Chapter 889: Chapter 888: A Fleeting Glimpse

It comes from the starry sky.

Gawain gazed at the shield of the protector of Anzu Kingdom in front of him. His eyes swept over the weathered and rusted metal attachments on the shield, landing on the silver-white metal plate that formed the main body of the shield.

The flickering silver dots on that metal plate pulsed slowly as if breathing, seemingly alive despite having no life, as if it had been "alive" for millions of years.

After learning more secrets about the "Deicide Fleet," roughly confirming that this metal came from the starry sky, and speculating that it might be connected to his "satellite body," Gawain couldn’t help but have more thoughts and reflections when he looked at it.

He shook his head, driving away those irrelevant thoughts from his mind. Then he glanced at Amber, who was in standby mode beside him, withdrew his gaze, placed his hand on the alloy body with the silver light flickering, allowing his magical power to spread inside the metal—just as he did when communicating with the "Eternal Stone Slate."

In the first few seconds, nothing happened. Gawain felt only a vast void at the end of his magical power, the ancient space relic empty inside, no new fleet reports coming in, nor information left by ancient pioneers. But in the next second, a booming explosion roared in Gawain’s mind!

He instantly lost awareness of his body, all his senses seemed to disjoint at that moment, and his human perception was replaced by a more advanced and complex "perception" which his body couldn’t process—so he felt his consciousness being stripped away and linked to a new "container," his senses being "overwritten," refreshed, and calibrated time and again, until finally, a data flow vastly different from his original satellite body successfully connected with him.

He heard a consciousness directly "speak" in his mind: "Visitor accessing the Firmament System... confirmed as a singular connection. Conducting temporary elevation of privileges. Temporary privileges granted."

Gawain steadied his spirit, the intense displacement of senses inevitably bringing some panic and tension, but as a satellite spirit long accustomed to being hung in the sky and enabling a "non-human perspective," he was battle-hardened in this regard—after confirming his mind still belonged to him, with no signs of tampering or control, he started seeking clues in the darkness to help with the current situation.

All around was darkness or rather a hazy curtain composed of chaos and shadows; he couldn’t see or hear anything, but he could feel many entities establishing connections with the "container" he currently resided in. This "container" seemed to have opened some kind of access for him, yet limited by human cognitive logic, he couldn’t immediately exploit this access.

However, that wasn’t a problem; he had experience connecting with satellite systems, and if these things were left by the Deicide Fleet back then, their systems must have commonalities.

After several attempts, Gawain slowly grasped some tricks. He felt his closed senses loosening a bit, and with that slight loosening, things other than darkness suddenly appeared "before his eyes"—

A perspective overlooking the land.

Gawain was startled at first, almost thinking he had returned to the "satellite spirit" state, but quickly confirmed his consciousness was still free and should be able to "return" to his body at any moment. Then, he noticed this land-overlooking perspective was vastly different from the images previously seen via surveillance satellites—

The focal point of view had changed! The continent that once lay at the center of the view was now at the top of the visual field, while below were stretches of vast oceans!

He quickly realized the reason:

He had entered another space facility; its orbit or main surveillance perspective differed from his previous "satellite perspective."

Indeed, there were other operational space stations or satellites outside this planet’s atmosphere!!

Gawain controlled his slightly excited mood and started to very awkwardly operate this new perspective. His gaze swept across the Southern Loren Continent, over the elves’ colossal forest island, toward the endless ocean, first directing his view to the Southwestern sea area of the continent.

A vaguely artificial structure appeared at the edge of his view.

It was a man-made facility visible even from space!

In that moment, a series of information sprung up in Gawain’s memory: during the Ancient Era of elven heritage, the primordial elves had traveled from the western part of the continent across the sea, discovering a high tower in the Endless Sea, recklessly venturing inside...

The location of that tower was the Southwestern Loren Continent, in the Endless Sea!

Could what he saw now be the tower discovered by the primordial elves back then on the sea?

However, Gawain soon found that he could only see a small part of that facility, only its minor foundation and the giant shadow it cast on the sea. That part of the foundation was as large as a massive island in the ocean, with numerous orderly, metallic-looking extension braces stretching into the sea from its main structure—that’s all he could see.

As he tried to extend his sight further in the southwestern direction, a cold synthesized voice entered his mind: "Error, unable to activate Zone C-16, subsystem offline."

Gawain paused and attempted again to shift his perspective toward the direction of the foundation, but the message promptly echoed in his mind again: "Error, unable to activate Zone C-16, subsystem offline."

This system prompt, from who knew where, left Gawain thoughtful. After a brief reflection, he began shifting his sight in another direction—

...

In the vastness of space, a vibrant planet orbited a gas giant emitting infinite energy.

The steel sentinels left by ancient forebears still loyally guarded this world, despite being scarred, worn, and damaged.

Above the planet’s atmospheric layers, space facilities of varying sizes operated silently, ancient space stations and orbiting satellites floating in desolate darkness for countless years. In this realm filled with cold and silence, these ancient devices, functioning for millennia upon millennia, maintained minimal communications and data collection, while among them, the largest one remained dormant—

Grand in scale, this space structure encircled the entire planet, its steel body spanning thousands of miles, laden with scars and nearly extinguished dim lights. On this planet-circling synchronous orbital ring, some areas were covered in thick armor, while others revealed transparent polymer domes—enclosing abandoned living or research facilities long forsaken. All structures lay amidst dead silence, perpetuating near-eternal stillness.

Starlight from distant space streamed across infinite darkness upon the ancient space ring, slightly illuminating its armor and those cabins enshrouded in shadows.

Then suddenly, a small part of this space ring "awoke." On the side facing the planet’s surface, several lights abruptly lit up, with intermittedly flickering luminescence appearing in the corresponding ring-appointed ranges. Maintenance robots, dormant for millions of years, emerged from hibernation pods, and advanced drones swiftly navigated along the internal rail of the ring. This colossal entity seemed to stretch leisurely as if ready to burst into life in the next moment.

Yet, the awakening process abruptly arrested—the illuminated areas ultimately confined to a slight zone inside the ring, the rest of the colossal ring’s structure remained in dead silence, unanswered amidst the dark.

On the side of the ring facing the ground, there eerily existed a vast breach outside a compartment structure shrouded in darkness. Radiating tear marks stretched from the armored cladding to the side of the polymer dome. Fractured fragments still floated near the opening—the internal airtight doors long sealed shut, the power source offline years ago, and once-sparkling smoke, vanished into the depths of space, leaving behind only dreadfully gaping wounds and a few drops of pale golden blood...

...

"Error, unable to activate Zone C-18, subsystem offline."

"Takeover failure, error, unable to activate Zone C-18, subsystem offline, backup system unresponsive."

The continuous alert sounded in the "mind," and Gawain finally gave up his futile efforts.

His gaze fell on the ocean’s edge in the southeast direction of the Loren Continent, in a place far from human civilization, across the endless ocean, where he could already see the outline of a winding coastline.

He recalled the intelligence previously obtained from the sea demons and Selena Gerfen—

Seven hundred years ago, Gawain Cecil and the last Storm Clerics embarked on a mysterious voyage; they first advanced towards the eastern Loren Continent, then, with the help of sea demons, proceeded to the southern safe route...

In the southeastern direction of the Loren Continent, Gawain Cecil’s exploration team discovered a new continent; deep within that continent, there stood a celestial huge tower...

That tower seemed to be somehow related to the huge tower the ancestral elves saw on the southwestern ocean, and back then, Gawain Cecil ventured alone into the continent’s depths. It is highly likely he ascended the huge tower and received some sort of "revelation" inside...

Now, Gawain was almost one hundred percent sure he saw that new continent.

Previously only existing in intelligence, the data has been confirmed; the evidence that had disappeared into history was now witnessed by him.

The new continent in the southeast direction of the Loren Continent exists! The continent visited by Gawain Cecil back then lies across the eastern ocean from Silver Empire!

But he can only confirm the existence of that continent and cannot see the situation deep within it—even though he now has a broader perspective, he still cannot break through the observation limit. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

At least he could see the base and part of the tower body of the tower on the ocean; in the direction of the continent... he could only see the coastline.

Gawain moved his gaze from east to west, and then from west to east again. Every time the field of view reached the end, an alert sounded in his mind indicating the subsystem was offline.

This was different from when using surveillance satellites to observe the earth—with satellites, there wouldn’t be such an alert, as the boundary of vision is just a boundary with no error alarm.

Due to the offline subsystem, he was unable to activate other areas, and because he couldn’t activate other zones, he couldn’t observe things outside his field of view, indicating that the space facility he was linked to had a far larger scale than imagined—it originally should have been able to observe those two huge towers and even goals further away.

Only due to certain reasons, most of its structure is currently offline, leaving Gawain to activate only a part of its "lens."

In the peculiar state of non-human sensation, Gawain slowly pondered; he couldn’t "see" his own state nor determine his surrounding environment—in a situation with only one perspective facing the earth, he could only speculate what he was now linked to.

This could be a larger orbital facility than a satellite, with more complex structure and functions, possibly divided into several modules where each module could operate independently—this could explain those damaged areas and subsystem issues.

So... is there a way for him to figure out where the fault lies or try to repair this thing? Perhaps start an automatic repair function or something...

Gawain knew his idea was a bit whimsical, but he still instinctively issued a command in his "mind"—he didn’t know how to inquire or order specifically, so could only try slowly:

"What’s the situation with the subsystem now?"

"Error, unable to query subsystem."

"Is there any repair plan?"

The system alert returned with silence.

"Does that subsystem have any redundant systems that can replace it?"

The alert remained silent.

Afterward, Gawain tried several different questions but still didn’t get the answers he wanted.

The so-called subsystem seemed quite thoroughly corrupted, and the responding voice in his mind itself didn’t have any usable repair plan—it might even be broken itself, hence lacking responses to certain questions.

Finally, Gawain asked the last question in frustration: "How did the damage exactly occur?"

This time, after several rounds of silent queries, the alert surprisingly responded, prompting Gawain to immediately hear a voice echo in his mind: "Keyword captured... Query complete, beginning playback of system log."

Before Gawain could conjure any thoughts, he felt a flash in front of his eyes. In the next moment, he saw a new scene appear in his field of view:

Though it still looked like an overhead view of the earth, the scene now came with some parameter symbols and text around it, displaying the planetary data and gas giant energy readings at the time. He realized this was an observation record from long ago and inferred from it—that this thing had been automatically running, gathering this planet’s data without his "satellite spirit" involvement!

Accompanied by these emerging thoughts, he began to carefully watch this long-ago image record.

Initially, the image consisted only of nearly static land and atmosphere; this scene lasted for about half a minute.

Suddenly, a glimmer appeared in Gawain’s field of view!