Chapter 1363 Unexpected Reinforcements Full of Surprises

Chapter 1363: Chapter 1362: Unexpected Reinforcements Full of Surprises

Those are sea demons, surging from the sea in the northwest. This mighty deep-sea expeditionary force even broke the peaceful waters maintained by the Voyagers’ Tower, stirring up layers of waves and rolling surges like snow tides in Byron’s line of sight. Their speed was very fast, and almost immediately after the Winter Observer noticed the situation and sounded the proximity alarm, one of their vanguard squads sped across the sea surface, rushing to the vicinity of the Steel Isle.

"Signal to the Winter not to take any hostile actions," Byron immediately reacted, quickly speaking to the communication officer beside him while turning to look at Viola, who was gazing out at sea. "Why are your kin appearing here? Aren’t the sea demons said to rarely stray far from Antawen?"

"I don’t know either..." Viola looked even more bewildered than Byron. "I’ve lost contact with Antawen for several days. Could it be that something has happened over there..."

As they spoke, the vanguard squad rapidly approaching from the sea had already arrived at a connecting ramp at the edge of the Steel Isle. Subsequently, agile figures with water splashes leaped onto the nearby metal platform one after another. The leader was a tall sea demon with light sky-blue long hair, wielding a weapon resembling a trident, dragging a long serpentine tail behind her. She had clearly noticed the activities on the island and the nearby vigilant warships before this and was heading straight toward where Byron was—while doing so, she and her soldiers occasionally glanced up at the astounding huge tower piercing straight into the night sky nearby, expressions full of curiosity and amazement.

Viola recognized her kin before her and exclaimed in astonishment: "General Vanessa?! Why are you here?!"

"Viola? Why are you here?" The tall blue-haired sea demon also saw Viola, expressing even more surprise than the latter. She quickly noticed Byron’s face and the scene in the nearby camp, her expression somewhat bewildered. "Is this... General Byron? The Cecil Empire’s fleet? Why are you here... no, where is this place? Why are you all here? Is this near the Loren Continent?"

"...This place might be far from the Loren Continent. We arrived here due to a navigation error, and as for where exactly this is... to be honest, we are not sure of the precise position. We can only roughly judge that it is currently in the southwestern sea of the Loren Continent," Byron, though somewhat bewildered, managed to keep his logic in line. Upon hearing the slew of questions from the other side, a vague suspicion already forming in his mind, "General Vanessa, is it? How did you end up... here?"

The tall sea demon known as General Vanessa paused, seemingly sorting out her tangled thoughts, before speaking with a somewhat peculiar expression: "We are the Antawen Expeditionary Force, ordered by Her Majesty Petia, the Deep Sea Sovereign, to assist the alliance front line on the Loren Continent. Due to an unknown energy field shrouding the Loren Continent, making it impossible to open the Elemental Jump Channel, we swam all the way from the deep sea to this side, but..."

Speaking of this, the expression of this expeditionary commander became even more peculiar. She glanced up at the Steel Isle that was supposedly in the southwestern sea of the Loren Continent, with an even more hesitant tone: "But theoretically, we should have landed on the northeastern coast of the Loren Continent, not here... the navigation seems to have gone astray."

"Northeastern coast of the Loren Continent?" Byron’s eyes widened. "This isn’t just a navigation error—this place is the southwestern corner of the continent! You’ve appeared in the opposite direction of your intended one! Did you swim the wrong way?"

For a moment, there was a slight silence at the scene, with a subtle sense of awkwardness lingering between the far-traveled deep-sea expeditionary force and the human fleet that had navigated errantly to this place until Viola broke the silence a dozen seconds later: "Alright, alright, let’s not fuss over these details for two groups who lost their way..."

As Viola spoke, the awkward atmosphere grew even more severe, though Byron, with his relatively thick skin, quickly adjusted his mindset and spoke with an unashamed attitude: "It seems we’ve both encountered serious navigation incidents... but compared to the Winter, your deviation is far more absurd—from the northeastern direction of the continent straight down to the southwestern corner... considering the unusual weather we encountered earlier, I suspect this situation is quite abnormal."

The rough-and-ready "Knight mercenary" could also be keenly alert at times. Byron’s frowning remark immediately turned the sea demons serious. Some of the expeditionary soldiers behind General Vanessa couldn’t help but start whispering among themselves, and one of them murmured, "Could it be we indeed swam the wrong way from the start? I did feel something unusual about the undersea currents back then..."

Another sea demon seemed to not immediately react: "Swam the wrong way? Swimming the wrong way would land us on the western side of the Loren Continent?"

"Hey, the planet is round, you know, maybe we swam a whole circle in reverse..."

General Vanessa listened to her subordinates’ conversation, her expression becoming somewhat nuanced. Later, probably thinking this was overly embarrassing, she had to lightly cough twice to interrupt her subordinates’ murmuring, while Viola next to her spoke up: "I think it’s unlikely you’d swim the wrong way; there’s only one Tiel like that in all Antawen. It’s more likely related to the ’phenomenon’ from not long ago—General Vanessa, did you encounter any peculiar atmospheric changes when leading your team here? Within the past couple of days, I mean."

"Peculiar atmospheric changes?" Vanessa’s eyebrows furrowed, seemingly reminded of something. "Wait, there indeed seems to have been... we encountered a suddenly opened group of elemental rifts in the deep sea, those rifts appearing out of nowhere caused very chaotic currents. To avoid the currents, we circled a large area, and during this process, the rift group somehow interfered with the soldiers’ senses more or less. Let me think... if the previous navigation was correct, we should have already been near the Loren Continent by then."

"And then you ended up nearby, didn’t you?" Byron felt a light bulb go off in his mind as if something had clicked, and his question was confirmed by the other party’s affirmative answer, "Sure enough... you must have encountered the same peculiar atmospheric phenomenon as us, only we encountered an above-sea storm while you encountered an elemental rift group appearing at the sea bottom... you were in the eastern waters near Loren, and we were at the Ordo Estuary in the continent’s southwest. This unusual phenomenon might have encircled the entire Loren Continent... or covered the entire continent."

"A large-scale spatial-temporal aberration? We were transported to this tower’s vicinity without even realizing it?" General Vanessa wore a serious expression. For an entire expeditionary force and such a large-scale human fleet to be transported such a distance without even a general of considerable skill like her noticing, she immediately realized the severity of this incident and directed her attention back to the huge tower again, "...So is this anomaly related to the tower? Is it caused by the Voyagers’ legacy?"

"...It might not be the cause, but rather just a ’factor involved,’" Viola pondered briefly and lightly shook her head, as a Deep Sea Witch, she was more specialized in technical fields than Vanessa. With more information now at hand, Viola quickly developed some conjectures, "This tower itself is already a powerful energy convergence point, constantly releasing a vast force field to maintain the ’environment’ of this sea area, so when the anomalous atmospheric phenomenon occurred, it likely turned into a passive ’focal point’, like the bottom of a funnel or vortex, pulling all of us affected by the phenomenon to its vicinity, but the phenomenon itself may not necessarily have been caused by it."

"Not it?" Vanessa frowned, "Then who—such an anomalous phenomenon hasn’t occurred in hundreds of thousands of years. I don’t think it happens naturally..."

"It’s certainly those Oblivion Association people in the wasteland and that Sentinel causing trouble," Byron spoke up, not waiting for her to finish, looking every bit determined, "Anyway, it’s always their fault."

However, the scholarly sea demon lady Viola, after pondering for a moment, felt that General Byron was correct.

The group of mad humans hiding deep within the wasteland and the "Sentinel" backing them have been tampering with the Deep Blue Webway, attempting to use the massive "Planetary Power System" to stir up something, and such a massive energy undertaking can hardly result in something minor. Perhaps they have reached some critical stage, and the navigation errors of the Winter and the Antawen Expeditionary Force... are just preludes to this critical stage.

This is no small matter.

"We need to return to the Loren Continent as quickly as possible to report the situation to the alliance commanders and immediately provide support for the Southern Front battlefield—the situation there isn’t very good," sea demon Viola said swiftly. She still remembered that before the fleet lost contact with the land, the latest update was that the Silver-High Ridge Allied Forces were being pincered by two main forces of aberrations on the Southern Front. Although the situation had stabilized after receiving support from the Sorin Guard, compared to the other battle lines, the Southern Front battlefield remained less than optimistic, "Now that the abnormal weather has ended, my sisters should be able to find the route back to the Loren Continent smoothly."

"The expeditionary army will move with you," General Vanessa nodded immediately, "It sounds like the southern part of the continent needs our support more."

Initially, the Deep Sea Warlord felt troubled when they swam in the opposite direction to the scheduled location, but now it seemed this "bewilderment" might have led the sisters to the right place.

"Indeed, we must set out, but Cassandra and Asharena haven’t returned yet," Byron furrowed his brow, unable to resist glancing at the ancient miraculous construction still silently standing in the night sky. He was still worried about the lost contact with Asharena and her companions, yet he knew more clearly that the alliance frontline needed the Empire fleet’s strength momentarily, and such hefty duties could not be delayed, "...Leave some people here to wait, the others follow me..."

Just as he said that, a faint and low hum came from deep within the silent "huge tower," followed immediately by a series of weak lights rapidly descending from a very high place, interrupting his subsequent words.

This was the first response from the tower over the past day—had they returned?

Byron quickly walked toward the huge tower’s entrance, and reaching halfway, he saw a familiar figure appear in his sight—long hair like flames, it was Asharena, followed by Cassandra emerging from the door.

They looked intact, but their expressions were somewhat peculiar—a feeling of just opening the door to a new world.

"You’re finally back," Byron stopped, looking at the Dragonbranded Witch walking toward him, with an ordinary unfashionable smile on his face, "Your contact broke off soon after you went in, how’s the situation up there?"

"The situation up there is very complex, I’ll need to explain it to you slowly." Asharena didn’t quite know where to start in that moment, despite Gawain having told her some things could be shared with Byron before leaving. How to start with such paradigm-challenging matters was an issue; she knew this former mercenary head with a robust nervous system had limits, and blurting out "We just took the elevator to the synchronous orbit, there’s a ring left by aliens on the orbit, and your leader has already merged with the control system left by the aliens" would certainly not work. It wasn’t about Byron’s loyalty or capacity for acceptance; mainly, just explaining what a space station is could take hours...

In fact, even Asharena herself felt quite awkward several times when exploring with Cassandra—it’s fortunate she, being a Dragonbranded Witch, was half a scholar herself, and had learned a bit from her kin back in Talronde.

On the other side, Cassandra stood dumbfounded to see the long-absent Deep Sea General and her expeditionary army sisters brought by the general.

Upon hearing the expeditionary army’s intentions and their scheduled landing location, Cassandra was shocked: "You swam in the wrong direction?!"

Vanessa, preparing to understand the current situation of the Loren Continent from this sister who had served as a consultant to the human navy for a long time, slapped her forehead upon hearing the remark, her tail tapping the ground repeatedly: "Sigh... A Tiel has damned such great renown..."

...

Inside Cecil Castle, Gawain finally disconnected from the long spirit connection, and the night sky had already descended outside the window.

Spring has started, this continent endured a cold winter amid the flames of war, and the vast, long-lasting war still shows no signs of ending. Gawain approached the floor-to-ceiling window, watching the cold wind of early spring sway the decorative flags along the roadsides, and the city lights quickly spread in the night’s darkness, illuminating the street corners’ propaganda posters and war mobilization slogans—this city remains in peace and prosperity, yet the tensions of war permeate every corner. The civilized world’s frontline looks distant from here, yet it felt incredibly close in his heart.

At that moment, the sound of a door being opened interrupted his thoughts; he turned around to see Aunt Heidi walk into the study, the "Great Steward" wore a slightly fatigued expression, carrying several documents and orders awaiting approval.

"Ancestor," Aunt Heidi bowed slightly and started speaking first, "The search in all call stations along the Western Coast still has no responses, we have yet to contact the Winter, should we expand—"

"No need," Gawain interrupted Aunt Heidi’s report, "There’s no need to search for the Winter anymore."

"Ah?"

"I know where the Winter is—they’re already on their way back and will soon enter the Ordo Sacred River, providing artillery support for the northwest border of the Highmountain Kingdom battle line," Gawain waved his hand, meeting Aunt Heidi’s gaze, "Heidi, come over here, I have something to tell you."