Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 948 - 947: The Land of Dragons

The gigantic blue dragon began to make its final deceleration, while Melita precisely adjusted her angle of descent. The grand continental shield of Talronde was already looming ahead. She saw the slowly rotating circular entrance at the access point, with the slight glow emitted by the circular ring equipment appearing particularly striking against the night sky—Omega had already received the identification signal from the returnees, and the passage had been opened.

Gawain stood on Melita’s back, at the foremost position. Here, he stared intensely at the spectacle of starlight and artificial lights intermingling over the skies of Talronde. For a moment, he was already prepared to shout for Melita to halt, to alert the others to pay attention to the strange conditions of this continent, but at the last moment, he stubbornly suppressed the impulse to shout a warning.

Amber, beside him, was staring wide-eyed at the dazzling lights of the Dragon Kingdom, occasionally letting out a few exclamations. Veronica Moen seemed lost in thought as she looked at the barrier over the continent, as if analyzing the principles behind this mysterious technology. Melita was clearly in a great mood, as she had been incessantly introducing the scenery of Talronde since a while ago—they couldn’t see the scene Gawain had just witnessed.

What was that "monstrous entity," covered with chains, sprawling across Talronde, and appearing utterly mad and indescribable? How long had it been entrenched on this continent? These questions were temporarily unknown, but one thing Gawain could be certain of was that it was evidently inseparable from the Dragon Kingdom and was certainly not something that appeared here today.

It was part of Talronde, the very thing he would face during this journey... Though surprising and bewildering, Gawain suspected that the "monstrous entity" might just be the greatest discovery of his Talronde trip, and if he turned back now, he would have truly come in vain.

After all, everyone had already prepared to face the gods before departure. Although the scene he just saw was horrifying, it hadn’t exceeded Gawain’s psychological expectations—it’s just that the anomaly had manifested, and he had to be more cautious.

After all, that entity... perhaps it should be referred to as "It."

Gawain remained silent, his expression more serious than ever. Melita, gliding down toward the brightly lit land, didn’t pay attention to what the passengers on her back were doing, while Amber and Veronica had noticeably caught Gawain’s change in expression. They quietly approached him, with Veronica whispering, "Did you notice something?"

"You probably didn’t see..." Gawain didn’t hide anything, feeling it was necessary to make Amber and Veronica alert as well. As for why he saw a scene others couldn’t... such detailed issues weren’t important here, "The entire Talronde is shrouded by an extremely large ’entity,’ which bears mythological features."

Veronica’s expression instantly grew as serious as Gawain’s, while Amber immediately stepped closer, lowering her voice, "Should we make a run for it? I’m familiar with the procedure..."

"We’re here precisely for ’It,’" Gawain cast a glance at this disgrace to all. "We’re already here, where do you think you’re going?"

"I actually have some connections in the shadow realm..." Amber instinctively joked, then promptly tucked her neck back and became serious. "Of course, I’m just saying..."

"Stay vigilant; this is a world utterly unfamiliar to humans," Gawain exhaled gently and reminded in a low voice, "Try not to act alone in Talronde, and report any discoveries to me."

Amber and Veronica responded in succession, while Gawain’s gaze slowly moved upward, looking toward the extraordinarily clear and brilliant starry sky in this Arctic region.

The stars twinkled, yet the silhouettes of the facilities left by the Voyagers were nowhere to be seen. Nonetheless, all sorts of clues were reminding Gawain that the connection between these dragons, active from Ancient Era to today and "imprisoned" by some indescribable entity, and the Voyagers was far deeper than he initially imagined.

While Gawain, Amber, and Veronica conversed, Melita’s deceleration and gliding finally reached its conclusion. Soon, the surface of Talronde’s nearly transparent energy shield showed ripples, a light-congealed passage appeared on the shield surface, and simultaneously, a massive floating metal structure also flew in from not far away, spinning to cover the entrance of the passage.

In the air, a vibrating circular interaction interface abruptly appeared, with a voice that seemed synthetically generated ringing out from an unknown source, "Welcome, guests from the human world—your travel permission has been pre-authorized, Omega salutes you. Wishing you an unforgettable journey in Talronde."

"Wow..." Amber quietly exclaimed. She almost nudged Gawain’s arm to quietly ask what kind of powerful thing this was, but the next second she realized doing so might be embarrassing, thus forcibly suppressing the impulse, only staring wide-eyed at the holographic projection floating in the air, and behind the projection, the massive floating metal structure—she couldn’t see where the equipment forming the projection was, nor could she understand how such a huge structure was floating in the air, with no visible components for anti-gravity, and even the magic power fluctuations were quite strange...

"Hello, Omega—I heard about you from Melita, you are the advanced AI maintaining the operation of many facilities in Talronde," Gawain was indeed surprised for a moment, but he controlled his emotional changes well and, standing on Melita’s back, his expression remained very calm, "I hope we get along well."

The edge of the light ring trembled, "Omega stores the world’s most complete personality database—we will indeed get along well, Emperor of humans."

As the dialogue proceeded, Omega’s interaction interface became transparent, and the metal device behind it also rotated half a turn, completing the authentication and login process for everyone. The door to Talronde opened, and Melita immediately spread her wings, skillfully and lightly gliding through the door and passage, flying into the interior of the continental shield.

In the state of low-speed flight, she reduced the intensity of the protective barrier, allowing more external airflow to enter inside the shield, and instantly, a warm and pleasant breeze blew on the faces of Gawain and the others—Amber widened her eyes in surprise because she realized that in the extremely cold Arctic Ice Ocean, the air inside Talronde’s shield made her feel like she was basking in spring.

This is much more than just a barrier!

"Have you built a controlled ecological system in Talronde?" Gawain couldn’t help but ask, "This shield covering the continent also functions as an ecological dome?"

"Yeah, it’s obvious," Melita answered with a hint of pride, "without a controlled ecosystem, the polar region is not a place suitable for dwelling — although many ballads describe dragons as a race that can live in extreme environments, saying that we build our palaces at volcanic craters and deep within millennium glaciers, those stories are mostly fabricated by us — in real life, who wouldn’t prefer a warm environment as pleasant as spring?"

"Wow—" Amber couldn’t help but express her awe, "I thought you truly liked sleeping in lava and icebergs..."

Gawain was somewhat curious: "Since that’s the case, why do you leave those misleading stories when you travel in the human world?"

"To look cool."

Gawain&Amber&Veronica: "..."

The atmosphere atop the dragon was momentarily plunged into an awkward silence, while Melita swiftly navigated a sky route formed by guiding lights, the enormous dragon wings flapping through the air, accompanied by a low dragon’s chant, the dragon crossed over a mountain ridge at the edge of Talronde, and the next moment, the majestic cityscape and numerous colossal buildings nestled between the peaks appeared in front of Gawain and the others!

They saw towering mountains in front, yet visible traces of artificial remodeling had completely altered the outlines of these peaks, countless layers of massive structures resembling palaces and castles were built along the mountain sides, columns and walls of the halls were adorned with exquisite and grand sculptures, and meticulously placed lights and projection devices filled the gaps between palace walls and domes, colossal holographic images and lights intertwined, giving those seemingly ancient and splendid palaces a unique atmosphere of blending classical architecture with modern technology — but more astonishing to Gawain than these splendid buildings atop the mountains was the city architecture spread at the foot of the mountains, distributed between the plains and valleys.

It was the largest city he had ever seen in this world, surpassing even the enormous cities from the Gondor era — he saw numerous man-made tall buildings arranged on the plains like a forest, these magnificent structures were designed for dragons, almost each one surpassed the Silver City of St. Soniel; between the skyscrapers were gardens and artificial jungles supported by giant pillars or anti-gravity devices, each with its individual ecological dome, preserving scenery of different seasons; vast areas between cities also held particularly large buildings that seemed to be some kind of factory or other basic facilities, with countless pipes, support beams, and tanks holding up their main structures, and numerous lights distributed like bands connecting them to the city.

It was currently the polar night in the Arctic Region, yet the lights between those factories, palaces, and buildings illuminated Talronde’s city like daylight, in the seemingly perpetual lights, Gawain saw a multitude of light streams moving between city streets, even saw many lights moving in precise layers in the sky above the city — some were flying dragons, others were assorted vehicles, ordered and precise, directed by numerous floating signal devices to unify traffic, and beside the busiest aerial traffic lanes, massive holographic projections could be seen, and displayed on those projections...

Were advertisements, all kinds of ads, promotional shorts for large events, cryptic art snapshots, even nonsensical scrambled characters — which seemed to be a form of "dragon art."

From this distance, Gawain could only see images but couldn’t hear sounds coming from those bustling city districts, yet just by watching the scenery in front of him, he could discern a lot.

Finally, for the first time in this world, the well-informed voyager experienced genuine shock with his eyes wide open.

On the contrary, Amber beside him seemed a bit less shocked — because everything in Talronde was already beyond the half-elf’s scope of knowledge, there’s no point in considering "degree" once it surpasses the limit, to her, it made little difference whether the dragons lived in volcanic craters or apartment buildings, they all seemed equally incomprehensible, all were just "Oh my goodness, what an amazing thing" — so after exclaiming briefly, she instead appeared quite calm, just left to wander about curiously.

As for Veronica, she exhibited the same astonishment as Gawain: as an ancient Defier who experienced the glorious period of Gondor, though she had not seen a place like Talronde, she could discern hidden information from these city facilities, and quite evidently, the representation of this "Dragon Kingdom" was vastly different from her preconceptions before setting off.

Also vastly different from Gawain’s imagination.

"How is it, spectacular isn’t it?" Melita’s proud voice came from the front, "This is one of the most prosperous areas in Talronde — Aurora City ’Agondale’, the Council Headquarters is located here, as well as the headquarters of the Mithril Vault."

"...This isn’t at all like the dragon kingdom I imagined," after a few seconds of silence, Gawain couldn’t help but shake his head and say, "nor is it like the imagination of any bard or scholar in the human world."

"Ah, you wouldn’t also think we build castles in lava and icebergs, right?" Melita joked, "And pile them with gold and princesses kidnapped from all over the world in the castles..."

"My imagination wasn’t that exaggerated — I did guess you had a highly advanced civilization, but I didn’t expect your city’s development would reach this..." Gawain said, suddenly feeling at a loss for words since what he felt looking at those cities wasn’t only shock, as someone who had witnessed too many things as a "satellite spirit," in these cityscapes he also recognized a certain... constraint, thus he took several seconds to organize his words, finally thinking of a more fitting description, "didn’t expect your city development to reach such an ’extreme’ level."

It was the most neutral comment he could think of.

Melita probably assumed Gawain as a "King of the human world" would feel only awe and surprise upon seeing Talronde due to a lack of insights, yet she didn’t expect the first comment was "extreme," a word seemingly full of praise but in reality, bearing rich meanings, and having often interacted with humans, Melita immediately perceived Gawain’s true meaning from this word.

She felt a bit surprised and unexpected, then involuntarily let her gaze sweep across the cities covering the entire land, across the massive factories and enterprise combined complexes between cities, sweeping over those advanced, bustling, beautiful scenes, though unchanged fundamentally for countless years.

"...Indeed quite extreme," Lady Dragon’s voice was somewhat muffled, "After seeing it often, it starts feeling monotonous."