, the two still had another huge distinction: when he came into contact with the divine flesh, it would show evident signs of cowering and devitalizing; whereas when Tiel touched the divine flesh, it would not show such reactions of fear and flinching.

The other difference was that Gawain did not find that lump of strange biological tissues ‘tasty’, but Tiel’s saliva could flow to her feet (tail) if she looked at that piece of flesh in the crystal cube…

From the perspective of whether they were able to repress and intimidate that lump of flesh, Gawain was clearly a little more formidable than Tiel. However, an exhaustion that came from the depths of his heart would still arise spontaneously whenever Gawain was facing Tiel —— interacting with such seafood was too damn draining on his energy.

After sending Tiel back to her room, Gawain, who was both physically and mentally exhausted, came to the balcony once again.

Heidi had already returned to her room to rest, and Rebecca had also gone back to her room hugging her extremely precious new present, the telescope. For a while, Gawain was the only person left at the balcony.

He lifted his head and looked up at the sky where stars were twinkling. In the moonless night, “Ao”, which was located right in the center of the sky, was emitting an especially striking brilliance, watching over this world like the legendary eyes of the various gods.

Until today, he hadn’t been able to find any traces of the surveillance satellite amongst those stars.

Whether it was getting Heidi to help use the Eagle Vision spell or using the newly manufactured astronomical telescope, Gawain wasn’t able to find the surveillance satellite, nor could he catch any signs of man-made objects located in outer space.

He naturally knew how difficult it was to find the satellite in outer space with just the simple and primitive astronomical telescope and the Eagle Vision spell with limited effects. Given the current technology, it would be extremely difficult for him to track it, let alone being able to physically see it. But he also knew that there was somehow an “instinctual connection” between him and the satellite. Even if he couldn’t see it, he knew where the satellite’s location was once he lifted his head. Even with the aid of this intuitive sense, he still couldn’t find any traces of the satellite. There were only two explanations for this.

It was either the size of the satellite was very small and the magnifying power of current observation mediums was severely inadequate (such that there was completely no way of seeing it), or that satellite was being hidden by some kind of concealment technique…

If it was the former, following the improvement of technology, being able to view the ancient satellite from the ground would merely be a matter of time. If it was the latter, then Gawain could only wait until he developed aerospace technology and headed up there himself to have a look.

Gawain’s contemplations rose and fell; thoughts drifted in his mind one after another. And just then, he suddenly felt his consciousness fall into a trance for a moment.

This kind of trance was difficult to explain using words. It was like the “consciousness” that was originally locked in his body suddenly “extended” out for a moment. In that brief trance, Gawain felt his own thoughts become unusually sharp immediately; his perceptive range became unusually broad; even his soul had extended outside of his body and built a connection with countless souls extremely far away. —— He was jolted to his senses suddenly and realized that all he’d felt just now certainly wasn’t an illusion.

Just as he was pondering what exactly was going on, the trance-like sensation struck again, and this time, he caught the thread of this feeling in time; in the next second, some knowledge naturally emerged in his mind. Gawain realized that he actually knew how to control this strange state and made use of such a state to construct connections on the soul level. He realized where this knowledge came from almost immediately ——that eternal sleeper that he devoured!

He condensed his consciousness almost instinctively; under the guidance of the knowledge and experience that he gained from the devouring, he instantly completed the re-stabilizing of his thoughts, and the moment he resumed grasping the power of his thoughts, the sight before Gawain’s eyes turned upside down.

He found himself standing in a city that was difficult to describe in words. This city almost exhausted humankind’s imagination regarding “majestic”, “magnificent”, “elegant”, “beautiful” and various other adjectives. Countless pure white grand buildings stood in the city. The edges of every tower and palace were mounted with fringes made of pure gold. Large amounts of magical crystals containing infinite powers floated above the city. The magic energy that they emitted formed a splendid aurora backdrop. And in between the aurora backdrop, floating lands, floating castles, and palaces of all sizes were suspended in the extremely distant sky, just like the residence of the gods in the legends.

Whether it was the City of Thousand Towers that was the pride of the Violet Kingdom, or the Sacred Stars Temple that the elves boasted as the peak of art, or even the Gondor capital from 700 years ago — they were all unable to be compared with this city. ——It was most unlikely for it to be built for humans to reside in, but more like it was created specially to express imagination and corroborate with the grand and unique scenes in fairy tales. Even with Gawain’s disposition, upon seeing this city and this world, he was immensely stunned at once and couldn’t find his words for a long time.

Where was this? How did this appear? Was this… also the game of the Eternal Sleepers? This was an illusion that they created?

Gawain pondered in astonishment. This inconceivable scene before his eyes could only be explained with the Eternal Sleepers’ actual dream realm, yet he found that this sight was really multiple times more complicated and vaster than the illusions he had seen the last time. He knew that the Eternal Sleeper who invaded his mind the previous time was considered one of the very best senior management personnel. The illusions that he created should be considered to be of the highest standards even among the Eternal Sleepers, but this scene before his eyes…

It was far better than the illusion from the heretic cult believer that he devoured.

Had an even stronger eternal sleeper appeared? To deal with himself?

Gawain frowned. He didn’t think those Eternal Sleepers had forgotten the lesson so quickly and approached him once more. And just as he was pondering, he suddenly noticed that indistinct shadows had emerged one after another in the initially deserted city streets.

Those shadows swiftly condensed into form after their appearance and quickly became strikingly vivid and lifelike human figures. They materialized like they were the natives of this city, who would suddenly appear, move about, and live life here —— this sight prompted Gawain to think of the “loading” process in virtual scenes.

Hold on. These weren’t “strikingly vivid and lifelike human figures”, they were real!

Gawain perceived that these figures that suddenly appeared weren’t illusions almost instantly: every one of their faces carried lifelike radiances, and their speech and deeds were also without the slightest difference from actual intelligent beings. Most importantly, through the knowledge and techniques obtained from the devouring, he could completely decide which part of the illusion was fabricated out of thin air and which part was a projection of reality.

The figures that suddenly appeared in this city were all “projections of reality” —— these were living, actual people!

Gawain’s heart pounded. He vaguely realized what kind of place he’d entered, but before he could observe these “residents” moving about the city in detail, his shoulder was tapped by someone from the side.

Gawain forcefully restrained the urge to strike back and expose himself. He turned around peacefully and looked curiously at the person who had tapped his shoulder —— it was a youth who looked extraordinarily handsome and happened to be staring curiously at him.

Without waiting for Gawain to decide what to say, this youth initiated the conversation. “I’d thought I saw wrongly earlier—— It actually really is the image of Gawain Cecil? It looks very similar to the portrait!”

Gawain was startled upon hearing the words “Gawain Cecil”. He thought he’d been exposed. But he instantly came to a realization after hearing the other party: thanks to the experiences with video games in his previous life, he immediately guessed what the “image” that the other person spoke of meant.

The “residents” of this city had configured their images in this world by themselves?

He looked around and immediately believed that his guess was right —— because it was impossible to have so many handsome guys in the real world.

Even more, it was impossible for Scorpion Stingers who had been extinct for several thousand years to appear in the real world.

What was this considered? A large-scale immersive VR[1] game produced by the Eternal Sleepers was it…? This bunch of heretic cult believers actually came up with such a cool set of things in private? This style… this style was different from all the things that he’d seen ever since he’d transmigrated!

However, all these thoughts only flashed across Gawain’s mind. On the outside, he smiled without the slightest peculiarity. “Trying novelty once in a while.”

“Not bad, not bad. Gawain Cecil’s image indeed deserves to be described as valiant.” The extraordinarily handsome youth smiled. “But there’s no need for you to keep that full beard too. It looks too oldish. I believe that the portrait left behind when Gawain Cecil was 25 years old looked better than his death portrait…”

Had the full beard offended you?! Had the death portrait provoked you?! Besides, Gawain Cecil had risen from his coffin for a good half a year. That portrait back then could no longer be considered his death portrait, do you understand?!

The corner of Gawain’s eyes twitched. He forcefully resisted the urge to give this person — who appeared to be handsome and genial but heaven knew what kind of savage and malicious heretic believer he truly was — a vicious beating. He humored him for a while with a skin-deep smile before he walked away on quick steps.

He bowed his head and moved swiftly in this unbelievable city’s gorgeous and wide streets and finally found a deserted corner.

After leaving the sights of the heretic cult believers, the first thing he did was to think of a way to hide his true appearance.

Even though the previous heretic cult believer hadn’t become suspicious after seeing his appearance, and even believed that this was some kind of unique “personal hobby”, Gawain didn’t dare to wander about this “virtual world”, which was highly likely created by the Eternal Sleepers using a network of human minds, with this face of his. After all, he’d devoured an Eternal Sleeper of a rather high rank previously. The probability of his own face attracting hatred was too high.

He was not an Eternal Sleeper, but the one that he devoured left behind a precious wealth of knowledge for him. Gawain still remembered how he’d created objects out of the blue using his will in the dream realm the last time —— and in this world, he found that creation through will had become even easier than before.

Several minutes later, a tall young man with pale blonde hair walked out of the corner of the alley.

[1] Virtual Reality