Chapter 943 - 942: Precious Knowledge
Chapter 943 - 942: Precious Knowledge
The Treefolk leader’s furious outburst couldn’t change any reality. Those vines that recklessly crossed the border, attempting to invade the interior of the explosion pit, had already suffered a devastating blow from the garrison troops of the Well of Deep Blue. As the beams swept through, the last bit of ash drifted away in the wind, and this small probe ended in failure just like the dozens of attempts before.
Another Treant beside the leader stepped forward. His branches were withered and twisted, yet a powerful magic coursed through his desiccated treetop. The intertwined branches tangled above the Treant’s head, forming a structure resembling an enlarged brain, looking eerie and unsettling.
The twisted creature with the "brain-like treetop" looked down at the crystal pillar hill in the explosion pit, watching as the magical brilliance between the crystal pillars gradually faded. He shook his treetop, and the flickering light within it shimmered unpredictably for a moment: "We have successfully controlled several Iron Legions, yet through these Steel Soldiers, we can only penetrate the outermost defenses... The vigilance of that soul in the depths of the Well of Deep Blue is too strong. She is constantly reconstructing the security patterns within the ruins, even though this place has not encountered an incursion for seven hundred years..."
The Archbishop hummed, his voice low and sinister: "Paranoia, stubbornness, delusions of persecution... That soul has been entrenched in this graveyard for seven hundred years, perhaps she’s already gone mad."
"A thought matrix wouldn’t go mad... The stability of steel and crystals is far more stable than your mental state, Mr. Archbishop," a dual female voice suddenly came from a short distance away, with a hint of mockery, interrupting the Archbishop’s muttered curses, "We heard you cursing endlessly just now — that’s unlike your usual demeanor."
The Archbishop turned, his amber eyes reflecting the figures of two elves approaching from nearby.
"Reyna, Ferna..." he said in a deep voice, "Are you here just to watch the spectacle?"
"Please calm down, Archbishop," said the Elven Twins as they arrived before the Treefolk leader, their identical faces bearing gentle sweet smiles as they slightly bowed, "As a plant, you should adopt a calmer and more stable mindset—being too agitated could damage your roots and treetop."
The Archbishop grunted discontentedly, the withered branches rustling: "Don’t flaunt your wittiness here — you might as well pay attention to the facts at hand. Look at this ruin, the deep blue energy is right before us, yet after all this time, we can still only hover around the outer defensive circle. You promised a method to penetrate this ancient defense system, but to me... your promise hasn’t been fully fulfilled."
"What we promised was only to infiltrate part of the Iron Horde’s minds, not the entire defense system," the Elven Twins said in unison, their expressions quite composed, "We believe your memory shouldn’t be so inadequate."
The Archbishop’s amber eyes stared at the Elven Twins, but after a few seconds of scrutiny, he withdrew his gaze: "You’re right, but you also mentioned that bypassing the matrix through the Ironman Corps’ mind network is feasible — clearly, you failed. Even though we’ve controlled several Iron Legions, we can’t enter the depths of the ruins."
"No, this idea is indeed feasible, it just needs some luck and timing. That’s why we told you to maintain enough patience," Reyna quickly said, "However, rest assured, we’re here today to bring you good news — forget that small failure just now, the time has come for our next infiltration step."
"Hmm?" The Archbishop’s eyes turned serious, "You mean..."
"We have been indirectly observing the situation inside the Deep Blue Fortress through the captured Iron Man mind cores, and based on the data collected just a few hours ago, we can confirm one thing..." Ferna’s sweet smile couldn’t suppress her rising intonation, "The Ophelia Matrix’s operational efficiency has decreased, Archbishop."
"The Ophelia Matrix’s efficiency has decreased?!" The Archbishop was momentarily stunned, then disbelief seeped into his tone, "Are you sure?"
"We are confident in our judgment, Archbishop," Reyna retracted her smile, her expression becoming serious, "We discovered from two days ago that the Ophelia Matrix was experiencing abnormal fluctuations. It seems she has undergone an enormous internal data exchange and reorganization — we still don’t know what she’s doing, but ever since that data exchange, her operational efficiency has been declining. It only stabilized a few hours ago, and it remains at a relatively low level up to now."
Reyna paused here, with Ferna seamlessly continuing: "According to our recent calculations, if the Ophelia Matrix maintains its current operational efficiency for forty-eight hours, there will be very small breaches when she reconstructs the internal defense security patterns. If the duration extends longer... the breaches will become exploitable, allowing us to push the infiltration line into the impact crater and possibly even take over part of the energy conduit from the outermost periphery of the Well of Deep Blue."
The Archbishop’s gaze fell on the Elven Twins, and the wood-like, sinister face showed no clear expression. However, the glimmer in those eyes disclosed that this severely twisted life form was in a state of relative excitement. He let out a hoarse laugh, but quickly grew skeptical: "Wait, since the changes happened two days ago, why didn’t you report then?"
"We needed to verify — although the Ophelia Matrix has been operating steadily for seven hundred years, she might experience brief, normal fluctuations due to internal self-maintenance or replacement of failing nodes. We needed to confirm she was genuinely having issues before reporting to you," Ferna said frankly, "Unless you’re willing to be repeatedly disturbed by frequent and meaningless trivialities, in which case my sister and I can report each detail meticulously."
The Archbishop stared at the Elven Twins for a long time, and only after a dozen seconds did he withdraw his gaze.
"Alright, I’m not interested in your ’details’, I respect our ’cooperative relationship’," he said blandly, "So now, show some partner sincerity and tell me how to proceed with deeper infiltration — we need the deep blue energy, even if we can control just one of its outer conduits, it would be a significant breakthrough."
Reyna and Ferna smiled.
They raised their heads, looking toward the distant Well of Deep Blue, watching the pure energy erupting from the tip of the crystal pillars rise into the sky like a gigantic sword, piercing through the murky clouds, stirring the gloomy vortex that blanketed the whole wasteland.
"Of course," the Elven Twins spoke in unison, "We will acquire the deep blue energy."
...
The connection to the land was completely lost just now.
Gawain rose from the dragon’s back, looking towards several special devices installed behind Melita Ponia’s shoulder blades — those devices had stopped relaying signals from the land. The holographic projection was showing error signs, and some of the base magic symbols were dimmed, a sign that even the basic acknowledgment signals had completely vanished, and all this happened faster than the technicians had anticipated.
He frowned: It seems that even the highest-powered and most sensitive special models cannot maintain links with the land after crossing the coastal boundary. If Magic Web communication is to continue to function over the ocean, it is necessary to set up relay nodes over the sea or lay some kind of communication facilities beneath the ocean.
As for launching communication satellites... considering this now might be a bit too premature.
The howling sea winds swept past Melita’s protective barrier, already quite faint by the time the sound reached his ears, and the sea surface glimmered with ripples under the sunset, showcasing a magnificent beauty unimaginable to those living on land.
Melita has reduced her altitude twice consecutively, and now she’s practically flying at low altitude.
"All the signals are interrupted," Amber scratched her head, "The signal attenuation speed over the ocean is indeed faster than on land. The large hub in Northport, logically, should be able to cover this area."
"I can lower the altitude even more; I am quite proficient in ultra-low-altitude flight," Melita’s voice came from the front, "Flying close to the sea surface can shorten the straight-line distance between your communication devices and the land, and the interference will be better."
"Please do, then," Gawain didn’t refuse her goodwill, as he did want to collect more data, "Lower the altitude."
"It’s just a small matter, just a flap of my wings."
Melita said casually, and then the powerful dragon spread her wings and adjusted her entire flying posture, lowering her altitude once again to almost the sea surface — the waves rolled under the dragon’s wings, and the passing airflow swept up the foam and debris floating on the surface, forming a broken white trail behind the dragon.
A buzzing sound came from those devices, among which two devices specialized in detecting response signals and identifying remote hubs automatically powered on. Some characters jittered out on the holographic projection above them, just as Melita said, in places closer to the sea surface, the magic interference condition improved — however, this did not last long.
Just a few minutes later, the connection was interrupted again, and this time it couldn’t be reconnected.
"Do you need me to circle around for a while?" Melita said thoughtfully, "Maybe we can find a more precise ’dividing line’."
"...No need," Gawain thought for a moment, then shook his head, "The equipment has already automatically recorded the relevant data. When we go back, the technicians will analyze it. The situation on the ocean changes rapidly, and the information you collect by circling here won’t be of much use."
"Alright then, I’ll need to increase altitude," Melita shook her head, "Flying higher means I won’t need to worry about the sea surface. There are several islands nearby, and I worry about crashing into them if I continue flying low."
As she spoke, this Lady Dragon forcefully flapped her wings, accompanied by a slight tilt and acceleration. The ocean and sky in Gawain’s field of vision began sinking downward, while Amber curiously shouted beside him: "Eh, have you crashed into a mountain before?"
"Of course not," Melita immediately said, "My flying skills are the best among my peers!"
Amber leaned close to Gawain and whispered quietly, "For some reason, I feel like she’s not telling the truth..."
Gawain maintained his dignified state and remained silent.
But he felt Amber was right...
Just then, Veronica, who had been resting with her eyes closed and hadn’t said much, suddenly stood up.
The "Saint Princess" walked forward and stood beside Gawain, looking into the distance and softly said, "We are getting close to the storm..."
"Oh my gosh!!" Amber on Gawain’s other side also exclaimed, "Are we really going straight through it?!"
In front of Melita’s flight path, a grand wall of clouds stood at the ends of the sky and sea. As the distance closed, the details on the magnificent cloud wall became clear to everyone’s eyes — it connected the ocean and sky, with large cloud masses moving horizontally on its surface. Under the storm’s suction, a large amount of seawater was drawn up into the air, falling back down again at the midpoint of the cloud wall, forming a long-lasting torrential rain and storm on the storm’s outer circle. Even though there’s still some distance, Gawain can clearly see how astonishing the power of the rainstorms and the upper-layer storm is — it’s undoubtedly a natural spectacle that humans at this stage couldn’t possibly challenge.
Even the most durable and powerful battleship of the Cecil Empire couldn’t.
And at this very moment, Melita’s flight path was directly pointing straight at the storm!!
"Of course, we are going through it," the deep voice of the Lady Dragon came from the front, full of relaxed indifference, "The scale of this storm is quite amazing; to bypass it would take huge effort and a lot of time."
As she spoke, she flapped her enormous wings again, the elemental symbols at the edges of her dragon wings lit up in succession. Under the propulsion of magic, her flight altitude started climbing quickly, while the storm cloud wall in Gawain and others’ sight descended swiftly.
"Can you bypass this storm from above the cloud wall?" Gawain immediately asked.
"Ah... To completely fly over the storm circle, you would need to reach near the boundary between the turbulent layer and the Steady-State Limit Layer, which is an altitude that even dragons can’t stay at for long," Melita’s tone carried a hint of humor, "We won’t fly that high — just reach the midpoint of the turbulent layer."
Gawain instinctively frowned, feeling that if according to Melita’s statement, the structure of the Eternal Storm may be a bit peculiar: "At that altitude, the storm’s power is weaker?"
"That’s right, the storm’s power is weaker there — of course, it’s still dangerous for general flying creatures, but for Dragonkin, it’s ’strong wind’ that can be endured," Melita said proudly, "I will use a magic shield to protect you, so just sit tight and enjoy the upcoming journey — I believe this will be very spectacular for you."
Is the wind strength weakening at higher altitudes? Is the "power source" of the Eternal Storm not the upper atmosphere, but... near the ocean?!