Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 466 - 465: Inversion Tide War

To be honest, hearing from Tiel about the phenomenon of the "Black Pit" suddenly increased the indescribable pressure in Gawain’s heart.

Beyond the chaotic wave... there might be other threats in this world, large enough to cause the extinction of civilizations. More terrifying than the chaotic wave is this invisible and intangible threat—even the sea demons, who have observed this world for countless years and experienced over a dozen chaotic wave transformations, have not grasped the essence of this threat.

This is undoubtedly an extremely unsettling fact.

With a serious and somber expression on his face, Gawain silently pinched his chin and fell into contemplation, while Tiel quietly waited beside him. It was not until Gawain suddenly exhaled that the sea demon unhurriedly said, "Feeling a bit desperate suddenly?"

Gawain’s answer was a brief: "No."

"You don’t need to force it; feeling immense pressure in such a situation is quite normal," Tiel, seemingly understanding, wagged her tail, producing splashing sounds on the rocks at the shore, "after all, the biggest crisis you’ve imagined has been the chaotic wave all along, and now finding out that crisis is not limited to just the chaotic wave, who can remain calm..."

"You’re right; I do feel the pressure, but my mindset hasn’t collapsed, much less leading to despair," Gawain exhaled deeply, his expression slightly easing, "The ’Black Pit’ phenomenon you mentioned... might indeed exist, but for me, the chaotic wave remains the top priority. If we can’t even withstand that, considering the utterly unknown ’Black Pit’ would be pointless—no need to lose my fighting spirit over such formless catastrophe."

Tiel silently gazed at Gawain for a moment, suddenly bursting into exaggerated laughter: "You... you’re truly interesting... Ahaha... How come I never noticed before... No wonder you can get along with us sea demons... You must be quite welcome in our sea demon society."

Gawain watched Tiel nearly laughing herself into the river, his expression inevitably a bit awkward: "Is it that exaggerated?"

"Your attitude is excellent—" Tiel managed to stop laughing, vigorously bouncing to Gawain’s side with her tail and observing his expression, "Do you really not fear? Even if you do find a way to survive the chaotic wave, you may face subsequent challenges. Do you really not fear?"

"Humans are creatures afraid of death, but rarely do people abandon life due to the fear of death; they will strive to survive out of the fear of death," Gawain said candidly, "For us, both the chaotic wave and ’Black Pit’ are about the same—equally unknown, equally fatal, equally seemingly unsolvable, but we’ve already decided to survive when the chaotic wave hits, so we can only keep going down this path."

Speaking of which, Gawain looked up, somewhat dazedly gazing at the star-filled night sky.

"When I calm down and think it through, I realize that even if the ’Black Pit’ exists, for us, it just means the number of problems to solve goes from one to two—what’s so frightening about that?"

Tiel listened to Gawain, suddenly sighed again: "...If you were living in sea demon society, you’d surely be quite welcome."

"Why do you say that?"

"Sea demons are also a self-comforting race, we’re optimistic and persistent, in this you’re very much like us," Tiel said earnestly, "To be honest, most sea demons don’t really like land dwellers— in our eyes, land dwellers are creatures that develop rapidly yet always manage to destroy themselves quickly; you lack foresight, are fond of short-term benefits, and don’t value commitments. But I must admit... your passionate and hopeful society is indeed captivating."

Momentarily, Gawain didn’t know how to respond, so he maintained a smile, accepting Tiel’s compliment.

After a brief silence, Tiel continued: "Actually, regarding the Black Pit... we’re not entirely without research. Although we’ve never figured out how it occurs, nor observed its specific manifestations, we do have a hypothesis..."

Gawain blinked: "Hypothesis?"

"Civilizations encountering the Black Pit share a common trait, and that’s reaching a high degree of development, at least enough to survive the chaotic wave—even those civilizations suddenly destroyed before the chaotic wave arrived were equipped with the capacity to protect themselves in the upcoming chaotic wave, a point confirmed by our observers," Tiel explained seriously, "We think... the Black Pit might be a sort of filter; once a civilization reaches a certain threshold of development, some destructive force is activated to destroy this season’s civilization... you should understand what I’m saying, right?"

Tiel seemed to have opened the topic, unable to stop as she spoke increasingly more, then she suddenly remembered Gawain as a "backward land dweller," adding a final sentence.

"Certainly I understand, the civilization level during Gondor’s time wasn’t low," Gawain said, deeply furrowing his brow, "But the filter you mentioned... if true, then that would be terrible..."

Would a civilization be destroyed by some external factor once it reaches a certain degree of development?

Could such a thing really exist in this world?

"We’re just speculating because according to our observations, every civilization reaching a certain height has been destroyed; there’s a visible threshold blocking there, no civilization has surpassed it, so we can only deduce the ’Black Pit’ is a filter."

"Have you calculated this ’threshold’?" Gawain suddenly asked, staring into Tiel’s eyes, his tone very serious. "Does it have any distinctive ’points’? For instance, the breakthrough of a certain key technology or humans stepping into a crucial field?"

"Unfortunately, we can’t summarize it. On one hand, we always miss the black trap and can only see the remnants after destruction, unable to deduce what terrestrial civilizations were doing before the outbreak of the black trap. On the other hand, each chaotic wave resets the magic-pervasive environment, and each season’s civilizations followed vastly different technical routes, making them incomparable," Tiel shook her head. "We can currently only roughly provide a standard, which is that only a civilization that can survive in the chaotic wave qualifies to be destroyed by the black trap."

Gawain frowned in thought, suddenly realizing a key question: "...Did those destroyed civilizations surpass you?"

"...No," Tiel knew what Gawain wanted to say, and she answered quite candidly, "Our sea demons were almost a civilization destroyed once, but our remaining technical skill was still superior to those terrestrial civilizations, and we... did not encounter the black trap."

The technical prowess is higher than terrestrial civilizations, the survival duration longer than terrestrial civilizations, survived more than one season within the chaotic wave, and those sun-bathing and dancing sea demons... did not encounter the black trap.

All this was within Gawain’s expectations, and such a fact was exactly why he doubted Tiel’s "black trap filter" hypothesis.

The triggering of the black trap is not necessarily the progress in technical fields; perhaps terrestrial civilizations mistakenly triggered it in other aspects—of course, it could also be due to other reasons, such as the unique life form of the sea demons exempting them from the black trap or... the black trap only happening on land?

Gawain voiced his thoughts, and Tiel immediately refuted: "Not exclusively on land, there was a civilization that developed highly powerful maritime technology. Their autonomous sea platforms and seawater extraction factories even reached the edge of our territorial waters, establishing semi-permanent living domes in the sea—but they suddenly all died, and they were clearly discussing seafloor thermal source development with us just a month prior. When we sent representatives a month later, the entire dome had already been abandoned, full of corpses inside..."

Gawain frowned: "The cause was never determined?"

"No. When the delegation discovered it, the dome had been abandoned for half a month, and much evidence had vanished. However, we found that their dome barrier was shut off internally; they must have turned off the protection themselves and drowned."

Gawain was dumbfounded for a long while, eventually uttering only one word: "Bizarre..."

"Yes... very bizarre," Tiel spoke slowly and then suddenly seemed to remember something, "By the way... one season’s civilization destruction seems somewhat different from others... their destruction has something to do with an ancient race."

"An ancient race?"

"Dragons," Tiel mentioned a word that took Gawain by surprise, "That civilization was destroyed in a war involving dragons. It was a long time ago, when a terrestrial Empire suddenly rose—they developed at an astonishing speed and swiftly dominated the entire land. They even had some contact with us, but before we could delve deeper, war suddenly broke out.

"One side of the battle was that terrestrial Empire, while the other side was dragons—now, dragons rarely appear on the continent, you all treat them as legendary creatures. But in ancient times, during that war, dragons almost swarmed from the north. They then were nothing like reclusive species but played a genuine part in the war...

"Even now we don’t know who incited the war first, but the cause seemed religion-related, since dragons destroyed many temple-related facilities of that terrestrial Empire in the early stages of the war. It was a targeted attack.

"The battle was exceptionally intense, with combatants being almost evenly matched. Many dragons perished, and our observers couldn’t even get too close to the battlefield—because they were bloodthirsty and attacked anyone not of their kind.

"The war lasted ten years—such an extended duration is also unlike typical ’black trap’ phenomena. Other civilizations destroyed by the black trap disappeared quickly—but in the end, dragons claimed a bitter victory, while that once glorious terrestrial Empire vanished into smoke and ashes.

"Based on scattered information from our observers, the terrestrial Empire called the year the war broke out the ’Year of the Inversion Tide’. Hence, they also referred to the war as the ’Inversion Tide War’."

"Inversion Tide War..." Gawain listened to this grand ancient tale, yet it seemed unreal; this story felt so distant from the present era, and now Tiel recounts it smoothly, inevitably causing serious dissonance. But he believes Tiel wouldn’t fabricate such a story to amuse themselves, "Indeed, it’s nothing like the ’black trap’ you described before."

"Indeed, it’s prolonged, reason was clear, and we observed it, so we’ve never been able to determine if the ’Inversion Tide War’ was actually a ’black trap phenomenon’, but there is one thing that’s certain—if the Inversion Tide War is somewhat related to the black trap, then dragons definitely know something."

Gawain couldn’t help but smile wryly: "Are you suggesting I seek out dragons for intelligence?"

"What if there’s an opportunity?" Tiel flicked her tail, "Besides, I’m just giving you some insight, it’s not like it’s up to me to solve the matter."

Gawain: "..."

At that moment, he truly felt an urge to slam this fish down onto the shore...