Chapter 1115 — Revisiting the Age of Myth
Blade of Dawn · Page 4 of 4
"I thought this would be a more... lifeless place," Bellantia considered, then spoke her thoughts with complete candor. "After all, I heard that not long ago this was still a 'forbidden zone,' and even most of the Defiance Fortress outside was under lockdown... but now it seems you have developed this place into a proper research facility?"
"It was actually not long ago," Gao Yan said. "We have restarted many of the research projects from the Gundor-era Heresy Plan, and the Heretic Redoubt and Heretic Fortress are the most suitable research facilities—they boast unique 'geographical advantages' as well as defense mechanisms that remain operational to this day, so we moved all our personnel and equipment in."
"Is this what they call 'analyzing the gods'?" Bellantea could not help saying softly. "Such large-scale involvement, such matter-of-fact action... it is nothing like what I had guessed."
Gao Hengjin asked with some curiosity, "What was your original guess?"
"...Something like what my father once did—in a place of extreme secrecy, with an extremely small number of people conducting extremely secret research, where no result dared be made public, where every process was ultimately destroyed, and where all that came out were unexplained orders and ambiguous answers."
"And what would be the point of doing it that way?" Gao Song stopped in his tracks and looked at Bellantea with a half-smile. "That would not even compare to the Heresy Plan of the Gundor era."
He shook his head, drew back his gaze, and looked toward the end of the corridor, then went on as if speaking to himself: "No point at all... yet many people do things similar to what you describe—the dark cults, the Typhon imperial house... A cautious attitude is indeed not wrong, but it is far from enough.
"You should not, while analyzing the gods, still maintain your reverence for them. On this audacious path, only when we stop treating gods as gods can we draw a little closer to the truth of the divine.
"Bellantea, we have arrived—this is the last gate. Behind it lies the 'little courtyard' of the former gods."
Only now did Bellantea realize the corridor had reached its end. An alloy gate inscribed with numerous ancient runes barred her way, and no technicians could be seen moving about anywhere nearby. On the walls to either side, brightly lit warning signs stood out, reminding visitors in large lettering:
Gods ahead. Do not approach.
As Gao Yang's voice fell, the alloy gate creaked open, driven by a series of mechanical structures—yet the corridor was not directly exposed to the outside space: a semi-transparent energy barrier appeared there as the final safety partition between "the mortal world" and "the gods." Through this barrier Bellantea's gaze traveled, and in the darkness far beyond, a radiance like a mountain rose upward.
That was the mythological age the elves had lost three thousand years ago.