Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 767 - 766: Predicament

Gawain slowly opened his eyes, but this time, Amber’s face wasn’t there leaning in.

A faint snoring sound was coming from beside him.

Looking down following the sound, he saw the pointy-eared half-elf girl lying on the desk, her head resting on her hands, already deep in sleep.

This gal, she sure brings peace once she’s asleep.

Gawain couldn’t help but smile. As soon as he moved slightly, Amber, who was sleeping on the table, suddenly woke up, her eyes wide open looking this way: "Hey, you’re finally back!"

Gawain opened his mouth, just about to speak, when Amber immediately began to loudly chatter: "Hey, let me tell you, I wasn’t slacking off, I was just taking a nap. You can’t dock my pay for this, my senses are sharp, I’m always alert even while asleep..."

Gawain: "...I haven’t said anything yet."

As expected, this gal’s peace is limited to when she’s asleep—once she’s awake, the noise one Amber can create absolutely exceeds that of two thousand ducks.

"Just preparing in advance, in case you say something," Amber wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth, mumbling as she glanced up and down at Gawain, frowning with some confusion, "But speaking of which, this time you were gone quite long—what happened over there?"

"I went with Daniel to investigate some matters." Gawain nodded, as memories of this recent exploration deep within the mind network began to play back in his mind. The more he recalled, the more he couldn’t help but furrow his brow, his heart stirred with emotion.

This exploration... gathered too much information, and much of it left even him dumbfounded!

"Looks like you gained quite a bit this time?" Amber sharply noticed the subtle changes in Gawain’s expression, "And some matters are quite troublesome?"

Gawain nodded slightly: "The situation is special, we need a meeting, tentatively gathering Kamel, Aunt Heidi, Wright, Veronica, hmm... also call Pittman, and you too."

Amber silently noted these names down, then immediately noticed that most of them were related to a certain field.

She raised an eyebrow, twitching her pointed ears lightly: "Related to gods or the defied plan?"

"Hmm," Gawain responded simply, then after a brief thought, instructed, "Also, go investigate the records of abnormal spell signals recorded by the magic monitoring towers across the southern borders recently, especially signals related to dream divine arts, and also the situation regarding the monitoring of various types of mental messaging. Additionally, there’s the investigation and arrest records of the Eternal Sleepers cultists."

"The Eternal Sleepers... you’ve pretty much captured all of them in the southern borders, haven’t you," Amber was momentarily puzzled, "There are magic monitoring towers everywhere, lower and middle-level cultists are basically tied up at the district offices’ pipes as soon as they step outside, and you have ’special methods,’ higher-level cultists have either been expelled or are under surveillance, used to gather intelligence—why suddenly have a large-scale investigation?"

"An important target might have been missed," Gawain said with a serious expression, "A soul body, an Archbishop of the Eternal Sleepers is hiding in the southern borders!"

As he spoke, the shocking text he once saw floated in his mind:

Selena Gerfen, Archbishop (deceased), female, soul body.

Current location: Anzu/Correction/Cecil Empire - Southern borders!!

"This target is not ordinary, typical security actions are likely to alert her, your Intelligence Agency’s operations are discreet and more suitable," Gawain took a deep breath, looking into Amber’s eyes, "I’m not sure if you can truly find her, but at least try—her name, is Selena Gerfen..."

...

Somewhere within the Typhon Empire, inside an underground ancient facility, footsteps broke the silence of a dim corridor.

A middle-aged man, wearing a white robe and looking quite scholarly with a monocle, walked through a long corridor paved with stone slabs and decorated with reliefs on the walls on either side. Following him were several Eternal Sleepers priests wearing dark robes and owl masks.

This man was none other than the "Archbishop Yuri" in the real world.

Compared to his "image" in the mind network, Yuri in the real world hadn’t changed much in demeanor or dress, except in the mind network, he’s depicted as a young man, whereas in reality, he was middle-aged with some gray hair on his head.

"Sigh... I was planning to rest," walking along, Archbishop Yuri couldn’t help but complain, "Archbishop Selena, have you forgotten that people in the real world need rest?"

Flickering light suddenly appeared in the air, and the figure of Selena Gerfen appeared beside Yuri, her tone indifferent: "You’ve slept enough—for the current situation, excessive rest is a waste."

Yuri couldn’t help but glance at her, with another helpless sigh.

He knew that Selena Gerfen was not actually in this corridor, nor in this facility.

She wasn’t even in this world.

Hundreds of years ago, this former Saint Princess of the church had already martyred herself. In a chain reaction that led to a collapse of faith, she protected the minds and souls of thousands of followers with her life. Her body was torn apart by divine power, and her soul also shattered.

It was Pope Megal III who personally intervened, collecting Selena Gerfen’s fragmented soul and preserving it within some kind of "container" in the realm of dreams.

To this day, the soul of the Archbishop continues transferring between containers, her consciousness wandering through the mind network.

At this moment, the Selena in front of Yuri, and the Selena seen by the Eternal Sleepers priests behind him, are merely projections in their minds—the projection is so realistic that even Yuri, a powerful Peak Transcendent, struggles to discern the illusion in the woman before him. Her voice, scent, light, and colors...everything is so real.

But if someone completely unaffected by mind spells were standing here, they would see only Yuri and several masked high priests in the corridor, with no trace of any female Archbishop.

"You’re right, there’s really no room for rest now," Archbishop Yuri shook his head, his gaze forward, with a hint of concern in his eyes. "This crisis is extraordinary, if the truth is as we speculate...then we’ve absolutely made an almost irreparable mistake."

The endless corridor reached its end, revealing a door adorned with many magic symbols, inlaid with crystals and Mage metal, which silently slid open as Yuri and others approached.

Beyond the door lay a brightly lit, extraordinarily spacious hall.

The hall was rectangular, with neatly arranged square pillars shining with magic symbols, light flickering, and a large number of cables resembling vines or flesh fibers coiled around them, extending to the ceiling at one end, and dispersed around the pillars at the other, leading to rows of wide seats.

These chairs surrounded the pillars, forming separate areas, approximately half of which were "full," occupied by Eternal Sleepers cultists dressed in black robes, with star pendants hanging on their collars. Some leaned back, seemingly asleep, while others were awake, but the nerve cords behind the seats and the magic symbols glowed softly.

In the other half, the nerve cords behind the seats had been disconnected and extended to a corner of the hall, where dozens of unconscious Eternal Sleepers cultists lay on beds.

Personnel in gray or brown robes moved around these slumbering cultists, tending to these fellow believers unable to awaken due to pollution.

Seeing this, Yuri couldn’t help but furrow his brow.

He walked toward the area where the beds were arranged.

A tall, skinny priest with disheveled blond hair approached, and respectfully bowed: "Archbishop Selena, Archbishop Yuri."

He then specifically turned to Selena Gerfen: "Archbishop, the frequency of mental calming has been increased following your instructions, and those individuals’ conditions have stabilized."

This was a middle-tier priest, without high status in the evil-cult. Many at this level did not even know that Archbishop Selena was actually deceased—they always saw her appear at church strongholds, and could even converse with her. In the omnipresent sensory projection, she always appeared as a living person in their eyes.

Selena nodded to the middle-tier priest, speaking offhandedly as she slowly moved forward: "Make sure to pay significant attention to the state of those nerve cords. The consciousness of these operators is currently fractured, with shards buried deep in Sandbox One, and should the nerve cord connection fail...they won’t return."

The priest with disheveled blond hair bowed his head in response: "Rest assured, we pay particular attention to this."

Yuri’s gaze drifted over those lying in bed.

With calm expressions, and steady breathing, they appeared to be in a prolonged dream yet were deeply trapped within, unable to awaken, as artificial nerve cords extended from behind their heads, connecting to the hall’s pillars, where the magic symbols glowed softly along the cords.

Most Eternal Sleepers can indeed connect to the network directly through dream theurgies, but such connections are not the most efficient. Thus, within this "control hall," operators connecting to the network rely on physicalized nerve cords for mutual linkage, and network integration.

These nerve cords come from Oblivion Association technology, which was immature a decade ago but has improved in recent years, with negative effects greatly reduced.

When Sandbox One went out of control, and pollution erupted from inside out, operators directly connected to Sandbox One were struck while in this "physical connection" state, as the frail human mind’s defenses against the impact were virtually ineffective, the pollution almost instantly overthrowing their minds, using them as a springboard to enter the mind network.

Now, the polluted ports of these operators have actually been shielded, with Sandbox One’s overflow no longer using them as springboards, but pollution has already spread to the Brain Servant array and several virtual connection ports, making it impossible to sever the connection between Sandbox One and the mind network, even without these operators as intermediaries.

These operators themselves remain tightly bound by Sandbox One, their consciousness trapped deep within, unable to awaken.

After a long silence, Yuri suddenly said: "Perhaps entering their dreams might allow direct observation of the situation within Sandbox One."

"But it’s more likely we’ll face the deepest pollution and end up like them," Selena Gerfen shook her head, "Human mentality struggles to resist such immense informational assault. After all, even powerful Transcendent beings are inherently ’mortals.’"

Selena particularly emphasized the word "mortals," causing Yuri to tighten his brows in response.

"Archbishop Selena, do you think what appeared within Sandbox One...is truly..."

"It’s still too early to tell; at least wait until it’s reported to His Holiness the Pope," Selena said, lifting her head to "see" the far end of the hall.

She hadn’t a pair of eyes she could open in the real world yet, but here, she could "see" everything through the senses of numerous on-site cultists.

In that direction, rows of windows were neatly arranged on the far wall of the hall, through which arcade’s crystal glass revealed another hall on the opposite side.

In that hall, square pillars were more densely arranged, with rectangular platforms surrounding each.

Numerous unconscious "Brain Servants" lay on those platforms, their brain nerves connected to the hall’s nerve cord network, while their bodies relied on various biomass conduits for nutrient supply and metabolic circulation.

"We originally intended to create a beautiful dream..." Selena Gerfen lamented softly, "but ultimately it is turning into a nightmare."