Chapter 1557: A Phantom Across Time and Space

Listening to that voice descending from the sky—imbued with an inexplicable mix of solemnity and languor—Gawain remained utterly unfazed by the ancient god’s imposing presence. After all, he had once bantered casually with the Dragon God, a chaotic deity whose very form blotted out the sun and sky. Compared to that overwhelming force, the pressure emanating from this lady was hardly anything to worry about.

So when the Lady of Night finished speaking, Gawain didn’t follow her lead or continue along her train of thought. Instead, he immediately asked, “First, tell me—where did Amber and Modril go?”

The voice from above seemed to pause in thought before replying, “There’s no need to worry about them. They are both safe, and each has their own tasks to attend to. Before they return here, we still have time for a proper conversation.”

Gawain felt a flicker of relief. Although it seemed the Lady of Night wasn’t ready to reveal their exact whereabouts or what they were doing, at least he could be certain they were unharmed. The tension on his face eased slightly. “Alright then. I’ve been curious about what an ancient god like you is planning. Since you already know my ‘identity,’ we can speak more openly… Where would you like to start? The instructions left by the Voyagers? The impending magical cataclysm and divine calamity? Or perhaps…”

“Let’s start with you,” the Lady of Night interrupted with a teasing smile. “Amid all your toil, you should occasionally pay attention to yourself, old… my neighbor.”

“Old…?” Gawain frowned, curious about the half-spoken word. But then he suddenly recalled her earlier mention of a “data stream” and a vague suspicion dawned on him. “Could it be something of mine…?”

“Memories—some that should belong to you—and a fragment of consciousness. This fragment has waited centuries to meet you,” the Lady of Night explained slowly. “These things have lingered in the dim, outdated data links of the Sky Station for centuries. They were meant to be with you, but the corruption of the Inverse Tide caused several subsystems to malfunction and go offline. Some data was mistakenly severed and trapped in the Shadow Hall. Fortunately, the anchor generator maintained minimal operation and automatically recorded these fragments. After the Battle of Talash, I resolved the corruption and have been waiting ever since to return them to their rightful owner.”

She used many technical terms that only those familiar with the Voyager legacy would understand. An outsider would be utterly lost. But Gawain immediately grasped her meaning—those blank spaces in his memory!

Historically, the real Gawain Cecil had once climbed the Voyager Tower and struck a deal with the “Gawain” trapped on a satellite. That deal likely led to Gawain’s resurrection seven centuries later, rising from his grave to walk the earth again. This event was unrecorded in history, but over the years, Gawain had pieced together fragments of the truth—except for one crucial piece: his own memories.

He had known nothing about this.

Now he finally understood why. Those memories had been intercepted by the Inverse Tide’s interference, trapped inside the Sky Station, and mistakenly absorbed into the Lady of Night’s database! No wonder he had never found them.

Gawain’s eyes widened. The long-standing mystery suddenly brightened, and he couldn’t help but feel a surge of excitement. He looked up at the amber eyes in the sky. “These memories…”

His words abruptly cut off. Without him noticing, the towering figure standing in the city center had vanished. Not just the figure—the surrounding towers, walls, houses, and roads all disappeared in an instant. Gawain blinked in shock, and in the blink of an eye, he found himself standing in utter darkness.

“This is just like you—always so sudden and unpredictable…” he muttered, knowing full well this was likely the Lady of Night beginning the process of returning what was his. Still, he couldn’t resist grumbling a little.

At that moment, the boundless darkness around him began to shift. Faint glimmers and vague outlines emerged from the void.

The shadows gradually took shape until Gawain could clearly see a hall filled with various devices. It looked like a chamber inside the Sky Station. The edges of the room faded into darkness, with only a single beam of light illuminating the center. Having once studied the knowledge of the Everrest, Gawain quickly recognized that the interplay of light and dark represented different “impressions” of memory—the light showing clear images, the darkness representing spaces beyond memory’s reach.

From the edge of the darkness, a figure slowly stepped forward into the light.

Gawain instinctively widened his eyes, stunned as the familiar, imposing figure became fully visible. It was a face he had seen countless times before—his own.

A deep sense of recognition stirred within him. He guessed who this figure was—the “fragment of consciousness” the Lady of Night had mentioned.

The figure’s expression was calm as it met Gawain’s gaze. After two seconds of silence, the phantom spoke first: “Hello, I am Gawain Cecil.”

“I am Gawain,” he replied slowly. For some reason, despite the emotional weight of the moment, he felt an unusual calm—as if this meeting was destined, something he had awaited for years. “This isn’t our first meeting, is it?”

“I don’t know how much time has passed, but indeed, this is not our first encounter,” the phantom said with a smile. This human hero, who had left a brilliant mark on history before his sudden fall, spoke as if to an old friend. “When I first became aware of you, you were just a voice. At that time, I thought you were some kind of prophetic spirit. The first time we spoke face to face, you were a machine—cold and powerful, communicating through steel. Now, I’m glad to see you as a living, breathing person… You fulfilled your promise to me, stranger.”

“But I can’t remember the details of that promise,” Gawain frowned slightly. The sensation was strange—after years inhabiting this body, he was accustomed to his identity. Talking to a phantom that looked exactly like himself felt surreal. He wasn’t sure if this “fragment of consciousness” could feel such complex emotions, but knowing time was precious, he pushed the odd feeling aside. “Some of my memories are missing.”

He paused, then added, “But I suppose I did fulfill the promise—if it was to take over your body years after your death, rise from the grave, and continue to lead and protect the people.”

The phantom smiled faintly and nodded, then sat down cross-legged on the floor. “That was indeed part of the agreement.”

Gawain was momentarily stunned but sat down as well. Then he recalled what the phantom had said earlier, and some faded fragments stirred in his mind. “You said when you first became aware of me, I was just a voice… Was that after you obtained that piece of the space station? The… ‘extraterrestrial artifact’ turned into a shield?”

“Yes, after I got it,” the phantom nodded. “Through it, I established communication with a voice. At first, it was just vague noise—I thought I was possessed by an evil spirit. But soon it became clear, and it seemed eager to talk to me… That voice was you. At first, you told me about changes happening on the earth, but later our connection deepened. You even projected images into my mind, letting me see events thousands of miles away. I called you a ‘prophet,’ but you said you were just an ordinary person…”

Gawain recalled a passage from history—after acquiring the “Kingdom’s Guardian Shield,” Gawain seemed to awaken a special power, able to foresee enemy movements miles away, to command armies with the perspective of the skies.

As these memories surfaced, fragments long lost suddenly reappeared in his mind.

He remembered drifting aimlessly in space when a voice from the surface connected to the Sky Station’s data stream. He recalled establishing communication with this “human hero” looking up at the sky, discussing the earth, the stars, and opening visitor permissions to let him glimpse a broader world…

He heard Gawain Cecil speak calmly before him: “…Among the knowledge you shared, I saw the truth of the world’s cyclical destruction and the dark clouds looming over the realm of gods. The pressure of impending doom led me to make the boldest decision of my life… I thought, if mere mortals cannot save this world, then we need a greater power—something more immortal, wiser, with eyes that watch over the earth yet care for all life upon it…”

Gawain looked up and saw a trace of regret on the phantom’s face. “I sought out the wisest minds for counsel, scoured ancient tomes, discussed with you, and convinced you to accept this pact. My elven friends found clues in old books, guiding me to transform my body into a suitable ‘vessel’ to bypass the Tower’s restrictions. I learned from a barbarian who once dealt with sea monsters that another land lay to the southeast, with towers reaching the sky’s end. That summer, I set out and drifted at sea for a long time…

“But after many trials, I finally completed this audacious, almost fantastical plan.

“I witnessed landscapes humanity never imagined, and I met you—a truly incredible ancient soul residing within a vast machine. Honestly, I was quite startled at first.”

At last, the memories in Gawain’s mind fully aligned.

He took a deep breath, smiled, and shook his head at the phantom before him. “And all of this… started with us putting a handle on that piece of space debris.”

“Yeah, it all began with putting a handle on that thing,” Gawain Cecil chuckled. “Charlie insisted it suited my style best…”

“His taste has always been a bit off,” Gawain shrugged. “The others weren’t much better.”

“True, not many of them were well-read,” Gawain Cecil sighed, then shook his head. “But in the end, I’m glad we put a handle on it…”

For a long moment, Gawain remained silent, quietly gazing at the ancient apparition before him. Though he knew this was nothing more than a lingering fragment of consciousness, a ghostly remnant, a flood of thoughts suddenly surged within him—an urge to communicate, to connect. Yet after a stretch of silence, the first thing he uttered was a sigh.

“Looking back, the outcome isn’t all that bad,” he said softly, “but I still have to say this… Your old hope that a savior would descend from the heavens—that was never a reliable plan. If it were me, I’d rather tackle problems step by step, with my feet firmly on the ground. You wagered your very soul to bring me down here, but once I arrived, I still had to take it one step at a time to get where I am today. I told you before—I’m just an ordinary man. I don’t have the power to wave my hand and save the world.”

“You told me that back then, too,” Gawain Cecil shook his head. “But I also told you I’m just a soldier—albeit one with a bit of luck beyond the ordinary. I couldn’t think of any other way, couldn’t see through the world’s changes. You said society develops according to its own laws, that instead of waiting for a savior, we should trust in the strength of all living beings. But those ‘observation records’ you showed me—they terrified me. All I knew was that the process of saving the world had to be sped up…

“My friend, maybe you’re right. Even without you, even without any miracles, as long as mortal civilizations keep striving generation after generation, given enough time, someday a civilization will survive. They’ll be wiser, more united, luckier than those who came before. Their future will shine brighter, heroes will rise in their ranks. But selfishly, I can’t wait that long—I don’t care how brilliant the next civilization might be, or whether they have four arms and legs, or wings on their backs and four eyes on their faces… Their glory is just a hypothesis. But this generation—this one—we have to survive.”

Gazing at the eloquent phantom before him, Gawain found himself at a loss for words.

What could he say? He knew that Gawain Cecil’s decision back then was far from the most rational or wise choice. An observer could easily pick apart the countless flaws behind that folly, offer endless better suggestions. A critic looking down from above might dismiss it all as a product of “the limitations of the era.” Yet Gawain couldn’t bring himself to say any of it.

Not just because he himself was a part of that very transaction, but because history is always propelled forward by those trapped within the “limitations of their time.”

(End of chapter)