Chapter 240 — The Truth
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 3
With a flicker of arcane sparks, Camille turned around and gazed quietly at the nearly thousand seats in the great hall, and at the nine hundred and seventy-two former colleagues upon them who had already fallen into their long slumber.
"A thousand years... A thousand years ago, I was one of the chief researchers of the Empire's Royal Mage Corps. A secret order issued by His Imperial Majesty himself transferred me from the imperial capital to this fortress on the northern frontier. When I first laid eyes on it, I was as astonished as all of you are now.
"The Empire built this facility in secret. The plan had already begun twelve hundred years ago. Yes, just as you said a moment ago—we did it to withstand the magic tide. The imperial house recognized the approach of the magic tide long ago and had been seeking a solution ever since. It was a vast and clandestine undertaking, one in which the imperial house and the entire Mage Corps took part, yet only a handful knew the plan in its entirety. Even as a chief researcher of the Royal Mage Corps, all I knew within this plan was the part I was responsible for.
"My task was to analyze the power of the gods, and to seek a way to combine the divine genetic factors with human cells...
"Please do not interrupt me. I know these things must sound bizarre to your ears, but a thousand years ago, they truly happened.
"When I came to this fortress, the plan had already been running for two hundred years. We had located the exact site of the 'White Star's Fall.' It does not lie in the present world; one must pass through the Shadow Realm to reach the very edge of the Gloom Realm. So we built a spatial gate in the lowest level of the Fortress of Defiance. Aided by the power of the gods, this gate breached the barriers between several 'planar strata,' and from there the exploration teams brought back samples of the flesh and blood of the God of Nature..."
As he spoke, Camille raised an arm condensed from arcane energy and pointed toward the wall. With a tiny leap of sparks, a concealed isolation door suddenly appeared upon the previously seamless wall. The door ground slowly open with the creak of turning machinery, and Camille drifted slowly toward it: "Please follow me. I hope that whatever you see, you will keep your composure."
Gao Yang and Heddy exchanged a glance, then led their people to follow in Camille's steps.
"We paid a tremendous price. For mortals to come into direct contact with the flesh of the gods—even to look upon that flesh—was enough to kill, to say nothing of extracting energy and genetic factors from it. But within the Gloom Realm we discovered certain things 'mingled' with the divine corpse. Those things helped us find a way to resist the erosion of divine power... though only partially effective."
Following behind Camille, Gao Yang saw those hidden chambers, and the secrets still remaining within them.
In one laboratory, he saw great masses of metal and crystal wreckage bound and sealed by an intricate magic array. The wreckage seemed to have been stripped from some larger artificial structure, and though countless years had passed, they still retained a pristine texture.
"Their material..." Gao Yang studied the metal and crystal fragments with a grave expression. "The same as the Stone Slab of Eternity, it seems?"
Camille nodded. "Correct, exactly the same. These things were found together with the gods' remains—they even appear to be what caused the gods' downfall. Yet we do not know the true connection between the Stone Slab of Eternity and these objects."
Something stirred in Gao Yang's heart. He had already vaguely guessed the truth, but he said nothing.