Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 682 - 681: Soul of Shadow Manipulation

Veronica/Ophelia’s response was so swift and direct that Gawain did not react for the first two or three seconds, then he realized that he had found the key clue to Amber’s origin so easily—a knowledgeable person stood right before him.

"Why did you suddenly mention the Shadow Fortress?" Veronica noticed the change in the expressions of the three people before her and asked with a hint of curiosity, "Where did you hear that name?"

Gawain did not immediately answer her but instead followed up with a question: "Let’s not talk about that for now—since you know about the Shadow Fortress, have you heard of a royal shadow guard named Sali Randolph?"

In theory, during the time Sali Randolph was active, this "Saint Princess" before him hadn’t yet been born, but Gawain knew that Veronica’s youthful appearance concealed an ancient defier’s soul, which had been active in the world through soul parasitism, changing countless bodies. Perhaps one of her bodies had been active in Anzu Kingdom decades ago, and might even be related to the mission Sali Randolph executed back then.

But Veronica shook her head: "I have no impression of that name."

Her expression did not appear to be lying, but Gawain also found it difficult to discern her true thoughts from the ancient defier’s consistently calm expression, and could only tentatively believe she was telling the truth.

"Sali Randolph was a royal shadow guard from decades ago," Gawain considered for a moment and decided not to mention Amber’s identity for now, but instead started with the secret mission from many years ago, "we found some documents from those times and discovered that this royal shadow guard was ordered to find an ancient Gondor vault known as the Shadow Fortress—and now it seems this fortress was indeed part of the defied Plan from back then?"

Beside him, Amber promptly followed Gawain’s lead: "Can you elaborate on the situation with this fortress? What research was it conducting? Why do you say it was abandoned?"

Veronica looked deeply at Amber, causing the latter to instinctively feel a pang of guilt before she replied: "It was a mistaken route—a path of fleeing and hiding. The shadow project attempted to fundamentally change human life by transforming them into some sort of shadow realm creature, to hide within the shadow realm to evade the chaotic wave in the real world, and even avoid the power of the gods; the Shadow Fortress was the main research base for this project."

"Change human life? Transform into shadow realm creatures to hide in the shadow realm?" Gawain frowned, the answer faintly corroborated some speculations he had after reading Sali Randolph’s diary—the essence of the defied Plan was actually a ’human continuation plan,’ so the Shadow Fortress was undoubtedly established to help humans survive the catastrophe, but was the shadow realm really a world capable of avoiding the chaotic wave?

Veronica nodded slightly: "The shadow realm has existed since ancient times, and the Shadow Inhabitants are a tribe older than humans, elves, and all other known intelligent creatures on the continent; thus after the defied Plan was activated, we naturally noticed them. There is evidence indicating that various changes in the real world map onto the shadow realm in consistent patterns, so after the chaotic wave in the real world, changes in the shadow realm occur correspondingly, yet during this process, the Shadow Inhabitants were never affected...

"They possess certain traits similar to elemental creatures, traits that allow them to evade the impact of the chaotic wave and rapidly adapt to new environments when the magic-pervasive environment changes significantly, stabilizing their forms anew.

"On the other hand, shadow magic is the most enigmatic and widely distributed force among all known elemental and pseudo-elemental realms, covering our real world completely, unlike other elemental realms with large limitations; from a ’development potential’ perspective, the shadow realm is a more worthy refuge compared to other elemental realms.

"Considering these factors, the Defier activated the ’shadow project’ in the early stages of the plan, building a Subspace Rift fortress near the shadow realm. For research environment requirements, this fortress had no physical entrance but maintained connections with the material world through specific space-time anchor points."

As always promised, Veronica exhibited tremendous transparency when it came to the defied Plan, openly revealing brief intelligence about the Shadow Fortress, giving Gawain a rough understanding of its origins and history.

"The specific methods?" Pittman, who hadn’t spoken until now, suddenly asked, "How did you transform humans into shadow realm creatures?"

"The initial methods were crude, akin to ’elemental erosion,’ directly channeling shadow magic into the human body in batches, gradually altering the body’s material structure through this approach; we created some variants with potent shadow magic power, but their conditions were highly unstable, human souls couldn’t fully control the external shadow magic, and their bodies couldn’t endure the massive mutation. Volunteers receiving initial modifications quickly lost the distinction between the material world and the shadow world and gradually lost human self-awareness..."

Veronica shook her head as she spoke.

"Later we accumulated experience and realized that simply introducing external power and altering the material body was insufficient; soul-level modifications were also necessary, along with cultivating the experimental subjects’ adaptability to shadow magic from the embryonic stage, hence we began the ’Artificial Human’ plan."

Gawain noticeably perceived Amber’s breathing momentarily pause when Veronica mentioned "Artificial Human plan."

But he didn’t interrupt Veronica’s account; he continued listening to her speak—

"Utilizing biotechnology experience accumulated from the ’divine evils’ project, the shadow project team created a batch of synthetic embryos whose somatic cells originated from the first batch of failed variants but underwent deep modification and stabilization. Meanwhile, we also captured the same number of Shadow Inhabitants, melding their souls with human souls and encoding anew, creating synthetic souls capable of retaining humanity while controlling shadow magic, which, when injected into embryos, resulted in ’Artificial Humans.’

That moment, Gawain finally couldn’t help but speak up: "Artificial Human souls are Shadow Inhabitants?!"

"They are a hybrid of human and Shadow Inhabitants," Veronica corrected, "though it may sound incredible, Shadow Inhabitants possess a soul structure similar to humans—in fact, they’re almost a type of ’spirit’ creatures; aside from the shadow mist they command and those enigmatic magic symbols, their remaining structure is solely comprised of souls—and during Gondor’s time, the Empire mastered highly advanced soul extraction and modification techniques."

At this point, the ancient defier pointed to herself, smiling lightly: "You should be able to imagine, I am also a user of this technology."

Undoubtedly, "Ophelia Norton," who survived for over a thousand years in soul parasitism form, had also undergone soul-level modifications.

Yet at that moment, Gawain had no spare thoughts to focus on the technical intricacies; he instinctively glanced at Amber.

She was not a half-elf at all.

She is a "hybrid" of humans and Shadow Inhabitants, a hybrid on the soul level.

Amber also turned to glance at Gawain. After a brief moment of contemplation and silence, she turned to Veronica: "How many of such ’embryos’ were created back in the day?"

"Ultimately, 126 successfully survived," Veronica said. "That’s the report I received back then."

"Then why was the project abandoned?" Gawain asked immediately, "Did it have any risks?"

Right now, what he cares about most is the reason for the project’s abandonment because it directly relates to whether those "Artificial Human embryos" have any inherent risks — although Amber has grown up healthily for decades, who can guarantee that she won’t encounter issues someday in the future?

Veronica’s gaze swept between Gawain and Amber. After a few seconds of recollection, she spoke softly: "If Artificial Humans survived, they were safe, but the project itself had problems.

"After the experiment progressed to the embryo cultivation stage, the entire Shadow Fortress, even the Subspace Rift where the experimental group was located, entered an unstable state. Extra energy flows of unknown origin appeared in the fortress’s power circuits, mysterious and brief echoes frequently occurred in the communication system, projections of the Shadow Inhabitants wandered inside the buildings. Towards the later stages, even some rooms vanished into thin air, and strange phenomena of extra branches appeared in certain corridors.

"Simultaneously with the fortress anomalies, the core personnel of the project began to be plagued by frequent hallucinations and auditory hallucinations. Many reported hearing the embryos in the cultivation chambers talking, hearing the embryos converse with each other in a hoarse noise, yet all monitoring equipment found no evidence of this, and as the project struggled to progress with those embryos gradually growing into young forms, these bizarre occurrences became increasingly rampant — the phenomena spread from the central zone to other rooms, researchers found it harder and harder to distinguish the boundary of reality, the entire Shadow Fortress began to present a ’reality fracture’ state.

"We tried various extraordinary countermeasures, all of which ultimately failed. The risk assessment department determined that the experiments in the Shadow Fortress might have already disturbed the ’domain boundaries’ beyond the shadow realm and the real world. To prevent the project from breaching the security barrier and attracting the gods’ attention, I had to order the termination of the entire ’shadow project’, and the Shadow Fortress was abandoned along with it."

And so ended the Shadow Fortress.

Pittman looked into Veronica’s eyes and slowly asked: "And after that? Were those embryos just left in the fortress?"

"At that time, the embryos had already grown into young forms but were in an inactive state. I ordered their destruction — before they opened their eyes," Veronica said. "The project was out of control; nothing could be left. Let those experimental bodies disappear before they gained self-will, rather than let them face death after being born."

Amber took a breath gently, asking in a low voice: "Were all of them destroyed?"

"All were destroyed, at least according to the report I received."

"But actually, one was left." Amber stared at Veronica, speaking word by word.

Veronica raised her eyebrows slightly but did not speak, simply responding to Amber’s gaze.

Amber pointed to herself, her tone calm: "I am Artificial Human No. 36."

"Ah," Veronica said softly, but there was not much surprise, "So that’s how it is..."

Gawain looked at her: "What do you mean? Did you already..."

"No, I didn’t recognize her before," Veronica shook her head. "But after so many questions, how hard is it to guess the truth?"

As she spoke, she carefully examined Amber for a long time, with a hint of feeling: "So... this is how you are after growing up."

Amber couldn’t help but take a step forward: "Do you have nothing else to say?"

"For a thousand years, few things have surprised me or caused me to reflect, and today’s events finally brought me unexpected feelings... I know it’s not what you want to hear, but this is my most genuine thought right now," Veronica responded candidly to Amber’s gaze, but her calm expression truly showed little sign of surprise or reflection. "I don’t know how you survived, maybe it is related to the hallucination phenomena that enveloped the entire Shadow Fortress back then, but your survival is a delight to me — I’m very glad to see you stand here in such good health."

"Oh? Isn’t it regrettable that I wasn’t destroyed back then?" Amber stared at Veronica, "Isn’t this a risk for you?"

Veronica’s answer was very calm and indifferent: "You have grown up safely until now and are no longer a risk."

Gawain’s gaze moved between Amber and Veronica; he thought Amber’s next reaction would be intense, but after a few seconds of silence, she merely shook her head: "Well, let it be that way."

Her figure gradually vanished in the air, a slowly fading voice drifting away: "I’m going out for a breeze."