Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 923 - 922: The Vanished God

Nariteer’s words caused a momentary barrier of understanding for everyone present; whether in terms of grammar or semantics, no one could translate it to a result. In Gawain’s mind, a sentence unexpectedly surfaced: The language and knowledge of gods are incomprehensible to mortals, even if you hear Their voice clearly, you cannot grasp Their intentions...

He immediately shook his head, dispelling the thought from his mind: That sentence certainly wasn’t meant to describe the situation in front of him...

"What exactly is the situation?" He looked at the girl in the holographic projection. "You mentioned a ’legless woman’? Is the invader a legless woman?"

Nariteer promptly nodded, gesturing with a very tall sign: "And she looked particularly tall, like a tower, she ran all the way to the unconscious area at the boundary of the neural network, and it was there that she escaped..."

Gawain’s brow furrowed little by little. Realizing that communication in this manner would likely make it difficult to grasp effective information, he interrupted Nariteer’s words: "You wait over there for a moment, I’ll enter the network and speak with you directly."

Nariteer nodded: "Oh, alright."

"You all handle the follow-up of the network integration here," Gawain turned to look at Rebecca and Kamel beside him. "Even though the network appears normal now, remain vigilant—continue monitoring the status of all hubs for another twenty-four hours, and keep listening for abnormal signals within the network. Also... Kamel, integrate the sea demons Runes into the network and broadcast them globally."

The last command came to him just a second ago—recalling Nariteer’s garbled descriptions and the clues he had observed in the previous anomalies, he vaguely felt that the truth behind this matter might be extraordinary.

After making a series of arrangements, Gawain didn’t waste any time in the real world and quickly entered the neural network where Nariteer was located through the connecting device.

...

This "new world," built upon human consciousness nodes, had weathered a storm, and now everything had calmed down. The unique nature of the virtual world allowed it to rapidly self-repair, with traces left by the storm quickly fading on a global scale. Now, only a few cracks and chaotic lines on the horizon remain as evidence, telling Gawain that some uninvited guest once "visited" here.

Within the Mirror Emperor’s Capital at the very center of the "new world," a large pyramid-shaped building stands on the spot corresponding to the Cecil Palace in reality. This large pyramid facility serves as the projection of the Imperial Computing Center and a series of distributed computing stations in the networked world, fulfilling similar responsibilities as a management hub.

At this moment, advanced technical leaders responsible for managing the neural network had already gathered in the largest conference hall within the pyramid, including some former Archbishops of the Eternal Sleepers and several experts from the Magic Guide Technology Research Institute. By the time Gawain entered the hall, he was the only one missing.

"I saw the remnants in the sky from outside," he said casually. "It seems the fluctuations in the neural network were far more severe than those in the real world."

"We experienced a storm, a certain disruptive ’tremor’ spread across the entire world," uttered Megal III’s voice from a hovering starlight polymer above the conference table. "But this storm did not materially destroy anything; it merely caused widespread visual interference—now the repair work is almost complete."

"This helps us assess the real intent of the ’invader,’" Gawain nodded, looking towards one of the two special seats to his left. "Nariteer, directly project what you saw here—if those images are ’safe,’ that is."

Nariteer clearly understood the meaning of "safe" in Gawain’s words. She stood up, spreading her arms while nodding: "It’s very safe—the unsafe parts have already been ’consumed’ by me."

As her voice fell, a multitude of chaotic light and shadow suddenly enveloped everyone and then quickly formed a projection illusion large enough to cover the entire hall. Amidst the dense, undulating fog like smoke or sea, Gawain and the others witnessed the chase battle that occurred not long ago in the network boundary area—they saw the shadow that skimmed the border, saw the "lady" who was clearly not human, saw the entanglement between the White Spider and the invader, and also saw how the invader escaped...

With wide eyes and full concentration, Gawain observed the scene, capturing more and more details as the images shifted. When he noticed the symbolic icons in the magic domain and overheard parts of the conversations between the "invader" and Nariteer, his brow furrowed tightly, and his expression grew increasingly solemn.

Beside him, many former Archbishops of the Eternal Sleepers also showed serious expressions, indicating that these experts, who had dealt with "divine forces" for most of their lives (or their whole lives/two lives), had drawn similar conclusions to Gawain.

The invader... had very clear "mythological" characteristics.

Soon, Nariteer’s "recollection" ended, and the illusions in the hall receded like a tide. Gawain immediately looked toward this firsthand witness: "Nariteer, while you were entangled with the intruder, did you feel the presence of some trait similar to yours? For instance... some aura that you and Duvalt both have..."

Gawain had some difficulty expressing his idea. He found that human vocabulary was so inadequate for describing such ultra-experience concepts. Coupled with the fact that Nariteer was a relatively inexperienced "young deity," he struggled to articulate what he meant. Ultimately, Duvalt sitting on Nariteer’s other side understood his intent, and the black-clad elder nodded, answering on behalf of his "divine half": "There is a similar aura, Nariteer mentioned it upon her return. She felt that the intruder was a little like ’us’... a kind of kin."

The expressions of almost everyone present changed instantly.

Nariteer then earnestly added: "It’s only ’like’ kin; there are still many differences—I have more legs than her..."

Gawain: "..."

Why is this White Spider so obsessed with legs?

Nariteer’s peculiar obsession with "legs" nearly caused everyone’s emotions in the hall to lose coherence, but the seriousness of the situation quickly refocused their attention on the important matters. Selena Gerfen, who had been silent, stood up: "So we can generally conclude that a god has invaded our network..."

Yuri broke the silence: "Not necessarily invaded, more like leveraging our network to execute some other plan..."

"That essentially is still an invasion," Magnan said loudly. "They certainly didn’t obtain anyone’s consent..."

"The key now is to identify this deity’s identity. Among the known gods, which one aligns with such an image? We can start by ruling out the War God..."

The people in the hall began discussing the matter, and just then, Aunt Heidi’s voice suddenly resonated in Gawain’s mind—it was an urgent message sent from the real world.

"Ancestor," Heidi’s voice carried a trace of urgency and tension, "something seems amiss... Just now, High Chancellor Victoria sent a message saying that prayers to the Goddess of Magic have suddenly stopped receiving any feedback."

"What did you say?" Gawain’s expression changed instantly, sitting upright as he quickly inquired in his mind, "Do you mean the Goddess of Magic... has disappeared?"

Heidi seemed unprepared for Gawain to jump to such a radical conclusion; she was stunned for a moment but soon gave an affirmative answer: "I’m afraid so... Although there’s usually no response on the level of divine arts during prayers to the Goddess of Magic, at least the supplicants can feel a psychological sense of feedback and a transcendent gaze from the gods. But since just now, even this most basic feedback has disappeared when praying to the Goddess of Magic, Milmina. Over at Bitter Winter Castle, they’ve conducted several prayer experiments with mages of varying strength and faith, and the results have all been the same.

"Additionally, when I received the news earlier, I tried it myself... and indeed, there was no response."

Gawain’s face was as calm as water as he spoke slowly, "According to our research on the mechanisms of gods, a god, as long as they exist, will definitely connect with their followers—prayers will inevitably generate feedback, feedback that does not change with the god’s will, unless one destroys their own divinity and falls into a state like Amon or is replaced like the God of Storms..."

"Yes, Ancestor," Heidi said in a deep voice, "so the current situation has only one explanation: the Goddess of Magic has disappeared... or at least, the ’divine position’ corresponding to the Goddess of Magic has disappeared."

"... That is probably the truth," Gawain responded, "First, stabilize the situation on your side. Most mages casually believe in the Goddess of Magic, so there shouldn’t be too much chaos. First announce the successful connection to the net, then release all those things we prepared in advance to handle unexpected situations, the soccer news, new Magic Shadow Drama trailers, those aerial documentaries, commercial advertisements, including those songs Wendy recorded... release them all, let ordinary people have something to watch, to occupy their attention. As for the mages’ voices... since the Goddess of Magic doesn’t have a church, let the Administrative Office’s department of extraordinary affairs connect with those mages — for now, only accept information from civilian feedback, and await the investigation conclusion from the magic research department.

"Arrange it like this for now, we’ll discuss the specifics once I return to the real world."

"Yes, Ancestor."

Heidi’s communication was cut off, and Gawain turned his attention back to the venue, where Wendy, sitting not far away, seemed to have noticed something and cast a curious glance: "Your Majesty, have you thought of something?"

"It must be the Goddess of Magic, Milmina," Gawain sighed, his expression complex, "Heidi just sent word that the divine position of the Goddess of Magic, Milmina has disappeared."

The people in the hall immediately looked at each other in disbelief.

"Nariteer," Gawain turned to his left, "that ’intruder’ once told you that she cannot have any contact with mortals now, said she had gone to great lengths to sever her connection with mortals, right?"

"Yes," Nariteer nodded, "and she also said she owed someone a favor, asked me to tell you she would repay it someday... but I always felt she never intended to come back..."

"... If everything is as I suspected, she indeed has no intention of ’coming back,’" Gawain said unhurriedly, numerous clues taking shape in his mind, alongside countless speculations and hypotheses; the previously chaotic fog seemed to clear up, and the whole affair began to take form in his mind — under his guesses lay a shocking conclusion. If he hadn’t personally seen Amon in a faux-dead state and had a conversation with him, he might never have thought in this direction, "Another god who shattered their own divine position..."

He then shook his head — though he was now almost certain that the intruder Nariteer encountered was the Goddess of Magic, Milmina, and was sure she had no intention of ’coming back,’ the ’return’ here referred to ’returning to the divine position,’ as for the Goddess of Magic’s promise to Nariteer to ’repay a favor’... he maintained an expectancy.

The reason was simple — it’s hard for gods to lie, and they would not make promises lightly, even gods who have shed the constraints of their divinity seem still bound in this regard.

But clearly, it wasn’t the time to ponder how a god would ’repay a favor’ — because a certain whimsical god had abruptly left, leaving behind a mess.

Of course, they didn’t just leave a mess. For someone as adept at seizing advantages as Gawain, this mess contained an abundance of valuable clues that could help him understand the operational rules of the gods, and even speculate on the states of other gods.

Perhaps... it’s time to talk to Amon again.

...

In the depths of the Defied Fortress, within the ’Courtyard Area’ of the shadow realm, countless fragmented boulders connected to form a floating broken land in the air, crisscrossed with ancient metal shards and binding devices left from the Gondor Era, collectively securing the massive ’corpse’ of the White Stag.

In this dark and chaotic world, Amon lay dormant as usual, solitude and silence seemingly meaningless to him.

Yet suddenly, his tightly shut eyes opened again, and his eyes, like prisms of light-forged gems, fixated on the depths of the shadow realm.

A figure of pale purple, containing many light orbs and magic symbols, suddenly appeared in the vast chaos of the dark depths, flying like a swift wind and swept past from not far in front of Amon.

Amon quietly watched the ’wind’ appear and vanish, concentrating on the direction it disappeared. He waited patiently for a moment, soon after seeing that pale purple figure hurriedly flying again from afar.

This figure stopped, a lady as tall as a clock tower stood on the shadow realm’s broken ground, her glow dim, glaring at the lying Amon with a baffled yet surprised voice: "You... so it is..."

But the next second, she shook her head: "No, I must isolate deeper..."

Before she finished speaking, this lady once more turned into a ’whirlwind’ as when she came, speedily flying towards the depths of the shadow realm. In the darkness, only a voice fading into the distance reached Amon’s ears:

"Don’t say I’ve been here!!"

Amon remained silent throughout, making no sound or movement, only watching quietly as his eyes, like light-forged crystals, mirrored it all.

"...Ah?"