The breeze sweeps across the boundless green expanse, echoing low whispers that human ears cannot decipher. Even though the outside world is blanketed in snow, the vibrant colors of spring remain steadfast between the plains and valleys within this neural network rooted in the Mindscape.
In the center of the vast "mental Plains," alongside several rolling hills, a gigantic city stands silently. Above the city, a ring-shaped Giant Construct Array posed of countless swiftly refreshing symbols envelops the sky, with golden flows of light connecting the city and the Array — these light flows signify several informational hubs linking to the real world, each ending at a large building within the city, serving as transit points for the "residents" of the dream city to move in and out.
In the central area of the city, corresponding to the Cecil City Royal District in reality, the largest light flow connects to a pyramid facility. Currently, the stream of light above the facility trembles slightly, and at a corner of the plaza beside the pyramid, a figure suddenly materializes from thin air.
It’s a middle-aged man with an air of cultured elegance, wearing a monocle.
Yuri awakens from the momentary dizziness of connecting to the network, slightly moving his neck — of course, there’s nothing behind his neck, yet the "neural echo" from the immersion capsule’s cold metal contacts still linger in his perception. He glances around at the bustling plaza and then walks towards a figure waiting for him not far away, as the neural echo gradually fades from his mind. He raises his hand in greeting to the figure, "Magnan!"
"I’ve been waiting for a century!" Magnan’s booming voice explodes next to Yuri, who suspects that half the plaza might have heard it. "What held you up in the real world?"
Instinctively rubbing his ear, Yuri looks slightly disgruntled at his old partner standing in front of him, "You’ve really been away from the real world too long, haven’t you? Forgotten all the troublesome things that can disrupt one’s schedule? It’s not all convenient neural networks out there; everything takes time... "
Magnan appears impatiently halfway through, waving dismissively to interrupt Yuri, "Okay, I get it, I get it. I’ll ask Pittman later; I know he has some miracle cure for constipation..."
Yuri, initially stunned, quickly loses the cultured demeanor he usually maintains, "Damn it! That’s not what I meant!"
Magnan, indifferent, waves it off, "I get it, I get it; I was middle-aged like you before... Alright, alright, I’ll stop."
The loud guy ends the topic just as his old partner’s anger reaches the threshold, leaving Yuri — who typically maintains gentlemanly poise in front of all students and researchers — with a flushed face and no recourse, glaring at Magnan for a while before withdrawing his gaze in frustration, "Open the passage—I’m not here to bicker with you."
Magnan shrugs, waving an arm in midair, and addressing the air, "Duvalt—we’re here."
An unseen ripple suddenly stirs, unveiling a hidden "habitat" within the data layer of the seemingly calm and continuous Mindspace. A brief and concealed passage appears in the dream city, layers of halos forming around Magnan and Yuri, and they seem to instantly "vanish" as if "deleted" from their spot.
The next moment, they’ve already arrived in another space: a similarly boundless yet more empty plain unfolds before them, bathed in starlight under the night sky that renders darkness nonexistent. Not far away, a small hill stands quietly, enveloped in a faint halo as if all the starlight converges above it, while a giant, pure white spider lies resting at the hill’s foot.
This is the deeper layer of the neural network, located beneath the "surface layer" and "interaction layers," in the "calculation layer," where all network data undergoes the most primitive, frequent, and rapid exchanges — though this exchange and calculation process is almost entirely performed by human brains, they cannot directly prehend this place; thus, everything presented here — including the night-covered plains and the starry sky — is a visitor-friendly interface created by this layer’s managers.
To former Eternal Sleepers Priests Magnan and Yuri, this layer holds another significance: it is the abode of the God of Yore’s Supreme Narrator, the storage site for Nariteer and Duvalt’s forms.
Yuri and Magnan exchange glances, perceiving some nostalgia in each other’s eyes. The latter gazes at the starlit night sky, shaking his head and murmuring, "Now the positions of these stars are just like in the real world."
"After technological upgrades, observatories everywhere left a line open for Nariteer; she can view the stars at any time through their devices — something His King promised early on," Magnan’s words are immediately followed by a voice nearby. Wearing a black suit, carrying a lantern, Duvalt appears out of thin air. "The stars you’re seeing now are projected directly from what Nariteer sees at the Empire’s observatories. Recently, she’s been trying to record the tracks of each star to calculate our planet’s position in the universe... At least between these stars."
Magnan blinks, "... Sounds like an incredible task."
"His King thinks so too," Duvalt nods with a smile, leading the visitors towards the large white spider, and they find themselves beside it. "Nariteer initially worried she’d be reprimanded for occupying idle puting power, but His King supports her fully, even involving a team of astrologists. Of course, that’s not our discussion today."
He raises an arm slightly, indicating an open area not far away. Magnan and Yuri look in that direction, immediately noticing a cocoon-like object secured to the ground by countless webs — more than human height, it has a translucent shell seeming to contain something inside, around which Nariteer’s humanoid form circles, apparently municating with the cocoon’s contents.
With a surprised expression, Yuri asks, "Nariteer can municate with that captured ’fragment’?"
Duvalt shakes his head, "It’s just repeatedly asking—Nariteer is trying to extract more secrets from that mind shard, but I don’t think her method works."
Yuri and Magnan exchange looks, moving toward the cocoon. Midway, they hear Nariteer’s incessant inquiries — the Supreme Narrator circles the cocoon, pausing every few steps to ask, "Where did you e from?
"The War God you worship, how many legs does He have?
"Do you look like this? Does the War God know? Did He transform you? How exactly?
"How do you connect with that War God? Do you still need to pray after being like this?"
"Can you hear me?"
"Oh, you don’t want to talk? Then... where did you e from?"
Inside the translucent cocoon, Malm Dunite’s spiritual body was firmly trapped by the power of the Supreme Narrator. He hadn’t dissipated yet, but it’s clear he had lost the ability to municate, left only with a stiff face and vacant eyes, looking sluggish and wooden.
"...All the ancestors," Magnan watched this scene and immediately shrank his neck, "If it were me, I would have confessed by now..."
"Ah, you’ve arrived!" Nariteer heard the nearby voice, finally stopping her circling. She happily looked at Yuri and Magnan, smiling as she ran over, "Where did you e from?"
"I just finished my work in the real world, Magnan was previously patrolling between various nodes," Yuri said immediately, then his gaze fell on the "cocoon" not far away, "Have you gained anything?"
"If you’re asking about direct ’interrogation’, then not much yield," Nariteer shook her head, "The internal logic of this mind fragment has already disintegrated, though I tried various methods to stimulate and reconstruct it, he still can’t respond to external munication at all — as you can see, it’s probably beyond repair."
Magnan quickly reacted: "So, there’s a yield besides the ’interrogation’?"
"More or less," Nariteer thought for a moment, "I tried breaking down this fragment by directly reading the memory — this method misses a lot of information, and may further ’damage’ the sample, but I did obtain some results.
"According to the memories I extracted, this mortal Pope named Malm Dunite tore his soul world from his body through some insane sacrificial ritual and offered it to his god. Then, the god did something, causing this soul to be in a state where it can split and rebine at any moment... so what we caught is just an ’avatar’...
"The body of Malm Dunite should no longer be in this world, he is likely beside that ’War God’, but the remaining memories in the fragment don’t mention how to establish contact with that body, nor how to connect with the War God.
"Additionally, I found a crucial piece of information — it’s not just us who caught an ’avatar’, if I’m correct, that human emperor named Emperor Rosetta Augustus probably caught one too."
Magnan’s eyes immediately widened: "Rosetta? You mean the Typhon Emperor also caught a Malm Dunite?!"
"Yes," Nariteer nodded, "These avatars can act independently, but they seem able to sense the status of other avatars as well — in a broken and blurred memory, I saw one avatar defeated in some supernatural confrontation and pletely devoured by some powerful force. And the strongest message of information that came from that avatar during its defeat was a name: Emperor Rosetta Augustus."
Magnan and Yuri immediately exchanged glances, and after a brief shock, they simultaneously realized the importance of this intelligence.
The Malm Dunite in the "cocoon" is just a numb and fragile "avatar", looking quite oppressed and pathetic, but that’s because here he faces the power of the Supreme Narrator — a God of Yore removed from their divine position, even weakened, far beyond a crazy mortal soul’s ability to oppose, and if Nariteer hadn’t intervened...
Malm Dunite would be a terrifying threat! He has already sacrificed himself to a god, gaining bizarre and unpredictable power. Besides the elusive avatar projection ability, he also carries mental pollution from the War God — this pollution is especially deadly and unique, and even conventional mortals who can oppose it must take great risks and pay a hefty price!
Yet this kind of avatar fell miserably and was even "devoured" in a "supernatural confrontation" with Emperor Rosetta Augustus...
Devoured, this is not a term to use lightly — it means Emperor Rosetta Augustus has a hidden card, at least equivalent to a Supreme Narrator!
Did he save this card just to deal with the War God? Or is he preparing to use it against Cecil after this god’s disaster?
"We must inform the King about this matter!" Yuri immediately said, "Emperor Rosetta Augustus can ’devour’ Malm Dunite, who carries divine pollution, this has already exceeded the normal human scope, either he is no longer a normal human, or... has borrowed some extremely dangerous power!"
"I called you for this reason," Nariteer nodded earnestly, "I know you both e from Typhon, and just so happen to have special backgrounds — Yuri, you were once an aristocrat from Aldernon, and your family has long interacted with the Augustus Clan, you should be familiar with the ’curse’ of the Augustus Clan; and Magnan, I know you came from the War God Church, you should understand that War God, right?"
As a "god" personally crafted by the Eternal Sleepers, Nariteer clearly knows many things, which was not surprising to Yuri. He fell into brief contemplation while beside him, Magnan awkwardly muttered, "I’ve been away from the War God Church for too many years now..."
Yuri couldn’t resist glancing at him: "Your memory shouldn’t have deteriorated to the point where you can’t recall your duties as a priest, right?"
"Well... my progress in the War God Church was not smooth at the time, even after being an official priest, I mostly handled chores... although occasionally I handled other things," Magnan scratched his face more awkwardly, "Of course, of course, I still encountered those tenets... Fine, I need to recall them carefully, this matter seems really significant..."
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