Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 584 - 583: Hallucination

The corridors and rooms that had been silent for seven centuries have been reactivated again.

As they got closer to the core control area of the base, the corridors inside the "spine" became wider, with more and more flickering magic symbols and energy veins appearing on the walls. Elf-styled decorative pillars lined both sides of the spacious space ahead, and at the end of this wide corridor, all internal passages of the "spine" converged, forming a six-pointed star-shaped radiating hall. A cylindrical "room" was located at the center of the hall, protected by countless pipes, metal beams, and magical symbol pillars.

This was the control center of the sentinel towers, the place where the magic spirit mind was housed—in Gawain’s view, it was the central computer room of artificial intelligence.

The entrance to the machine room was tightly closed, with two beams of light slanting down from high above, illuminating a small area in front of the entrance. Amber looked up, staring at the outer wall of this cylindrical room, and saw a layer of hazy light and shadow floating on its top. Huge curtains hung down between the light and shadow, depicting the emblems of the Silver Empire and various human nations. Some of these had severely decayed under the erosion of time, leaving only ragged strips quietly hanging high above, like... shrouds.

Amber blinked; for a moment, she thought she saw something in those curtains—some grey shadows, writhing and curling, like sludge breeding and rolling in the dark corners, with vague human figures emerging from the breeding shadows, spying on the unexpected visitors who had suddenly intruded.

But in the next second, these things disappeared as if they were illusions.

"What’s wrong?" Gawain’s voice brought Amber back from her daze, "What are you staring at up there?"

"No... I must have seen it wrong," Amber blinked and rubbed her eyes, "By the way, what is that up there? It looks like there’s a cloud floating."

"That’s the magic power cloud top, and above the cloud top is the external space. The ceiling of this base is actually open, and the magic focuser extracts powerful energy from the earth’s veins and magic focal points, creating a strong magic power cloud top in the open area of the base. On one hand, it supplies the ’stele,’ and on the other hand, it maintains the entire base’s defense system," explained the Elven Mage Bannar. "If the cloud top extinguishes, the sentinel towers are finished, so it has been uninterrupted for seven centuries."

Amber seemed to understand with an oh, while Bannar approached the entrance of the cylindrical room and re-injected magic power into the elf relief on the entrance.

Fortunately, this time the door did not jam—he didn’t need to take out his bent wrench again.

The room housing the magic spirit mind opened, and the Steel Dragoon Warriors, led by Soldrin, guarded the room’s entrance while Gawain stepped forward with Amber into it.

A stunning blue glow filled the interior of the cylindrical room. Amber couldn’t help but gasp softly upon entering the room—she saw that the entire floor of the room was crafted from the purest and flawless obsidian, and on the night-black surface, intricate and complex magic symbol patterns were carved. These symbols emitted a faint blue light and resonated with the blue crystals inlaid throughout the room walls. In the center of the room, a black cube approximately one meter across was quietly floating in the anti-gravity field.

The surface of that black cube was adorned with straight blue lines, and the entire material appeared to be some kind of metal, with faint magic symbols floating on every plane divided by the blue lines, looking mysterious and profound.

As if sensing someone approaching, a pleasant ringing sounded from the cube, and then it began rotating. The blue lines divided it into countless smaller cubes, reassembling in a mesmerizing manner like a magic cube. A slightly mechanical synthesized voice then resonated in the room: "Organic life form detected approaching... identification in progress... builder authority, authorized visitor, commander... error, the commander authority does not fulfill logical criteria, recertification in progress, commander... error, the commander authority does not fulfill logical criteria, recertification in progress..."

The voice from the cube grew increasingly confused, and Gawain finally couldn’t resist coughing softly: "Ahem, I’ve been resurrected."

"...Voice recognition successful, organic life form magic pattern features confirmed, human being, resurrected individual, difficult to comprehend, incomprehensible... ignore error, correct the database, reload commander authority. Gawain Cecil, human being, leader, glad to see you again, the sentinel salutes you—the longevity is impressive."

The voice from the cube smoothed out. It continued to rapidly reassemble like a magic cube while saying, "The system has been running for 706 years, 22 days, 7 hours, 13 minutes, and 12 seconds. This is the first visitor interaction during the operation period. May I ask what has happened?"

Bannar waved his hand in front of the cube, releasing a special control spell before saying, "Sentinel, continue operation, we are here to check the system."

"Sentinel understood, continuing operation."

The cube emitted a low hum, then the constantly shifting cubes swiftly returned to their original positions. The entire cube became whole and orderly again and continued to float calmly in the anti-gravity field. Bannar then approached a nearby silver-white alloy pillar, activated an ancient magic array, and began inspecting the operation status of the "magic spirit mind."

Amber widened her eyes and exclaimed for the first time, "Wow—so this is the ’tower spirit’ of the sentinel towers?!"

"The term ’tower spirit’ refers to the artificial mind of the mage towers constructed by humans. The term used by elves is ’magic spirit mind,’ the terms are different, and the technologies are not interchangeable," Sonia explained, then curiously looked at the bewildered Amber, "Young lady, didn’t your father tell you about the Elf Kingdom?"

She deduced from Amber’s ear shape that this mixed-blood girl’s father should be an elf.

"I don’t even know who my biological parents are," Amber shook her head and said candidly, "I was adopted by two humans..."

"Ah, I’m sorry," Sonia felt a bit embarrassed. Her gaze towards Amber softened, "So humans raised you, no wonder you know so little about the elves... are your adoptive parents still around?"

Amber’s pointed ears twitched slightly: "My foster father is gone, but the other foster father is still here... uh, yes, both humans who adopted me were men."

Sonia paused, her expression slightly stunned: "So human customs have become so open in seven hundred years..."

Gawain was originally listening in amusement beside them, but he couldn’t hold back now: "Ahem, I think you might have misunderstood; the ones adopting Amber were..."

However, Sonia seemed unable to listen to Gawain’s subsequent words. This seemingly youthful elf mother had fallen into deep anxiety, muttering to herself, "This won’t do... Soldrin in such an environment... He wouldn’t be unable to find a girl he likes because of this, right..."

Gawain & Amber: "..."

Apparently, the elf mother had a significant misunderstanding about Amber’s two foster fathers, but before Gawain could continue explaining, Bannar suddenly broke the silence from a distance: "High-ranked Order Messenger, Duke Cecil, no fault records could be found here either."

This elven mage raised his head while speaking, only then noticed the slight awkwardness in the atmosphere on-site: "Ah, what were you discussing?"

Everyone’s attention immediately turned back to the main matter, and Gawain quickly waved his hand: "No, it’s nothing—did you say there’s no fault record here either?"

"Yes, the logs show that the sentinel towers have been operating normally," Bannar stepped aside, revealing a large number of illusion projections floating around the silver-white alloy pillar behind him. These constantly fluctuating elven texts showed the operational records of this sentinel tower over the past two to three years, "No alarm information was found for the first overload, only the last overload was recorded."

Sonia couldn’t help but frown as she looked at the metal cube in the center of the room: "Sentinel, inquiry."

The cube promptly responded: "Sentinel standing by."

"Did this tower experience any overload between two to four years ago?"

"Searching... no results. This tower did not experience overload during that time period."

"Everything was normal during that period? No faults whatsoever?"

"Everything was normal during that period, with no faults occurring."

The atmosphere on-site became serious and silent, and the few exchanged a glance subconsciously.

There is a problem with this artificial intelligence’s response.

Sonia had already brought in a clear conclusion—the first overload fault occurred at this very sentinel tower located in the southeastern Anzu! It had happened around three years ago before Gawain rose from the grave, and this fault had led to the devastation of the old Cecil territory by the aberrations.

However, the "Magic Spirit Mind," which had been operating for seven centuries without a shutdown, claimed... it was completely unaware of this fault!

Moreover, the sentinel tower did not report any fault to the central control center of the Silver Empire!

Gawain frowned and looked at Bannar, asking in a low voice: "Is the operation of the ’Magic Spirit Mind’ itself normal?"

"Everything is normal. I’ve checked all its ’mind nodes’—there are no signs of alteration or self-reassembly," Bannar said with a serious expression, "under these circumstances, sentinel towers cannot possibly rebel."

"Then the problem lies elsewhere," Gawain took a deep breath, "If even the sentinel towers have lost complete control over the towers, then we’re in huge trouble."

This was precisely one of the reasons Gawain insisted on checking the sentinel towers—these towers indeed have a problem!

However, as the control core of a sentinel tower, the Magic Spirit Mind had no fault record, which was precisely the most unsettling scenario.

The fault occurred in the blind spot of the system.

"What could possibly block the sentinel’s perception and control over the towers or alter its log results without leaving a trace?" Gawain looked at Bannar, the only expert at the scene, "If the towers were to overload, where would the alarm signal emerge first theoretically?"

"In theory, no alarm signal could bypass the sentinel’s monitoring," Bannar replied immediately, "Its priority is the highest."

Then Sonia, Gawain, and Bannar began a discussion and analysis of the sentinel’s operational mechanism in an attempt to identify the system’s potential breaches, while Amber standing nearby didn’t understand any of these technical matters and began to daydream.

She blinked her eyes, glancing around the room filled with blue soft light and magical energies.

Once again, she seemed to be hallucinating—

In a corner of the room, near a magic symbol focal point filled with magic power, an unexpected black rift appeared in the air, from which a shadow extended, growing and twitching in the air. Amber blinked her eyes, and the shadow did not immediately disappear. Instead, a blurry human figure emerged from within.

It was a figure without facial features or bodily details, as if bound by loose cloth strips, swaying twice in the black crevice, extending half its body, then gesturing to Amber.

Amber exclaimed in surprise: "Huh?"

The figure raised a hand, pointed sharply upward, then gradually faded away.

"What’s wrong?" Gawain noticed Amber’s distraction again and saw she was staring at an empty corner. He immediately asked, "What are you looking at?"

"I think I saw someone... a shadow inhabitant?" Amber blinked. Upon waking up, she found that the rift and figure had vanished. "Strange, why would there be a rift here... I couldn’t sense it at all..."

She then shook her head, curiously looking up: "Hey, Auntie, is there something up there?"

"Auntie..." Sonia was momentarily dumbstruck but still followed the gaze upward, "The ceiling... Beyond it is the Magic Power Cloud Top..."

At that moment, Bannar suddenly reacted: "Wait, it’s not just the Magic Power Cloud Top! It’s the Stele!!"