Sword of Dawn

Page 306

Amber suddenly took a deep breath and let it out again, then she raised her head and rolled her eyes at Gawain: "You don't really know how to comfort people at all, do you know?"

Then before Gao Wen could speak, she laughed at herself and shook her head again: "But I'm a cyborg...so maybe I'm just right for you."

She seemed to adjust her mood very quickly. Although she looked a little different from her usual giggling state, she still smiled with a certain relief: "You are right, we should look forward, whether it is Artificial man or something else, at least I finally found the answer, and I also know the secret that my adoptive father has hidden for so many years, no matter how you look at it, it is quite profitable."

Gawain glanced at the half-elf: "But you still have a lot of mysteries, do you still plan to find them?"

"Look for it, of course I'll keep looking." Amber shook her head vigorously, her ears trembling slightly in the air, "The truth may be scary, but I am more afraid of the unknown. To put it bluntly, even if I am going to die in the future, I have to Find a way to die, understand?"

"This is not like what you usually say," Gao Wen couldn't help but said, "According to your style, even if you die in the future, you should find a way to escape, just in case you survive."

"So to put it bluntly, it must be a situation where you can't run," Amber said plausibly with her hands on her hips, and then she glanced at the diary on the table again, with a thoughtful expression on her face, "And after seeing After this, I really want to understand some things, especially the incident that caused my adoptive father to take a risk and lose his life..."

The events that led to Surrey Randolph's desperate attempt and his death.

Of course Gao Wen knew what amber was referring to—in order to steal a book stored in the cathedral in the South, Surrey Randolph, who had successfully survived incognito for decades, took a risky action, which led to his arrest by the supernatural beings of the Holy See. Captured and sentenced to death by local nobles and bishops.

What kind of book would that be, to have such an appeal to Surrey Randolph?

Gao Wen's and Amber's eyes fell on Pittman at the same time: this old man who hides a secret, probably knows something.

"Nowadays, don't hide any secrets," Gawain said. "What did Sally Randolph want to go to the church to steal? Was it really just a book?"

"It's really just a book." Pittman smiled wryly and spread his hands, "It's an ancient book that dates back almost five or six hundred years ago. I don't know its specific name and content, but it should be a notebook." Or Miscellaneous Notes, its author mentioned many secret places and ruins scattered in the world, including a place suspected of being the Shadow Fortress—Sari hoped to find Amber’s life experience and the secret behind the Shadow Fortress.”

"Just for this? Did he risk his life for this?" Amber's eyes widened. "Isn't it enough to let this kind of thing rot in history? What is he going to find!"

"You're right, it was the stupidest thing he'd ever done, and I still yell at him in my dreams to this day, but neither of us thought at the time that this little thing would kill him Fate," Pittman shook his head slightly, "The church where that book is stored is just an ordinary regional church, but a few ascetic monks from Luan City visited that day, Surrey missed it, it wasn't at all' As simple as knocking over the lord's offering candle', he was caught red-handed near the church reliquary."

Pittman shook his head and sighed: "On that day, his luck was over."

Gawain frowned: "Is that book still in that church?"

"It is said that after that incident, the priest of the local church dedicated most of the books to the Cathedral of Lowan to make up for its 'negligence'. I don't know if the book Surrey was looking for was also in the Most of them are there."

After a moment of silence, Gao Wen said lightly: "The city of Luan now belongs to the empire and is a training facility for the white knights."

"It used to be the headquarters of the Southern Church, and the collection of books there is vast," Pittman reminded, "Books have always been valuable property, and the Church is the most keen to search for this type of property, especially after the decline of the Cecil family in the southern region—— More than half of the books in the southern region for a hundred years have been piled up in the library of the Luan Cathedral."

"It doesn't matter, we can find it slowly," Gao Wen said casually, "We need to sort out the collections of churches and academic facilities all over the country, and summarize and gather knowledge in various fields. Now it's just right, we can start with the books of Luan Cathedral At the beginning of the hall—Wright said that the way of the Holy Light requires the same soundness of mind and body, and those white knights who are trained in the cathedral can’t just practice cross-country with weights and catch wild bears all over the mountains and plains every day.”

"But we don't know what the book looks like," Amber couldn't help but said, "I don't even know the title of the book..."

"Then sort out all the notes and records first. In a church library that is dominated by religious classics and books in the supernatural field, there should not be many 'miscellaneous books' that are eligible to be included."

Both Amber and Pittman nodded, approving Gao Wen's idea.

After thinking about it for a while, Gawain said again: "In addition, about that 'Shadow Fortress', there may be another person who can help us answer our questions."

"Who?"

Pittman didn't react for a while, and asked subconsciously, but Amber next to him flashed his eyes, and instantly thought of the answer: "That Ophelia?"

"If Surrey Randolph's information is correct, Shadow Fortress should be another base of rebels, and Ophelia Norton happened to be in charge of more than one Rebellious Fortress." Gawain nodded with a smile, "Who Among the projects that the ancient rebels are responsible for... will there be amber?"

……

On the first floor of Silver Castle, in the largest banquet hall, the lights were brilliant, and elegant palace music was flying in the air.

The aristocrats who are eligible to enter the "infield" to participate in the dinner walk through the gorgeous castle hall. They wear the most gorgeous dresses, wear the most appropriate smiles, and use the richest experience in the social field to deal with this event that is destined to be rejected. The banquet recorded in the annals of history, but compared with the castle banquets in the past, the nobles who appeared in the venue today seemed more restrained and nervous——

The establishment of the new empire has changed everything in this country, and the aristocratic system that has not changed for hundreds of years will also be turned upside down with the signing ceremony after the banquet. The "progressives" who have accepted the new order, but after all, this is an era they have never been in contact with before. Facing a brand-new social structure and elusive future trends, these "new imperial nobles" will inevitably bring With the mentality of walking on eggshells.

They smile in the banquet hall, but tense their muscles. They invite their partners to dance, but every step seems to be on a steel wire and the tip of a knife. They talk with ease, and in fact every word is in their stomach It has been brewed ten times in the hall, and every time I listen to a sentence, I will observe every face in the hall.

The three grand consuls talking at the end of the hall are the focus of attention of many nobles. The nobles pass by the "triumvirate" as casually as possible, trying to hear some useful information, but it is not easy—if When it comes to important matters, the grand consuls will naturally deploy a sound-proof barrier, and if they get too close without interest, it will obviously arouse the disgust of the grand consuls, which is unacceptable for nobles with rich social experience.

Therefore, some nobles focused their attention on the "little princess". Her Royal Highness seemed to dislike the formal atmosphere in the inner court, and spent most of her time outside. Some well-informed people found out who The princess is a naive and lively girl, so many people want to get close to Rebecca—however, it turns out that this seems to be much more difficult than getting close to the Triumvirate.

A beautiful lady wearing a lavender court gown has just returned to the inner banquet hall. With a frustrated look, this lady poured out bitterness on her acquaintances: "Her Royal Highness asked me if I would use leaves to break grasshoppers, and then Then asked me if I knew how to solve the magic power interference equation - I couldn't answer almost any question, it was really rude to the extreme."

A gentleman in a dark red dress gave the lady a sympathetic look: "Countess Lentini, haven't you tried to use your female sword stabbing skills to open up the conversation? It is said that Her Royal Highness is a warrior who loves fighting skills." people."

"Oh, don't mention this!" The countess reacted extremely fiercely, "Of course I tried—then Her Royal Highness pulled a sword from the guard next to her and threw it over, asking me to give her one—I wore it. evening dress!"

"Ah, that was a disaster," the gentleman in the dark red dress shrugged, "but at least you are luckier than the Earl of Balin."

"Earl of Balin?"

The Earl of Bahrain standing next to him turned blue, as if he had lingering fears: "I heard that Her Royal Highness is good at fireball spells, so I wanted to start the conversation with this - she was very happy, and then made a fireball the size of a door... I The reaction was disgraceful.”

The two nobles of the royal capital suddenly had a common topic, and they sighed together, but their sighs were soon interrupted by a voice almost wailing: "You are all luckier than me!"

Lentini and Bahrain turned their heads at the same time, and saw a young nobleman with short blond hair and a gentle face standing there holding a stack of papers with a broken face, looking extremely depressed.

"Mr. Finley, this is..."

"Who told me that Her Royal Highness likes mathematics and science? My friendship with him has come to an end!" The young nobleman waved the paper in his hand, "I said I am good at mathematics and science, and Her Royal Highness gave me a stack of papers! Who can tell me what is written on it?" What the hell is it?!"

……

Elegant court music fluttered in the hall, and the joyful music whitewashed the superficial joy. Veronica Moen stood quietly in an inconspicuous corner, her eyes swept over the people walking, dancing, and talking in the hall. , the laughing crowd, like a blank-faced spectator, watched a scene of a drama that she had recited by heart.

But the corners of the deadpan viewer's lips curled up a bit when those conversations about coming home in front of Princess Rebecca came through.

"To them today is probably the most exhausting banquet in their lives," Veronica turned her head and said with a smile to Gawain and Amber who were walking towards her, and to Pittman who was walking behind them He nodded slightly and said hello, "They have met the most unreasonable royal family members."

"Nobles are always used to expending too much energy in useless fields, so they live very tiredly," Gao Wen said casually, "Of course, Rebecca's education is also a problem."

Veronica smiled slightly: "I really like that kid's character... a bit like me back then."

"...totally unimaginable."

"Time has changed a lot of things, and you should have a deep understanding of this," Veronica said, "Then, the emperor of the empire didn't show up at the banquet, but instead came to see me, the former princess who was in an embarrassing situation. What's the matter?"

Gao Wen got straight to the point: "Do you know the Shadow Fortress?"

"...I know, that is a project that was abandoned by me."

Chapter 0681 Shadow Soul

Veronica/Ophelia's answer was so quick and direct that Gawain didn't react for the first two or three seconds before he realized that he had found the key clue to Amber's life so easily ——An insider standing right in front of his eyes.

"Why did you suddenly mention Shadow Fortress?" Veronica noticed the changes in the expressions of the three people in front of her, and asked with a little curiosity, "Where did you hear this name?"

Gao Wen didn't answer the other party immediately, but asked a question immediately: "Let's not talk about this for now—since you know the Shadow Fortress, have you ever heard of a Royal Shadow Guard named Sally Randolph?"

Theoretically, the "Saint Princess" was not born before the time when Surrey Randolph was active, but Gawain knew that under Veronica's youthful appearance was the soul of an ancient rebel, the rebel She has been active in the world through soul parasitism, and has changed many bodies. Perhaps one of her bodies was active in the Ansu Kingdom decades ago, and even the mission performed by Sally Randolph back then was similar to She is related.

But Veronica shook her head: "I have no impression of this name."

Her expression did not seem to be lying, but it was also difficult for Gao Wen to see her real thoughts from the usual indifferent expression of this ancient disobedient, so he could only tentatively believe what she said was true.

"Sally Randolph was a Royal Shadow Guard decades ago," Gawain thought for a while, and decided not to mention Amber's identity, but started from the secret mission many years ago, "We found According to some information from that year, it was discovered that the Royal Shadow Guard was ordered to search for an ancient Gondor ruin called the Shadow Fortress—now, it seems that this fortress was really part of the rebellious plan back then?"

Amber next to him followed Gao Wen's words: "Can you tell me about the situation of this fort in detail? What is it for research? Why do you say it was abandoned?"

Veronica took a deep look at Amber, which made the latter feel guilty subconsciously, and then said: "It's a wrong route-the route of escape and evasion. The Shadow Project is trying to completely change the nature of human life. By transforming into some kind of shadow creature, hiding in the shadow world to avoid the magic tide in the real world, and even avoiding the power of the gods, the Shadow Fortress is the main research base of this project."

"Change the nature of human life? Transform into shadow creatures and hide in the shadow world?" Gawain frowned. This answer faintly fits some speculations he had after reading Surrey Randolph's diary. The essence of the rebellious plan is actually " Human Continuation Plan", so the Shadow Fortress must have been established to allow humans to avoid disasters, but is the Shadow Realm really a world that can escape the demon tide?

Veronica nodded lightly: "The shadow world has existed since ancient times, and the shadow dwellers are a group that is older than humans, elves, and all known intelligent creatures on the mainland. Therefore, after launching the rebellious plan, we soon I noticed them naturally. All kinds of evidence show that various changes in the real world will produce corresponding changes in the shadow world according to certain mapping rules. Therefore, after the magic tide occurs in the real world, things in the shadow world will also change accordingly. And in this process, the shadow dwellers have never been affected...

"They have certain characteristics similar to elemental creatures, which allow them to avoid the influence of the magic tide, and quickly adapt to the new environment after a huge change in the magic environment, and re-stabilize their own form.

"On the other hand, the shadow power is the most mysterious and widely distributed power among all the elements and element-like fields known so far. The shadow world covers [-]% of our real world, unlike other elemental fields With huge limitations, from the perspective of 'development potential', the Shadowlands is a more worthy choice of shelter than other elemental realms.

"Combining these factors, the rebels launched the 'Shadow Project' in the early stages of the plan, and built a subspace fortress in the space gap close to the Shadow Realm. Due to the needs of the research environment, this fortress has no physical Instead, it is connected to the material world through some specific space-time anchor points."

As promised all along, Veronica was very frank when it came to the rebellious plan. She revealed the brief information about the Shadow Fortress without any concealment, allowing Gawain to have a general understanding of the ins and outs of the fortress .

"What is the specific method?" Pittman, who was still silent on the side, said suddenly, "How did you transform humans into shadow creatures?"

"The initial method was simple and crude. In a way similar to 'element erosion', we directly introduced the shadow power into the human body in batches, and gradually changed the material structure of the human body in the process. In this way, we created some Mutants with powerful shadow power, but the state of mutants is extremely unstable. Human souls cannot completely control those external shadow powers, and their bodies can hardly withstand huge mutations. The volunteers who initially underwent transformation soon became confused. The difference between the material world and the shadow world, and gradually lost the self-awareness of human beings..."

Veronica shook her head as she spoke.

"Afterwards, we accumulated experience and realized that it is not enough to simply introduce external forces and change the physical body. We also need to transform the soul level and cultivate the adaptability of the experimental body to the shadow force from the embryonic stage. Therefore, we started the 'artificial people' plan."

Gao Wen clearly felt that when Veronica mentioned the words "artificial human project", Amber's breathing paused for a beat.

But he didn't interrupt Veronica's narration, but listened to the other party's continuation——

"With the help of the biochemical technology experience accumulated in the 'Sinister' project, the Shadow project team has created a batch of synthetic embryos. The somatic cells of these embryos are derived from the first batch of failed mutants, but they have been deeply modified and stabilized. At the same time, we The same number of shadow dwellers were also captured. After combining and recoding their souls with human souls, we created a synthetic soul that can maintain humanity and control the power of the shadows at the same time. After injecting it into the embryo, it formed an 'artificial human '."

At this moment, Gao Wen finally couldn't help but said: "The soul of the artificial man is a shadow dweller?!"

"It's a mixture of humans and shadow dwellers," Veronica corrected. "Although it sounds unbelievable, the shadow dwellers have a soul structure similar to that of humans—in fact, they are almost a kind of 'spirit'." Humanoid creatures, except for the shadow clouds driven by them and the rune cloths of unknown origin, their remaining structure is only the soul-and in the ancient Gondor period, the empire mastered very advanced soul extraction and transformation technology .”

Having said that, the ancient disobedient pointed to himself and smiled lightly: "You should be able to imagine that I am also a user of this technology."

There is no doubt that "Ophelia Norton", who has survived for more than 1000 years relying on the parasitic form of the soul, has also undergone transformation at the soul level.

However, at this moment, Gao Wen didn't have the extra thought to pay attention to these technical details, he just subconsciously glanced at Amber.

She wasn't half-elf at all.

She is a "hybrid" of humans and shadow dwellers, a hybrid of soul level.

Amber also turned her head to look at Gao Wen. After a short thought and silence, she turned to Veronica: "How many of these 'embryos' were produced in total?"

"In the end, 120 survived," Veronica said. "This is the report I received back then."

"Then why was this project abandoned?" Gao Wen asked immediately, "Is there a hidden danger?"

What he is most concerned about now is the reason for the abandonment of this project, because it is directly related to whether there are any hidden dangers in those "artificial human embryos"-although Amber has grown healthy and healthy for decades, who can guarantee her Will it not go wrong someday in the future?

Veronica's gaze swept between Gawain and Amber, and after a few seconds of recalling, she said softly: "If the artificial man survives, there is no hidden danger in itself, but there is a problem with this project itself.

"After the experiment process entered the stage of embryonic cultivation, the entire Shadow Fortress and even the subspace rift where the experimental group was located entered an unstable state. Extra energy flows from unknown sources appeared in the energy circuit of the fortress, and mysterious and There was a short reverberation, and the projections of the shadow dwellers wandered in the building. In the later stage, some rooms even disappeared out of thin air, and some strange phenomena appeared in some corridors with additional branches.

"At the same time that the fortress was abnormal, the core personnel of the project also began to be troubled by frequent hallucinations and auditory hallucinations. Many people reported that they heard the embryos still in the culture warehouse talking, and heard the embryos using a hoarse noise. Talking to each other, but all the monitoring equipment did not find any evidence of this, and when the project progressed to the point where the embryos gradually grew into larvae, these weird situations intensified—the phenomenon of auditory and visual hallucinations began to spread to the central area. The room outside spread, and it became more and more difficult for researchers to distinguish the boundaries of reality, and the entire Shadow Fortress began to show a state of 'reality splitting'.

"We tried a variety of extraordinary countermeasures, but they all failed in the end. The risk assessment department judged that the experiments in the Shadow Fortress may have moved the 'field boundaries' other than the Shadow Realm and the real world. In order to prevent the project from breaking through the security The barrier attracted the attention of the gods, so I had to order the termination of the entire 'Shadow Project', and the Shadow Fortress was also abandoned."

This is the end of Shadowkeep.

Pittman looked into Veronica's eyes and asked slowly: "What about after that? Are those embryos just left in the fortress?"

"At that time the embryos had grown into larvae, but they were all in an inactive state. I ordered them to be destroyed-before they opened their eyes," Veronica said. "The project is out of control, and nothing can be left. Let those It is better for the experimental subjects to disappear before gaining self-will than to face death after they are born."

Amber took a deep breath and asked in a low voice, "Have they all been destroyed?"

"It was all destroyed, at least that's what the report I received said so."

"But there is actually one left." Amber stared at Veronica and said word by word.

Veronica raised her eyebrows slightly, but didn't speak, just responded to Amber's gaze.

Amber pointed to herself, her tone was very calm: "I am Android 36."

"Ah," Veronica said softly, but she wasn't surprised, "Is that so..."

Gao Wen looked at her: "What do you mean? Did you already..."

"No, I didn't recognize her before," Veronica shook her head, "but after you ask so many questions, how difficult is the truth to guess?"

While talking, she looked at Amber seriously for a long time, with a little sigh: "It turns out...you are like this when you grow up."

Amber couldn't help but took a step forward: "Don't you have anything else to say?"

"In 1000 years, few things have surprised me, and what happened today finally surprised me...I know this is not what you want to hear, but this is what I think most honestly," Vero Nika calmly responded to Amber's gaze, but her calm expression really didn't show much surprise and emotion, "I don't know how you survived, maybe this is related to the hallucinations that enveloped the entire Shadow Fortress at that time. Relevant, but your survival is a surprise to me - I'm glad to see you standing here in such good health."

"Oh? Isn't it a pity that I was not destroyed back then?" Amber stared at Veronica, "Isn't this a hidden danger for you?"

Veronica's answer was very calm and indifferent: "You have grown up safely and are no longer a hidden danger."

Gao Wen's eyes moved between Amber and Veronica, he thought that Amber's reaction would be fierce, but after a few seconds of silence, the other party just shook his head: "Then let's treat it like this .”

Her figure gradually disappeared into the air, and a gradually receding voice floated softly: "I'll go out first to blow some air."

Chapter 0682 The Ghost of Persistence

Amber left, Gao Wen quietly watched Veronica/Ophelia, who still looked calm and indifferent, while Pittman stood quietly aside, his eyes slightly squinted, as if closing his eyes to rest his mind.

"I thought you would leave with me," Veronica said to Gawain, "after all, you seem to care about your 'guard'."

"I know her well, she wants to be quiet for a while now," Gao Wen said, "Before that, I still have something to say to you."

"...The rebels are a group of paranoid and fanatical deviant people, and so is our plan," Veronica said frankly before Gawain spoke, "We try to keep humanity in our plan, but only humanity is Those who cannot fight against the gods and the doomsday—sometimes, some of our methods may seem to you as cold-blooded and cruel as those cultists, I hope you can understand this."

"Don't worry, I know this very well. The Abominable Project that Kamel participated in is not fundamentally different from the 'Shadow Project', and these plans have some similarities with the methods of the Death of All Things Society," Gawain shook his head, " The difference is, you're at least trying to stay human."

"It's no different - at least for a client like Miss Amber."