Chapter 1244: Chapter 1243: Whirlpool

Enya’s words made Gawain frown for a moment and fall into brief thought.

Of course he had considered this possibility—the Voyager’s legacy was not limited to those things in space, but also included the towers on the planetary surface, the orbital elevators, and the ancient mechanical legion that the sea demons had mentioned, that once occupied the Southeast Continent. If Modir Vealt had really come into contact with these things back then and sensed a crisis from them, it was entirely possible that he would call them "sentinel towers."

But if it really was those things... then they truly lay beyond the border that human being civilization could reach.

The three Gods of Yore began to discuss in low voices, speaking of fragments of memory that only they knew, already buried in the ancient flow of history. Enya spoke of what she knew about the "Voyager," of the many traces left behind during the brief layover of that vast fleet that had descended upon this planet. Amon then brought up the impressions he had left from that fleeting glimpse of the ancient facilities in space, and the clues he had observed.

Mirmina’s understanding of these things was not as thorough as the other two, but she wielded the authority of magic, and the Transcendent in magic were all erudite scholars. Through these numerous shallow believers, Mirmina held what was perhaps the most comprehensive knowledge in this world about ancient legends, obscure research, and hidden history. And in many cases, the scattered legends held by mortals were very likely the reflections of certain truths from the Ancient Era.

In the end, Gawain also spoke of what he knew about the Voyager’s legacy—at this small table, his identity and his relationship with the Voyager’s legacy were no secret. As a "Wanderer from Outer Realm" who had once threatened Enya with an orbital strike, his understanding of those ancient legacies was at times even greater than that of these ancient Goddess of Nature.

Yet when all the ancient fragments of memory were pieced together, the clues concerning the "sentinel towers" were still a complete blank—the warning mentioned in Wilder’s "book" seemed like a shadow that had appeared in the world out of thin air, and not even the gods knew where that shadow had come from.

"It seems we’re just wasting time by making random guesses here," Enya finally drew this exhausting topic to a close. She shook her head slightly, her gaze falling on Gawain. "Perhaps only after you see Modir with your own eyes will you discover some clues—in the meantime, let’s set those ’sentinel towers’ aside."

"Why don’t we talk about that mysterious ’High Existence’ behind Amber?" Mirmina looked up at the figures around the table, curiosity showing on her face. "What do you all make of it?"

"I don’t know who that ’High Existence’ is, but I know... there are many things in this universe that lie beyond our understanding," Enya said slowly, deep in thought. "I once saw the Voyager’s fleet warp from the depths of the Star Sea to this planet’s orbit, and I once saw terrifying floods of energy pierce the kingdom’s great barrier. In that vast Expedition Fleet of the Voyager, there were many groups you could not even imagine... even entire civilizations. They lived aboard immense Immigrant Starships, setting sail from distant home planets, heading for one habitable world after another—sometimes leaving seeds behind, sometimes guiding new civilizations to weigh anchor and set out..."

Enya’s account made both Amon and Mirmina unconsciously widen their eyes. Born in the ’post-Voyager era,’ they could not imagine what that ancient and magnificent spectacle would be like. Enya, meanwhile, suddenly let out a soft sigh.

"The Dragonkin missed their chance to gaze upon the starry sky back then, but whether it was fortune or misfortune, before the door leading to the stars was closed to us, we still saw the scenery in the Star Sea. I never had the ability to leave this planet, yet in that fleeting glimpse I came to understand one thing..."

"What did you understand?" Gawain raised his eyebrows slightly and asked without thinking.

"Compared with the whole vast galaxy, no matter how great the events occurring on a single planet may be, they are merely an inconspicuous spark. And even the vast galaxy is nothing more than a segment of the Voyager’s eternal expedition—creatures like us, labeled ’gods,’ do not even possess the power to truly govern an entire planet... let alone understand the secrets deep among the stars."

"...You suspect that the ’High Existence’ behind Amber does not belong to our ’world’?" Gawain’s brows knit tightly, his tone growing very serious. He knew that on this planet, the number of beings capable of extending their gaze to the Star Sea was vanishingly small—and someone like Enya, who could both look to the stars and command vast knowledge while having personally witnessed the Voyager’s existence, was truly unique. Her judgments might not be infallible, but under no circumstances could they be ignored.

"Most of what happens on this planet is ’known’ to me, especially in the domain of Goddess of Nature," Enya smiled faintly. "Even if they are not gods, but Demigod-like, god-adjacent, fake god-like beings, I am well aware of all of them; every ripple in the deep-sea is familiar to me. So now that something has appeared that I do not recognize... I can only conclude that It does not belong to our ’known border.’"

The gods and mortals around the table all fell silent for a moment, until Amon suddenly raised his head and glanced at the lush golden oak tree. His gaze seemed to penetrate the virtual branches and the great barrier of the neural network, looking toward the sky in the real world. Only after a few seconds did he withdraw his gaze, and he sighed softly, his expression complicated: "I really want to go ’up there’ and take another look..."

"Up there again?" Mirmina immediately glared at him. "So you can get chased and pounded by the patrol fighters and Anti-Divine Missiles one more time?"

"They won’t treat me as an enemy anymore," Amon shot a glance at Mirmina. "I’m just a bit regretful that back then I didn’t even get the chance to appreciate how magnificent that Star Sea was before they shot me down..."

"Unfortunately, you no longer have the ability to break through the atmosphere now," Mirmina shook her head. "Having been cut off from the support of the tides of thought, you’d be doing well to have half the strength you used to."

At these words, Amon immediately looked a little dejected. The retired God of Nature was like an old man struck by reality, shaking his head and sighing as he muttered under his breath, "I’m done for, but who’s to say mortals won’t make it up there one day? Didn’t the Dragonkin just manage it once not long ago..."

No one paid any attention to Amon’s constant muttering. After a brief silence, Gawain suddenly spoke: "About those Shadow Sand Dust Amber brought back—what do you make of them? She says her faith is not directed toward Lady Night, yet she carried something back from Lady Night’s kingdom. All signs make me suspect... that she and that Goddess of the Night who has withdrawn from the real world may still be connected, only it’s not the connection between believer and god..."

"Of course it’s not the connection between believer and god. Have you ever heard of a believer who strolls around their own god’s kingdom and then knocks down walls to take some pieces home? Is that something a believer would do?" Amon had already shaken off his previous dejection, and at these words he immediately spoke with a strange expression. "I was shocked when I heard what Amber had done just now. If not for the most basic rationality and logic, I would almost suspect it was just her masterful thieving skills at work."

Gawain was left speechless by this assessment, with only one sentiment in his heart: that universal disgrace’s talent for sneaking and pilfering had now been officially endorsed by the God of Nature...

"You take a stroll through an ancient kingdom, come back and can just ’steal’ part of an ancient Goddess’s authority along the way? Ever since you gained complete freedom you haven’t changed much in other ways, but your imagination grows by the day," Goddess of Magic said casually after hearing Amon’s words, then turned her gaze to Enya. "We’d like to hear your view. After all, Lady Night is a very old Goddess—the era when She was active..."

"I’m not familiar with Her," Enya shook her head before Goddess of Magic could finish, "but there is one thing I still haven’t figured out after all these years... I don’t understand how She survived back then."

"Wasn’t it said that She slipped past Voyager’s Hunter Fleet?" Gawain asked on reflex. "And then hid in a place even you couldn’t find..."

"What I can’t figure out is how She avoided that pursuit," Enya looked into Gawain’s eyes, pale-golden pupils solidified with ancient memories. "I’ve said it before: back then, aside from the Talronde Pantheon, among the ancient Goddesses only Shadow and Storm survived the Voyagers, and you’ve seen the God of Storm’s condition. Calling that ’survival’ is hardly accurate—what remained was merely some flesh retaining residual neural reflexes. When the sea demons descended upon this planet, the true Storm Authority almost immediately shifted away from that mass of flesh which could neither live nor die. Yet that ’Lady Night’... according to the intelligence you brought, She seems to have not been injured at all, even retaining a remarkably complete level of power..."

"So that means She ran fast enough back then?" Goddess of Magic remarked offhand. "Or maybe She hid really well..."

"If you’d truly witnessed the Voyagers’ fleet, you would never say such things," Enya shook her head. "For a fleet capable of crossing the vast Star Sea and accurately pinpointing one tiny planet after another in a universe measured in light-years, no matter how sophisticated your concealment techniques are on this little planet, they are meaningless. Even if you exile the kingdom to the deepest depths of the deep-sea, the Voyagers have several kinds of weapons that can bore through all the layers, hunting you from the material world all the way to the border of the knowable world.

"The Goddesses who survived on this planet back then did not do so thanks to clever hiding or fleeing. The Dragon Gods survived because the Dragonkin of Talronde chose voluntary isolation and embraced theocracy; the Voyagers, due to their own ’principles’, did not strike. As for the God of Storm... in my eyes that hardly counts as ’survival’ at all. Yet Lady Night... She was chased by an entire fleet, and now She appears utterly unscathed."

Gawain thought for a moment and said, uncertainly, "After all these years, She healed?"

Enya pondered, then spoke slowly: "It’s not impossible. Even Amon has reached the day of shedding His bonds and seeing His flesh restored. Once freed from the shackles of the divine, the wounds left by the Voyagers *can* potentially heal. But you must understand: back then, Amon was merely hunted by some automated weaponry—that is in no way comparable to the Voyager Fleet from 1,870,000 years ago. Being hunted by that fleet and remaining alive is itself suspicious."

Amon and Goddess of Magic looked at each other, then turned to this former Dragonkin Goddess. After a long moment, Amon finally asked, uncertainly, "Are you implying that... the Voyagers caught up with Lady Night back then, but didn’t strike?"

"I don’t know. The situation on this planet at that time was already mad. Aside from the suddenly descended Voyagers and the Dragonkin entrenched in Talronde, only a few Mortal Settlements struggling on the brink still retained their sanity across the whole world. The actions of the Goddesses had already slipped out of control, utterly chaotic under the Zenith Fleet’s offensive. I don’t know what transpired on such a chaotic battlefield, nor what the final moments of those Goddesses looked like. I only remember what the world was like after the Voyager Fleet departed, taking with them the survivors from the other continents... and Lady Night—by then, Her whereabouts had long since become unknown."

The old mist had yet to disperse, and new doubts were already rising. Gawain did not know how much truth lay hidden behind these ancient secrets; his focus returned to the earlier question. "The Voyagers’ affairs likely can’t be fully investigated by anyone now. I’m more concerned with what exactly is going on between Amber and Lady Night. The sand she brought back—though it has degraded considerably—is undoubtedly some kind of ’variant’ of Shadow Sand Dust..."

"Have her gather more ’samples’—some for the laboratories, some for me," Enya said at once. "I can’t answer your question right now. Everything will have to wait until we’ve studied it before we can say anything definitive."

"All right, I’ll have her prepare more," Gawain nodded immediately. "We’ve already tested them. Once that sand is summoned, it remains stable in the real world. As long as she doesn’t actively reclaim it, it won’t dissipate."

A gust of wind blew in from the direction of the street beyond the plaza, stirring the lush branches of the golden oak. Leaves scattered down; some landed on the table, then quietly faded like a dream under the neural network’s cleanup mechanisms.

Gawain rose amidst the windborne leaves. He glanced at the clock floating in his field of view and nodded lightly to the three Gods of Yore before him. "It’s about time. I have to return to the real world and arrange the upcoming journey to Talronde—thank you, all three of you, for your help today."

"We didn’t really help with anything this time," Amon said with a smile, shaking his head. "We just analyzed a whole pile of useless chatter and even burdened you with new questions."

"New questions are sometimes a gain in themselves. They mean that one day in the future new clues may emerge that become the key to the truth." Gawain smiled as he spoke; a thin, pale-golden curtain of light was already gradually unfolding behind him.

But just as he was about to log out of the neural network, Enya suddenly spoke: "Do you still remember what I said the first time I met Amber?"

"The first time you met Amber?" Gawain froze for a moment. "You mean back in Talronde..."

"She claimed to be the chosen of the Goddess of Shadows, yet even then I sensed no ’chosen’ aura from her. Even so, I still felt that she... was exceedingly special."

"I remember now," a memory nearly forgotten surfaced abruptly, and Gawain halted his logout operation at once. "You still haven’t explained what exactly makes her special."

"Her soul... light and insubstantial like a phantom, yet maintained in an extremely stable state. I don’t know whether this is due to her ’Artificial Human’ origin, because there may be no second individual in this world like her," Enya said slowly. Her words gradually brought a more serious cast to Gawain’s expression. "Now she has drawn in an unknown High Existence, and established a connection with Lady Night’s kingdom... My friend, the peculiarities about her have grown so complex they defy explanation, until ’being special’ itself has become her very peculiarity.

"So keep watch over her. After all, she’s entangled herself with so many mysteries. If these mysteries truly form a vortex, then I fear you may be the only one capable of pulling her out."

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