Chapter 681 Shadow Soul

Veronica/Ophelia's answer was so quick and direct that Gawain didn't react for the first two or three seconds before he realized that he had found the key clue to Amber's life so easily. ——An insider, standing right in front of his eyes.

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

Gawain did not answer the other party immediately, but immediately asked a question: "Let's not talk about this - since you know the Shadow Fortress, have you heard of a royal shadow guard named Surrey Randolph?"

Theoretically, the "Virgin Princess" had not yet been born when Surrey Randolph was active, but Gawain knew that Veronica's youthful appearance concealed an ancient disobedient soul, the disobedient She has been active in the world through soul parasitism, and she has changed many husks. Maybe one of her husks was active in the Kingdom of Ansu decades ago, and even the tasks performed by Sally Randolph were similar She is related.

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

Her expression didn't look like she was lying, but it was difficult for Gawain to see her true thoughts from the indifferent expression of this ancient disobedient, and at this moment he could only tentatively believe what she said was true.

"Surrey Randolph was a royal shadow guard decades ago," Gawain pondered for a moment, and decided not to mention Amber's identity, but to start with the secret mission many years ago, "We found According to some data from that year, it was found that the Royal Shadow Guard was ordered to find an ancient Gondor ruin called the Shadow Fortress - now it seems that this fortress was really part of the rebellious plan back then?"

Amber next to him followed Gawain's words: "Can you tell me in detail the situation of this fortress? What is it for? Why do you say it was abandoned?"

Veronica took a deep look at Amber, causing the latter to subconsciously feel guilty for a while, and then said: "It's a wrong route - a route of escape and avoidance. The Shadow Project tries to completely change the nature of human life. By transforming into some kind of shadow creature, hiding in the shadow world to avoid the magic tide in the real world, and even to avoid the power of the gods, the Shadow Fortress is the main research base for this project."

"Changing the essence of human life? Transforming into a shadow creature to hide in the shadow world?" Gawain frowned. This answer vaguely matched some of his speculations after reading Sarri Randolph's diary. The essence of the disobedience plan is actually " Humanity Continuation Plan", so the Shadow Fortress must also be built to allow humans to escape disasters, but is the Shadow World really a world that can escape the tide of magic?

Veronica nodded lightly: "The shadow world has existed since ancient times, and the shadow dwellers are a group older than humans, elves, and all intelligent creatures known on the continent, so after starting the disobedience plan,

We notice them naturally. Various evidences show that various changes in the real world will produce corresponding changes in the shadow world according to a certain mapping law. Therefore, after the magic tide in the real world, things in the shadow world will also change accordingly. Residents have never been affected...

"They have a certain element-like quality, which allows them to avoid the influence of the magic tide, and quickly adapt to the new environment and re-stabilize their form after the magical environment has undergone great changes.

"On the other hand, the shadow power is the most mysterious and widely distributed power of all the elements and element-like fields known so far. The shadow world covers 100% of our real world, unlike other element fields. With huge limitations, in terms of 'development potential', the Shadow Realm is a more worthy sanctuary than other elemental realms.

"Combining these factors, the Rebels started the 'Shadow Project' in the early stages of the plan, and built a warp fortress in the space gap close to the Shadow Realm. Due to the needs of the research environment, this fortress has no physical existence. entrances and exits, but maintain connections with the physical world through some specific space-time anchors."

As promised all along, Veronica was very frank when it came to the plan of rebellion. She did not hide the brief information about the Shadow Fortress and revealed all the details, so that Gawain had a general understanding of the ins and outs of the fortress. .

"What about the specific method?" Pittman, who had never spoken, suddenly said, "How did you transform humans into shadow creatures?"

"The initial method is simple and rude. In a way similar to 'elemental erosion', the shadow power is directly introduced into the human body in batches, and in the process, the material structure of the human body is gradually changed. Mutants with powerful shadow power, but the state of mutants is extremely unstable, the human soul cannot fully control the foreign shadow power, and their bodies cannot withstand huge mutations. The difference between the material world and the shadow world, and gradually lost human self-knowledge..."

Veronica shook her head as she spoke.

"Afterwards, we accumulated experience and realized that it is not enough to simply introduce external forces and change the physical body. It also requires transformation at the soul level, as well as cultivating the adaptability of experimental subjects to shadow forces from the embryonic stage, so we started the 'artificial' man's plan."

Gawain clearly felt that when Veronica mentioned the word "cyborg plan", Amber's breathing paused for a beat.

But he didn't interrupt Veronica's narration, but listened to the other party continue to say——

"With the help of the biochemical technology experience accumulated by the 'Shen Nie' project, the Shadow Project team produced a batch of synthetic embryos. The somatic cells of these embryos were derived from the first batch of failed mutants, but they were deeply transformed and stabilized. At the same time, we The same number of shadow dwellers were also captured, and after stitching and recoding their souls and human souls, we created synthetic souls capable of maintaining both humanity and the power of the shadows, which were injected into embryos to form 'cyborgs' '."

At this moment, Gawain finally couldn't help but speak out: "The soul of the android is the inhabitant of the shadows?!"

"It's a mix of humans and shadow dwellers," Veronica corrected. "While it may sound incredible, shadow dwellers have a human-like soul structure—in fact, they're almost a 'spirit'. Creatures, except for the shadow clouds and runecloths of unknown origin, their remaining structures are only souls - and in the time of ancient Gondor, the Empire mastered very advanced soul extraction and transformation technology ."

Having said that, the ancient disobedient pointed to himself and smiled lightly: "You should be able to imagine that I am also a user of this technology."

There is no doubt that "Ophelia Norton", who has survived on the parasitic form of the soul for more than a thousand years, has also undergone the transformation of the soul level.

However, at this moment, Gawain didn't have any extra thoughts to pay attention to these technical details, he just glanced at Amber subconsciously.

She's not a half-elf at all.

She is a "hybrid" of humans and shadow dwellers, a soul-level hybrid.

Amber also turned her head and glanced at Gawain. After a brief thought and silence, she turned to Veronica: "How many such 'embryos' were produced in those years?"

"One hundred and twenty-six survived," Veronica said. "This is the report I received back then."

"Then why was this project abandoned?" Gawain asked immediately, "Does it have hidden dangers?"

What he is most concerned about now is the reason for the abandonment of this project, because it is directly related to whether there are some hidden dangers in those "artificial human embryos"-although Amber has grown up healthily for decades, who can guarantee her Will there be a problem someday in the future?

Veronica's eyes swept between Gawain and Amber, and after a few seconds of recollection, she said softly: "If the android survives, there is no hidden danger in itself, but there is a problem with this project itself.

"After the experimental process entered the embryonic culture stage, the entire Shadow Fortress, and even the subspace rift where the experimental group was located, entered an unstable state. Additional energy flows of unknown origin appeared in the energy circuit of the fortress. The communication system frequently appeared mysterious and mysterious. After a brief reverberation, the projections of the shadow dwellers wandered in the building. In the later stage, some rooms even disappeared out of thin air, and some corridors appeared strange phenomena of extra branches.

"At the same time as the abnormality in the fortress, the core personnel of the project also began to be troubled by frequent hallucinations and auditory hallucinations. Many people reported that they heard the embryos still in the culture tank talking, and heard the embryos use a hoarse noise. Talking to each other, but all monitoring equipment found no evidence of this, and when the project progressed so hard that those embryos gradually grew into larvae, these strange conditions intensified - the phenomenon of auditory and visual hallucinations began to spread to the central area As the room spread outside, it became increasingly difficult for researchers to distinguish the boundary of reality, and the entire Shadow Fortress began to show a state of 'reality split'.

"We tried a variety of extraordinary countermeasures, but ultimately failed. The risk assessment department judged that the experiment in the Shadow Fortress may have moved the 'domain boundary' except the shadow world and the real world. In order to prevent the project from breaking through the security The barrier, attracted the attention of the gods, I had to order the termination of the entire 'Shadow Project', and the Shadow Fortress was also abandoned."

This is the end of Shadowkeep.

Pittman looked into Veronica's eyes and asked slowly, "What about after? Those embryos just stay in the fortress?"

"The embryos had grown into larvae, but they were inactive, and I ordered them to be destroyed—before they could open their eyes," Veronica said. It's better for subjects to disappear before they acquire their own will than to face death after they are born."

Amber took a light breath and asked in a low voice, "Is it all destroyed?"

"It's all destroyed, at least that's what the reports I received say."

"But there is actually one left." Amber stared at Veronica and said word by word.

Veronica raised her eyebrows slightly, but did not speak, just responded to Amber's gaze.

Amber pointed to himself, with a calm tone: "I am the thirty-sixth android."

"Ah," Veronica said softly, but she was not surprised, "Is that so..."

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

"No, I didn't recognize her before," Veronica shook her head, "but how hard is it to guess the truth after you've asked so many questions?"

As she spoke, she looked at Amber seriously for a long time, and sighed a little: "So...you are like this when you grow up."

Amber couldn't help but take a step forward: "Do you have anything else to say?"

"Few things have surprised me in a thousand years, and what happened today finally took me by surprise...I know that's not what you want to hear, but this is my truest thought right now," Veronica calmly responded to Amber's gaze, but she really didn't see much surprise and emotion in her calm expression, "I don't know how you survived, maybe this is the same as the shadow that enveloped the entire Shadow Fortress at that time. hallucinations, but your survival is a surprise to me - I'm so happy to see you standing here in such good health."

"Oh? Isn't it a pity that you didn't destroy me?" Amber stared at Veronica, "Isn't this a hidden danger to you?"

Veronica's answer was very calm and indifferent: "You have grown up safely and are no longer a hidden danger."

Gawain's eyes moved between Amber and Veronica, he thought Amber's next reaction would be very intense, but after a few seconds of silence, the other party just shook his head: "That's it. ."

Her figure gradually disappeared in the air, and a voice gradually drifted away gently: "I'll go out first to get a hair dryer."