Chapter 1294 — Return to Cecil
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
"In the Deep Blue Netway... those sirens actually 'fished' something out of the Deep Blue Netway?!" Gao Yang was momentarily dumbstruck, first startled by the sirens' astonishing feat, and only then turning his attention to the latter half of Sir Solide's sentence. "You're saying neither Jenny nor Rebecca can make sense of what the sirens hauled up? What about the Empire's other scholars?"
Jenny and Rebecca might be absolute authorities in modern runes and magitek, but they were, after all, somewhat lacking in experience and accumulated depth; in the field of "erudition" they might not surpass those traditional mage-scholars. Faced with the mysterious object the sirens had "fished" up, perhaps the broadly learned scholars of the old era might be the ones to see something in it.
Yet Sir Solide only shook his head: "No progress. Lady Hedy even convened the academic circles of Holy Frost Roost City, but no one has ever seen that thing... not even heard of it."
Gao Yang's brow furrowed. He could not help recalling that not long ago, he and Carmel and the others had discussed at the Sentinel Home Port the possibility that the "Elven Twins" in the wasteland might use those cultists' power to stir up trouble in the Deep Blue Netway—and he had not expected a suspicious lead to surface so soon. He turned to glance at Windsor Mapel and the Typhon scholars she led, then turned back to frown at the heavily armored theurgist before him: "Have the relevant materials been sent to Typhon and the Silver Empire?"
"Yes. In accordance with the Alliance's Joint Defense Protocol for Major World-Level Disasters, we have already sent this intelligence to the leadership of both nations," Sir Solide nodded. "However..."
"However, we're equally at a loss," Lady Windsor Mapel said with some worry. "The feedback from the Silver Empire is the same. It is something entirely unknown to mortals today, employing techniques and design concepts beyond comprehension. Though suspicion currently falls most heavily on the cultists in the wasteland, we cannot fathom how a band of cultists who sealed themselves away in the Gondor wasteland could manufacture such a thing—let alone that they have mastered the technology to open the Deep Blue Netway and deposit matter within it..."
"It seems things are indeed as we surmised..." Facing Lady Windsor's confusion, Gao Yang merely sighed as though he had expected it, and turned to Carmel. "The Sentinels have begun to act."
"The Sentinels?" Lady Windsor was utterly baffled. She knew the word—in the classified documents recently circulating within the Alliance, the phrase "beware the Sentinels" had been appearing with growing frequency—but she could not see why this disturbing term should have anything to do with the Gondor wasteland. "What does that have to do with the wasteland...?"
"This is precisely the greatest discovery of our journey, the one I mentioned to you earlier," came Daniel's low, slightly gloomy voice. "Remember that warning—'beware the Sentinels'? Now at last we know what it means... An ancient guardian left behind by the Trailblazers has gone out of control. It infiltrated our world a thousand years ago, and after a long dormancy it has now begun to act. At present it is hiding among the 'Elven Twins' in the Gondor wasteland... The Elven Twins have been impersonated by this guardian called the 'Sentinel'! Those cultists in the wasteland have now become the Sentinel's claws, and in their hands... they hold the Trailblazers' technology!"
Windsor Mapel's breathing abruptly quickened. A moment later she gripped her staff tightly, her expression extraordinarily grave: "This must be reported to Aldernan at once!"
"And I must hurry back as well," Gao Yang said. The news Sir Solide brought made him feel all the more pressed. "Victoria, you return to the North to handle affairs—we will need a stable domestic situation now more than ever. Amber and I will return to Xuanyao City. As for Carmel..."