Chapter 1360 - 1359: Plan B

Chapter 1360: Chapter 1359: Plan B

Cecil Castle, the sunset had already sunk below the horizon, leaving only a splash of dazzling golden-red glow spreading from the other side of the mountain, spilling over the rooftops of the city after crossing the vast woods and riverbanks of the western region. However, after dealing with a recently arrived emergency document, Gawain didn’t have much time to admire this magnificent view outside the window. He arranged for Amber to handle some less critical tasks, then directly sat down in the armchair of his study and concentrated his mind once again to communicate with the monitoring system of Firmament Station.

After confirming the position of the Expedition Fleet, he temporarily didn’t tell anyone about it but maintained a shallow connection with Firmament Station, keeping an eye on Byron’s movements. Whenever he had time, he would enter a deep connection state, using the space station’s optical sensors to directly confirm the situation of the Winter.

For a period of time, the Winter and its accompanying fleet had been stationed near the sea platform of the orbit elevator, seemingly inactive, and the system at Firmament Station did not send any new moves afterward. But Gawain knew that Byron was surely continuing his exploration activities on the orbit elevator platform — he wasn’t the type to waste time doing nothing in a calm sea region.

And from the current situation gathered, Byron’s exploration activities apparently hadn’t provoked the "overreactive response" of the Voyager heritage, at least the fleet wasn’t attacked, nor did Gawain receive an invasion alert from the system.

"...Luckily, it’s Byron leading the fleet and not Rebecca," Gawain couldn’t help muttering in his heart while maintaining the connection with Firmament Station, "If it were that iron-headed girl, she probably would have recklessly endangered herself, encountering a door that wouldn’t open and resorting to smashing a city gate-sized fireball through it or something..."

Just halfway through his mumbles, an abrupt voice suddenly intruded into his mind: "Visitor has arrived at Firmament Station, guidance process cannot be activated — interaction medium activated, switching to backup process..."

Gawain was momentarily stunned, and just as a "What?" thought popped up in his mind, he felt a new stream of information suddenly appear deep within his consciousness — that stream was complex, vast, unfamiliar, but almost instantaneously integrated smoothly into his existing connection line with Firmament Station. His consciousness was guided forward through the darkness, suddenly seeing new colors and lights appearing in his "field of vision." The "limited bandwidth" feeling from connecting with space facilities over the past years seemed to have widened significantly. The shock in Gawain’s heart only lasted a few seconds before he "saw" the colors and lights that appeared in his mind rapidly stabilized, forming a clear scene:

In a dark space, he saw a lady with long black hair and a tear mole at the corner of her eye abruptly appear. She had a tense expression on her face, carefully scrutinizing towards Gawain’s point of view, pointing and gesturing with her fingers. Her slightly distorted voice entered his mind: "...Asharena, come and take a look at this... It lit up, it really lit up! I just poked it once and it suddenly lit up! Now what do we do?"

"What the heck?!" The moment he saw that face appear, Gawain was shocked, deeply astonished on the spot — he had been a satellite spirit for so many years, and this was the first time he had seen an "outsider" in a system connection state. It was like a veteran interstellar pilot who had driven for twenty years, suddenly one day finding a passenger in the car popping up and tapping his shoulder. The impact probably could make even someone like Rebecca, who could be described as having nerves sturdy enough to be "solid," have a cardiac arrest scene. Gawain himself took over a dozen seconds to finally react and recognized the figure in front of him.

This was Cassandra, the Chief Navigator of the Empire Expedition Fleet, an ally from the deep sea. She had set out from Northport with Byron. In theory, she should now be on the Winter — why was she showing up here?!

Gawain’s heart, heavily shocked, finally started to calm down and gradually adapt to this "new perspective" that had just appeared deep within his consciousness. He noticed that it seemed he was connected to some equipment with a camera, and around Cassandra’s figure, he saw a space shrouded in dim light — though the view was limited and the light was dim, it was still sufficient to determine that it was certainly not somewhere on the Winter.

He suddenly recalled the voice that had sounded in his mind earlier: Visitor has arrived at Firmament Station, interaction medium activated.

His mood was overwhelmed, extremely, extraordinarily overwhelmed.

And while Gawain’s mind was filled with untiring voices of amazement, Cassandra wasn’t idle in front of the camera. The sea demon lady seemed to confirm that the suddenly lit equipment in front of her wasn’t dangerous. The unique adventurous spirit of the sea demon race quickly took over; her tail tip poked around near the lens, appearing to be testing the interaction methods of the equipment. Shortly after, another figure appeared in Gawain’s vision — the red-haired Dragonmarked Witch Asharena. This Dragonborn lady initially had a look of shock at Cassandra’s poking actions, then, while reminding the latter to be cautious, couldn’t help but curiously glance towards where Gawain (the lens) was.

Their conversation entered Gawain’s mind, beginning with Asharena’s voice: "...Be careful! You might accidentally activate the weapons system or something — we are intruders after all..."

"We aren’t intruders; we are ’visitors’ entering this space station through a legitimate process. Didn’t you hear the broadcast in the orbit elevator earlier?" Cassandra reasoned sensibly, "Besides, how could a facility like this have a weapons system that activates at the flip of a switch, especially in a transport port welcoming visitors — at most my actions would be treated as unauthorized access and blocked. Hey, don’t worry, we sea demons have built spaceships, I’m very steady..."

Asharena seemed to be convinced, and her attention was drawn to the device that had just started operating: "...What do you suppose this thing is?"

"It should be an operational terminal, but who knows what exactly it’s used for; it might also be a port query device — after all, it’s placed near the elevator entrance," Cassandra said, "In theory, there should be something here to actively guide us, but apparently, the corresponding system is broken, and this terminal doesn’t seem to respond much..."

"When we went up using that ’orbit elevator’ earlier, we could hear broadcasts... Maybe the ground and space parts of this system run separately?"

"It’s possible. Long ago, we built something similar, albeit not as exaggerated as this ring, yet in our home world, the space and ground stations were indeed operated separately..."

Gawain listened intently to the conversation between the two ladies, gradually, he finally roughly figured out what had happened, understood how they had gotten there, what they had done upon arrival, and understood the process of how they activated this "operational terminal."

It seemed that Cassandra’s unintentional "poke poke poke" had activated an interactive terminal inside Firmament Station, which automatically directed the data stream to the current "unique authority" of the Orbital Ring Space Station, which was himself.

If that’s the case... Gawain’s mind suddenly, irresistibly, conjured up some bold ideas, some thoughts that could aid him in further understanding himself and the Voyager heritage out in the space.

He quickly started to become familiar with the newly established connection in his mind, exploring the control methods of this little "operational terminal," and searched among the limited new information pouring into his mind for usable parts. After tinkering for a long time, he finally made his preparations, and activated the interaction module of the operational terminal through the system backend, speaking to the two explorers far out in space: "Please execute the following operations according to the procedure..."

Cassandra, who was busy researching how to operate the camera in front of her, suddenly bounced away, her long tail springing to life in an instant. With a "boing," she leapt several meters away!

"Talking... talking... it’s speaking! This thing spoke!!" Cassandra pointed at the operational terminal that had suddenly emitted sound and exclaimed loudly, her eyes wide open. Next to her, Asharena was naturally startled as well, stepping back several paces. However, she didn’t react as dramatically as the sea demons. After her initial shock and tension, she seemed to suddenly realize something: "Wait, Cassandra, doesn’t this voice sound... familiar to you?"

Cassandra: "...?"

Gawain: "...?!"

Was the acoustic processing function of this thing broken? Or did the temporary operation method go wrong somewhere? How could it be identified the moment it spoke!

This unexpected little situation left Gawain momentarily baffled, while on the other side of the camera, after Cassandra realized what was happening, she was more than just confused. In her shock, she quickly moved closer and said to Asharena, while staring at the machine in front of her, "I recognized it. It’s His Majesty Gawain’s voice, definitely. The sea demons won’t mistake a voice! But how could this..."

Arena’s gaze fell on the terminal blinking softly, projecting ever-changing geometric patterns overhead. No one knew what went through her mind during those few seconds, but she finally broke the silence: "His Majesty Gawain, is it you speaking?"

Gawain quickly calmed down. The small accident hadn’t affected him for too long—although he initially intended to remain hidden, pretending to be the ancient control system of the space station to guide the two ladies to try activating and repairing some systems in the cabin. But now, with the twist in events, continuing to force such operations was meaningless. Fabricating an unconvincing reason would only make Cassandra and Asharena more suspicious and affect cooperation. Better to go with plan B directly.

"It’s me," Gawain said in a calm, deep voice.

He admitted his presence, which might actually be a good thing. Perhaps this way, cooperation with Asharena and Cassandra would be smoother. Facing the guidance of an unknown ancient operational system, they might have more reservations, and pretending to be a system, Gawain would find it difficult to reasonably guide them with instructions like "Please press that big red button to see if it lights up" or "Help check what the sign beside says."

And if reasons were appropriate, revealing his presence in front of Cassandra and Asharena might instead help to construct a more enigmatic ally image among the Dragonborn and sea demon groups. The benefits would outweigh the risks.

"Is it truly you?!" Upon hearing the confirmation from the operational terminal, Asharena’s eyes widened instantly, "But... how..."

"You should know that seven hundred years ago, I climbed a Voyagers’ Tower," Gawain replied in a serene and composed tone, "This is no longer a secret now."

"Ah, I know," Cassandra answered, nodding immediately, "Back then, it was a friend of mine who guided the way for you..."

As she spoke, her eyes slowly widened, "So, back then, did you..."

"That exploration brought me not only an immortal soul and a resurrection seven hundred years later," Gawain responded, "I established a profound connection with the legacy of the Voyagers, much deeper than what the world imagines."

Asharena opened her mouth in astonishment.

The connection between the ruler of the Cecil Empire, Pioneer Hero Gawain Cecil, and the legacy of the Voyagers was not a secret among the upper members of Talronde, the Sacred Dragon Kingdom, and many allied nations. During the initial exploration of the tower near Talronde and the discovery of the Sentinel Base deep within the Divine Realm, Gawain recognized those ancient texts, known only to a few Dragonkin. Hence, a few knowledgeable people believed that Gawain Cecil obtained some knowledge about the Voyagers during the mysterious sea expedition to climb the "tower" seven hundred years ago, which was as far as they could imagine the connection between the two.

But now, Asharena realized the "connection" was far from superficial.

She took a gentle breath, unconsciously surveying the vast and dim hall, looking at the ancient equipment kept silent under the dim lighting. She recalled the spectacular scene she saw in the orbital elevator’s viewing section and those orbital buildings near the ring, experiencing a chilling sensation of suddenly touching a colossal secret and understanding the truth of history. It made her voice a bit unnatural when she spoke again: "So, all along..."

"For many years, I’ve been overlooking this world," Gawain said truthfully, though his "many years" surely differed significantly from what Asharena imagined, "I’ve told the world that after my death in battle, my soul hovered among the stars, lingering in the skies of the world. While this is true—the actual truth has a slight difference from worldly understanding."

"So... your current body is still on the ground, but your consciousness can be projected here, communicating with us through the equipment in this space station..." Cassandra also pieced it together, her boldness noticeably returning once she determined "it’s a familiar face." She leaned toward the camera, her curiosity evident, and asked, "Can you also see us? Can you see the fleet docked near the elevator’s base? Are those satellites and space stations also under your control?"

"I can see you, I can see the Winter, and many things I can see, but not everything is under my control—the ancient space facility cluster has endured a vast period, and their condition is far from optimal," Gawain’s tone seemed to carry a hint of amusement, "Thus, at the moment, I need your help with some matters..."