Listening to the scene of the ruins described by Megal III, Gawain gradually fell into thought.
The ancient facilities buried deep underground are obviously different from the Gondor Empire's architectural style and incomprehensible ancient technology, and there are "samples" related to the gods... All these characteristics gave him an inexplicable sense of familiarity.
And the clues revealed by Megoll confirmed his "familiarity".
"Another thing," said a deep voice from the starlight aggregate, "the ruins we found in the underground of Orlandle seem to have a certain connection with the ruins found in the Thorin area at the end of all things— They look very much like two facilities built by the same civilization in different historical periods or under the influence of different regional cultures. However, because the remains are too old and lack key clues, we have spent many years and have not been able to determine the specific relationship between them. connection, not to mention deciphering the ancient technology in the ruins... "
Gao Wen suddenly took a deep breath: "It's the legacy of Against the Tide..."
Megol obviously had never heard of this word, and asked subconsciously: "Your Majesty? What did you say?"
"The ruins you found, as well as the underground palace where everything will die in the Thorin area, should all come from an ancient civilization called 'Reverse Tide', which was completely destroyed in the war with the dragon, and this empire There is an inextricable connection with the gods."
He thought of the "Ultimate Book" that Bertila gave him. That ultimate book is the legacy of the Reverse Tide Empire. Its function is to forge keys and communicate with satellite databases on planetary orbits. According to the clues provided by Tira, in the collapsed area deep in Thorin's underground palace, there were some rooms that were eroded and polluted by indescribable forces, and those rooms were obviously related to gods.
And now, there are new clues showing that the underground palace occupied by the Eternal Sleepers under the old capital of the Typhon Empire is very likely to be the second anti-tide relic existing in the world!
Megal obviously didn't expect that Gawain would reveal the details of the mysterious relic in a single word—a question that the Eternal Sleepers have been unable to understand for hundreds of years, seems to be common sense to Gawain, but he soon remembered this As the real identity behind the ostensible "Emperor of Humanity" fades, the shock fades.
Gawain did not continue to discuss with Megal about the Reverse Tide Empire—after all, he only knew so much. He looked at Megal, and brought the topic back: "You are concerned about the place where everything will eventually die. Does the underground palace have a certain understanding?"
Megall immediately replied: "We have some cooperation with them and share some unimportant information."
"Well," Gawain nodded, "then back to the ancient ruins you discovered—what happened after that? The royal family of Typhon, who was the capital of Orlandelle at that time, was kept in the dark?"
"The ruins are hidden very deep, and the entrance to the surface has almost been swallowed up by earth and rocks. It is a great luck for us to find the entrance. Materials were moved in and the entrance was altered and covered to make it harder to find. And for many years afterward, we have been careful to hide ourselves and our underground facilities.
"The Eternal Sleepers are a group that is very good at hiding themselves. Just like you think, for hundreds of years... the Augustus family actually didn't know that we were hiding under their noses, let alone that they What kind of... secrets lie buried beneath the city.
"We are the shadow and symbiosis under the city of Orlande. We took root and developed together with that city, and infiltrated many facilities in the city. In this way, we recuperate among those ancient palaces and corridors. The order recovered a little bit—at first, we just gathered at the shallower level of the ruins, which was safer and large enough to accommodate all our members at the time, but as the order slowly recovered, we decided to move deeper.
"We wanted to at least figure out what our 'home' looked like.
"We quickly explored the safe dome area and the almost empty middle-level connecting corridor, and finally, we found... something still working in the deepest part of the ruins."
Gao Wen's eyes immediately became serious: "Something that is still running? What is it?"
"Please allow me to show you what I saw back then—"
Megel spoke in a low voice, the shapeless starlight body gradually dispersed, it turned into a mist, and in the depths of the hazy smoke, Gawain saw a holographic image (magic illusion) quickly Stripped and recreated from Megoll's memory.
He saw a huge rotunda, and there was a large-scale ring-shaped facility surrounded by metal and crystals around the hall. A large number of black obelisk-like devices were installed obliquely in the hall, and their tops pointed to the hall In the center of the hall, and in the center of the hall, he saw a dazzling thing like an ocean of light surging around a circle of ancient devices. It was like some kind of viscous liquid, but it was rising When it got up, it showed a hazy and illusory brilliance, and inside it was something like starlight that was constantly moving and flickering.
Gao Wen immediately frowned: "What is this?"
Megoll's voice came from the surrounding smoke and mist: "A powerful energy restraint device, composed of an astonishing magnetic field, circulating arcane energy, and a series of elemental stabilizers, is so huge that the entire hall And part of the cloister around the hall is its 'shell'."
Then the erstwhile pope paused and added: "It took us almost a century to figure out these rough 'functional components'."
"...the one in the center of the constraint field is the remains of the God of Dreams?" Gawain frowned, "Is this a prison device?"
"We thought so too... and this was one of the biggest mistakes we made," Megaul III said in a deep voice, "After discovering this area, we couldn't understand its function at all, we just thought it was a relic Just like the magic well in the mage's tower, we studied it cautiously and figured out its general function for a century, but found that the technology inside couldn't be copied and utilized at all—of course, we didn't dare to shut it down rashly, Because no one knows the consequences of doing so.
"After many years, we finally found some way to control the energy flow, and in the process of trying to adjust the energy flow, a very small crack opened in the center of the confinement field-the things that were shielded inside finally There was a breath coming out, and I was there.
"In that breath, I sensed some terrifying and familiar 'voices'—"
Megol's voice suddenly trembled and hesitated, as if that terrible feeling would still entangle his now heterogeneous body and mind, but after a moment of composure, he calmed down his tone and continued:
"I sensed the breath of the gods.
"An astonishing truth shocked all of us—the 'imprisonment' in the constraint field is not other things, but the God we once worshiped and revered, or in other words, a part of God...
"It's a fragment of the God of Dreams. We don't know where it came from. We don't know what kind of power can cut a fragment from the god's body. We don't know how long it has been imprisoned in that device. In 2000, we only knew one thing—that terrifying god who is on the verge of madness and will eventually swallow up the entire world can be hurt and imprisoned.
"After the incident of the Ancestor's Peak, everyone was shrouded in long-term despair, because the power of the gods is so powerful that it is impossible for ordinary people to fight against it. At the same time, this power is walking on an impossible path. On the blocked and gradually crazy road, all of this is as irreversible as the doomsday in the countdown, but the device we found underground seems to let us see a ray of light—that is the fragment of God! Imprisoned by the device Yes, fragments that can be used for research!
"After overcoming a great deal of fear, we... began working on the thing.
"The powerful force of the restraint field can shield the spiritual pollution of the gods, which makes our research possible, and it is these properties of the restraint field that make us make terrible and wrong judgments about everything—our Mistaking the whole underground facility for a prison, mistaking that restraint for gods..."
Just as Gao Wen was about to ask, Amber beside him couldn't help breaking the silence: "Isn't it?"
"Of course not, that thing... is actually an altar.
"An altar used to welcome the gods, talk to the gods, and provide a temporary container for the gods—the so-called container is the restraint field in the hall.
"The will of the gods 'falls' in the center of the constraint field in the form of 'fragments', just like a detached eye, through which the God of Dreams observes the world, and we are busy under the gaze of this eye for hundreds of years."
Amber gasped: "... Oh my god..."
Even Gawain felt a chill creep over his heart, he could fully imagine how terrifying the truth was, so much so that at this very moment, when Megaul III mentioned related matters, his tone trembled.
"Everything you do is being watched by the God of Dreams?" He said in a particularly serious tone, and looked at Megall who had regrouped with his brows tightly furrowed.
"Fortunately, the 'God's Eye' in the device is not in real-time communication with the God's body," Megall said in a complex tone, "The 'God's Eye' in the device is more like a split Clone, it collects information in this world, and after a certain degree, the polarity of the core of the restraint device will be reversed, and the fragments will be released back to the God Realm as the "eyes of God", and then the God of Dreams will know the "eyes" The scene we saw, and the restraint device we found may be too old, or some functions may have been damaged and stuck, it has never released the 'God's Eye' in the center of the energy field.
"In a sense, the device in the fault state is actually a real prison... But unlike a real prison, the 'prisoner' inside it is theoretically the owner of the prison, and the prison gate... may be closed at any time due to The system heals itself and opens up.
"You can imagine how horrible this is for us."
"I can imagine," Gawain nodded lightly, "but I'm curious, how did you find out the truth? Could there be an instruction manual next to the ancient device?"
Megal was silent for a moment, and the starlight aggregate slowly expanded and contracted: "...Your Majesty, do you know how I became like this?"
Gao Wen raised his eyebrows: "Didn't you change your life form in order to prolong your life?"
"At that time, I had already extended my lifespan by using the technology provided by the Doom Society, at least I could survive for several more centuries," Megoll said with a sigh in his voice, "It was an experiment that made me look like this ACCIDENT.
"Because of a mistake in manipulating the energy flow, I was hit by a ray from the restraining field. The ray destroyed my body, but the powerful energy of the restraining field trapped my soul, and I was involved in those torrents. energy, and... slightly touched the 'God's Eye' bound at the core."
Gao Wen understood: "The knowledge of the gods has the characteristics of forced indoctrination—you've seen' the truth of the device from the fragments of the dream god?"
"Yes," Megaul III affirmed Gawain's guess, "the moment I touched the 'God's Eye', I knew the truth about the device and what would happen once the 'God's Eye' was released back to the God Realm Dire Consequences—All our secrets will be exposed to the gods, who will never tolerate such rebellion.
"Fortunately, I 'survived' from that terrible accident, because the fellow cultists at the scene operated in time, and my soul was released before being completely annihilated, but at the same time, serious distortions and mutations occurred- From that day on, I became like this.
"But compared with the truth of the God's Eye, the mutation of the soul is nothing. We must solve the hidden dangers of the God's Eye, either completely destroy it, or permanently cut off its connection with the God Realm, so that it will never return To the God of Dreams."