Chapter 1356: An Ancient Message

Gawain had two perspectives from outer space to observe this planet.

The first was the “satellite view” he’d come equipped with after crossing over—a perspective tied to a geosynchronous satellite orbiting near the equator. Its view was limited to the Loren continent and a small surrounding area of land. The second was a vantage point he’d gained later by exploiting a loophole in the permissions system: the Skyward Space Station’s orbital perspective. Strictly speaking, the Skyward Station’s system was in even worse shape than that old geosynchronous satellite. Years of neglect, combined with a head-on collision three thousand years ago involving Amon, had left the station severely damaged. Many of its ring segments were dark, the monitoring systems frozen, and Gawain only had access to the cameras on a single ring segment.

Yet, thanks to the station’s massive scale and unique orbital position, when Gawain used the Skyward Station’s view to look down on the land, he could see things the satellites couldn’t—like the vast sea area southwest of the Loren continent.

Out in space, a faint light flickered on the huge ring-shaped space station. Along the inner orbital track facing the Loren continent, several monitoring devices slid out from their protective bays, moving swiftly along rails to adjust their focus. Ancient sensors silently operated in the void, gathering data from the planet’s surface. Meanwhile, on the ground, Gawain’s mind was intensely focused. He slowly adjusted the station’s ground-facing monitoring apparatus while a flood of guesses and thoughts raced through his head. His mental storm continued until the images in his mind grew clearer, and near the base of the orbital elevator at the edge of his view, the shapes of the Winter’s Chill and other main fleet ships began to emerge.

Gawain blinked in surprise and “rubbed his eyes” in his mind. The optical sensors on the Skyward Station zoomed in slightly. At the very edge of this perspective, the orbital elevator—a structure stretching from space down to the planet’s surface—came into sharper focus. After several rounds of magnification, the image of the sea surface became clearer, and there was no doubt: that was the Winter’s Chill.

He recognized the ship’s distinctive multiple wing panels and the weapon deck equipped with a massive iridescent generator. And the fleet trailing behind it—wasn’t that the imperial expedition fleet he’d lost track of?

“What the hell… how did they get there?” Gawain muttered to himself. “This doesn’t make sense… The distance from the Aldo estuary to that elevator isn’t something a storm could explain. And this location…”

No matter how much he muttered, the fact was undeniable: the missing imperial fleet had been found, right under his nose—in the literal sense.

After a brief moment of stunned acceptance, Gawain’s thoughts turned to the series of system alerts he’d heard earlier. At first, he’d only felt confused, but now a faint truth began to take shape: Byron’s side hadn’t just been standing around wasting time after getting lost. They had already sent an exploration team to the orbital elevator, and the explorers’ landing and contact had triggered a system left behind by the Voyagers. This system was connected to the Skyward Station and had sent a series of alert messages to him.

Judging from the content of the alerts, the Voyagers had clearly left a “standard protocol” within the Skyward Station to handle such events. This might be one of the differences between the two orbital elevators and the “Industrial Tower” on Talrond. But Gawain didn’t know the details of this protocol. What would happen next? How would the orbital elevator deal with unauthorized visitors? Would the approach of the Winter’s Chill be seen as a threat by that tower? And most importantly… how could he contact Byron, who was drifting right under his watchful eye?

Within the dark virtual space formed by his connection to the Skyward Station, Gawain pondered for several minutes and found himself at a loss. He searched the system thoroughly but found no loudspeaker near the orbital elevator, nor any microphone for open-air communication.

It seemed all he could do was watch—watch Byron’s exploration team poke around the orbital elevator, hoping they wouldn’t do anything reckless. But then he thought back to the original elves who had once gotten lost near the elevator. They’d made some serious mistakes back then, but in the end, only some mutations occurred before the Voyager system released them. So maybe… there wasn’t too much to worry about.

Gawain’s thoughts drifted uncontrollably. He couldn’t help but imagine what would happen if Byron’s team really did something catastrophic. The original elves had climbed the tower and come back transformed into Silver Elves, Gray Elves, Sea Elves, and other subraces. What if Byron’s fleet returned as a ship full of beast-eared brutes? That would be a nightmare. How on earth would he explain that to Pea?

With a furrowed brow and a head full of wild thoughts, Gawain continued to watch the images streaming in from the monitoring system, seeing his imperial fleet drifting beside that steel island…

…

“That thing is glowinggggg!!!”

For a moment, Cassandra’s scream echoed through the entire comm channel. The siren-like, piercing voice of the sea witch nearly shattered Byron’s eardrums. But Cassandra quickly calmed down when she realized that aside from glowing, the metal ring wall hadn’t changed in any other way.

The sea breeze remained gentle, the sunlight still bright. The three salty fish who had come ashore stared at each other wide-eyed. The steam rising in the sunlight swirled gently around them, carefully controlled to prevent them from drying out like salted fish. The communicator on Cassandra’s chest finally crackled to life.

“Hello? Hello? Lady Cassandra? Are you alright over there?”

“We’re fine,” Cassandra replied, snapping out of her daze as she checked herself over. “The outer ring structure suddenly started glowing. I think I accidentally triggered something, but nothing else happened. We’re planning to continue exploring.”

“Continue exploring?” Byron’s voice sounded relieved. “Alright, just be careful and try not to touch anything near the tower recklessly.”

“Understood, understood,” Cassandra said, nodding repeatedly. She curled her tail around a nearby metal pipe and carefully pulled herself back a couple of steps, then waved to her two sea witch companions. “Sisters, let’s keep inspecting this ‘ring’—see if we can find any open entrances or anything like that…”

After this tense but harmless incident, the sea witches calmed their nearly numb nervous systems and happily resumed their exploration. Over the next several hours, no further surprises occurred.

This ancient Voyager facility remained silent before the explorers, quietly allowing these deep-sea salty fish to wander around it like on a casual outing.

The tension caused by the “artifact suddenly glowing” incident gradually eased among the Winter’s Chill’s commanders. Though they remained cautious and alert, their focus shifted to the ongoing exploration. They paid close attention to the real-time images Cassandra sent back, occasionally instructing the team to examine anything that looked like writing or symbols and to document their findings.

The writing and symbols left by the Voyagers were an enigma to the mortal races of this world. But as the humans of the Loren continent increasingly encountered information related to Voyager relics, research in this field had just begun. The dragons could decipher Voyager script, and Gawain Cecil, ruler of the Cecile Empire, possessed mysterious knowledge in this area. Thus, the data they recorded would be highly valuable once brought back—surely the empire’s “Voyager linguists,” and perhaps even His Majesty himself, would be very interested.

Watching the images Cassandra continuously transmitted, Byron wished he had a few Voyager language experts on his fleet. Then he could understand exactly what the many facilities on that island were for. But alas, that was just wishful thinking.

This was not a scientific expedition fleet. The Winter’s Chill’s original mission was to go to the southern continent’s battlefield and bomb treants and mutants… Who would have thought a purely combat mission would turn into an alien exploration?

Unrelated thoughts flashed through his mind as Cassandra’s images moved across the holographic display at the captain’s station. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Byron noticed something unusual. He reacted quickly.

“Wait, Lady Cassandra, turn the camera back—there’s something off about the writing on that metal plate!”

Cassandra flicked her tail and swiftly turned back to the spot where she had just recorded video footage. It was a broad, flat metal “plaza” near a massive gate (she had been about to check inside that gate). Around the plaza stood numerous neatly arranged, obelisk-like structures. In front of one obelisk stood a huge metal plate etched with weathered patterns.

For Cassandra, who lived in the deep sea and specialized in mechanical repairs, ocean navigation, and death metal rock, language and writing were her weakest areas. Yet, when she carefully examined the patterns on the metal plate under Byron’s remote guidance, she immediately realized these patterns were clearly different from the Voyager script she had seen elsewhere.

Those patterns were also writing—but a different kind of writing.

On the Winter’s Chill’s bridge, the red-haired Dragonmark witch Asalina, who had been resting, was called over to study the images Cassandra had sent. After carefully examining the weathered patterns on the metal plate, she finally concluded:

“…This is Ancient Elvish, the most primitive version. The grammar and some letter forms differ from the modern language, but it’s still recognizable.”

“Ancient Elvish?” Byron looked at her in surprise. “You can even read Ancient Elvish?”

“I know a little,” Asalina said. “Ancient Elvish differs somewhat from today’s Elvish, but they share the same roots. The Silver Elves’ official language system preserves this best. Before I ran away from home to explore the ‘outside world,’ I prepared extensively, including studying seven or eight languages and scripts—Common Tongue, Dwarvish, Elvish, and so on…”

“Wait, you learned seven or eight foreign languages just to run away from home?” Byron gawked at Asalina. “Are the kids in the Holy Dragon Duchy always this hardcore?”

“Before the borders opened, the only way out of the mountains was to leap from the highest northern cliff and glide a hundred kilometers into the Winterlands,” Asalina shrugged. “If you landed badly, you might have to fight wild beasts in the northern mountains with multiple broken bones. Under those conditions, wanting to run away from home was already hardcore. Kids without both brains and brawn just couldn’t pull it off.”

Byron found himself at a loss for how to react to the Dragonborn—a race so hardcore it defied easy judgment. Clearing his throat awkwardly, he quickly steered the conversation back on track. His eyes scanned the ancient elven script, brow furrowing slightly. “Can you translate what’s written here?”

“I’m working on it,” Asalina replied, her gaze fixed on the holographic projection. The archaic characters reflected in her eyes as she painstakingly unraveled their meaning—though many passages remained elusive, she had managed to piece together several fragmented sentences. “This is… a message left by the earliest explorers for those who came after.

“It mentions a widespread decline in memory and physical deterioration spreading through their people—a result of some kind of ‘protection’ mechanism within the tower. Those who still retained full cognitive function left warnings inscribed on metal plates. While carving these words, they were constantly battling the ‘memory erasure’ effect invading their minds…

“It says the hall at the tower’s base is safe, but there’s an authentication system guarding the upper levels. This system once warned intruders not to ascend further, but some reckless souls ignored the warnings and triggered an ancient mechanism…

“There’s also mention of a great secret… or perhaps the truth itself? That phrase is impossible to translate—the spelling varies too wildly…

“There’s a warning here, cautioning future visitors against venturing to the tower’s upper reaches prematurely, saying it’s ‘too soon.’ There’s a long passage after that, but it’s difficult to make out.

“And finally…”

Asalina’s brow knitted tightly as she struggled to interpret the last part of the projection. After a long pause, she hesitated slightly before speaking. “The final section appears to be a poem. The author says it’s the last thing they could remember bringing out of the tower. It reads:

‘Do not lose yourself in this illusory, tranquil night; the darkness will inevitably be broken.

Do not cling to your warm cradle; the cradle will one day overturn.

Do not slumber in the sanctuary of your soul; that sanctuary will sooner or later become an unbreakable shackle.

Set forth, before the stars begin to fade; set forth, before the long night ends.

If you do not hurry, the daylight will arrive.’

“Asalina looked up, shifting her gaze from the hologram to Byron’s face.

“That’s everything… Why do you look so strange?”

Byron’s expression turned unusually grave—a look Asalina rarely saw on this usually carefree man. “His Majesty has mentioned this poem before,” he said quietly. “I think… it’s time we took a risk.”

(End of chapter)