Chapter 229: Inhuman

The Eternal Dream, which was once closed down, was activated again. After a wave of fluctuations, this huge mental network gradually stabilized. Those magnificent palaces, temples, towers and floating islands rooted in mental illusions were rebuilt. The countless Eternal Sleepers have also linked their minds into this network—they are not only the users of this network, but also builders and maintainers of this network, and they open up their brain to allow computing power to flow into the entirety of the network. Allowing this network to take what what is needed for computing and running the mental network, and the difference between them and the "Computing Power Providers" who are they call as "brain servants" and lie in hidden temples elsewhere like living dead consuming their life and soul. This difference is that the Eternal Sleeps have no need to pay with their life and soul to run the Eternal Dream.

After all, the Eternal Sleeper is the master of the Eternal Dream, and these masters were not willing to sacrifice themselves until the servants are dead.

And in the deepest underground part of the city in the Eternal Dream. The Bishops' Conference and their Pope were ready to start the operation in the "Dream Hall".

Twenty-two seats are arranged in a circular symmetry in the center of the room. Eleven white-robed bishops and eleven black-robed bishops occupy half of the seats as if they were separated by day and night. A hazy black phantom, the phantom condensed in human form from time to time, but more often it appeared as various indescribable clumps with lavender starlight - whether in the real world or in the virtual world, the Pope of Eternal Sleep never shows his true face. In fact, believers even believe that their Pope has already completed the sublimation of his life form and has become an existence equal to the power of dreams, and this illusory light and shadow is just the Pope in their world. The projection is just an "interface" for communicating with believers who are still mortals.

Today, the Pope will lead his bishopric to conduct the eighteenth attempt to decipher Gawain Cecil's memory fragment.

"The Eternal Dream has stabilized, and the mental network connection is stable."

"The lower-level computing nodes are ready, and the 'brain servant' array is complete."

"The emergency rescue team has arrived and is ready to respond to emergencies in the real world."

"We are ready, his Holiness the Pope."

The bishops' group reported the procedures they were responsible for one by one. After everyone was ready, the indescribable light and shadow floated slightly, as if to express its approval, and its voices echoed in the minds of every bishop: "Let's us begin - Let us see what's in the memory of that ancient hero."

The information link to the memory fragment was connected, and driven by the huge computing power provided by the entire Eternal Dream, the terrible memory that had caused hundreds of casualties finally began to loosen - although the real situation was that Gawain deliberately left a weak point in the memory fragments, it was obvious that the Eternal Sleeper themselves could not notice this.

They are just happy to see that their long-term efforts have finally come to fruition. A ray of light appeared in the depths of the vast information fog. As time passed, the memory fragments were dismantled little by little, and the parts that could be understood and recognized by humans entered the minds of every member of the bishopric.

At first, they saw a scene of starlight.

The deep and lonely universe, the empty and boundless space, and countless dots of stars dotted the dark and deep curtain. This scene puzzled the bishops for a moment, but they quickly thought that this was the perspective of Gawain Cecil after his death: Do humans really return to heaven[1] after death?

Before the bishops could figure out the meaning of the starlight, the scene in front of them began to change wildly.

They saw the starlight retreat, distorted light and shadow appeared in the field of vision, and they saw the owner of the perspective shuttle through the starry sky, passing one planet after another at an unimaginable speed...

They saw owner's perspective appear on a burning battlefield, huge demons raged on the battlefield, flaming meteorites fell from the sky, and soldiers of different races who they have never even seen or heard of continue to charge into the battlefield...

They saw that the owner's perspective as he led an army against a fortress whose architectural style was incomprehensible and as he fight fiercely with the legion he led.

They saw that the owner's perspective suddenly come to a world of ice and snow, and a steel building with billowing smoke exploded in the wind and snow...

They see the owner's perspective traveling through different worlds, sometimes leading an army across the battlefield, sometimes destroying entire nations alone, sometimes trying to turn the tide in order to defend something, but sometimes he puts the entire planet under the flames of annihilation, he fights, protects, destroys, creates, and he does all of these things with an almost bystander calmness. It's as if it's all just to accomplish some task, or simply to entertain himself.

This "feeling" is integrated in the depths of memory, and is directly transmitted from the owner of the perspective to the brains of every Eternal Sleeper Bishop at the scene.

And every time this perspective switches to another world, it is accompanied by the same scene: an endless starry sky, followed by the illusion of crossing the starry sky...

The bishops of the Eternal Sleeper trembled, letting the memory wash over their minds, they didn't dare to think about it any longer, but the memory continued to play - until at the end. They saw the starlight reappear, and as the starlight shifted, a planet shimmering in the universe appeared in the background, and the owner of the perspective pounced on the planet - its earth was rapidly magnifying in the field of vision, and some details on the ground are so familiar, that one does not dare to associate the detail with themselves.

And this time, the owner of the perspective seems to have turned the direction when he rushed to the ground - the bishops of the Eternal Sleeper saw the starry sky again. In the familiar starry sky that could be seen from the Loren continent, they saw dots of light weave through the stars, while some kind of massive, cast metal structure hung high in the sky, and an incredible invisible effect is gradually covering the structure, making it disappear from the eyes of the world.

The fragmented memories ended here.

The illusion faded like a tide, and everyone's eyes were refocused. The bishop's conference's consciousness returned to this hall. They looked at each other in horror and found that all their colleagues had been soaked with sweat.

No one took the initiative to speak, because no one could think of what to say at this moment, and it wasn't until half a minute later that the illusory light and shadow in the center of the hall broke the silence: "Let the Nightmare Mentors waiting outside temporarily take over the Eternal Dream, and the Bishops' Conference will hold an emergency meeting. Today's events must not be shared."

Eternal Dream quickly completed the task of sealing all information that they learned today from the memory fragments. After the entire hall became a safe and closed space, a white-robed bishop couldn't help but question: "The authenticity of that memory fragment..."

"There is no doubt about the authenticity, I have checked it myself," the Pope of the Eternal Sleepers sounded. "It is indeed a real memory, not a woven illusion - everything in the fragments is real experience from the perspective of Gaiwan Cecil."

"Gawain Cecil's resurrection is indeed fake..." Another white-robed bishop's voice trembled a little, "The one who woke up is not the ancient hero at all! In that body, there is an foreign entity, inhuman, indescribable...existence!"

"What is his purpose? What will he do?"

"We can't summarize the what we have witnessed... Those messy and broken memories, those scenes... There is almost no logic to be found! That 'inhuman thing' seems to be traveling through worlds, constantly changing the body that he uses. Sometimes he seems to be saving the world, sometimes he seems to be destroying it, and even sometimes, he is simply just wandering around in the world, with an act of no purpose at all - we have no way of understanding how a being like that thinks!"

"Do those worlds really exist? Those...worlds so different from ours, do they really exist, or should I say they existed at one point of time?"

"This has nothing to do with us. The biggest problem now is still to understand the 'inhuman thing' occupying Gawain Cecil's body, and to understand what he wants to do when he came to our world - 'this time', does he wants to destroy, does he want to protect, or is he simply just passing by? Or... will he do something... more terrifying or strange from what we have yet seen in those memories?"

"It's impossible for him to pass by!" A black-robed bishop who was more concerned about the situation in Ansu[2] suddenly said, "He chose to use the body of a founding duke as the carrier of 'this trip', and also established a territory near the Dark Mountains. Like a mortal, he started to develop and build, and this must have a purpose. And he also killed an Eternal Sleeper bishop..."

"That bishop caused his own demise by acting rashly," someone next to him interrupted the black-robed bishop. "Of course, if it weren't for his rash action, we wouldn't have gotten the information we have witness today."

"All in all," the Pope suddenly spoke at this time, the scene fell silent immediately, and everyone quietly listened to the Pope's voice echoing in their respective heads, "perhaps we should use 'He'[3] to call that inhuman thing... …"

"Your Majesty, what action should we take?" a white-robed bishop asked cautiously. "No matter what the inhuman thing is going to do, it is a huge factor of instability. Should we consider..."

"Don't you dare take action!" The Pope stopped this thought with an unprecedented stern tone, "The situation is very likely to get out of control if you do take action!"

"But the body he uses now is just a mortal. Maybe we can destroy his 'carrier' and exile him to where he came from... Maybe even destroy him completely!"

A black-robed man standing opposite the bishop shook his head: "It is simply too risky. In those memories, we saw 'him' travel through countless dangerous worlds, and in those battlefields and desperate situations where the danger is more sinister than what we have ever experienced. In some scenes, we can even see 'him' dying - but 'he' never truly dies, but can return to the battlefield time and time again, which shows that destroying its carrier cannot cause an effective damage to 'him' at all, and even if it is possible to exiled 'him'. 'He' would simply just come back. As for the seal... Who can guarantee that the current known seal method will be effective against such an extraterritorial being? In case of failure, the consequences are unimaginable. And everyone must always remember one thing: the body 'he' uses is just a 'carrier', and 'he' may be able to replace it with a new one at any time, so any action on that carrier... is meaningless. The only thing it would do, is lose our only clue."

"There is a more important point," the person beside the black-robed bishop added, "Let's not forget what we saw at the end of those memory fragments - there was more than one shuttle moving in the starry sky, and there was a hidden steel palace still hanging among the stars, indicating that the inhuman being is likely not alone I'm afraid, 'he' has others of 'his' same kind, as well as a massive base, once we act rashly, it will attract more of 'them'..."

The bishop did not continue to speak, but his meaning was quite clear. Everyone in the hall was silent as they contemplated the hidden danger, it was so quiet that even if a needle was to drop down on the ground it can be heard.

The bishops suddenly felt that this situation was really strange, so strange that they did not know if they should be laughing or crying.

A group of heretics who are opposed to civilized society... They are actually struggling what to do with this inhuman being, how to face an "inhuman being" - if this inhuman being is really came to this world to destroy it, maybe they will not be so entangled right now, but the crux of the problem is that they have no idea what this inhuman being came to their world to do!

This caused the cultists to fall into a state of great helplessness.

The Pope sighed - this is probably the first sigh since he transformed into this current type of life form.

I thought that by decrypting the memory fragments would have allow us to make great progress, and I could take this opportunity to understand the secrets of Gawain Cecil back then, and to understand some truths about this world, but who would have thought that the memory fragment would reveal a clue that was completely beyond everyone's expectations...

Or... is this also part of the truth of the world?

The pope's phantom felt agitated, he shook his mental power, and sent his words into everyone's mind:

"Remember the lesson of the previous 'bishop', don't act rashly, don't rashly probe the subject, we must first observe carefully until we have more information, and then carefully contact 'him'."

[1] 天上 can be translated to above the sky or alternatively heaven, tell me in the comment which one do you guys think sounds better.

[2] I think that is what the kingdom is called, if anyone knows the correct name please tell me, I'll change it

[3] the author used that special character again, from now on whenever the author uses this character it will be quoted in either 'He', 'She', 'Him', 'Her', 'It' it means to symbolize god or a divine being. this is similar to the translation style of Lord of the Mysteries (LotM). when I get a chance I will go ahead and change the previous chapters to reflect this.