Chapter 1410 — Aftermath and Restored Contact

"Good afternoon, Patriarch Inkstone!!" Rebecca snapped to attention on the spot. Though she couldn't say why she felt guilty, she still turned and bowed with a guilty conscience. "Out to enjoy the breeze too, hehe..."

"Standing on an aerial fortress floating among the clouds, looking down at the earth... what an incredible feeling," Gao Yang said with a slight nod. Though he had gazed down at the earth from space countless times, the limited satellite perspective was clearly different from standing on the Mortal Dawn and looking down at the earth—especially when there was a Deep Blue Well on the land below, spewing a brilliant column of light. Even he felt a shock from the depths of his soul at this magnificent sight. "Rebecca, you truly have created an engineering miracle."

"Eheh, it wasn't just me..." Rebecca instinctively scratched the back of her head, then suddenly realized that was an uncouth gesture unbecoming of propriety and quickly pulled her hand back. "And if there were only one Mortal Dawn, we couldn't have won this war..."

Gao Yang reached out and ruffled Rebecca's hair. "How is the Mortal Dawn doing now?" he asked casually.

"How should I put it... 'Surface repairs' aren't difficult. We've already started repairing the outer damage to the deck sections and armor sections. The factories inside the Mortal Dawn can directly produce prefabricated panels for those areas, so swapping them out isn't a problem. The key is the damage to the main framework and the Central Mind. As I told you before, I'm afraid it'll take until next spring to fix," Rebecca stuck out her tongue. "And that's assuming everything goes smoothly."

"But the good news is that the Mortal Dawn is enormous and highly damage-resistant. It can still float here just fine. As long as it doesn't face an opponent like the Crawling Calamity again, or some god who suddenly goes mad and descends to the mortal world, it remains the most powerful war machine in the world. The follow-up repairs won't affect its ability to continue carrying out its duties."

At this point, the Imperial Steel Bead carefully studied Gao Yang's expression and ventured cautiously: "Also, Patriarch Inkstone, although I just said the outer damage is relatively easy to fix, it'll still take until at least autumn, maybe even this winter. If you want to use the Mortal Dawn as the venue for the post-war conference... those damaged decks and structures definitely can't be repaired in time—we couldn't even throw a shell over the outside in time, especially since I hear the Silver Empress is about to arrive.

"How about you consider putting the venue on the hospital ship or the cathedral ship? Those two Gorgon fortresses—one has a wonderful environment, the other looks magnificent—both would suit a conference venue quite well... Actually, I think holding the meeting next to the Deep Blue Well wouldn't be bad either. We could have Verodai crank up the magical flame jets to liven up the atmosphere..."

"No. The venue will be on the Mortal Dawn," Gao Yang had to cut off the iron-headed girl before her train of thought drifted any further. "And there's no need to repair or decorate those damaged decks and structures—leave them as they are, let everyone see them."

"Huh?" Rebecca was a genius in engineering and mathematical logic, but in other respects she was clearly just a silly doe. She failed to react on the spot. "Isn't that very... what's your word... isn't that rather shabby?"

Gao Yang looked deeply at the bewildered Rebecca, then gazed at the purification towers stretching endlessly across the plains beyond. His voice was low: "Setting the venue on the Mortal Dawn is not just to display military might or flaunt wealth—we are going to discuss the future with the comrades who fought shoulder to shoulder with us.

"I need them to see the Mortal Dawn's power and advancement, to see the Cecil Empire's determination and ability to maintain the Alliance's order. I also need them to realize what we all paid for this victory—so they won't be so quick to drown in the joy of victory and the carving up of spoils, but will first calmly consider what kind of world we actually live in.

"The people coming to this conference are all clever people, but as the saying goes, 'Even a sage walking a night road needs a lamp.'"

The war to retake the wasteland was over, and countless aftermath problems needed solving. The Alliance leadership naturally had to hold a special conference to deal with it all, and given the conference's special nature, Gao Yang proposed the Tarrash Plains as the venue. The proposal won unanimous approval from the Alliance's leaders. As for exactly where the venue would be placed... after careful consideration, Gao Yang ultimately chose the Mortal Dawn.

This towering leviathan was clearly suited to laying the foundation for the order of the "Third Era of Exploration."

The Alliance nations naturally had no objections to the Cecil Empire designating the "venue"—after all, under the current circumstances, only the Cecil Empire could prepare a safe and comfortable conference environment on the Tarrash Plains.

Rebecca understood the Mystic Pulse Sect's thinking, but just as she was about to say something more, a "Central Mind terminal device" at the edge of the deck suddenly activated. The device—which looked like a silver-white metal pillar and contained sensory organs, vocal organs, an image-generation apparatus, and a segment of neural tissue—transmitted the Central Mind's neutral voice: "Your Majesty Gao Yang, Creator Rebecca, a contact signal has been received from the Imperial Capital. Sender—Miss Tyr."

"Tyr?" Gao Yang was momentarily taken aback. He hadn't expected Tyr, far away in the Imperial Capital, to suddenly reach out to him at this moment. "What does she want? Put her through."

"Yes. Transferring now."

As the Central Mind's voice fell, a groove opened at the top of the silver-white metal pillar, and a shining crystal emerged, projecting an image from the Imperial Capital before Gao Yang and Rebecca. Tyr was swaying back and forth in the center of the frame—this siren who always seemed half-asleep actually looked rather energetic at the moment.

"Tyr?" Gao Yang spoke curiously. "What's happened?"

"Communications with Antavien have been restored!" Tyr said happily. "The elemental fracture phenomenon around the Loren Continent has disappeared too!"

Gao Yi was briefly taken aback—he had nearly forgotten about that little detail...

But he managed to cover up that flicker of embarrassment remarkably well with his square-jawed face, and after a moment's quick thinking he asked, "Have General Vanessa and the soldiers of the Siren Expeditionary Force already returned to the Deep Sea Kingdom?"

"Ah, yes, most of them have gone back already. A few are still unaccounted for—probably dead in some godforsaken corner or other," Tyr said, flicking the tip of his tail with considerable ease of mind. "But no need to worry. They'll all swim their way back sooner or later."

Gao Yang: "..."

Rebecca chimed in with a worried question: "General Vanessa and the others—are they all right? How are the sirens who've made it back to Antavien doing now?"

Tyr thought it over, tapping his chin with the tip of his tail as he spoke: "I heard they were awarded a collective creativity prize, and the queen is even planning to have them perform again at the year-end gala..."

(End of this chapter)