Chapter 538 — Brain-Computer Interface
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
The Dark Range, the observation post at its highest peak.
The array of telescopes trained on the Great Wall shifted by a minute angle; far off, that heaven-spanning curtain of light cast a hazy ripple across the lenses, and behind the veil of the barrier, a thin mist floated above the vast Black Forest and the Corrupted Plains, curling and steaming upward like some shifting, uncertain illusion.
The burly monitor turned and reported to Gao Yang, who stood behind him: "The Great Wall's luminance is normal. The signs of overload are confirmed to have subsided."
Hetty and Amber were there as well—the former now standing at Gao Yang's side, while the latter had already poked her head curiously behind the telescopes, gazing through the lens array at that distant barrier. Hearing the monitor's report, Amber chimed in as well: "It really does look like it's back to normal!"
"The barrier has been restored for over forty-eight hours now, and there hasn't been the slightest sign of overload in all that time," Hetty said, looking at Gao Yang. "That strange keening sound is gone too—Ancestor, it seems this wall really has recovered."
"Recovered? It won't recover. It will only keep decaying—right now it's simply quieted for a time," Gao Yang said. He too had breathed a sigh of relief, but he dared not share Hetty's optimism. "Repairing the Great Wall is all but impossible for the nations of today—even for the elves... I very much doubt they still have the capacity to build a new Sentinel Tower. For now the barrier is holding, perhaps because the elves found some special means to restart the critical systems, but the overall decay and damage to the system is an irreversible fact."
As Gao Yang spoke, the memories of Gao Yang Cecil laid this cold truth before him—according to those memories, even before the elves completed the last Sentinel Tower, the elven mages who had designed the barrier had warned the leaders of the human nations: the barrier had been raised using an "ancient relic" of the elves, its core components all but impossible to replicate, and once damaged, beyond replacement.
For the past seven hundred years, this barrier had sailed the storm-tossed sea like a battered, patched-up leviathan—no spare parts, no retreat, and nowhere on that vast ocean a port where it might dock for repairs. It could only age, only fail, while its engineers slapped patch after patch onto its sputtering engines and its cracking hull, doing nothing but delaying the sinking.
Those who had built the barrier, those who had lived through the Second Expansion—everyone knew this truth. Yet no one had imagined that even as the barrier neared its limits, people would still find no way to resolve the magic tide once and for all, that the corruption upon the wasteland of Gondor would never fully dissipate—no one had even imagined that this barrier, raised with the combined strength of all nations, might well fail to last out its first millennium.
And worse still... humanity, that short-lived and ever-changing race, had very likely forgotten what kind of apocalypse was penned behind this wall.
"Continue monitoring. Lift the alert in twenty-four hours," Gao Yang made his final decision. "This observation post is to be designated a key site. Add another shift of personnel, tasked from now on solely with watching the Great Wall's movements."
Hetty bowed her head deeply. "Yes."
Be that as it may, life had to go on.
After returning to the lord's manor, Gao Yang went into his study, drew a sheet from a stack of letter paper, and began writing a personal letter.
Amber leaned in curiously for a look. "What are you writing?"
Gao Yang could not help but shoot a glance at this half-elf who had not a shred of self-awareness or propriety. "Could you show a little discipline? I know we're well acquainted, but this is a confidential letter written in the lord's own hand—do you really just lean over and read it?"