Listening to Mirmina's words, Gwen suddenly had an indescribable strange feeling in his heart. But when he thought about it, there was not a single wrong word in what she said, he could only continue to maintain a straight face with cold sweat all over his forehead. At the same time, he focused his attention on the 'experimental field' opened up in the Realm of Looming Shadow in front of him.
"The experimental facilities you are setting up here look quite … cool," Gwen commented casually as he looked at the neatly arranged platforms and a large number of magic devices that were running automatically in front of him. "I heard that you were building something in the Courtyard of Disobedience, but I didn't expect you to build these so quickly …"
"This is a … 'dream' of mine for many years," Mirmina seemed to let out a self-deprecating snort. "Sounds weird, doesn't it? I am supposed to respond to the wishes of the mortals, but I have a wish that I can't fulfill for many years — a laboratory to explore the truth and mystery and satisfy my curiosity. This is something that I have always wanted to do but couldn't do for thousands of years. "
"… The driving force of magic and mystery is essentially the exploration of the unknown and the mastery of the laws of nature. The Goddess of Magic created by the sorcerers may be the most curious and exploratory god in the world … However, on the other hand, the gods in the mind of the annoying people should be omniscient and omnipotent. As the master of mystery, you can't have anything you don't know, let alone step into the unknown …" Gwen sighed softly and shook his head. "If you didn't get out in time, I'm afraid you would be the most crazy and out of control of all the gods."
Mirmina seemed to smile. Although her face was covered by the smoke-like 'veil,' the bright and gentle smile still came out from the corner of her eyes. She did not answer Gwen's sigh. She just turned her head and glanced at the huge golden oak in the center of the courtyard and the giant white deer who was whispering to the two flowers on its head under the oak tree. After a while, she slowly said, "When I saw Amoun build this garden, I remembered my wish for many years. I felt that I should do something instead of doing nothing every day and really be a 'retired god.'
"But then again … I really didn't expect the board of directors to approve my building application so quickly. I thought this would be a very sensitive issue. After all, this isn't like taking care of flowers and plants. My laboratory still has a certain degree of danger."
"You and Amoun are not prisoners here, and the Board of Governors is of course not your jailers. In my opinion, you are just like us, struggling beings in this world." Gwen shook his head with a smile. "And to be honest, you are a former god, and this is your wish for thousands of years. Even if the Board of Governors does not 'approve' your 'application,' will you really give up?"
"Yes," Mirmina said flatly but without hesitation.
This answer finally made Gwen's eyes widen. "… Are you serious?"
"Yes," Mirmina said calmly. "I promised you that I would become a member of the Board of Governors as a mortal. I also signed a contract with the Board of Governors under the name 'Mirmina'. Although I am no longer bound by the laws of the gods, I still do not intend to violate the oath. In the opinion of Amoun and I, in order to completely leave the altar, the least we should do is not to do things that are above the mortals. "
Gwen could not help but take a deep look at the huge lady in front of him, but he did not say anything. After a few seconds, he withdrew his gaze and looked at the experiment platform that Mirmina had built. He saw the 'sample' he was looking for.
It was a captured aberration placed in the center of a large platform, surrounded by an extremely complex runic array and restrained in a layer of translucent magic field. Several translucent pillars, completely condensed from arcane radiance, emitted a faint glow and floated about two to three meters above the platform. Illusory chains extended from the top of the light pillars and intertwined around the magic field to form a second layer of seal.
For a minion-level aberrant monster, these seals personally imposed by the Goddess of Magic were considered top-notch treatment, so much so that Gawain could not help but be stunned when he saw those powerful sealing spells. The words in his mind blurted out, "Do you have to do this just to imprison a minion-level aberrant monster … Is this aberrant a violation of the laws of heaven?"
"What does the laws of heaven mean?" Mirmina was stunned by the strange phrase that popped out of Gwen's mouth. But she had been here for some time, and now she was somewhat used to 'the occasional flirtatious words of Emperor Gwen Cecil', so she quickly ignored the question and explained casually, "These seals are not just to prevent the aberration from escaping. In fact, even without any additional seals, this monster cannot escape from my platform. The barriers and seals you see are mainly to maintain … the environment. "
"Maintain the environment?" Gwen was stunned for a moment. Then he finally noticed the faint purple 'fog' floating in the translucent magic field, and the dark sheet structure between the runes on the surface of the experimental platform that looked like solidified light. "Wait a minute, this is … You have simulated the environment in the Gondor wasteland?!"
"It's not difficult. The 'pollution' in the Gondor wasteland is essentially the result of the interaction between the out of control dark blue magic power and the elements that corrode the material world. It's easy for me to create a similar 'pollution', but the real difficulty is how to make the polluted environment 'precise' and 'stable' enough." Mirmina nodded and explained in a rather relaxed tone. "The … aberration you caught at the front line is very unstable. After it left the group, it has been weakening and deteriorating. It was only until I put it into this simulated environment that its physical structure stabilized a little …"
Listening to Mirmina's explanation, Gwen pondered while his eyes fell on the 'sample' in the center of the layers of seals. The terrifying creature, which was like a little giant compared to ordinary people, was now hunched in the center of the force field on all fours. Dirty black-red 'mud' was flowing on its body, and its featureless face was fluctuating in the magic environment. A low murmur was constantly coming from its body, but the murmur had nothing to do with intelligence. It sounded chaotic and nauseating, and it was just the 'noise' that the creature of Chaos released instinctively.
But other than the 'noise', the aberration in the force field did not do anything else. Even when Gwen and Amber had come to the edge of the platform, the monster just remained motionless.
"It looks a little different from the aberration I dealt with last time." Amber could not help but recall her experience with the aberration. "The one I encountered last time was more violent than this one. It rushed up without saying a word …"
"If Amoun and I were not here, it would also be so violent." Mirmina's voice came. "It's interesting. This aberration has no intelligence, but it can still feel fear, and it is sensitive and accurate to certain auras. It is afraid of Amoun and my power. Of course, if it was the aberration with a controller on the battlefield, it would probably be different. But this one … it's acting on instinct. "
"Fear …" Gwen muttered softly as he pressed his hand on the translucent magic barrier. "Perhaps for this creature, fear is not an emotion, but just an instinct …"
A soft glimmer came from the side. Veronica, holding a platinum scepter, came to Gwen's side. The ancient leader of the rebels quietly looked at the monster and said softly, "I have been dealing with these things for so many years … In the depths of the wasteland, they are everywhere, but recently they have been summoned to other places …"
"… I remember the creation of the aberrations can be traced back to the 'Abomination' project of the Disobedience Project." Amber glanced at the Saintess. "The rebels extracted the original 'divine blood' from Amoun, and then combined it with human cells to create the 'Abomination Gene'. You guys hoped to turn humans into 'Abominations' to survive the Demonic Tide, but after the Demonic Tide, the Abominations went out of control and mutated into aberrations … Hmm, in a sense, these aberrations are actually 'Gondor'. Don't you feel weird looking at it?"
Amber's words sounded unpleasant, but Veronica knew the half-elf well. She knew that the half-elf did not mean any harm, so she just shook her head. "… No, this is not a citizen of the Empire. This is just a flesh and blood body that grew out of the corpses of the Empire's citizens. The 'Abomination' project back then had failed, and we should accept this failure … As for the 'aberrations' now, I am more concerned about their most fundamental weakness and the nature of their existence."
"Yes, the nature of their existence. I am also curious about this." Mirmina nodded. "These creatures will begin to deteriorate after leaving the environment, and will even dissipate into thin air. When they gather to a certain extent, it will cause the environment to become 'wasteland', creating an energy environment similar to the Gondor wasteland, and then grow out of thin air … In my opinion, this is completely beyond the nature of the 'Abomination' you mentioned. It doesn't even look like a 'creature' living in the material world, don't you think so?"
Mirmina's words instantly woke Gwen and Veronica up from their thoughts about the ancient Disobedience Project and the 'Abomination' project. They turned their attention to this very important 'abnormal phenomenon' that no one had been able to understand for hundreds of years.
The 'deterioration' and 'intensification' of the aberrations, as well as their strange 'growth out of thin air'.
"… After the second pioneering, the human countries still had the hope of counterattacking the wasteland and reclaiming their homeland. At that time, our scholars did a lot of research on these monsters and successfully captured and controlled these 'living specimens' for a short period of time," Gwen said as he recalled. "Our experimental conditions were limited, and the scholars could only use a very crude method to test the characteristics of these monsters. Most of these tests were fruitless, but the scholars still gradually formed a consensus that there seemed to be some kind of 'unity' or 'connection' between the aberrations and the Gondor wasteland …"
"The aberrations are an extension of the Gondor wasteland, the cells of the demonic-polluted land. These monsters wander outside the Great Wall, like the 'blood of the wasteland' flowing in the civilized countries," Veronica said. "I know about these studies and the corresponding conclusions. I have done as much research as I can in the center of the wasteland over the years, but the progress has stopped here. Perhaps our understanding of this world is still limited, or perhaps we have not found a suitable observation method. We can't explain how these monsters' grow out of thin air '…"
Amber looked at Gwen and then at Veronica. She lowered her head and thought for a moment before she interrupted. "Let's not talk about other things. Their 'growth out of thin air' itself seems to be a problem. If these monsters can really grow indefinitely in the wasteland environment, then after so many years, wouldn't the Gondor wasteland be full of aberrations? Once the Great Wall collapsed, we would have been crushed. But now it seems that they are not so 'endless'. The main force will still have to retreat temporarily, and the front line will still be divided and the troops will still be in a tight spot … "
"Yes, that's the truth." Gawain nodded, agreeing with Amber's opinion. "Although the bards and playwrights have always described the mutants as' endless, 'if they could really multiply in the wasteland environment, the mortal kingdoms would have been unable to stop the war since a long time ago. The truth is that the wasteland is still a vast expanse of open land. Although the number of aberrations wandering in it is not infinite, it still needs time for the dark priests to summon an army.
"So there is either a limit to the 'growth out of thin air' of the aberrations, or … it is not really 'multiplication', but some kind of …"
Gawain paused in the middle of his sentence, trying to find a more accurate word. But Veronica said what he wanted to say for him, "Maybe it's some kind of 'teleportation', or maybe it's just a kind of high-speed 'regeneration'."
"You're saying that after the land outside the Great Wall was polluted, the Aberrations that appeared out of thin air were actually 'transported' from the depths of the wasteland?" Amber's eyes widened when he heard this. "They have spatial teleportation technology?"
"That is not a technology. Maybe it is just a kind of talent, the talent of the Abomination," Gwen corrected Amber. "And 'teleportation' is just a hypothesis. After all, we have never seen the process of the aberrations teleporting from one place to another, and the various detection sensors on the battlefield have not detected large-scale energy transfer and traces of instantiation."
While Gwen and others discussed the possible principles behind the various strange characteristics of the aberrations, Mirmina was just quietly listening and thinking. After a while, she suddenly said, "Do you want to hear my opinion?"
"Of course," Veronica said, nodding immediately. "The view from the 'Magical Provenance' is certainly worth considering."
"… These days, I have been paying attention to the information about the Gondor wasteland. I asked for the data collected by the frontline troops near the wasteland and a lot of contaminated material samples. Now there is a living aberration. After studying them, I began to suspect something …" Mirmina said, her eyes fell on Gwen. "Do you remember the unified wave hypothesis that we discussed together?"
"Of course." Gwen nodded immediately. "But what does this have to do with the wasteland?"
"The essence of everything in the world is waves, and the boundary between matter and non-matter shows variability. At a certain microscopic interval or 'threshold', the 'substantial wave domain' of matter and the 'ethereal wave domain' of non-matter have the possibility of mutual transformation, and even the possibility of complete integration …" Mirmina said slowly, and the conjecture she threw out made Gwen's eyes widen. "Then is there a possibility that the big explosion in the Deep Blue Well turned the entire Gondor wasteland into a macroscopic 'chaotic wave domain', and the aberrations have the characteristic of switching between material and ethereal. They have been wandering on the edge of the substantial world. This may explain some of the phenomena …"
(End of Chapter)
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