When Gawain walked into the No. 1 office of the Government Affairs Department, Hetty, who was reviewing the documents, immediately noticed something unusual about him, and the "Cecil Grand Butler" looked up at Gawain's face: "Ancestor, didn't you rest yesterday?" ”

“…… A little insomnia," Gawain had a hard time explaining to Hetty that he slept until midnight and was suddenly woken up by an alarm from a satellite, and then watched a thing that seemed to be a mechanical dragon go all the way to the distance in space, so he could only wave his hand with a hint of exhaustion, "It's not in the way, I'll just adjust it." ”

Exhaustion from insomnia is certainly not a big deal for the powerful transcendent, but Hetty can't help but be a little worried: "Do you need some calming potions?" There should be ...... on Pittman's side."

"This is really not necessary," Gawain immediately waved his hand, then looked at the documents arranged on Hetty's desk, and quickly changed the subject, "Any new news?" ”

To be honest, his mind was still full of the images he had observed through the space surveillance last night, the mysterious silhouette that skimmed the starry sky, and the countless thoughts that followed, but he also knew that he was not in a position to do further investigation, at least at this stage - the power of the government department was useless at this moment, and the daily affairs of the empire still had to be dealt with.

Hetty looked at Gawain's expression again, as if to confirm the health status of the ancestor, and after confirming that there was really nothing wrong with the other party, she flipped through the top few documents, and replied while sorting out her thoughts: "Yes, we have received feedback from the leaders of several countries or regions - including the Oguray Tribal State, the Northern City-States, the Silver Empire, etc., as well as a reply from the Dwarven Kingdom. From the feedback, the leaders of the countries are very interested in the 'community alliance' you are calling for......"

"Unexpectedly," Gawain laughed, it was good news, at least to dispel some of the bad mood caused by insomnia, "these countries are either already in the settlement area of Cecil, or will soon join the Northern Ring Route, or have technical exchanges and close ties with us...... Bridges have been opened, and it is an inevitable trend that the ties between countries have become closer. ”

"As you said," Hetty nodded, and then took a separate document from the side, "Also, this is a remote letter that was just forwarded this morning through the Sentinel Tower, His Majesty Belsetia Morningstar from the Silver Empire—a personal letter sent specifically to you. ”

"Belsetia......" Gawain was stunned for a moment, and his mind couldn't help but think of a memory of seven hundred years ago, a lively figure who was always messing behind him, wandering around the camps during the Covenant meeting of the Pioneers, but he soon shook his head, put aside the memory of seven hundred years of obsolescence, and reached out to take the letter handed by Hetty.

Of course, this letter is not the original, but a "copy" forwarded and transmitted by using the communication link of the Sentinel Tower and the magic network communication system, although the copy screen is slightly distorted, the handwriting on the letter paper is still clear and familiar, and the handwriting of the "Silver Empress" has not changed much compared with seven hundred years ago, but it is more mature and beautiful:

"To His Majesty the Emperor of Cecil, and to Uncle Gawain, whom I haven't seen in a long time—"

After seeing this unique opening, Gawain's eyebrows subconsciously raised, and then he lowered his eyelids and read the letter carefully.

After a few minutes, he put down the letter, and Hetty cast a curious look: "What did the Silver Empress say?" Ah, of course, if it's a private matter, I won't ask......"

Gawain glanced at Hetty with a strange expression, somehow he always felt that the other party's words sounded a little strange, and then he shook his head: "It's not a big deal, some daily greetings, and a personal response about this meeting...... She'll come over in person. ”

Hetty was stunned for a moment before she realized what "personally" meant, and her eyes widened in surprise: "Personally? You're saying that the Silver Empress is going to Outpost 112 for this meeting in person? ”

She seemed surprised, and for good reason: although the meeting expected to be held in the month of this year's recovery was in principle to invite the leaders of various countries to come to talks, in fact, the situation of the countries of Loren was complicated, and many regions had not been open for a long time, so some countries that were far away or had not been in the settlement area of Cecil for a long time were actually prepared to send the king's deputies or courtiers with considerable power, and the Silver Empire was located at the southernmost point of the entire Loren continent, separated from the northern countries by an entire Gondor wastelandCoupled with the Silver Empress's esteemed status, which rarely left her country for hundreds of years, almost everyone believed that this distant and ancient empire would only send an ambassador - Hetty had no idea that it would be the Silver Empress herself.

Gawain was not as surprised by this as Hetty, and he was even very indifferent: "This meeting will redefine the whole world, and its long-term impact will be no less than that of the Pioneer Covenant back then—for the Silver Empire, this kind of thing deserves to be witnessed by their empress herself." And ......"

Hetty asked curiously, "And?" ”

Gawain glanced down at the letter in his hand, and his gaze fell on some of the paragraphs:

“…… The elves lost the favor of the gods of nature many years ago, and our scholars and theologians have discussed this for many years...... I myself am particularly concerned about the changes in the north of the continent in the past two years, and in my correspondence with Sonya, I have also learned about the reformed Holy Light Sect and the transformation of various churches by the Cecil Empire......"

He looked up and said thoughtfully, "I didn't expect the elves to become the first alien members of the Theocratic Council. ”

Hetty listened to Gawain's words and quickly reacted: "...... Silver Elf ...... Yes, their original mainstream belief was the god of nature, but since the fall of the White Star 3,000 years ago, their belief structure has changed a lot. The original Imperial State Religion has gradually become a purely academic organization for the study of druid technology over the course of a few hundred years, and the spun out priests have led a small number of believers to establish one scattered sect after another based on primitive natural beliefs, but I have heard Sonia and Sölderlin say that these small sects that spread in the jungle have hardly brought any trouble, no natural gods have ever appeared, and no new gods have answered their prayers......

"Up to now, there is still no unified, recognized mainstream belief in the Silver Empire, the elven royal family is nominally the supreme leader of the druids, and the silver empress herself is nominally the highest priestess, but this is only a ritual and traditional symbol, most of the elves no longer believe in Amon, and a small number of elves are influenced by human countries, some believe in the god of war, some are shallow believers in the goddess of magic, and a few believe in the Holy Light......"

Gawain's face twitched: "...... Then it seems that the current situation of their faith is not optimistic......"

Hetty thought about it carefully, and also showed a strange look: "...... Indeed it is. ”

"Let's put their faith dilemma aside," Gawain exhaled, pulling the topic back, "It's true that my attention has been too focused on the north of the continent, on humanity itself...... The Silver Empire has been in contact with us for so long, but they have always been in my 'blind spot'. Now it seems that there is a huge 'sample pool of divine influence' hidden in that warm jungle, the special case of the Silver Elves...... It might take our research a big step forward. ”

His gaze swept over Belsetia's dignified and beautiful handwriting again, but his thoughts seemed to cross the vast wasteland and land on the other side of the continent in the elven realm. He thought of the situations Hetty had just described, during the Silver Elves' three-thousand-year journey of "faith searching...... He was vaguely aware of many places that could be connected to the mysteries of the gods.

After a brief moment of thought, he temporarily kept the elves' affairs to heart, and began to think about the situation on another line - Tarlund.

After last night's "insomnia", the figure that passed through space has been haunting his mind, although the shape of the thing he saw is very strange, and even has been transformed to the point that it is completely impossible to see its original appearance, but Gawain still sees a trace of the appearance of a "dragon" from its general outline, and it is this little clue that he can't help but think about Talrond since this morning.

After extending his thoughts in this direction, he thought of the Holy Dragon Principality, and subconsciously asked, "The Holy Dragon Principality should have received our invitation a long time ago...... Does the Dragon-Blood Grand Duke have a response? ”

"I was about to tell you about this," Hetty said immediately, "and a reply from the Holy Dragon Duchy has arrived, but...... I think it's a little weird. ”

Gawain frowned: "Strange? ”

"There has been no reply from Archduke Baloger, the letter is sent in the name of the Dragon's Blood Council and Sir Gorosh Hickel," Hetty pulled a document from his desk and handed it to Gawain, "and they were very polite, but said they would not be able to attend the meeting of the month of recovery, as they were busy dealing with some 'special situation in the country'. Of course, they did not mention the specifics. ”

Gawain took the document and took a quick look at it, and it was basically what Hetty had said, a perfectly worded official letter, politely expressing rejection and apology, without revealing any real information about the inside of the Duchy of the Holy Dragon—nothing else to see.

"Amber," after a moment of thought, Gawain turned to the air beside him and said, "Is there any information about it?" ”

As soon as he finished speaking, an intelligence chief appeared in the air, and Miss Half-Elf jumped to the ground and said quickly: "We don't have many intelligence agents who have infiltrated the Holy Dragon Duchy, but there is also useful news: Grand Duke Baloger has not appeared in public for many days, and Dragon Landing Fort, the capital of the Holy Dragon Principality, has also been under martial law recently. There were rumors that the Grand Duke of Dragon's Blood had suddenly deteriorated in health and was unable to act publicly, and there were also rumors that he had left the Duchy, but in any case, the Dragon-Blood Council and the courtiers of the Duchy did not seem to be in a panic, they were in control of the situation, and there was calm in the territory of the Holy Dragon Duchy - only the Grand Duke was gone.

"Oh, by the way, there's another piece of news: it is said that the inhabitants of the vicinity of Dragon's Landing Fort once saw a huge silver wyvern hovering over the high mountains and heading straight north. Local traders thought it was mostly a rumor, but I doubt it...... This is related to the sudden whereabouts of the Grand Duke of Dragon's Blood. ”

The information is scattered, but the conclusions seem to be on the horizon.

It's just that this conclusion is still not enough to speculate on the true situation of Tallund.

Gawain frowned, wondering what was going on in the far north, when a special magic net terminal next to Hetty's desk suddenly chimeed.

For a moment, the eyes of everyone in the room were focused on the machine that made sounds and flashes of light.

This is the special line of the Archons of the Empire - it will only ring when there is a special event on the borders of various places, or when the other two archons are in urgent contact with the Imperial Capital.

"Connected." Gawain said to Hetty as he walked to his desk.

Hetty quickly connected to the communication terminal, and with the shaking and emergence of holographic projections, the figure of Victoria Wilder appeared in front of Gawain and Hetty.

"Your Majesty, and Archarchon Hetty," the Ice Duchess's expression looked extremely serious, and she said in a hurried tone as soon as the communication was established, "the eternal storm is gone. ”

Hetty didn't even react for a while: "...... What did you say? ”

"The eternal storm is gone," Victoria said patiently, "the great storm in the northern seas—the last visual observation of this morning confirmed that the wall of clouds formed by the storm had completely disappeared, and the monitoring station set up near the North Harbor confirmed that the currents and the magic in the atmosphere were changing. ”

Speaking of this, her gaze fell on Gawain, and her tone was unprecedentedly serious: "Your Majesty, beyond the boundaries we know, there may be other great things happening in this world. ”

Gawain didn't respond to Victoria's words immediately, he just subconsciously raised his head, and his gaze suddenly fell on the large map hanging on the wall not far away, and landed on the north of the map.

……

When the great sun of the polar day once again swept past the lowest point of the horizon and slowly rose to a third of the sky, a sea breeze blew across the land of Agundor, carrying the smell of the sea and the smoke and dust into the distance.

Melita Pernia woke up from her slumber and felt like she had a long, strange, bizarre and terrible dream.

In her dreams, she was armed into a bloodless and tearless war machine, fighting with an iron will against enemies more difficult to defeat than natural disasters, in which the gods she once revered and feared were transformed into devastating calamities, sweeping across the earth and devouring everything, and in her dreams she saw the glorious and magnificent Argondol mountain collapse and crack, the towering palace walls of the Jury falling from the top of the hill and the ancient crowded city of Tallund in the lower strata, and the dragon's nest that she had carefully tended for thousands of years crumbling along with the peaks, Everything in the lair is blazing in flames......

She was in this dream, but she could not wake up, nor could she think freely, as if her spirit was frozen in a cloudy piece of amber, and she could only watch indifferently as it all flowed before her eyes, and her mind was as difficult to stir as death.

But suddenly, she heard the howling wind and felt the cold blowing through the earth.

Among the ruins of Argondol, the scarred blue dragon opened its eyes.

“…… I'm ......?!?! ”

Dreams are real.jpg.

(End of chapter)