"Are you real?"
The humanoid entity, seemingly composed of arcane energy, exclaid in astonishnt, and his outcry brought Gawain and everyone else’s actions to a halt.
This being can speak! This being can communicate!
Gawain forcibly stopped the "Unbreakable Storm" he was about to unleash, holding his longsword alertly in front of him while staring at the Mana creature, and behind him, Tiel spread her hands, and a layer of misty water vapor enveloped the Mana creature — though its effect wasn’t imdiately clear, it was evidently a powerful magical effect because the electric light all over the creature dimd by more than half.
"You can speak?!" Gawain asked in a low voice, "Who are you? Why are you here?"
However, the Mana creature seed entirely oblivious to the others’ words. He just looked down at the cut mark sunken on the armor plate on his chest, then glanced around at the fully alert Cecil soldiers, muttering incessantly, "Is it real? Is it fake? Is it real? Is it fake? Is it real..."
"Hey, what’s with the real or fake!" Tiel couldn’t help but shout, "If you don’t explain yourself, I’ll let you taste the claws of the sea crab!"
"I... I..." The Mana creature seed finally conscious of the change in the surrounding atmosphere, but perhaps he hadn’t talked to anyone for too long. Even though he still retained the ability to speak, he severely lacked logic. He just swayed blankly on the spot, not knowing how to answer others’ questions, nor how to express his thoughts. After a fierce internal conflict, he suddenly emitted a sharp wail and shouted, "I need to check the barrier! I need to check the barrier! I need to check the barrier!"
Accompanied by this seemingly irrational shouting, the figure of the humanoid entity ford from arcane energy began to beco unstable, and then before everyone’s eyes, it suddenly turned into an electric light, crackling and flashing away from sight.
Leaving Gawain and the others staring at each other, Tiel was still in her pose of spreading her arms like a great roc (fish fins), but it was clear that her water vapor barrier had not managed to confine the bizarre Mana creature.
"What’s going on..." the sea demon lady said confusedly, flicking the tip of her tail, "Where did that electric guy go?"
"I don’t know, but I suspect he’ll be back," Gawain said, not putting away his longsword, but staying alert for any sign within the hall, "If I’m not mistaken, he should be..."
Gawain’s words were suddenly interrupted by a series of strange noises erging from the depths of the facility.
The sound was a cacophony of chaos, an indistinguishable mix of rolling boulders or the screech of iron against iron, as if a jumble of chaotic machinery was activating deep within the structure. As this cacophony echoed, arcs of electricity reappeared in the semicircular hall, and after a series of crackling noises, the electrically charged humanoid figure returned to everyone’s view.
Tiel instantly spread her arms like a great roc (fish fins) again...
But before the mist barrier could form, the humanoid figure suddenly raised both hands — or perhaps two arc-like appendages resembling arms, and a voice with a strange tremor emanated from between the armor plates: "Wait! We are not enemies!"
"You initiated an attack just now," Aunt Heidi pointed her magic wand at him, "What exactly are you... a human being?"
"As expected... as expected... an illusion wouldn’t manifest so many variables... an illusion wouldn’t be so logical..." Yet the humanoid figure only murmured incoherently, sotis lucid, sotis mad, until Gawain repeated Aunt Heidi’s question, at which he suddenly snapped out of it, "Ah... ah... right, allow to introduce myself, I am... I am..."
But the entity struggled to produce a clear na despite the effort to recall, and after a long while, he descended into agitation: "Who am I? Who am I?! I have a na... I should have a na! Who exactly am I?!"
Crackling electric light once more emanated from his surface, filling the entire space with strong unsettling Magic Power, and Aunt Heidi instantly erected a Mana barrier, but the cold sweat continuously beading her face and the pallor indicated she was no match for such power.
Yet just as the situation threatened to worsen once more, Gawain suddenly shouted loudly, "Kal, your na is Kal Slayne."
Upon hearing this na, the Mana entity was imdiately stunned, the syllables seemingly triggering so switch, jerking him back from the brink of losing control. He softly murmured the na, before looking up for a long ti, as two points of bright electric light turned towards Gawain’s direction: "How do you know?! Do you know ?!"
"Your chest armor," Gawain pointed at the armor plate on his chest, "it’s engraved with your na."
The "Mana creature" looked down sluggishly, then saw on his floating rune armor plates that indeed, one piece bore an inscription, a sentence:
My na is Kal Slayne, I am the Watcher of the "Defied" Fortress.
"My na is Kal Slayen, I am the Watcher at the ’Defiance’ fortress..." The being known as "Kal" slowly repeated the words on the armor plates, and as he spoke, his state incredibly stabilized rapidly.
Monts later, under the tense watch of everyone, he lifted his head again, the arcane energy surging through his body much calr than before. He looked around in confusion, then suddenly floated in Gawain’s direction, urgently inquiring, "Who are you? Humans? People of the Empire? Survivors? Are there others alive? What has beco of the world outside? What happened to our Empire?!"
Aunt Heidi instinctively raised the magic wand: "Ancestor!"
"No need to worry!" Gawain waved a hand, signaling everyone to stay calm while he took a slight step back, reopening the distance with "Kal," "Just calm down first and answer one question—were you a Master Mage of the Gondor Empire when you entered this facility during the teoric Era?"
"teoric Era..." Kal was montarily stunned, as if he hadn’t heard this term in ages. It took him a mont to respond slowly, "Ah, yes, the teoric Era... I was around during that ti... back then I was still a human..."
The soldiers on guard were imdiately in slight commotion, soone couldn’t help but quietly exclaim: "Human? He really was once a human?!" "How could a human turn into this?!"
Tiel was also taken aback, turning to look at Aunt Heidi: "Humans can transform too?"
These seafood thoughts were completely off the frequency of everyone else...
Gawain ignored the murmurs around him (and Tiel’s loud voice), focusing intently on "Kal" before him: "You can rest assured, we are humans—except for this elongated figure, she is our ally. We are indeed descendants of the Gondor Empire."
"Humans! Descendants of the Gondor Empire! You survived! Our plan from back then worked!" Kal suddenly beca excited, but this ti he controlled the energy escaping from his body well, only crackling for a mont before calming down, "So the Empire has been rebuilt? How many years have passed since then? Who’s leading everyone? Is it Norton’s line? What about the situation in other parts of the continent? Have they all been rebuilt?"
"Kal’s" questions ca one after another, with him in an extrely excited state, Gawain had to cool down this ancient soul (though he seed quite young to him) to silence: "I have so bad news—the Gondor Empire is already history."
"... What does this an?"
"The chaotic wave destroyed the Empire, in the year 1740 of Gondor. Although many of the Empire’s descendants escaped from that wasteland, rebuilding the Empire is impossible—the Well of Deep Blue has been destroyed, the foundation of the Empire’s civilization is gone. I don’t know what your plan was back then, but it probably didn’t fully take effect, those who survived escaped on their own.
"The survivors fled the Empire in four directions, each establishing new countries. The place you are now—or the main facility outside—is what we call the Dark Mountain Range, under the territory of the Anzu Kingdom, and as for the current year... it is already seven hundred years after the outbreak of the chaotic wave, a full thousand years from your active era."
"Kal" fell silent.
Gawain felt that this ancient soul might have been heavily hit, as the electric glow all over him visibly dimd, and half a minute later, he heard Kal’s low voice: "Everything you said is true?"
Gawain shook his head: "I have no reason to deceive you, fabricating four kingdoms to upset you is pointless."
The arcane energy on Kal flowed quietly, after a long silence, his glow unexpectedly brightened once more.
"Great," the ancient Watcher was invigorated, "to think so many survived!"
Gawain looked at this ancient Gondor Empire mage, who had inexplicably transford into such a form, with so surprise, and after a long ti finally managed to say: "I thought you’d be greatly affected."
"People surviving is more important than anything, this situation is far better than our worst-case scenario," a voice with a trembling and crackling sound ca from Kal’s body, "Great, truly great..."
"What exactly happened here?" Seeing this ancient being not in a rampage but instead becoming easier to converse with, Gawain couldn’t help asking the question he was most concerned about, "What was the purpose of this facility? What was your plan back then? And you, why... did you turn into this form?"
Kal was silent for a longer ti this ti, seeming to prioritize his disorganized and broken mories, and after a while, he finally broke the silence in a low voice: "To prolong our race, we stole the power of God.
"Here, is where the ’White Starfall’ occurred."
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