Chapter 1366 — The Second Invitation

"Before dawn comes, the sky is always dark," Tyr said with a smile. "The cities are indeed filled with tension now, but in fact most people firmly believe you will lead the Alliance to final victory—just as you led Cecil to rise in this land. And as I see it, the Ember Cultists in the wasteland and that mad Sentinel are merely stumbling stones. Perhaps they think they're doing something 'great' enough to overturn this planet, but frankly... we Sea Sirens have seen plenty of great things. We don't lack for one more."

"It's rare to hear you say something with such depth," Gao Yang said, glancing at Tyr with some surprise and shaking his head with a smile. "Though I suppose that's fair—it's not often one even sees you stay awake for long."

"True enough—in fact, I'm starting to nod off right now," Tyr said, and yawned, as if suddenly relaxed. Her entire Sea Siren being began visibly wilting. "Ah, one last thing—General Vanessa asked Cassandra to pass it on. She said she's already in contact with Queen Pythia, and that a batch of technical personnel will be selected soon... yawn... She said you'd definitely know what it's about... yawn... What is it about, anyway?"

The deep-sea salted fish had spoken the first half of that sentence fairly clearly, but by the last half she was practically talking in her sleep, her upper body swaying before Gao Yang like a garden eel. Gao Yang was caught between laughter and tears. "I'll explain it in detail once you're awake again. Just go to sleep—it's a wonder you managed to stay conscious this long..."

"Alright then, yawn—" Tyr gave another mighty yawn, wobbled her head, and waved at Gao Yang. "I'll go sleep now..."

The words had barely left her mouth when Gao Yang saw the deep-sea salted fish's upper body suddenly sway backward, then pitch forward with all her might, and the whole of her flopped onto the floor with a "splat," as though she had dropped dead on the spot. When he leaned over to look, she was already dead to the world on the floor...

"Good gods... asleep just like that..." Even though he had witnessed Tyr's "sudden-death style" of falling asleep more than once, Gao Yang could not help but exclaim under his breath. Then he began worrying about how to get this "snake-ball"—which rolled up into quite a large lump—out of the room. After pondering for a long while, he gave up on the thankless endeavor. Mainly because, as the esteemed head of state of the Empire, pushing a dead-asleep snake-ball beauty out the door at five in the morning was simply too bizarre a sight. Calling someone to help would be hard to explain, and if he mishandled it, Amber would probably produce a third special supplement on the spot...

Anyway, the creature wouldn't make much noise once asleep. Might as well leave her in front of the desk as a decorative feature.

At that thought, Gao Yang's mind cleared at once. He rose from behind the desk, let out a soft breath, then carefully stepped around Tyr's tail, which lay spread across the floor, and came to the wide floor-to-ceiling window, gazing somewhat absently at the far end of the dark horizon.

Winter had ended, yet at this time of year the northern lands still had long nights. The stubborn curtain of night still shrouded the earth, and sunlight lingered on the far side of the horizon—but a faint, hazy light was already diffusing through the sky. Beneath that ambiguous, uncertain sky, the streetlamps of the city, under the dual control of timing and light-sensing systems, were gradually dimming from east to west. The whole city waited quietly for dawn.

"The moment closest to dawn... so this is the judgment of an ancient race," Gao Yang murmured to himself. He glanced back at Tyr, who looked thoroughly dead to the world, and a peculiar smile appeared on his face. "Even if she is the most useless fish in the whole race..."

By now, going back for another nap seemed pointless. Better to do something useful.

Antavien had sent an expeditionary force—a professional army organized by a higher civilization, well trained and battle-hardened. The former Storm Sons of the Naga could attest that when the Sea Sirens got serious, the power they displayed was nothing like their usual gentle, harmless image. This unexpected force was about to enter the battlefield—and without question, the turning point was at hand.

The Alliance armies would push the wasteland back on every front, and the Blockade Wall would begin construction at full speed. Which meant... the Sentinel and those dark hierophants would surely not stand by and watch it happen.

Gao Yang let out a soft breath, thinking of the "anomaly" that had befallen the Winter and the Antavien expeditionary force. After a moment, he turned and activated the arcane-net terminal beside the desk, extending his consciousness directly into a set of immersion equipment connected to it.

In a vast space covered with boundless white blossoms, Gao Yang appeared beside a white round table with openwork patterns. Opposite him, the figure of a lady in an intricate black court gown, black hair flowing over her shoulders, and mysterious purple eyes was gradually emerging from the air. The figure flickered briefly, wavering in and out a few times—as if entering the current network layer through some complex relay mechanism—before finally stabilizing completely.

"You're online this early?" Milmina looked at Gao Yang with some surprise. "Don't tell me you've been playing cards all night like old Deer?"

Gao Yang was about to speak, but his expression turned strange. "...Actually, I have serious business... You've completely ruined the mood."

Milmina looked a little embarrassed. "Ah, sorry—I was just running tests on some samples collected from the front lines, and I was a bit distracted, so it just slipped out. What's happened on your end? You look dead serious."

"We've found the Winter, which had lost contact. And we've just made contact with an expeditionary force sent from Antavien—they've been ordered to reinforce the Alliance."

"Found it? And those 'Sea Sirens' have sent an expeditionary force too?" Milmina was astonished. "That's good news—why do you look..."

"Though we've made contact, I've learned they encountered a disturbing anomaly," Gao Yang said in a low voice. "I suspect these anomalies are connected to the 'anomalous atmospheric charging' phenomenon that erupted a few days ago, centered on the wasteland and covering the entire Loren Continent. I'm afraid the Sentinel is behind it. Right now, I need your advice."

Milmina's expression turned serious at once. "...Tell me everything."

Gao Yang held nothing back, laying out all the intelligence he had just received without omitting a single detail.

"...It sounds like some kind of spatial teleportation over an astonishing distance, and on an astonishing scale as well," Milmina said, reaching much the same judgment as Gao Yang as soon as she had heard it all. "Only the process seems immature. The Winter and the Sea Siren expeditionary force look more like bystanders accidentally caught up in an experiment..."

Gao Yang asked: "From these clues, can you tell what the Sentinel is actually trying to do?"

Milmina did not speak at once. She was pondering, and also rapidly compiling and analyzing the vast trove of observational data on the wasteland she had gathered over recent days. After a moment, she suddenly broke the silence: "Do you remember a particular trait of the Deep Blue Netway—that it is a 'netway' system running through all the realms of our planet."