Chapter 1192: Chapter 1191: Danger Assessment

In Beltira’s secret laboratory, the atmosphere suddenly became tense and heavy. Bard didn’t speak for a long time afterward, instead, he kept recalling in his mind the elf sisters he remembered, their actions over the past thousand years, trying to reconstruct their trajectory based on the files from the theocracy Authority Council and the materials he obtained from the Oblivion Association in the past.

As a common technical personnel, his authority in the researcher sequence in the Sorin Region was not high, but as a "Unbeliever," one of the rare "successful experiment subjects" from the Oblivion Association who escaped the mental Steel Stamp in the old era, Bard had his own position in the theocracy Authority Council.

After a while, he raised his head and said slowly, "You say... their purpose of using some unknown technology to create a body after returning to the real world might not be to ’resurrect’ their ’sisters’ but because they want to bring something from the kingdom over there to our world, and that thing needs a vessel..."

He paused here, and after thinking for a moment, continued slowly, "But there’s something I can’t understand. If the one who returned from the kingdom was already mentally contaminated and became a kind of paranoid lunatic, then this contamination persisted for a thousand years, how did she manage to maintain the ability for rational thinking?"

Beltira looked into Bard’s eyes, waiting until he finished speaking, then said in a low voice, "So I have a bolder speculation, something more horrifying than your thoughts—

"Back then, the Defier Leader believed the one who returned from the kingdom after the accident was one of the Fyrna Sisters, and your guess is that this returned individual was contaminated by the kingdom and trying to bring a dangerous entity to the real world. But what if... neither of the Fyrna sisters actually returned back then? Perhaps in that terrible accident, they both died on the other side of the border..."

Bard evidently hadn’t thought in this direction before, upon hearing Beltira’s words, he instantly widened his eyes, and moments later, gasped, "Then what returned to the real world back then?!"

Instinctively, he no longer used personalized terms to describe the elven twins who returned to the real world a thousand years ago.

"Yes, what returned to our world back then... that’s what I’m most worried about now," Beltira said solemnly, "But all my conjectures are actually based on a tiny clue—a failure I encountered while trying to bring Belna Lightwind back to this world. It’s not sufficient evidence, so I hope you can provide some corroboration, at least make my speculation a bit credible."

Bard apologetically shook his head, "Unfortunately, it seems I can’t be of help in this regard, not only is my understanding of the Fyrna sisters far less than yours, but the limited information I have overlaps with what you already know. But I agree with all your speculations so far, and I think regardless of whether the evidence behind these speculations is sufficient or not, we should report them immediately—even though the Empire has not started the counterattack on the wasteland yet, it is still necessary to elevate the danger level of the Fyrna sisters at the King’s side to prevent future losses."

Beltira slowly nodded, "Indeed, this is all we can do at the moment."

The laboratory fell silent for a moment, Bard and Beltira seemed lost in their own thoughts, the only sounds were the faint flow of nutrients in various pipes and gases passing through chambers, while Beltira Lightwind remained in a slow confused state in the adjacent incubator, curiously observing the movements outside. She raised her hand and gently touched the direction where Beltira was, her expression seemed a bit worried.

"Then I’ll be leaving now," Bard said, "If I think of any information related to the Fyrna sisters after I return, I’ll inform you immediately."

"Okay, thanks in advance," Beltira nodded, simultaneously operating the fiber partitions and "leaf doors" in the laboratory to open a path to the upper levels, "This avatar still has things to handle here, so I won’t see you off—another avatar will meet you after you’re up, guiding you to the transport tube chamber."

Soon, Bard left the laboratory, in the vast bioengineering hall, only Beltira remained along with one by one growing cocoon containers, the lights in the distance gradually dimmed, the cocoons surrounding the pillar of support were also enveloped in darkness one after another, leaving only the lights above Beltira’s pillar shining.

After a while, bubbles suddenly rose in the container where Beltira Lightwind was, and the elven girl floating in the biomass solution slowly turned her head toward the exit direction, incoherent sounds emerged from some vocal organ above the cocoon, murky and dream-like: "Left..."

"Yes, left," Beltira said one phrase at a time slowly, "His name is Bard, you’ve met him, many years ago."

Beltira Lightwind tried to recall, her voice once again came from above the cocoon, "Yes, I have a memory. It’s already been... many years?"

"Yes, many years, many things have changed..." Beltira said softly, raising her hand and placing it on the transparent shell of the cocoon, "How do you feel now?"

Beltira Lightwind hesitated for a moment, she too placed her hand on the inner wall of the transparent shell, seemingly feeling the warmth transmitted from Beltira’s hand through the layer of bio-crystal—but Beltira’s hand wasn’t warm, it was just a low-cost avatar, with a cold wooden structure. The elf girl within the container slowly thought for two or three seconds before squeezing out a word, "Tired..."

"Do you want to sleep?" Beltira showed a slight smile, "Getting more sleep is good for you."

"No," Beltira Lightwind slowly shook her head, then gazed at Beltira with a worried look, "You, anxious, uneasy... I feel it."

Beltira was stunned for a moment, then showed a slightly helpless expression, "Even you felt it? Alright, I understand... After all, some parts of our soul are still connected, this connection seems impossible to eradicate... but I thought I had shielded my emotions quite well."

"Elves, sensitive beings," Beltira Lightwind said slowly, seemingly with some pride, "Can feel it."

Beltira was momentarily speechless, while Belna made a sound again after a moment: "When... can I go out?"

"Not yet," Beltira shook her head, "Your body is still unable to survive in the outside world. I haven’t resolved the issue of your nervous system’s self-collapse, and your soul also needs some time to slowly adapt to the ’sensation’ of having a body again... Recently, I’ve been trying to approach it from a different angle, using external magic runes or magical effects to stabilize your condition. Give me some more time, I will definitely get it done."

Belna didn’t speak. For a duration of over ten seconds, even Beltira couldn’t discern whether the elf inside the container was contemplating or had forgotten the current conversation, but after those ten seconds, Belna’s voice sounded again: "Want to... go home."

Beltira was taken aback, looking at the elf in the container, and after a long time, she softly broke the silence: "You will go home, you will definitely go home... This time, I promise."

...

In the morning, Veronica walked into Gawain’s study, accompanied by the diffuse essence of Holy Light, making the entire room brighter. Gawain looked up from the pile of documents he was handling and saw the "Saint Princess" surrounded by Holy Light. He felt a spiritually invigorating force being transmitted to him through the pervasive Holy Light, and a slight smile appeared on his face: "Thank you, it’s very effective."

"It helps to relax the mind and repair the subtle damage the body suffers from continuous work," Veronica said with a gentle smile, "You haven’t rested for a long time again, Your Majesty."

"I will arrange some time for myself to rest, but it’s probably unlikely for the time being, I can only try to combine work and rest," Gawain shook his head, then shifted the topic to business, "Have you seen the internal documents sent from Sorinburg?"

"The report submitted by Beltira?" Veronica nodded gently, "Yes, I came here after reading it."

"The speculation about the Fyrna-Lelena sisters is a chilling new viewpoint..." Gawain put down his pen, looking at the Defier Leader standing in front of his desk. The rising sunlight in the window spilled onto her face, seemingly merging with the emanating Holy Light, "I want to hear your opinion."

"It’s very shocking—and it carries a certain amount of evidence and credibility, yet we haven’t discovered any suspicious aspects of this matter or potential clues over those many years, which shocks me as well," Veronica stated without hesitation, "As the leader of the Defier, perhaps I should reflect on whether our internal security systems and regular personnel check processes had issues, but given that the old Defier organization has already disbanded, this task can be temporarily shelved."

Gawain was momentarily stunned: "Is that your sense of humor?"

"Surprised? I do joke—especially when there’s a need to lighten the mood."

"Alright, it’s a good cold joke," Gawain waved, "But what we need more now is to understand what happened to that pair of Elven Twins... Beltira’s speculation is chilling, but we must admit, it’s enough to alert us. The earliest intelligence on the Elven Twins came from you; do you think... Beltira’s statements could be possible?"

Veronica contemplated for a moment before speaking slowly: "First, I have to clarify one thing — back then, the matter of the Fyrna-Lelena sisters did attract the attention of the Defier leadership, quite the opposite, we focused on this for a long time.

"Someone was sucked into the ’other side’ of the ’border’ during an accident, possibly reaching the edge of some god’s kingdom, and was likely already contaminated before one of the individuals returned to our real world. The risk behind this was obvious. While the Defiers of those days might have been reckless with actions and had many bold and wild plans, when it came to gods’ ’security issues,’ our caution far exceeded our reckless enthusiasm.

"After the incident, the Fyrna sisters underwent extremely stringent observation and testing, including tests related to ’divinity’. We used the Eternal Stone Slate, every existing sacred symbol from various religions of the world to verify whether they were showing symptoms of divine contamination, and checked their mental state—even until they returned to the defied project and resumed their laboratory roles, continued for as long as half a year."

Gawain, who had not heard these details from Veronica before, was somewhat surprised and could not help but admit that these truly were thorough safety measures and extraordinarily cautious responses, yet this made him frown: "So, after such a rigorous examination, you found nothing... You confirmed that the Fyrna sisters were not divinely contaminated back then? No issues mentally either?"

"Mentally, they did have issues—obviously, they were already schizophrenic, weren’t they? I mentioned, many Defiers from those days had some mental problems, but divine contamination definitely was not present," Veronica firmly stated, "Even the slightest trace of contamination, they would never have been allowed to return to work. In this matter, the Defiers had extremely complete management systems."

Gawain was silent for a moment, habitually tapping his fingers on the armrest of the chair, the slow tapping sound accompanied him for a long time before he broke the silence: "Honestly, you all should have validated the mode by which the Fyrna sisters ’created’ an elven body using laboratory conditions back then, perhaps then something would have been discovered..."

"That was definitely an oversight in our work back then, but to be honest, even if we had validated that matter, we’re unlikely to have found anything," Veronica shook her head, "The main body of the defied Plan back then was focused on human beings, especially the bioengineering branch, including the ’divine evils’ project, was based on a human template. Therefore, most of our ’validations’ were based on human templates—back then, we hadn’t clearly realized the differences between elves and human beings on a soul level, and although the differences in the nervous system had been discovered, no one conducted live experiments in this aspect... This violated the silver elves’ traditions and wasn’t aligned with the objectives of the defied Plan.

"From the technical information available at the time, it was feasible to replicate a human body and control it with an external soul, so we ignored the issues behind the Fyrna sisters."

Veronica paused here, looking into Gawain’s eyes: "After all, that was a world a thousand years ago—maybe the technology of the Gondor Empire was more advanced than most countries today, but we were still limited by the era, and certain discoveries and developments only occurred later."

"...You’re right, blaming the ancients does no good," Gawain sighed softly, nodding helplessly—as he himself was considered an "ancient" in ordinary people’s eyes, "I believe the series of observations and tests you all conducted on the Fyrna sisters back then. They should genuinely be free from divine contamination... But their danger is indeed present. I don’t know what besides gods might be trying to enter our real world from the kingdom, but no matter what, it better not cross this border..."

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