Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1228: Chapter 1227: The Deep Blue Webway Monitoring Plan

Queen Belsetia didn’t seem to mind Gawain’s evaluation at all. She simply tilted her head back, gazing at the star-speckled night sky, and at the glow near the edges of the sky where it mingled with the clouds. Those were the ground lights penetrating the night sky, reflecting as a twilight above. The multitude of artificial lights kept most of the city as active as daylight even after nightfall, and their extra luminance dimmed the starlight significantly.

In the memory of the Silver Empress, it had been centuries since she last saw such brilliant lights in the human world.

”I’ll be leaving in two days,” she suddenly said to Gawain after a moment of silence. ”It’s already been decided.”

”The schedule has been moved up?” Gawain raised an eyebrow. ”I recall you planned to stay here a while longer—there’s still much you haven’t seen regarding Project 115 and the ”Gate” initiative.”

”I know, but I’ve been away from the Silver Empire for too long,” Belsetia smiled. ”The affairs of Wise Azmole and some other Druid Sages have been settled, but those Mystics Cult members won’t just disappear on their own. Every day I’m away from the Royal Court gives those unstable elements a reason to emerge, and now that they’re almost all out, I must return to wrap up this three-thousand-year-old mess.”

Gawain glanced at the elf empress beside him. Her face was as serene and calm under the starlight as ever, yet deep within her eyes lay a resolve as cold as the northern winds—a resolve quite necessary for the current Silver Empire. Still, Gawain couldn’t help but remind her, ”Do you remember your promise to Wise Azmole?”

”...Of course I remember,” Belsetia sighed softly. ”Those who truly follow the ancient Druid ways... well, they’re barely considered the ’moderate faction’ within the Mystics Cults... Wise Azmole indeed gave me a challenge, but having promised, I will fulfill my vows, especially since they were made in the presence of the gods.

”My early return is because of this promise—I’ve been away too long. Every day I’m away, more people become restless, and those ’moderates’ might eventually come forward. If they jump out like those Mystics Cult members... then I’d have no good reason to let them go.”

”Since you’ve thought it through, I won’t offer more advice,” Gawain said as he stood up from the bench, extending his hand to Belsetia. ”I wish you a safe journey in advance—and success in your endeavors.”

”Few things I’ve done over the centuries have been truly smooth, but ultimately, everything succeeds,” Belsetia laughed, grasping Gawain’s hand as she rose, then casually remarked, ”Of course, thanks for your blessings, Uncle Gawain.”

Gawain nodded, then as if remembering something, he suddenly reminded, ”Oh right, don’t forget what I mentioned—the Deep Blue Webway. Enya has already provided the means to find and monitor the rift in the webway. With the capabilities of the Association of Astrologers, it should be feasible. I hope you can quickly organize personnel to find the rift within the Silver Empire’s borders after you return. We need more monitoring data now.”

”Rest assured, I remember,” Belsetia nodded with a smile. ”I already sent the relevant information to Master Vilanya yesterday; she says it’s not a problem. If things go smoothly, she should be able to organize the entire monitoring project team before I return to the Silver Empire.”

With that, she nodded to Gawain, turned, and walked towards the two powerful maidservants who had been waiting in the distance. Before leaving, she waved this way, then her figure disappeared behind the shrub walls at the end of the garden path.

Only after Belsetia’s figure disappeared did Gawain look down at a bush beside the bench. In the dim light cast by the nearby streetlamp, he could clearly see a small, beautifully patterned tail tip sticking out from the bush, and from behind it came intermittent light and rhythmic snores...

Gawain stepped forward and kicked the tail tip with his foot, calling out as he did, ”Hey hey, wake up, how long have you been sleeping here, it’s about time to wake up... If you don’t wake up, I’ll sprinkle Yugeson Spiced Wine on you!”

Before he finished speaking, he heard Tiel’s panicked voice from behind the bushes. The deep-sea sea caterpillar startled and jumped up, sitting up behind the bushes while waving its arms, ”No, no, no, I’m awake, I’m awake, I was just taking a nap... Don’t mention that spiced wine, if you use that stuff, you might as well pour boiling water on me...”

Gawain ignored the deep-sea sea demon’s mutterings. He simply gazed at the creature with a curious expression for several moments before finally couldn’t help but ask, ”I’m a bit curious, you usually don’t need to breathe—so why do you snore when you sleep?”

Upon hearing this, Tiel stood up straighter, looking serious: ”Didn’t some smart human among you say, ’Even a fake life requires a serious attitude’? That’s my serious attitude, since I’ve taken the form of a land creature, of course, I have to simulate it more completely. Of course, the more important reason is your maidservant supervisor...”

”Betty?” Gawain looked at Tiel in surprise. ”How does that relate to Betty?”

”Every time she sees me not breathing, she thinks I’ve died again, and she pokes my stomach with a mop to check,” Tiel waved a hand with a look of trauma. ”Sometimes when she has nothing to do, she’ll patiently poke me for half an hour before stopping when I wake up...”

Gawain couldn’t help but conjure the imagined scene in his mind, his expression turning peculiar. He gave Tiel a strange look and mumbled, ”That mainly happens because you’ve been dead so often...”

Tiel heard Gawain’s mumble but just waved it off without concern, casually saying, ”So that elf empress has left? I thought you’d be talking for a long time...”

”Look at how long you’ve slept,” Gawain said with a sigh, then his expression slowly turned serious. ”Let’s not talk about this. It’s rare to see you in a relatively clear state today; I have some things I want to discuss with you.”

”Discuss with me?” Tiel wagged the tip of her tail, her head swaying side to side—as if trying to stay awake with such a movement, ”If it’s about ship technology, I’ve already handed that over to Cassandra. Her technical team is handling everything quite well over at Northport...”

Gawain shook his head seriously, ”No, it’s about the monitoring... or rather detection issues concerning the Deep Blue Webway.”

”Deep Blue... oh, that’s the thing you all have been discussing lately? The one behind the Well of Deep Blue?” Tiel quickly reacted. Although she spent more than half of her time sleeping, lately, whether it was Gawain or Enya, even Rebecca and Amber were talking about the Deep Blue Webway. As a deep-sea fish spirit, opening her eyes twice a day meant hearing rumors about it, so she wasn’t too puzzled now, just a bit confused, ”Aren’t you already organizing manpower and resources to monitor that thing? Why do you need to discuss it with me?”

”Not long ago, I received news from Talronde,” Gawain said solemnly. ”After detecting signs of possible magic disturbances in the Deep Blue Webway, the dragonkin have strengthened the monitoring of each tributary of the webway. During this monitoring, they discovered some signs... Some of the webway tributaries running through the elemental world are ’shifting’—the changes are small but continuous. Coupled with their previous findings that some elemental creatures emerging from the Elemental Rift carry traces of having been tainted by the Well of Deep Blue’s magic, we now suspect that the anomalous fluctuations in the Deep Blue Webway may already be affecting the balance of the elemental world...”

”Elemental world... oh, I see,” Tiel naturally thought of Gawain’s intention upon hearing this. ”You want us sea demons to help inspect whether the Deep Blue tributaries in the Water Elemental Realm have any issues?”

”The Deep Blue Webway is deeply buried in the ’sub-strata’ of our world, with its main streams located in the crevice between the prime material world and the non-material world—it’s not easy for us, who can only live in the prime material world, to directly ’see’ the Deep Blue Webway. It requires complex technical aid, and the monitoring points are subject to various limitations. If there’s indeed an enemy well-versed in the Deep Blue Webway and possessing some special technology leveraging those planet-spanning energy flows to cause havoc, they should be able to easily evade our monitoring in the material world—after all, our surveillance has blind spots everywhere,” Gawain slowly explained his thoughts, causing Tiel to also adopt a serious expression. ”This matter has always troubled me, until recently, the dragonkin’s discovery gave me an insight.

”The ’rules’ of the elemental world differ from those of the material world. There, everything remains in an extremely ’pure’ state, and the traces of energy flow are difficult to conceal. Techniques for camouflage that work in the material world hardly apply in the elemental world... Unfortunately, the dragonkin are ultimately creatures of the material world. Even if they can forcefully enter the elemental realm with brute strength, they wouldn’t be able to sense the various changes in the elemental realms as accurately as the elemental creatures themselves, but if we had some real eyes belonging to elemental creatures...”

”I understand your idea, sea demons are indeed fundamentally elemental creatures, and recently we have also developed the ability to perceive magic, so we can act as those ’eyes’,” Tiel nodded while speaking, and then looked at Gawain with some doubt, ”But from your words, you seem quite suspicious that there’s ’someone’ deliberately manipulating the anomalies occurring within the Deep Blue Webway? I remember Lady Enya mentioned it might be a natural phenomenon...”

”The webway fluctuations from two million years ago might indeed have been a natural phenomenon, but the current ones are uncertain...” Gawain shook his head with a frown. ”I don’t have direct evidence, but just around this evening, Veronica shared with me some of her findings... She discovered that all the ’tributaries’ in the Gondor wasteland connected to the Well of Deep Blue are showing extremely normal states, which instead aroused her suspicion. You know, the dragonkin have already found concrete evidence of anomalous fluctuations in the Deep Blue Webway, and the dragon egg brought by Melita has even hatched young dragons contaminated by the magic power of the Well of Deep Blue—the impact is this significant, how could the data collected by Veronica’s side show everything as normal?

”So I suspect someone is deliberately covering their tracks. Their technological means are superb, even capable of bypassing the monitoring systems left by the ancient Gondor Empire, but they evidently haven’t realized the current situation outside the great walls—the mortal nations have formed an alliance, even the distant Dragon Kingdom is exchanging information with the various countries on the Loren Continent, the range of the alliance’s information collection spans half the planet. Under such a large-scale premise of information exchange, their high-level disguise techniques instead expose flaws...”

As Gawain spoke, he shook his head with a heartfelt sigh—he did not seal his words, but the identities of those behind the scenes were almost revealed.

How should I put it, truly deserving of being The Scapegoat Society... able to take the blame even in death.

”No wonder you’re so tense about this issue... it does sound quite serious,” Tiel’s tail tip curled and uncurled in mid-air as she wore a pondering expression, ”Hmm... I don’t mind helping you out, it’s just that...”

Gawain immediately asked, ”Is there a difficulty?”

Tiel thought for a moment, then waved her hand, ”Well, it’s actually just a minor issue—we, while being water elements, don’t get along too well with the local water elements. But that’s no big deal, I’m sure the queen’s side can handle it. I will report this matter later, and based on my estimation, there’s more than a ninety percent chance the queen’s side will agree.”

Gawain’s expression didn’t change much, but a sudden relief washed over him, and he also felt deeply fortunate— to human beings living in the material world, the elemental realm was a strange and indifferent place. Not many could find stable and reliable allies among those high-ranking elemental creatures known for being eccentric and aloof. That’s why it was especially fortunate for the Cecil Empire to establish a connection with the sea demons. These allies from the deep sea, though possessing some peculiar styles... were indeed dependable.

He even thought that the bucket Pea threw into the well years ago might as well be written into history books.

In addition to this thought, Gawain couldn’t help but feel uneasy about the sea demons’ candid and enthusiastic attitude, and said, ”Please convey my most sincere thanks to your queen—for all the help the sea demons have provided us, I will not forget this friendship...”

”Oh, come on, don’t say it like that; your suddenly serious face makes me feel weird...” Before Gawain finished, Tiel shrank her neck and waved her hands, ”We sea demons don’t have so many complicated criteria and rules like you humans. Our judgment on matters is simple—you are a group of pleasant and trustworthy friends, interesting and worth engaging with, so we just like to interact more with you, nothing more.

”In the past million years, there were more than one race in this world wanting to interact with sea demons. Some were as interesting as you, but others not. For those intriguing ones, the sea demons have always been enthusiastic, while for those uninteresting ones... even until their extinction, we didn’t engage with them.

”Don’t be surprised, this is how our race is—perhaps it’s a trait of elemental creatures?”

Tiel said this with a slight smile, then her tone suddenly turned serious again, ”Moreover, strictly speaking, this matter is not irrelevant to us... the Deep Blue Webway, if it truly is an enormous system spanning the entire planet, then if something goes wrong, no race living on this planet would escape it—our ship is still not repaired.”