Sword of Daybreaker

Gao Wen froze for a moment, and then slowly sat down behind the desk with a serious expression. He raised his head and looked at Veronica's eyes and saw that the ancient rebel's expression was more solemn than ever... ...Even solemnly to the point of being somewhat depressed.

  The gentle smile that is similar to a "mask" has faded from her face for some time. On this occasion where there are no outsiders, the real Ophelia Norton is standing in front of Gawain.

"There are some things you don't want to say, so I have never asked," Gawain watched Veronica and said slowly, "As an ancient Gondor soul that has survived to this day, you never explained yourself in detail. How did you survive the imperial capital explosion back then, and you haven't explained how you exist now. As a rebel wandering in the human world, you haven't explained where your information about the wasteland comes from."

  Veronica stood quietly across from the desk. After a few seconds of silence, she said softly: "If you must know, now I can..."

"No, if you don't want to speak, I still won't force you to speak," Gawain shook his head, "I just want to say that I have given you enough trust and...tolerance. This requires some equal honesty. You have The protection of rights involves the secrets of one's own privacy or one's own bottom line, but for those things that may pose a threat to the country outside the barrier, I hope you can tell them frankly."

Veronica closed her eyes slightly, and then suddenly bent down slightly and saluted Gawain very solemnly. Her voice was as soft and sweet as ever, but it seemed to be a little warmer than before: "Please forgive me. I did not deliberately conceal this arbitrarily decision, but I am too accustomed to logical and data-level deductions, but ignore the variability of ordinary human society in the development process. Now I will tell you everything I know, and the specifics should be How to respond... is up to you."

  Speaking of this, she paused, seeming to be looking for a suitable topic to start, and then continued: "The Deep Blue Well... is actually still running."

Gawain’s pupils shrank in an instant. This shocking news made his heart pound, but then he remembered the vision he had observed when he overlooked the Gondor Wasteland on a certain occasion—despite it. The wasteland is shrouded by a powerful energy field and heavy clouds. The satellite’s monitoring perspective can hardly see any details on the land, but when the conditions are right, he did see a strong spot in the wasteland center. The flash of light appeared, that was the location of the Deep Blue Well in the past!

Surveillance records from a long time ago were suddenly confirmed, and the shock in his heart quickly calmed down. Gawain's expression changed slightly and then returned to calm. He stared at Veronica's eyes: "How was it preserved? Seven hundred years. The big explosion before... the Deep Blue Well should be at the core of the explosion."

"You are calmer than I thought. Is it because you also grasped some information in some way?" Veronica looked at Gawain with some surprise, but she wisely did not continue to ask questions, but answered with the flow. The other party asked, "The Deep Blue Well is indeed the core of the big bang, but the details of the explosion are not the same as the perception of later generations-this involves the'essence' of the Deep Blue Well itself.

  "In your memory, what is the Deep Blue Well?"

Veronica suddenly threw a rhetorical question, which made Gawain think about it and quickly gave the answer. It is also the answer that most people who know the Gondor Empire can give: "That was from the ancient Gondor Empire. The energy core, the largest magical focus in history, consists of four reaction towers, four arcane reflux chambers, and a main magical surge source vent..."

"This is indeed the public's cognition, but in fact, the reaction tower, arcane reflux cavity, and gushing source vents... are all built by humans to facilitate the extraction of energy from primitive magical energy.' "Affiliate facilities' nothing," Veronica nodded, "Before the builders of the Gondor Empire built these things, the energy fissure at the core of the Deep Blue Well had spewed on this continent for many years-its history exceeded Human civilization itself has even surpassed the record of the silver elves. It is firstly a natural magic focus, and secondly the extraction devices in people’s cognition, and the true scale of this magic focus...maybe far surpasses everyone’s. Imagine.

"The gushing'magic fountain' in the capital of Gondor in the past should essentially be just a tributary of the deep blue well exposed to the material world, and its true and complete context is hidden in all elemental realms and half positions connected to it. Even near the border of the Kingdom of God, we don’t know how far it extends in the depths of this world, but it is certain that it is part of the structure of our planet, and it is a large part of it. As far as a planet is concerned, even if the kingdom on it is destroyed countless times, even if its ecological circle is reset countless times, the planet itself is not damaged.

"So what the Deep Blue Well Big Bang destroys is only the man-made extraction devices. As the body of the'well', the energy fissure in its core can be said to be intact after completing an unprecedented release of magical energy-more than seven hundred years ago. At the last moment, I noticed the abnormality of Deep Blue Well and its true structure, and tried my best to use its huge underlying structure to buffer and channel the magical energy that was nowhere to be released. On the whole, I failed. The chaotic magic energy gushing out of the well formed a magic wave impact. According to the current view, it formed a'little magic wave' and destroyed the entire empire, but in fact I still succeeded a small part..."

   Gao Wen frowned slightly: "A small part?"

   "I saved my research base and the main duct of the Deep Blue Well," Veronica said, "right below the Deep Blue Well."

   Gawain suddenly reacted. The broad imagination accumulated in the previous life and the many experiences in this life made him quickly reason out many things. He stared at Veronica: "So, you are actually still in that research base now?!"

  Veronica showed a somewhat unexpected expression again, she looked at Gawain: "Actually I...well, yes, I'm still in that research base."

As she spoke, she smiled: "I didn't expect you to immediately think of this layer. This does not conform to my perception of you, nor does it conform to the way of thinking of ordinary people... Your keen insight is really only Does it stem from wisdom?"

   "It's just a flash of light," Gawain said casually, and then asked, "That research base is still operating? What else is there?"

Veronica nodded gently and replied: "There is also an Ironman Corps still in service. On this basis, I spent centuries repairing and rebuilding the Ironman Corps production and maintenance facilities, and renovating the Deep Blue Well. The ground structure of the main duct extracts magic power from it to maintain the operation of all facilities."

  Gao Wen was stunned: "You said there is still a running iron corps in the depths of the wasteland?! And you have repaired the related production and maintenance facilities, and even partially restored the Deep Blue Well?!"

   "Yes-but you don't have to be so excited, they are all small in scale, smaller than you think."

"So for so many years, you have been doing these things in the depths of the wasteland while projecting your spirit into the human world outside the wasteland in some way, just like'Veronica' at this moment, observing the outside "The changes in the world," Gawain looked serious, and at the same time couldn't help sighing, "An iron corps... To be honest, if you didn't listen to what you said, I can't believe this is true, how did they escape Was it that strong magic energy impacted?"

"I created a large-scale anti-magic shield in the underground facility-supported by the main duct of the Deep Blue Well itself, which allowed it to resist the powerful magical impact of the time," Veronica replied. " In fact, even so, the remaining iron man is only a small part. At that time, a total of sixteen iron man corps were stationed as garrisons near my research base. I set up independent anti-magic shields for each place. As a result None of the fifteen stations were able to withstand the impact, and only one survived."

Gawain rubbed his eyebrows, digesting the explosive information that suddenly came to him. As his thoughts gradually straightened out, he looked up at Veronica: "So you are actually trapped in the deepest part of the wasteland— —Although you have restored a base as your refuge, and there is a running Ironman Guard, these things are obviously not enough for you to retreat from the center of the wasteland to outside the magnificent wall..."

"I didn't think about evacuation... Although in a sense, I was indeed trapped in the wasteland center," Veronica shook her head slightly, "I still have tasks that have not been completed, including continuing research. The structure of the Deep Blue Well and observing the changes in the wasteland, and by surrendering to the gods, I can also move outside as I am now, so it does not matter to me whether to evacuate there."

"Well, this is your choice, and to be honest, I can't help you much now," Gawain nodded, without forgetting what the topic was at the beginning, "Now I have a general understanding of yours. The situation and the truth about the Deep Blue Well-we can talk about the cultists who are in the wasteland around the corner. Do those cultists have anything to do with what we just talked about? Are they thinking about the Deep Blue Well?"

"It's not just about to move, I suspect that they are already taking some action," Veronica said with a serious expression. "Recently, there have been some abnormal signs in the core area of ​​the wasteland. I lost some of the iron man soldiers. Signals, and some soldiers discovered during patrols that the energy conduit near the border of the base was damaged or altered-the technique is very superb, and it cannot be the work of those wandering aberrations or unconscious magical spirits. ."

   Gawain frowned slightly, he unconsciously tapped the table top with his fingers, and asked casually: "Did you not see anything directly?"

"...For some reason, I can only stay in the core of the base deep underground," Veronica replied. "I understand the iron soldiers patrolling the surface and the few sensors and monitoring devices near the energy pipes. The only channel to the external environment. This may be ironic... In that harsh environment, my knowledge of things around me is not even better than my knowledge of the city of Cecil, thousands of miles away. Because compared to the layers of restricted ontology, this interactive medium named'Veronica' has at least complete freedom of movement and can touch the real world."

Gawain couldn’t help but become very curious about the true state of Veronica Ophelia’s "ontology", but he knew that this matter already involved privacy, and it seemed that the other party was reluctant to talk about it. Did not actively follow up. He quickly turned his attention back to the cultists: "According to the information we got from Bertila, the branch of the Society of All Things inside the Majestic Wall should have been active on the Gondor Wasteland for a long time... …Have you never caught them for so many years? Haven't you dealt with them directly?"

"I have said that my...'territory area' in the wasteland is actually very limited. The Iron Man Corps can only move in the ruins of the old imperial capital and the narrow areas on the edge of the ruins. Operate within this range," Veronica said regretfully. "Compared with the whole wasteland, my perception range is extremely small, and the cultists should have been active near the magnificent wall before. It is mine. Blind field of vision. In fact, if you hadn't uprooted everything, I didn't even know that there was a force hiding outside of my refuge."

"It sounds a bit scary," Gawain stopped tapping the tabletop, he pinched his chin thoughtfully, "You don't know them, but those cultists obviously know you, at least They know that the Deep Blue Well is still running-they have been in peace with the Deep Blue Well for the past few centuries, as if they were deliberately moving around you, but recently they have suddenly become bolder and even steal yours. Soldier, steal your energy...There must be a reason."

"Steal...Yes, they are indeed thieves," Veronica said in a deep voice, but there was no anger in her tone. In fact, her mood swings are extremely weak in most cases, just like her human Emotions have been wiped out in hundreds of years of work, and the gentle and friendly appearance in the ordinary days is just a mask simulated by experience. "I can't think of why they suddenly acted recently, but maybe this is not the same as the magnificent. Everything outside the wall will eventually be wiped out."

"Half of them were wiped out, and the other half started to adopt some backup plan," Gavin thought, and from the open window came the wind of restlessness in the late spring. "It seems that this matter needs to be with Bertila. Check it...but I don’t think she can help. The Death Cultist who is operating in the wasteland is too secretive, and many secrets are even hidden out of the sight of the original Master Franken. Besides... if there is any'backup plan', Bertila should have reported it long ago."

He shook his head, took note of the incident for the time being, and then asked: "Do you have any ideas about the purpose of those cultists? They are obviously thinking of drilling the Deep Blue Well... Do you think they need such a huge amount of energy? What are you going to do?"

"There are too many directions for guessing, and too little exact information to draw conclusions with reference value," Veronica said. "The energy of the Deep Blue Well can really do too many things. Those who can control it gain power second only to gods, and can also be used to reshape the environment or destroy certain things. For those cultists entrenched in the wasteland, each of these things is worth their risk. Reason."