Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 238 - 237: Doomsday Sanctuary

The space on the opposite side of the magic door—or rather, this section of the hidden facility—was even larger than Gawain had imagined.

Not only was there the initial hall that everyone first saw, but after the soldiers expanded their search area, they quickly discovered a corridor structure surrounding the hall and rooms arranged on the outside of the corridor.

The furnishings in these rooms were complete, including tables, chairs, and various living or research equipment, all well-preserved in their original places, unlike the rooms outside which had been emptied.

"Things here haven’t been moved either," Aunt Heidi looked at a newly opened room that seemed to be a gathering place for many people to dine. The room had long tables and chairs, and neat sinks lined up in the corners—though it’s impossible for water to flow in them now—"and these things are much better preserved than those outside."

"The entire facility seems to be under a large-scale magic effect, slowing down the decay of all items drastically," Gawain looked down at the long table beside him, which bore mottled rust marks, but the table itself remained solid and intact, "...there is still a considerable degree of corrosion."

Tiel slithered between the long tables, her fingers brushing over the dust-covered surface, speaking thoughtfully, "This place feels as if it’s ready to be reactivated at any moment—as long as someone returns, they can immediately resume living here."

Gawain didn’t speak and continued to walk silently among the long tables that had begun to rust, when suddenly a team of soldiers who had gone ahead to scout suddenly returned to the room, with the leader approaching Gawain: "Sir! We found a warehouse up ahead!"

"Take me there to have a look."

Gawain quickly reached the warehouse discovered by the soldiers, and the scene inside made him frown unconsciously.

This was a place for storing supplies, with neatly stacked platforms and various signboards with barely recognizable markings. What made Gawain frown was—the originally packed goods on the stacking platforms had been unpacked.

Numerous wooden crates had been pried open, and empty boxes and jars were piled everywhere. Some were stacked neatly, but some were scattered all over the room. Besides these messy ’packagings’, there wasn’t a single useful material to be seen here.

"This..." Aunt Heidi immediately grasped her magic wand upon seeing the scene in the warehouse. She instinctively looked at Gawain, "Ancestor, this..."

"Someone has used the supplies here!" Gawain stated the only possibility, "Someone has been active here—at least for the initial period after this facility was sealed, there were people still active here!"

"How is that possible?!" Heidi was shocked, "Wasn’t this place abandoned and sealed a thousand years ago? Didn’t everyone evacuate?"

"I thought so too, but look at these consumed supplies—if they were used up before the facility was sealed, the logistics manager wouldn’t have allowed the warehouse to become like this," Gawain pointed at the messily stacked empty boxes and cans, "This is clearly the result of continued consumption after the facility was sealed, and it probably continued for a long time."

Heidi couldn’t help but swallow: "This... is truly unsettling..."

Then Tiel asked a question: "If there were people here after the facility was sealed, then where are they now?"

Gawain shook his head: "I don’t know, but if the workers here were humans... then no human can live a thousand years."

Soon, the soldiers discovered more warehouses of materials, and most of the contents had been consumed—only a few items remained, and judging by the thick dust on the sealed boxes, they had been untouched for many years.

Even with the protection of magic, the supplies couldn’t be stored for a thousand years, and even if the packaging was intact, the contents inside had long since rotted and deteriorated. So Gawain merely examined them briefly before losing interest.

After checking the exterior corridor of the hall, the group reached the end of the corridor, where the path converged and an upward-sloping staircase extended from the junction of the corridors to the upper level of this secret facility.

"It looks like there’s an upper structure," Heidi looked up at the dim space at the end of the stairs. This ancient facility had a surprisingly advanced power source, but even the most advanced power source couldn’t fully withstand the erosion of time. The lighting in the upper area was noticeably dimmer than in the lower level, indicating possible energy supply problems. The dim light was unstable, so Heidi summoned an Eye of the Mage, and after a moment, she nodded, "There’s no danger above."

The scouting teams proceeded up the stairs and soon reached the upper level of this hidden facility, where, at the end of the stairs, a heavy metal door blocked their path.

"The magic lock on the door has failed," Heidi quickly found the magic mechanism controlling the door’s lock state. A few faint magic symbols were engraved in the center of the door, but these symbols no longer reacted to external magic stimulation, "Now it’s just an ordinary iron door and can be destroyed directly."

The two soldiers immediately stepped forward, aiming their heat-ray guns at the lock in the center of the door. After several consecutive blasts of Scorching Ray, the magic mechanism at the center of the door was directly melted away: without magic protection, even the advanced ancient magic mechanism was just a piece of metal with a not-so-high melting point.

Gawain placed his hand on the door, and with the powerful strength of a legendary knight, he slowly pushed open this door that originally required magical devices to move.

Screeech—

Accompanied by a piercing sound of metal scraping, the ancient door, with its history of hundreds or even thousands of years, slowly opened to both sides, and a stale odor leaked from the space within. Yet, a faintly cool mist suddenly appeared out of nowhere and surrounded everyone, completely isolating them from the potentially harmful fumes.

Gawain glanced back, just in time to see Tiel nonchalantly waving her hand, as the power of the water elements quietly flowed through her fingers.

He did not tell the sea demon that each soldier’s armor was imbued with a long-lasting "Wind Shield" effect, but instead smiled and thanked Tiel for her goodwill, then stepped through the door.

The next second, the sight before him left him stunned.

Inside the door was a large, semi-circular room. Row upon row of neatly arranged seats followed the curve of the room, and upon those seats lay corpse after corpse!

These people had obviously been dead for years, but because the entire facility was shrouded by a field that slowed decay, they had not turned to dust over time. Instead, they became something akin to mummified remains, dressed in the robes or cloaks of ancient Gondor Empire mages, which was enough to identify them:

They were the personnel who were trapped inside this ancient facility after it was sealed!

Aunt Heidi widened her eyes, the shocking scene before her left her speechless for a long time, until she finally murmured softly after several seconds, "They... they’re all here... they all died here..."

"Why were these people left inside here?" Tiel, having heard from Gawain about the facility’s origin, was greatly puzzled by their presence, "Was there an error in the evacuation, and they were forgotten inside?"

"There couldn’t have been such a major error," Gawain shook his head while frowning, "The evacuation at that time was clearly orderly, and there were no conditions for making such a mistake, plus the warehouses we discovered earlier also serve as clues... The supplies indicate that the people who remained here were part of a plan."

After saying that, he began to carefully navigate between the semicircular rows of seats, and after passing through row after row, he reached the forefront of the semicircular hall.

Gawain turned around here, seeing the rows of seats neatly arranged before him, with nearly a thousand silent corpses seated on them. Due to the seating arrangement, the focus of their "gaze" happened to be where he was standing.

This eerie feeling sent a chill down his spine, but it also drew his attention to the floor under his feet: there was an unremarkable raised device, and between the runes on its surface, some residual magical brilliance was slowly flowing.

He recognized that object—it was a piece of technology from the ancient Gondor Empire, a magical device for transmitting messages. Utilizing the vast power of the Well of Deep Blue and the mana conductors spread across the empire, these devices could closely connect every inch of the empire’s land. However, after the explosion of the Well of Deep Blue, this communication network had completely collapsed and could no longer be rebuilt. Today’s human nations’ communication spells and magical towers were just remnants of this ancient technology.

This device was still usable. Although it could no longer send or receive any message outside the "deep blue mana network," its surface’s flickering faint light indicated that some residual energy still remained inside, and the information it stored was not lost.

With memories from seven hundred years ago, Gawain attempted to inject some mana into this device, and this ancient equipment, dormant for a millennium, was instantly "revived." Its surface runes flickered intensely, and a beam of light shot from the top of the device to a wall behind Gawain.

Gawain turned around and stepped aside from the projected beam, watching as the ancient device cast a message onto the wall, in front of nearly a thousand corpses in the hall, in a string of words written in ancient Gondor language, which were astonishingly brief:

"You are the last survivors, live on, do not return."

The communication device only retained this sentence, which was evidently the content of the last communication. Other early content was either deleted or couldn’t withstand the ravages of time.

"The last survivors..." Tiel saw the message, surprisingly recognizing the ancient Gondor Empire script, she leaned in with curiosity, "What does this mean?"

"...This was the last communication sent here within the empire’s borders when the chaotic wave erupted," Gawain said slowly, "I have already guessed what happened here, but there are still many mysteries to unravel."