Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 465 - 464: The Black Trap

To be honest, Gawain was really startled when Tiel suddenly emerged from the water—these sea demons, it seems, are essentially elemental creatures, and when this sea caterpillar was lurking in the water, it gave off no sign at all. When it suddenly popped its head out, if Gawain had a brick in his hand at that moment, he probably would have thrown it...

After calming himself, Gawain looked at Tiel swimming around in the water: "What are you doing soaking in the river so late?"

"Where else would I be if not in the river, on the shore?" Tiel responded righteously, "I’m a sea demon, a water elemental."

"... That does make sense..." Gawain rubbed his chin, then suddenly realized something was off, "Wait, if I’m not mistaken, you should be at the shipyard guiding the workers right now?"

Tiel has now become the ship technology advisor for the territory. Although she still tries to find every possible moment to catch up on sleep, according to the reports from her subordinates, when she’s at the shipyard, this sea caterpillar is indeed working seriously.

Like most of the factories in the territory, the shipyard also operates a three-shift rotation. The craftsmen work overtime repairing the ships confiscated from the southern aristocrats to cope with the increasing river transport pressure during the large-scale post-war construction of the southern borders. At the same time, under Tiel’s guidance, they strive to learn the sea demons’ navigation technologies and research how to build new ships—if Gawain is not mistaken, Tiel should be staying at the shipyard at this time...

"Haha... I’ve finished today’s scheduled work. They’re currently testing the strength of some materials, which doesn’t require my supervision, and I’m not familiar with the materials you land people use," Tiel said while swimming toward the shore, as starlight scattered on her wet long hair, emitting a peculiar glow, "So I came out early..."

Gawain was speechless for a moment: "Doesn’t that mean you sneaked out...?"

"No one found out," Tiel shook her head indifferently, "I secretly slipped out through the drainage pipe..."

Gawain: "..."

Does this sea caterpillar really not realize she’s speaking to the biggest boss here? She is describing her sneaking out right in front of him without any psychological pressure...

Gawain couldn’t help but be intensely curious about the social structure and customs of the sea demons. He squatted down and looked at Tiel, who was leisurely soaking in the water: "Are all sea demons as carefree as you? Do you ever have any worries?"

"Carefree? I don’t feel like it... but from your perspective, perhaps we are," Tiel vigorously slapped her tail in the water and suddenly leapt out, flopping onto the ground next to Gawain like a salty fish, then continued slapping her tail while saying, "Our race... can live for a long time and has experienced a lot, so we’ve seen too much, which makes us seem a bit different from you. Compared to us, even your so-called long-lived elves are relatively young... Ah, finally rolled over."

Gawain glanced at this salty fish that struggled a while before turning over on the shore, finding it hard to see any hint of the "ancient deep-sea race" demeanor or grace from such a playful character, but he knew what Tiel said was true: as an ancient race that had witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations on land season after season, these deep-sea salty fish have ample qualifications to view any species on land as "children."

In this regard, perhaps only the satellite spirit of his original body can match the deep-sea salty fish.

But he didn’t intend to discuss the topic of ancient qualifications with Tiel, instead, he shifted his gaze to the banks of the White River illuminated by the Magic crystal lamps, and after a moment of silence, he asked, "Having lived here for more than a year, what do you think of this place?"

"The development is fast, the order is good, there are many novel things. Although it can’t be considered advanced, your technology route still can give me some inspiration," Tiel propped herself up with her tail and commented fairly, "However, there are many hidden dangers, mostly brought by rapid development."

Gawain looked at Tiel with interest: "Specifically?"

"If you don’t mind harsh words, I’ll tell you," Tiel nonchalantly patted her tail, "You’re advancing too far ahead, so few people can truly keep up with your pace. More than half of the people in your ruling agency know only what to do, but not why; your population and territory have expanded too quickly, which will inevitably cause chaos in remote areas, and this chaos cannot be solved until you’ve trained enough administrative personnel; your military is strong but lacks true tempering, they’ve not seen enough blood and still need more trials by fire; your territory is developing extremely fast, but it will slow down eventually, and once it does, industries that thrived on rapid development will face problems—there’s already this much that I can see."

Gawain looked at Tiel with slight surprise: "I didn’t expect you to observe so much..."

"I’m just lazy, not blind, and I do read newspapers regularly—although it’s a bit troublesome that I always get them wet," Tiel said, glancing at Gawain, "But, come to think of it... you probably already know these hidden dangers yourself, right?"

"How could I not know," Gawain smiled wryly, admitting Tiel’s assessment candidly, "But even with hidden dangers, we must press forward, for to stagnate would mean the end of the state and the downfall of the family."

"Anyway, you’ve already captured the Rocky Ridges Fortress, which provides a foundation for addressing these hidden threats. As long as you develop and digest steadily, these shortcomings will gradually be resolved."

Gawain didn’t expect this deep-sea salty fish to seriously analyze something like this, or to have such a serious discussion with him. But he also knew that this was Tiel’s way of showing "sincerity." Recently, this deep-sea fish had been visiting several research departments almost daily, even significantly cutting down her sleep. Apparently, the arcane energy control technology behind the "Rainbow Cannon" was really important to the sea demons stuck in a technical bottleneck. In the face of racial interests, even Tiel, who was so lazy she could almost die in place, became reliable.

"Having this digestion time would be great," Gawain couldn’t help but murmur softly, then asked a question out of curiosity, "Actually, there’s something I’ve always been curious about—during the long years of your sea demons observing land civilizations, with one civilization after another rising and falling, has there never been a single civilization that withstood the chaotic wave?"

This question was truly important, and Gawain really wanted to confirm something: was the chaotic wave truly insurmountable for mortals?

Since the sea demons started observing the land, during the dozens of seasons of civilization’s ups and downs, countless smart and brave races had been active on this land. Were they all destroyed by the chaotic wave?

Facing Gawain’s question, Tiel unusually showed a hint of hesitation and conflict.

Gawain noticed the subtle change in Tiel’s expression: "Is there some hidden truth?"

"Actually, it’s not a hidden truth, but there’s something we have yet to prove," Tiel lightly patted the stone beneath her with her fish tail, "I believe you are a rational and calm person—so I intend to tell you about a phenomenon we discovered."

Gawain’s expression became solemn as he quietly listened to Tiel’s account.

And Tiel’s first words already surprised him: "...Actually, not all civilizations were destroyed by the chaotic wave—some perished for various reasons before the chaotic wave broke out, and some... suddenly disappeared after surviving the wave. I’m referring to the truly Great Magic Tide."

According to Tiel, there were two types of chaotic waves. The one the Gondor Empire experienced seven hundred years ago was just a small "ripple," and when the truly Great Magic Tide came, the entire world would be upturned, and that would be truly unstoppable.

So Gawain was immediately surprised: "There were civilizations that successfully withstood the Great Magic Tide?"

"Yes, and more than one," Tiel nodded earnestly and said, "They found protective technology to resist the chaotic wave or discovered the wave’s patterns, built safe zones in advance, and even one race completed a full transformation of their life form before the wave came. They all survived when the Great Magic Tide struck, and we once thought those civilizations were probably safe... But in the end, they still perished suddenly after the chaotic wave ended."

"Suddenly perished?" Gawain heard the deeper meaning in Tiel’s words, "So you don’t know the reason either?"

"It seemed like a sudden outbreak of a large-scale war, but we couldn’t see who they were fighting against. Our observers also went ashore to investigate the situation but found that the stored data of the land civilizations was generally destroyed. Even if some were found, they only contained the mad ravings of insane people. Additionally, we also observed massive collective suicides and sacrifices... completely inexplicable."

Gawain furrowed his brow tightly. This situation was something he hadn’t considered before, but he vaguely remembered... when he was acting as a satellite spirit hanging in the sky, he indeed observed fires of war spreading across the entire continent, even wars capable of destroying all nations on the continent...

Although his observations at the time were severely intermittent and he couldn’t piece together a complete developmental process from those chaotic images, the existence of those images was enough to corroborate that Tiel’s words were not false.

What destroyed continental civilizations wasn’t just the chaotic wave.

"Our ability to observe the land is limited because we too are affected by the chaotic wave—the sea demons won’t die when the wave comes, but our equipment will be heavily interfered with, and the ocean itself will become extremely dangerous, hard to control. Therefore, we’re not actually clear about what happens before and after the chaotic wave. There’s only one thing that we can ascertain: whenever land civilizations develop to a certain point, they seem to inevitably encounter a catastrophic disaster. There’s a bottleneck waiting there, and this bottleneck... should appear after the chaotic wave ends."

A bottleneck, an invisible bottleneck, or perhaps... a trap.

"It’s quite like a trap, isn’t it?" Tiel’s voice came from beside him, perfectly articulating what Gawain was thinking. The sea demon propped herself up with her fish tail, looking up at the starlit night sky, "Each civilization seems to be sailing in a dark ocean. We sea demons watch them from afar, watching their lights flicker on the dark sea. Some were swallowed by the storms; some extinguished even before the storm arrived. And those lucky enough to cross the storm zone... before we could congratulate them, they too suddenly went out. This is a terrifying world, and in the dark ocean, it’s as if there’s an invisible giant whirlpool swallowing careless sailors suddenly, so we’ve given this mysterious and terrifying phenomenon a name—

"We call it the ’Black Trap’, a trap in the dark ocean."