Chapter 236 — Deep Space
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 3
The mountain ruins, in the great hall of the "ring-shaped magic gate" on the facility's lowest level.
Ever since the discovery of this mysterious ancient magic gate, Gao Yang had stationed six soldiers here to stand watch in rotating shifts. As Sir Byron's exploration of this ancient facility delved ever deeper, the ruins had gradually been put to use by the Cecil territory; its middle levels were now being converted into armories and storage facilities, with magic nets laid throughout many sections, magic crystal lamps and living amenities installed, and numerous permanent barracks added, so that the soldiers on long-term duty within the facility were by no means few.
Gao Yang brought Heddy and Piyun, plus a siren whose "Forbidden Knowledge" skill points (edible orientation) were fully maxed, and selected a group of elite soldiers besides; then he swept briskly to the place where the magic gate stood.
A small crowd of garrison soldiers had already assembled in the broad circular hall, and Sir Byron was leading his men in a vigilant watch over the magic gate's movements. When Gao Yang entered, this middle-aged knight was pulling over a soldier named Yan Qi to question him. Such a grave expression was rare on that old hand's face, which at once made Gao Yang realize the situation was likely more complicated than he had anticipated.
He walked straight to Byron: "What's the situation?"
Byron gave a knight's salute upon seeing Gao Yang. He had lately been leading the exploration team south through the mountain ruins in search of an exit, but upon hearing word of the magic gate's disturbance he had immediately brought his men to the site, arriving well before Gao Yang, so he had a fair grasp of the situation: "My lord, we still haven't figured out how the magic gate suddenly activated. The soldiers on watch here seem to have suffered a mental shock; their memories of what happened at the time are very blurred."
Gao Yang looked up toward the ring-shaped magic gate. The thing had indeed activated.
The ring device, made of some unknown composite material, was now giving off a faint, luminous deep-blue magical halo; the runes and magic lines engraved upon the gate were all plainly in a charged state, a low humming sound came from the ring's base, and at the center of the ring could be seen a mass of quivering, hazy shadow that seemed to exist in a state of two overlapping spaces.
The soldiers stationed here were all experienced elites who obeyed orders. They would not touch anything without command, nor deliberately conceal anything when reporting, so the only explanation was that the magic gate really had activated on its own, and that its activation inflicted a degree of mental shock on those nearby—not fatal, but enough to cause dazed confusion.
What had activated the magic gate?
Gao Yang's first thought was of those automatically opening isolation doors in the ruins' entrance hall. Similar incidents had occurred in the early days of the pioneer territory, though at that time the doors had opened because of a surge of magical power: the abruptly shifting magical environment had stimulated the residual magic mechanisms in the ruins and, by some mischance, opened the gates. But no similar magical turbulence seemed to have occurred recently, and no reports had come from the monitoring satellites...
No—there did seem to have been one rather special event...
The stars had returned to their stations.
Gao Yang's expression turned grave. The only event of late that could plausibly cause all manner of anomalies was "the stars returning to their stations." Though ordinary people could not perceive its influence upon the world, that influence was very real, and it seemed to be connected with the gods.
The very purpose for which this ancient facility had been built seemed to be the study of "the secrets of the gods."