Chapter 943: The Eye of the Storm
In an instant, a flood of questions and speculations about the Eternal Storm surged through Gawain’s mind. Before he could even open his mouth to ask Melita about it, she had already ascended several times in quick succession. Under the control of immense magical power, the colossal dragon’s silhouette pierced through thick layers of clouds, crossed invisible magical boundaries, and passed beyond the known static layers of magic familiar to humans…
“We’ve entered the turbulence layer,” Melita’s voice suddenly came from ahead.
Gawain instinctively stepped toward the edge of the dragon’s back, gazing out at this atmospheric realm still unfamiliar to humans. Below Melita’s wings, the endless sea of clouds lay far beneath, a vast expanse of white. The land and ocean were shrouded in a gauzy mist, blurring all borders and details. Around him, the sky appeared clear and bright, with slanting sunlight streaming down from above the cloud sea.
At first glance, it didn’t seem as chaotic or dangerous as he had imagined.
But soon, he noticed something unusual: a shimmering halo of light flickered around Melita’s massive form. Layers of faint glimmers sparked spontaneously along the edges of her wings, rippling outward along the boundary of her magical shield. These waves spread through the air like invisible currents in an unseen ocean, stirred by some external force. The “waves” manifested as those strange halos of light.
Gawain was certain this had never happened when flying within the static magic layer!
Amber, meanwhile, had her hand shading her eyes as she stared out at the distant view. She seemed oblivious to the glowing aura around Melita, simply marveling at the vastness and grandeur of the place. “Wow—this place… it’s so wide it’s almost scary. It feels like if you took one step forward, you’d just dissolve into the sky forever…”
“Too bad for humans, stepping out here just means falling back to the ground,” Veronica, who rarely spoke, unexpectedly broke her silence. The vast, lofty sky had caught her attention as well. She stood up from where she’d been sitting, her gaze sweeping the horizon. “…It’s calmer than I expected. I thought the turbulence layer would be much wilder.”
“In truth, outside my protective barrier, the air currents and magic are indeed violent—just invisible to the naked eye,” Melita explained. “Did you notice those halos along my wing edges? That’s the turbulence layer’s magic buffeting my shield. Above the static magic layer, the concentration of magic grows stronger than near the surface, but it’s also harder to control. The most dangerous part is that all the turbulence is ‘invisible’—just like what you see now. It looks calm, but in reality, chaotic currents are everywhere. They only reveal themselves when an outsider crashes into them and gets burned to a torch by the magic.”
Amber thought for a moment, then exclaimed sincerely, “Holy crap…”
Gawain’s thoughts drifted in a direction others might find odd. “If the magic level gets stronger the higher you go in the atmosphere… then wouldn’t the ‘starry world’ beyond the atmosphere have the strongest magical environment of all?”
Melita was silent for a few seconds before shaking her head. “I don’t know… the space between stars… who really knows what that looks like?”
Her tone was strange, as if reluctant to answer. Gawain was about to press further, but suddenly a chill ran down his spine—he remembered the warning he’d given himself before the journey: don’t ask the agent too many “off-limits” questions. After all, everyone was riding on Melita’s back. One careless question could cause the worst air disaster in the history of human-dragon contact…
A giant dragon plummeting through the turbulence layer, bleeding and crashing, with the emperor, the intelligence chief, and a rebel leader wiped out in the Arctic Circle—all because of one careless word from him. Historians wouldn’t dare write about such a catastrophe. More importantly, Gawain himself had a psychological shadow about air disasters—after all, in his previous life, that’s exactly how he had died…
He shook his head, banishing the irrelevant thoughts, and looked out at the seemingly calm yet power-saturated atmosphere. A thoughtful expression crossed his face. “There’s so much energy concentrated here… If only we could harness the magic in the turbulence layer.”
Amber immediately gave him a strange look, eyeing him up and down several times before muttering, “That’s so like you…”
Gawain blinked, puzzled by Amber’s reaction. Just as he was about to ask what she meant, a deep, thunderous dragon roar cut through the air, silencing all his questions.
Everyone looked up, and in the next moment, they were stunned to see a vast, misty wall of clouds rushing toward them!
Melita had crossed over a towering “mountain range” of cloud tops. The cloud wall structure of the Eternal Storm in the turbulence layer instantly filled Gawain and the others’ entire field of vision. At that moment, whether it was the carefree Amber, the composed Veronica, or the experienced Gawain himself, all held their breath, dumbfounded by the breathtaking spectacle.
They watched as the cloud wall surged like a tidal wave, filling their view. Melita charged forward like a cliff-diving force, crashing headlong into the barrier without slowing. The sheer pressure of the massive wall bearing down on them made Gawain momentarily feel suffocated. Amber instinctively let out a sharp gasp.
In the next instant, their vision was swallowed by endless chaotic clouds. The open, expansive blue sky vanished, as did the sunlit ocean below. Only thick, dark, violent clouds remained, with howling hurricanes raging outside Melita’s shield. The scene was like plunging into the apocalypse.
The light dimmed rapidly—though the cloud wall appeared bright and white from the outside, its dense interior blocked nearly all sunlight. The thickest parts of the storm barrier were undoubtedly the darkest. In this, the Eternal Storm was no different from any other tempest.
Riding on the dragon’s back, Gawain felt as if they were hurtling into a midnight tempest. The roaring hurricane and endless lightning flashes dominated the space. He could no longer see inside the storm, and even his legendary senses were heavily suppressed, unable to detect magical fluctuations beyond two hundred meters.
Yet, amid this awe-inspiring—and somewhat terrifying—environment, Melita, their guide and transport, stretched out her massive wings freely and let out a roar of pure exhilaration. She lifted her head and shouted joyfully, “How is it? I told you it’s spectacular in here, didn’t I?!”
Her voice was loud and clear in her dragon form, but the howling winds and thunderclaps of the storm still thundered around them. Even though her magical shield filtered out much of the noise, a significant portion still penetrated inside, mixing with her roars like thunder exploding right beside Gawain and the others.
Amber immediately shouted, “Honestly—this is a little too spectacular!!”
“This is the signature experience of Talrond—something outsiders can’t even dream of!” Melita said happily. “Don’t worry! Inside my shield, it’s perfectly safe. I fly through here several times every year, and I’ve never had a single accident!”
She seemed to be deliberately using her cheerful tone to ease the passengers’ nerves as they crossed the Eternal Storm. It worked somewhat—Amber’s tense expression visibly softened. But Gawain remained uneasy. Others might not know, but he had personally witnessed Melita’s “crash-landing style” before. Though she claimed those were accidents, they were enough to make anyone’s heart race.
Still, after some thought, he realized he hadn’t made any “safe return” vows before departure. From a metaphysical perspective, that meant they were probably safe. Since Melita’s crash landings were themselves part of the metaphysical pattern, fighting metaphysics with metaphysics, this storm crossing should be fine…
With that self-reassurance swirling in his mind, Gawain pushed aside his unease about the storm and the ride. Once his eyes and senses adjusted to the terrifying environment, he immediately began observing his surroundings.
He would never forget one of the key purposes of this journey: to gather knowledge—especially information that could help humanity venture beyond land and explore the wider world.
He wasn’t an expert in oceanography or atmospheric science—indeed, such fields barely existed in this era—but he could carefully record everything he saw and sensed. One day, this knowledge would prove invaluable.
With that in mind, he studied the changes outside Melita’s protective shield, trying to detect the source of the Eternal Storm’s endless power from the surrounding magical currents.
Suddenly, a flash of light at the edge of his vision caught his attention.
At first, Gawain thought it was lightning within the storm clouds—there were many discharges nearby, with electric arcs illuminating the dark clouds almost every second. But soon, he realized this light was different. Its intensity and duration didn’t match typical lightning, and its position was unusual.
The light came from directly below, near the “base” of the Eternal Storm.
That area rarely saw strong electrical discharges.
Gawain moved a few steps forward along Melita’s shoulder blade, edging closer to the dragon’s back edge. He looked down and to the left front, toward where the light had appeared. Though the flash itself had vanished, faint glimmers still flickered deep within the dense clouds.
About half a minute later, another flash appeared—this time unmistakably clear. A straight pillar of light suddenly erupted from near the storm’s base, as if something was violently spewing forth. Though brief, Gawain was absolutely certain it wasn’t lightning!
At the same moment the beam burst forth, Gawain sensed a distinct magical pulse. His expression grew even more serious.
In such a chaotic environment, deep within a storm that severely disrupted all senses, for a magical fluctuation to be so clearly detectable from so far away meant the energy source was extraordinarily powerful.
There’s something at the core of the Eternal Storm! Something with an incredibly powerful energy signature!
“Melita,” he called out, immediately looking up and raising his voice, “what’s down there?”
Melita seemed momentarily caught off guard. “Huh? Where?”
“Right beneath you—under the storm! Did you see those flashes just now?!”
After Gawain pointed more precisely, Melita finally turned her head to glance down and to the side. Moments later, her voice boomed from ahead like thunder: “That’s the center of the Eternal Storm, where the cyclone forms! But there’s a strong magical barrier and dangerous high-speed winds near the eye of the storm. We can’t get through—it’s safer to go around it!”
“Can’t get through?” Gawain shouted back. “Do you know what’s inside?”
“Of course I don’t know!” Melita’s voice rose to match the growing roar of the storm and thunder around them. Even with the magical barrier, the leaking noise was starting to interfere with their conversation. “Omega told me when I hatched never to get close to the cyclone’s base. Every dragon knows that! It’s incredibly dangerous in there—no dragon has ever flown inside!”
Even the dragons don’t know what’s at the heart of the Eternal Storm? Isn’t that supposed to be their own protective barrier? The defense system of Talrond itself?
In that instant, a surge of doubt flooded Gawain’s mind. Instinctively, he realized the secret hidden within this storm was far deeper and more profound than anyone had first imagined.
As Melita adjusted her flight to circle around the outer edge of the storm’s “barrier,” Gawain couldn’t help but edge closer to the dragon’s back and peer down once more.
Almost simultaneously, a flash erupted again from the eye of the storm, like a blazing sword piercing the darkness at the cyclone’s core. At the same moment, a powerful magical pulse entered his awareness—clear and distinct, like a candle flickering in the night.
Gawain instinctively focused on that surge of magic. His mental energy extended like a thread, connecting to the energy source at the storm’s base. Before he could think further, a series of words, almost like a poem, flooded directly into his mind—
“…Do not be lulled by this illusory calm of the endless night… the darkness will inevitably be broken…
“…Do not cling to your warm cradle… the cradle will one day be overturned…
“…Do not slumber in the sanctuary of your soul… for that sanctuary will 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 come…”
(End of chapter)