Chapter 569: An Incomplete Plan

Faced with Solderin’s somewhat awkward greeting, Sonia Frostleaf merely nodded lightly. “At least still healthy.”

The few people standing beside Gawain were dumbfounded. Having little experience dealing with elves, none of them had even considered that this elven lady—who looked only a few years older than Rebecca—could actually be Solderin’s mother. Out of politeness, everyone quickly suppressed their surprise, except for Rebecca, who let out an involuntary “Wow,” the only one caught off guard.

Gawain, however, had anticipated this upon seeing Sonia Frostleaf. He remained calm and casually remarked, “After all these years apart, is this how cold you are?”

Solderin shrugged helplessly. Sonia glanced at Gawain and said, “He hasn’t been home in seven whole centuries.”

Gawain was left speechless.

“We’ve arranged accommodations for you. Hopefully, the human quarters won’t be too uncomfortable,” Hetty spoke up at the right moment, easing the tense atmosphere. She glanced toward the massive birds of prey gathered in the square. “As for these giant eagles… can they stay in the gryphon’s nest?”

Though Cecil had begun promoting maginet communications, reducing the gryphons’ role as messengers, the city still maintained a small gryphon squad and the necessary infrastructure for delivering important messages and some reconnaissance.

“They can,” Sonia nodded. “Gryphons aren’t picky about their lodgings. The Orlan Rangers will show you how to settle the giant eagles. Also, please make sure to accommodate the gryphons displaced from their nests and soothe their… moods.”

A male elf clad in green leather armor stepped forward—he must be the “Orlan Ranger” Sonia mentioned.

The staff managing the gryphon nests began coordinating with the ranger, while Sonia and the elves followed Gawain toward the Autumn Palace.

The giant eagles perched in the square seemed uneasy in this unfamiliar city. One lifted its head and let out a loud call toward Sonia: “Coo! Coo!!”

Sonia sighed and stopped, turning back to the large bird. “Show some courage! You’re a giant eagle!”

Then she turned and continued walking. Gawain had been startled when the eagle called out and looked at Sonia in surprise. “What’s with that eagle?”

“That’s Coo Coo. I hatched her forty years ago,” Sonia said, pressing a finger to her temple and shaking her head. “Damn it, I shouldn’t have let Master Thornheart take care of her… the Moon Valley is full of pigeons!”

Gawain was speechless.

Fortunately, these brief interruptions didn’t affect the welcoming ceremony. According to plan, the Autumn Palace had prepared a lavish banquet and resting quarters suited to elven tastes. After a convivial feast, in the palace’s reception hall, Sonia handed Gawain two sealed letters she had prepared in advance.

One was sealed in a carved wooden envelope decorated with pale green vines and leaves, bearing the elven royal court’s wax seal. The other was enclosed in a pale gold metal envelope, stamped with the Ansu royal sword-and-shield emblem.

Clearly, one was from the Elven Queen, the other from Silverhold.

Of course, officially, the second letter was now “jointly signed and issued by Silverhold and the Eastern Territories.”

Gawain glanced at Sonia but didn’t open either letter. Instead, he said casually, “So now you’re both an envoy of the Silver Empire and of Saint Sunir.”

“Strictly speaking, I’m just delivering this official letter on behalf of Silverhold. Elves can’t represent any human faction—I’m merely a messenger,” Sonia replied. “The envoy team from Saint Sunir and the Eastern Territories is still being organized, but they should have already set out by now. They’re riding hard and should reach you within two weeks.”

“Everyone wants face and benefits, no one willing to yield, all suspicious of each other, and time’s running out… so it ends up like this ridiculous mess, with royal-sealed letters delivered by an elven messenger,” Gawain scoffed, shaking his head. “Forget those unworthy descendants. Let’s get down to business—I know the general situation and your intentions. How bad is the barrier’s condition?”

“All the sentinel towers are damaged to varying degrees. The barrier’s effective power has dropped to seventy percent. It’s stable for now, but the self-repair system is half paralyzed. If another overload hits, it won’t hold,” Sonia said without hiding anything. Before this human hero who had personally experienced the magical cataclysm, she spoke the truth that would cause widespread panic outside. “We no longer have the capacity to produce core components for the sentinel towers. The current situation is: no parts, no substitutes, no complete repair plan.”

She paused, then added, “I’ve contacted Duchess Victoria Wilde. She mentioned you issued several warnings to the capital. I’ve seen those alerts you wrote. If I’m right, the initial overload started in the northern wasteland segment—only back then, you Ansu people had no real monitoring of the Grant Wall. No one noticed the early signs. By the time the aberrations invaded Ansu—around the time you first warned about the aberrations destroying old Cecil—the early signs had already turned into actual damage.”

Gawain frowned. “After that, I organized remote monitoring of the Grant Wall. For a long time, nothing unusual showed up.”

“The self-repair system masked the faulty nodes. When you resumed monitoring, it appeared ‘normal,’ but only on the surface,” Sonia said gravely. “In reality, the damage kept spreading—from one sentinel tower to another, until today, it’s spread across the entire barrier.”

Hetty couldn’t help but ask, “Your monitoring system didn’t detect this? Shouldn’t there be an early warning mechanism for faults spreading like this?”

That was exactly what Gawain wanted to ask. Sonia shook her head slightly. “That’s what we’re investigating now—the sentinel towers should have sent alarms. Even if the self-repair system temporarily fixed a faulty tower, there should at least be a fault record sent back to the highest control center in the Starry Sanctuary. But in fact, no such records exist. For years, all data from the sentinel towers reported everything as normal.”

Gawain and Hetty exchanged a glance.

“A deeper fault? Or sabotage?” Gawain asked seriously.

“We’re checking the early warning system and sending mages to inspect each sentinel tower along the barrier,” Sonia said slowly. “So far, no problems found. The Grant Wall’s monitoring is continuous. No suspicious points in the system. Besides the monitoring system, we have numerous outposts around the wasteland perimeter, watching the barrier 24/7. Even a mouse near a sentinel tower would be detected. It’s impossible for anyone to sabotage the towers. We really don’t know what’s wrong.”

Listening to Sonia, Gawain exhaled softly, then said, “Anyway, by your account, we missed the best chance to repair the Grant Wall…”

“And the best chance at that,” Sonia sighed. “When the initial fault appeared, the sentinel towers weren’t yet seriously damaged. We had a chance to fully fix it… but it’s useless to dwell on that. When the fault first happened, not just the Ansu, but even you were probably still lying…”

Sonia’s voice faltered slightly. Gawain was straightforward. “I was still lying in a coffin back then—woke up to find the place overrun by aberrations. By your logic, the last chance for emergency repairs had already passed.”

Fighting aberrations when he died, fighting aberrations seven centuries later when he woke up—that’s why Gawain’s previous efforts felt like a wasted version.

“Let’s not discuss what can’t be undone. Tell me about the current situation,” Gawain said, steering the conversation back on track. “You said there’s no complete repair plan. What other options do you have?”

“We brought a plan to build external amplification devices—an incomplete repair and reinforcement scheme. We have the data—” Sonia said, taking a silver-white cylindrical device from another messenger. It looked like a scroll, but when Sonia infused it with magic, a clear holographic projection appeared at its end. The illusion showed a massive tower device and complex arrays of runes and magical formations cycling through the images.

Sonia placed the “scroll” upright on the table, maintaining the hologram as she continued, “This plan involves building ‘auxiliary towers’ outside some sentinel towers to provide extra energy and share some of the barrier’s load. Between the sentinel towers and auxiliary towers, a series of ‘pressure relief points’ would be established to safely channel chaotic magical energy accumulated near the towers out of the barrier, where it can be purified…”

Gawain immediately caught the key point. “You’ve found a way to purify the magical cataclysm?”

“We haven’t been idle for seven centuries,” Sonia smiled faintly, though it was a forced smile. “This device can’t purify the entire wasteland or the cataclysm. It can only extract some chaotic magic from inside the barrier for limited purification. The main goal is to reduce the sentinel towers’ load and ease the repair system’s burden. The effect is limited, but better than nothing.”

Gawain studied the intricate rune arrays and device schematics in the hologram, his gaze serious and focused.

This was elven technology, different from human magic, but its principles still aligned with the logic of runic studies. It seemed capable of countering the cataclysm’s corruption—albeit only slightly, but effectively.

The Silver Empire was indeed declining, but it still possessed a depth of accumulated knowledge and resources unmatched by other human nations. Until those reserves were exhausted, they could still produce such impressive technological achievements.

After a few seconds of thought, Gawain looked up and met Sonia’s eyes. “Then let’s not waste time. Which area do we repair first? How many auxiliary towers and pressure relief points are needed? What manpower and materials? When do we start? How much time do we have?”

Sonia covered her forehead, exclaiming, “Good heavens—if only the human nobles of Saint Sunir had half your awareness and efficiency, we’d probably already be on our way to repair the barrier!”

(End of chapter)