Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1333: Chapter 1332: Truth in the Shadows

To be honest, before Milmina spoke, Gawain’s thinking really had never gone in this direction—although the Unified Wave Hypothesis was indeed the result of discussion between him and Milmina, as a human being whose mind worked ”normally” (at least that’s how it looked), he instinctively did not believe that something involving such microscopic high?energy domains could manifest such enormous influence in the concrete, material world.

Yet... this is a Magic world, and many things here are inherently this inconceivable.

”Magic Power... these days I’ve been continually researching the wave?based foundations of all things, trying to find the precise dividing line between the Entity Wave Domain and the Ethereal Wave Domain, as well as methods to verify and utilize the wave?nature of all things,” Milmina seemed not to notice the varied expressions on the faces nearby, merely continued in a thoughtful tone, ”I’ve made no real progress yet, but there is one thing I can almost confirm: Magic Power is the only known substance in this world that simultaneously possesses the characteristics of both wave domains, and which remains constantly in a critical state.

”Magic Power can exhibit wave properties under normal conditions, having no physical form in itself, yet it can, like physical matter, be shaped by sculpturing Spells into ’entities’ capable of interfering with the material world; it can also be used to affect the states of other matter, altering the properties of elementals... I believe this is because, in our ’all things are waves’ world, the Wavelength and frequency of Magic Power happen to lie in a subtle interval, allowing it to superimpose itself simultaneously onto both the Entity and the non?entity universes.

”Then the great explosion of the Well of Deep Blue that occurred seven hundred years ago, when Deep Blue Vein Flow surged from the depths of the planet and in an instant swept across and permeated the entire Gondor wasteland, is very likely to be viewed as a large?scale ’Spell?casting’ process—just as ordinary Spells can affect matter, the Deep Blue Vein Flow of that time may also have altered the very ’attributes’ of the entire Gondor Empire in the real world...”

Milmina spoke her conjectures with great seriousness, while Gawain and Veronica Moen had been listening quietly from the very beginning, minds running at high speed to keep up with the rhythm of this ”Mystery Overlord”—Amber was the exception; she had given up on thinking quite some time ago.

When Milmina finally fell silent, Gawain lifted his head out of his contemplation, his brow slightly furrowed: ”So you mean that the reason aberrations ’breed out of thin air’ is not that they are ’born’ from the Magic?pervasive environment of the wasteland, but merely some kind of ’manifestation’ process? Before they ’manifest’, they in fact already exist, but cannot interact with the real world, and cannot be observed by us...”

Milmina nodded slightly: ”That is one of my conjectures—though I have no proof.”

”But there’s a problem with this,” Veronica Moen spoke beside them, ”those aberrations that leave the wasteland and penetrate into the civilized hinterlands—after they ’wastelandize’ the surrounding environment, new aberrations start appearing in the space around them. Are all these aberrations that ’appear out of nowhere’ simply ’manifested’? Does every group of aberrations that leaves the wasteland carry along with them countless ’invisible’ companions? These ’invisible individuals’ merely wait for the concentration of ’pollution’ in the environment to reach a certain level before they manifest?”

Gawain quickly understood Veronica Moen’s question, and felt the same doubt in his own heart: ”Right, those contamination zones caused by aberrations outside the great walls can be regarded as independent and enclosed regions; they aren’t actually connected to the Gondor wasteland, yet aberrations keep ’popping’ up in them. All this must have some source, or at least some ’pathway’—whether it’s the ’polluted miasma’ spreading outside, or the monsters that emerge from that miasma, according to your theory they shouldn’t truly be ’appearing out of thin air’, should they?”

”This is precisely the misconception we may have held all along,” Milmina lowered her head slightly, speaking to Gawain and Veronica Moen with a very solemn air, ”those contamination zones bred from the corruption and pollution of aberration clusters look as though they’re separated from the Gondor wasteland proper, but perhaps... just like the Deep Blue Vein Flow that runs through the entire planet, the Gondor wasteland and the so?called ’independent contamination zones’ outside may also form a single whole at some ’layer’ we cannot directly perceive—they... are connected at a higher dimension.”

Milmina’s words were like a bolt of lightning, illuminating everyone’s train of thought (Amber excepted). Gawain’s eyes widened in an instant, and he turned to look at Veronica Moen at his side; on the face of this ”Saint Princess”, who always seemed so calm and detached, he actually saw a similar look of astonishment. After a brief moment, Veronica Moen drew in a quiet breath, her expression extremely grave as she murmured under her breath: ”Aberrations are extensions of the wasteland... we’ve always said this, but I never imagined these words could also have a ’literal, physical sense of extension’...”

”Yes, in the literal, physical sense—the Gondor wasteland is a single whole. Every aberration cluster we fight in the real world, every single contamination zone we purify, is a ’branch’ extending from the Gondor wasteland as the main body. That ancient land, under the permeation of Deep Blue Vein Flow, has mutated into some kind of... chaotic ’field’. Whatever happens within it may very well run counter to our classical understanding of the real world.”

For a moment, Gawain did not speak. His thoughts had already extended to the actual strategic situation. After some time thinking, he finally broke the silence in a low voice: ”If things are truly as you say, then the Loren Countries’ war against the Wasteland Legion on battlefields outside the wasteland will never be able to truly defeat the Wasteland Legion—in fact, those aberrations killed ’outside’ may not even be truly annihilated; it’s entirely possible they are merely temporarily banished from the real world, and then, via high?dimensional connections, return into the interior of the wasteland...”

”Ah, I understood that line!” Amber, who had been staring blankly for ages, suddenly broke the silence, snapping out of her dumb?goose state in an instant, ”So what you’re saying is, no matter how many aberrations we take down outside, we’re only treating the symptoms, not the root cause, right?”

”You could put it that way,” Milmina nodded very solemnly, ”our true enemy isn’t those aberrations we can see and touch, those things running around in the real world; our true enemy is the Gondor wasteland itself—that land has already alienated into a ’breeding bed’. Unless that breeding bed disappears, no one can know what else might ’manifest’ from its depths.”

”Then what, are we supposed to purify the entire Gondor wasteland?” Amber’s eyes instantly went wide, ”How long would that take... The ancient Gondor Empire covered such a huge area; just building a Purification Devices installation on the border costs us tremendous effort, and each purification only covers the area of a single legion’s garrison...”

”We probably don’t have to go that far—if my theory and calculations are correct, we don’t actually need to purify the entire Gondor wasteland,” Milmina shook her head, cutting Amber off. At the same time she raised a finger and lightly tapped the air. A hazy Magic Power projection instantly condensed there, forming a simplified overhead map of the Loren Continent, with the Gondor wasteland floating at the center of the illusion as a blot of violet?black shadow, churning like a cauldron of boiling thick soup. ”We only need to cut it apart, to create several ’blocking zones’ within the wasteland—it should be enough to destroy the balancing mechanism of this ’chaotic field’ and bring its operation to a halt...”

Gawain stared intently at the projection hanging in midair. As his thoughts raced, he saw Milmina’s finger move across the illusion, sketching out several trajectories that ran through the wasteland from east to west and from north to south. The violet?black foul shadow began to fade once those trajectories closed into lines, indicating the receding of the contamination and the termination of the ’chaotic field’s’ operation.

”If all we have to do is construct a few such ’blocking zones’, there is a certain degree of feasibility... but that premise requires that we successfully fight our way into the wasteland and punch through it in all directions,” Gawain said in a deep voice. ”This does align with our original objective in the ’counteroffensive against the wasteland’, but the situation now is far from progressing as smoothly as we planned at the start. At present, aside from the Cecil Clan and Typhon, who have stabilized their defensive lines and built limited Forward Bases inside the great walls, the nations along the other fronts—never mind pushing the wasteland back—even the effort to recapture lost lands is going forward only with great difficulty...”

”There’s nothing I can do about that part—I’m just a... researcher, and one who normally can’t even show up in person,” the Goddess of Magic sighed. ”How to actually implement my research is something you mortals will have to work out on your own.”

”We will eventually solve this problem,” Gawain nodded as he spoke. ”But there’s one thing I still want to confirm—can the ’Purification Devices’ we’re using now really be used to ’cut’ the wasteland? As you said just now, the wasteland is actually a single whole on ’some higher dimension’, so can our Purification Devices really slice that whole apart?”

”I believe... they can.” The Goddess of Magic thought seriously for a moment before carefully choosing her words. She tapped her fingers lightly again, and the illusion floating in midair shifted, revealing a tower-like device of exquisite structure, built in the style of the elves.

The crystals and magic symbols set into the surface of that ”tower” shimmered, and everyone present was familiar with it—this was precisely the ”Purification Device” currently in use by both the Cecil Clan and Typhon. The technology originally came from the Silver Empire. Several years ago, when the Loren Countries joined forces to repair the great walls, the silver elves unconditionally shared the blueprints of this Purification Device with every human being nation. It had been used to suppress the tainted breath that leaked outward while the great walls were damaged, and its effectiveness had already been verified in use.

”This is the Purifier created by the silver elves,” the Goddess of Magic said. ”These days I’ve been studying its principles, and I’ve also studied the data sent back from the front line. This Purifier doesn’t simply generate a basic Magic Power barrier to block contamination, nor does it crudely neutralize and filter things like soil and water for purification. In essence... it’s actually a device for ’filtering and stabilizing’ Magic Power.

”When the Purifier is activated, it releases a force field that covers a very broad area, and it carries out calm, uninterrupted ’fine-tuning’ of the magic-pervasive environment within that field. It fundamentally erases and blocks the ’aftershocks’ generated by the explosion of the Well of Deep Blue, calming those chaotic Dark Waves into a normal magic-pervasive environment... in other words, it treats the root of the problem.”

The projection of the Purification Device slowly rotated in midair, and Veronica Moen’s gaze involuntarily settled on it. After silently watching it for several seconds, she finally spoke in a low, thoughtful voice: ”...Its operating mechanism surpasses the silver elves’ understanding of contamination by the Well of Deep Blue. This is not something the elves of this era could have manufactured.”

”Obviously, just like the Sacred Stars Temple and the sentinel towers, this thing is something they dug up out of some ancestral tomb,” Amber said offhandedly from the side. ”—Their place is full of this sort of junk dug out of old graves. They don’t really know how it works; they just know it’s something some ancestor from some age made. After they test it a bit and figure out what it can do, they take it out and use it...”

Crude words, but not a crude truth; what Amber said was, after all, fact. However, upon hearing her, Gawain couldn’t help but feel a question arise—one he’d never paid attention to before.

”Ancient relics of the silver elves... how would their ancestral legacy contain something specifically designed to purify contamination from the Well of Deep Blue?”

”...Maybe their ancestors also faced this kind of contamination at some point?” Amber thought for a moment. ”I remember you said once that the silver elves’ forebears fled here across the sea, drifting from some continent west of the ocean...”

”...That was ancient history from far before human being civilization—so old that even the Dragonkin know nothing of what happened on that distant continent,” Veronica Moen said softly. ”But that’s not important. What matters is that this ancient elven technology really works... If we can establish such great barriers within the Gondor wasteland, the wasteland can naturally recede...”

”It’s only a theoretical model deduced from the data we currently have,” the Goddess of Magic’s voice sounded from the side, reminding Gawain and Veronica Moen. ”And that’s assuming all my current predictions and calculations are completely correct. Moreover, even if the great barrier is established, all we’re ending is the ’reverberation’ of the chaos fields within the wasteland, ending the life cycle of the aberrations. The poisoned soil and water will not naturally heal; that will still require conventional purification methods... And right now the wasteland doesn’t contain only aberrations, but also all sorts of Biochemical Monsters bred by those dark priests. Those creatures are true entities living in the real universe; they will not dissipate with the disappearance of the chaos fields.”

”No matter what, what we have to do doesn’t change—just as the initial goal of this war: we have to punch through that wasteland and put an end to its threat,” Gawain said, his expression calm. ”Now we’ll just be eliminating some additional threats along the way.”

”Having that attitude is very good,” the Goddess of Magic said with a trace of a smile. Then she paused for a moment before speaking again, somewhat hesitantly. ”And since we’ve come to this topic... I have something I’d like to ask your opinion on.”

”You? Asking my opinion?” Gawain raised his head, a little surprised, to look at the giant lady before him. ”What is it?”

”...What can be researched in a laboratory is ultimately limited. No matter how perfect the simulated parameters or indirect data are, they can’t compare to the real environment of the wasteland,” the Goddess of Magic said. ”I want to go into the wasteland region to conduct some... ’field investigations’, and establish a laboratory at the frontline.”

This really went beyond Gawain’s expectations, and he couldn’t help but confirm once more: ”You’re serious?”

”I’ve thought it over very carefully,” the Goddess of Magic said earnestly. ”Old Deer has already tested it—so long as I don’t directly contact mortals, and don’t directly intervene in mortal actions, there will be no possibility of ’rebuilding the connection’. Besides, I’ve already cooperated once with the technicians under Kamel, so I know the boundaries involved here—I can act through an avatar, prepare a proper disguise, and strictly control everyday contact with personnel. There shouldn’t be a problem.”