Chapter 946 — Real or Illusion

The first thing to meet his eyes was the motionless vortex below the tower, and then the shattered wreckage within the vortex and the blazing fires kindled by the two warring sides' assaults upon each other. The seawater in the vortex region, churned by violent turmoil and fouled by the fires of war, looked murky and blurred, making it hard for Gaoyang to judge from the vortex what the submerged portion of the metal tower looked like—yet he could still faintly make out an enormous shadow.

The part of it buried in the sea was likely larger even than the part above the surface, and it spread outward to either side in a more complex structure.

Perhaps this was not a "tower" at all—what looked like a tower was merely the portion that jutted above the sea. What its true, full form was like... probably no one would ever know.

Gaoyang furrowed his brow and withdrew his gaze, wondering what the dragons had built this thing for—and of all his conjectures, the most likely was... that it was a weapon.

As the possible uses of such a weapon took shape in his mind, Gaoyang could not help shaking his head with a self-mocking smile, and muttered under his breath, "Could this be an intercontinental nuclear missile launch tower..."

And come to think of it, given the sheer bodily scale of the dragon race, if they were to build an intercontinental nuclear missile, it really might have to be this size...

A few flippant thoughts flickered through his mind, and Gaoyang felt the accumulated pressure and tension in his heart ease a little further—he was only human, after all; in such circumstances he would still feel nervous when nervousness was called for, still feel pressure when pressure was called for—and once his emotions were settled, he began carefully to sense just where the "resonance" originating from the Voyager relic was coming from.

Judging by the sensation, it seemed very close now—possibly even within a hundred meters.

Gaoyang moved forward along the platform encircling the tower, keeping watch for anything suspicious in his line of sight, and after rounding a supporting pillar that blocked his view, his steps suddenly halted.

Something "suspicious" had indeed appeared in his line of sight.

A human figure was standing at the edge of the platform ahead, utterly motionless.

Gaoyang's nerves snapped taut in an instant—this was the first "human" figure he had seen in this place—but then he relaxed slightly, for he saw that the figure, like everything else in this space, was frozen in stillness.

He gripped the Pioneer's longsword tightly and advanced slowly toward the figure in a cautious stance, and the latter of course gave no response; even when Gaoyang came within three meters, the figure still stood quietly at the platform's edge.

It was a tall, upright middle-aged man. Though he, like everything else here, was coated in a dim bluish hue, Gaoyang could still tell that he wore a magnificent and imposing robe, adorned with exquisite patterns belonging to no human civilization and decorated with metal or gemstone ornaments whose meaning he could not discern, proclaiming the special rank and station of its wearer; the man himself had a heroic, flawless face, short hair that, though dimmed, was still plainly golden, and a pair of golden vertical pupils fixed resolutely on the distance, unshakable as steel.

Vertical pupils?

Gaoyang noted this detail at once and realized that this middle-aged man, who looked so human, must be a dragon in human form.

Because he had seen similar traits in Metzen—though the Proxy's eyes looked no different from any ordinary human's when she wore her human form, under certain special conditions (such as when a single question from Gaoyang, loaded with too much information, sent her briefly out of control), her eyes too would take on this vertical-pupil state.

Gaoyang steadied himself. Though the sight of this "figure" had caught him somewhat off guard, he could still be certain now... that peculiar sense of resonance was indeed coming from this middle-aged man... or from some object he carried on his person.

After observing him carefully for a while, Gaoyang's gaze came to rest on an unremarkable little amulet the middle-aged man held in his hand.

The thing gave him an extremely strong sense of "familiarity," and though it sat motionless, faint ripples of light still drifted across its surface—and all of this... was beyond any doubt a trait unique to the relics of the Voyagers.

Gaoyang furrowed his brow. After some deliberation and weighing, he slowly reached out his hand, preparing to touch the amulet.

He would not rashly snatch the amulet from the other's hand, but he had to at least attempt to establish a connection with it, to see whether he could draw some information from it and help himself judge the situation before him...

......

The goddess seated high upon the sacred throne suddenly opened her eyes, and within those luminous vertical pupils storm and lightning seemed to surge.

The high dragon priest attending beside the throne instantly felt an indescribable divine pressure; unable to support his own body, he immediately prostrated himself, his forehead nearly touching the ground: "My Lord, what has happened?"

Enya's gaze fell upon Hragor; a mere two seconds of that regard brought the latter's soul to the very brink of being torn apart, but the deity withdrew her gaze in time and drew a soft breath.

The surging light in Her eyes was forcibly calmed.

Hragor heard the deity's voice reach his ears: "It is nothing—go prepare the welcoming ceremony. Our guest has drawn near."

"Everything is in your charge. I must leave for a time."

The moment the words fell, the deity's presence swiftly vanished. Hragor raised his head in bewilderment, only to see the empty sacred throne and the pale golden halo lingering above it.

......

The chaotic lights and shadows before his eyes shifted and recombined madly; the voices and information suddenly flooding into his mind nearly robbed Gaoyang of consciousness, yet soon he felt those "uninvited guests" pouring into his head being swiftly cleared away, and his thoughts and vision gradually grew clear.

Within seconds he regained the ability to think normally, and then instinctively tried to pull his hand back—he still remembered that he had been attempting to touch an amulet, and that the instant of contact he had been "ambushed" by a mass of chaotic lights and shadows and a flood of information pouring into his mind.

But before he could withdraw his hand, Gaoyang suddenly realized that his surroundings seemed to have changed.

He heard faint sounds of waves and wind coming from afar, and felt that within his vision, which was gradually steadying, a dim skylight was emerging in the distance.

Amber's cheerful voice came from beside him: "Wow! We've made it to the other side of the storm!!"