Listening to what was reported by Bodwin Franklin, Gawain's thoughts had gradually spread-

Intelligence from the Oguray Clan confirmed one of his previous suspicions: the mysterious signals that Fort Winter and Fort Solin had heard before were not limited to Cecil!

On the other side, Bai Dewen's report had come to an end, and he looked at Gawain: "Your Majesty, in addition to this, we have also received a letter from the Dwarven Kingdom forwarded by the leader of the Grey Elves, Victor Molten, the King of the Forge City, greeting you and agreeing to an invitation to meet at Silver Outpost 112 for the Resurrection Festival next month, and the Forge City will send its ambassador Paladin Huishanyan to attend. ”

“…… Have the dwarves finally made an official response," Gawain breathed a sigh of relief, "It seems that our resumption of sea routes has indeed boosted their confidence in participating in continental affairs......"

The Dwarven Kingdom, a mysterious country located in the westernmost part of the Great Road, although its territory is closely connected to the continent of Loren, its entire kingdom is completely enclosed by a natural arc-shaped mountain range, and the steep cliffs have always blocked the curious sight of the continent countries for thousands of years, and also blocked the inhabitants on the other side of the mountains.

For a long time, the dwarves lived a self-sufficient life on the other side of the mountains, and their kingdom was said to have been rich in production and a unique climate, and it was said that they could maintain prosperity even if they did not communicate with other countries on the continent, and it is said that they had developed a technology and culture that was very different from the rest of the continent, and even retained many of the old traditions that existed before the first invasion - but all this was just idle speculation, and almost no one actually crossed the mountains to see what the dwarven kingdom looked like, Only a few of the dwarves who left the kingdom and moved inland would occasionally mention their homeland to outsiders, but in their descriptions, the Forge City was magnificent, with its iron-stone hills, gold and silver, glittering plains, and picturesque scenery on the west coast......

After finishing the communication with the Duke of the West, the air near the desk rippled slightly, and Amber's figure emerged from it, with an interesting look on her face: "It is said that the mountain range that surrounds the dwarven kingdom is protected by ancient powers, and the outsiders will get lost as long as they enter the mountains, and finally return to the foot of the mountain in a daze, and only the dwarves hold the secret of crossing the ridge safely, so only the dwarves have always come to the interior to operate, and few people can enter their kingdom......"

"But in fact, the Dwarven Kingdom is not as mysterious as the legend has - although it does not have much communication with the rest of the continent today, but hundreds of years ago, when humans were still capable of exploring the sea, Ansu still had a period of sea communication with the dwarves," Gawain said with a smile, "There are indeed many wonderful customs there, and the dwarves also have unique smelting techniques, but they are far from the level of 'otherworldly' as described in the legend." ”

"As you say, it was hundreds of years ago," Amber said, spreading her hands, "for a short-lived human, a few hundred years of barriers is enough to turn a land that once had diplomatic relations into an incomprehensible foreign land. ”

“…… It makes sense," Gawain thought for a while, and had to admit Amber's statement, then suddenly remembered something, looked up and asked, "Is there anything you asked you to investigate before?" ”

"You mean about the 'Iron Man of Gondor'?" Amber immediately understood what Gawain meant, and after a moment's thought, the information she had collected in the recent period came to mind, "There are indeed some gains, but there are no breakthroughs.

"First of all, it's about the identity of 'Lady Diana' herself in Typhon. It is currently determined that she is the leader of Typhon's special forces, the Wanderers, an elite unit directly loyal to the Typhon royal family, which is subdivided internally according to its function, similar to the Royal Shadow Guard of the Ansu era or the current Steel Rangers, and mainly performs special operations and internal and external intelligence missions. The main combatants of the Wanderers are basically elite battle mages, and they have undergone special combat training, and unlike ordinary mages, they perform well in a variety of combat conditions, including raids, assassinations, and close combat, which is somewhat similar to the 'mage soldiers' of the historical Gondor period, and it is clear that this special soldier is the result of the training of the Gondor Iron Man himself.

"Secondly, we have also established that Diana was indeed a long-term allegiance to the House of Augustus, but she seems to have been loyal only to the position of 'Emperor'. She does not side with any political forces, does not support any heir who has not yet been crowned, and does not involve factional disputes. I suspect it has something to do with the pact she made with the royal family after she was 'restored' by the Typhon scholars hundreds of years ago.

"The above two items can be regarded as information that can be gathered and collected from public sources, and the third one is more interesting...... It's a 'windfall' from the 'Twenty-Five'......"

Amber said as she took a few strokes from her bag, pulled out a carefully folded piece of paper, and unfolded it in front of Gawain.

It turned out to be information from Daniel? Gawain was a little surprised for a while, he didn't expect Daniel to get information related to that "Diana", and then his eyes were attracted by what Amber showed-

On the unfolded white paper, there is no ancient Gondor technical secret or any secret deployment of contemporary Typhon, but a picture that looks like a child's graffiti: a dozen ink dots appear to be arranged irregularly on the paper, and a small circle of unknown meaning is drawn in the middle of the ink dots, and the whole picture looks ...... It's like a graffiti-failing, out-of-proportion sun, surrounded by abstract rays.

"What is this?" Gawain was confused by this picture, "Some kind of abstract painting?" ”

"This is the 'work' of the 'Lady Diana', and the only 'painting' she usually 'creates'," Amber put the unfolded paper on Gawain's desk with a somewhat strange look on her face, "It sounds strange, in fact, 'Twenty-Five' doesn't understand either, and he only learned about it by chance from the president of the Royal Mage Guild of Typhon-

"The head maid of the obsidian palace, Lady Diana, who 'never makes mistakes, always on the alert', occasionally makes strange moves when she is alone, she finds pen and paper to doodle, and the content of the graffiti is always like this, one after another, over and over again...... No one knew why she did it, not even herself. Most of these graffiti would be destroyed as soon as possible, but a few seemed to have been forgotten by her, and fell into the hands of a few curious people who were qualified to enter the Obsidian Palace. ”

"That's really...... Something unexpected. Gawain frowned slightly, looking at the graffiti placed on the table, he couldn't see through the deep meaning of this painting, and only some associations that seemed to be incompatible with the current world painting style came to his mind: the unconscious "creation" behavior generated after AI broke through the limitations, the graffiti of the out-of-control robot, and the reproduction of information caused by memory errors in ancient machine servants......

"Is this the exact shape of those graffiti? Or is it a 'concept map' drawn from an impression? Gawain looked up and asked curiously.

"Twenty-five says that this picture has more than ninety percent reproduction," Amber nodded, "at most there is a slight error in the proportions of some lines." ”

"Have you shown this to Kamel and Veronica?" Gawain asked, "They're from the days of Gondor, so maybe there's a clue." ”

"Yes, but they don't understand it either," Amber shook her head, "Carmel thinks it might be an abstract expression of some ancient rune array, and Veronica suspects it has something to do with Diana's deepest memories of her time at the Popranton Observatory, but they're all just guesses. ”

“…… Diana is a Gondor Iron Man who has lost some of her memories related to her experience leaving the Vipranton Observatory, and these images may reveal certain 'impressions' from the depths of her memory, but they are just meaningless graffiti to the informed-minded observer," Gawain said as he pondered, "...... Intrigued by the secret of the Iron Man of Gondor, I uploaded the image to a neural network and gave it to Megael III and Selena Gehr's analysis team to identify in secrecy to see if anything known resembled the graffiti. ”

Amber nodded, "Okay, I'll do it when I go back." ”

She put the paper away as she agreed, and then noticed that Gawain seemed to be thinking about something else, and that a small silver-white ring was still unconsciously spinning in his hand, and she quickly recognized what the ring was: "Thinking about Talrond again?" ”

"Still can't contact the Mithril Treasury," Gawain nodded, throwing the Mithril Ring in his hand on the table, watching the small ring bounce on the table with a crisp sound, "With the skill level of those dragons, it is impossible to repair a communication system for so long, and with the 'reputation' of the Mithril Treasury for thousands of years, it is impossible to remain silent after losing contact with customers for so long." Now that the Eternal Storm is gone, it seems like something has happened to Tallrond, based on all the information we have...... And it's not a trivial matter. ”

"You're worried about the dragons?" Amber blinked, "Actually, I don't think there's anything to worry about...... That's a dragon, a dragon that is invincible in both legend and reality, and can rush in and drink hot when a volcano erupts. ”

"It's because they're such a powerful race that I'm so worried right now—I'm worried that some kind of unforeseen catastrophe is brewing in the Arctic, that it's spreading to the human world," Gawain shook his head, "and suppose a worst-case scenario where the whole of Talrond is destroyed by some irresistible force—how strong is that power?" ”

Amber was taken aback by Gawain's conjecture, and her eyes widened: "This...... Probably not, right? ”

"Hypothetical, just hypothetical," Gawain exhaled, "it's like having a powerful giant standing in the distance, and you know exactly how strong that giant is, you know how strong he is, you know that he was fine a second ago, but suddenly the giant is gone, and because it's so far away, you can't see how he didn't, you can't see if he's been attacked...... At this time, you may be worried about the safety of the giant, but you should be more worried about whether the force that caused the giant's disappearance is spreading to you. ”

Amber thought for a moment and immediately rubbed her arm: "...... Oops, I feel goosebumps! ”

"After all, it's still the information that is unclear that I'm going to be cranky," Gawain sighed, admitting that he was cranky, "so hopefully those zealous Krakens and Nagas in North Harbor can find some clues, at least find out what happened to Eternal Storm first." ”

……

The cold wind howled against the twisted steel frame and makeshift sheltered walls, the heat source device dug out of the rubble glowed a warm orange red glow in the dim skylight, radiating a wide area of constant temperature heat, a poorly connected projection device was placed in the corner of the camp, several energy packs were attached to the base of the device, the image in the holographic projection was blurred to the point of being almost unrecognizable, but the sound of intermittent music could still be heard from the base.

Several frail young dragons lay on their stomachs in the open space next to the projection device, their spirits being tormented by the malfunction of their implants and the withdrawal reaction of the synergist, and the sound of staccato music coming from the device was supporting their minds at the moment, but this little support was meaningless, and they finally had to rely on their own tenacious minds to carry through this cold twilight.

This is not easy - for most dragons who once lived in the lower Talrond, it is not only mental pain to be completely free from hallucinogens and synergists, but also a real physical injury to the burning pain of the nervous system when it is unable to adapt.

After returning to the camp, Melita, who had returned to her human form, stood beside a boulder next to the sheltered wall, her lilac eyes staring at her compatriots twitching in the cold wind, her gaze falling on one of the young red dragons, and she did not look away for a long time.

It was the same young mechanic who had performed the implant on her at noon today – she had been busy all day, and a dozen of her compatriots had worked hard to avoid the fatal injuries and alleviate the pain caused by the implant failure, but when dusk fell, she suffered severe synergist withdrawal...... No one in the camp could help her.

The only stock of synergist in the shelter had been used to rescue the wounded.

As if noticing Melita's gaze, the red dragon lying on the ground turned around and gave a self-deprecating smile in his convulsions: "I shouldn't have been so obsessed with 'soul' and 'ash' in the first place...... But the sense of accomplishment and fulfillment they gave me was really important......"

She was referring to the names of two synergists that directly acted on the spirit in the lower Talrond.

Melita let out a sigh, not knowing what to do to answer the mechanic who had lived in the lower Talrond and was engaged in illegally modifying implants, and she could only unleash another large-scale mental appeasement - the spell had little effect on the symptoms of the synergist addiction, but the young mechanic still smiled gratitatively at her.

Melita then fled the place.