Chapter 300
Chapter 300
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 300
Chapter Title: Ruler of Consciousness (4)
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“We’re here. Opening this door should let us go down.”
“I see. Then from this point on, we will be entering Shirone’s subconscious.”
Understanding Armin’s words, Amy took a deep breath.
Beyond this door lay Shirone’s true feelings.
Judging by his avatar’s state, there wouldn’t be any hideous desires. But there might be aspirations of a similar intensity.
‘It doesn’t matter. It’s not like I’m pure myself. Everyone has those kinds of thoughts.’
Shirone hesitated to open the door. It seemed he was conflicted about descending to the lower level.
Eventually, he let his hand fall from the doorknob and turned to Amy with a displeased expression.
“I don’t think you need to come along…”
Suddenly, Shirone’s head snapped back, his eyes rolling into his head. His body then trembled like someone having a seizure before he collapsed.
“Shirone!”
Amy caught Shirone in her arms and checked his condition. His face was pale, and his lungs heaved violently as if he were on the verge of his last breath.
“What happened? What’s going on?”
A rumbling vibration was felt, and the ceiling of the Grand Hall began to collapse. As boulders larger than a person came crashing down, Armin threw the door open and shouted.
“We don’t have time! The subconscious is collapsing!”
* * *
Kazra Royal Castle, food storage.
Xenoger’s steel wire finally sliced through Shirone’s blood vessels. Thousands of blood droplets burst from the wound, spreading out as slowly as the decelerated passage of time.
The repercussions in reality immediately impacted his mind.
The rainfall in the 11th layer surged, submerging half the city. The projectiles floating on the rapids let out cries that were close to screams.
Mixed in with the crowds flowing down to the lowlands was the horror manifestation of the Egoist, Nade’s creation.
“Kyaaaaaaaah!”
The Egoist flailed its limbs, desperately trying to escape. But in the end, it couldn’t overcome the rapidly rising water and sank beneath the surface with a desperate shriek.
Secret of the Abyss (1)
Shirone’s 5th layer of consciousness.
*Creeak.* The door opened with an old, grating sound.
A sense of vigilance seeped in before any person did.
Only after a long moment did an excited Ardius and a Zion, clad head-to-toe in Adamantine Armament, step over the threshold.
“This is… Shirone’s subconscious?”
Zion was bewildered, as the scene was different from what he had expected.
The 5th layer they had arrived in was a library with rows of bookshelves that stretched out as far as the eye could see.
The Spine of Knowledge.
Just by scanning a few shelves, Ardius realized that history was arranged in chronological order.
‘This… is beyond impressive. It’s almost inhuman.’
He had dived into the minds of high-ranking mages far greater than Shirone. But even their subconscious minds were arranged in a sprawling, chaotic mess.
That was only natural. If anything, it was strange for a human’s subconscious to be so standardized.
Zion asked in a disappointed tone.
“What is all this? You said I’d get to see every sordid detail of Shirone’s life, didn’t you?”
“It’s the Spine of Knowledge.”
“The Spine of Knowledge?”
“History, arranged chronologically. Not only is this difficult to create, but it’s hard to succeed even if you try. Shirone’s unique upbringing must have played a role.”
Zion scoffed.
Shirone had grown up as the son of a mountaineer, the lowest of the low. No matter how much of a prodigy he was, he could never be better than Zion, who had been tutored in the art of rule since birth.
“A truly ignorant method, I see. In other words, he just crammed it all in by brute force, right? Just like the uneducated, who can only memorize without understanding.”
“Is that really the case?”
Ardius was smiling with delight.
It was truly magnificent.
It wasn’t the Spine of Knowledge itself that was so great, but the astonishing fact that it resided here, in the 5th layer, deeper than the REM zone.
“Mere memorization can’t build a spine in the realm of the subconscious. He has understood it all. If so, the effects are extraordinary. He can organize any knowledge he studies systematically. It’s incomparably more efficient than just stuffing knowledge in without purpose.”
Zion’s expression soured.
His face was hidden by the helmet of his Adamantine Armament, but Ardius could feel the killing intent radiating from him.
“Is that so…”
Zion was offended.
Very much so.
Since childhood, he had been given and had mastered the best of everything. Surely no one in the world had received a better education than the son of the Teraje.
But that confidence had been repeatedly wounded ever since Shirone’s appearance.
How could the son of a commoner possibly be better than the son of an emperor?
Zion’s breathing grew heavier.
He looked at the books that packed the shelves.
Shirone couldn’t have possibly read tens of thousands of books. It only looked that way because the knowledge he had understood and mastered was organized under perfect categorization.
“Damn bastard!”
Zion extended blades from his gauntlets and began to slash indiscriminately at the bookshelves. Scraps of paper fluttered like goose feathers, and the shelves were sliced as smoothly as cheese.
Moving to the next aisle, he swung the blades on both hands, destroying Shirone’s knowledge.
“There! How do you like this? Huh? I’ll scramble everything inside your head!”
Zion’s voice trembled with exhilaration.
“Haha! This is fun! It would’ve been easy if I’d just done this from the start! More, break it all!”
Ardius spoke in an icy voice.
“Stop.”
Zion wasn’t one to heed the words of others, but this time, he couldn’t help but freeze.
When he slowly turned his head, Ardius was glaring at him with cold eyes.
It was a killing intent truly befitting one of the Seven Archmages.
“What? Are you talking to me?”
Though his stomach churned, Zion retorted defiantly.
He was Ardius’s employer, and an employee should not defy their employer.
Even if this was Ardius’s turf—the world of the mind—the power of money pervaded the entire universe.
As long as creatures called humans lived in it.
Ardius suppressed his killing intent.
‘Damned brat…’
To be honest, he had very nearly killed Zion.
The Spine of Knowledge Shirone had built was a gratifying sight even for Ardius.
Though he was infamous as one of the Seven Archmages of the Black Line, his intellect was second to no scholar in the world.
He understood better than anyone what Shirone had been thinking when he designed this structure of knowledge. Even if he was an enemy, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of kinship.
If they hadn’t met under these circumstances, he would have genuinely taken Shirone under his wing.
Of course, given the personality he had observed so far, the chances of Shirone joining the Black Line were almost zero.
Ardius suppressed his anger and reverted to his former self.
Regardless of his feelings, he was a professional. His principles did not allow him to turn against his employer.
“From here on, we are in the realm of the subconscious. If you meddle carelessly, it could cause an error in the Ataraxia. So, please stop the destruction and let’s descend.”
The Ataraxia would probably be fine. The 5th layer was merely a result of the 4th.
Changing the result couldn’t alter the cause.
But even so, Ardius didn’t want to see the Spine of Knowledge destroyed.
It wasn’t because he cared for Shirone.
It was because this place was genuinely satisfying to his intellectual aesthetic.
At the mention of Ataraxia, Zion stopped his slashing. He had spent a staggering four billion gold to obtain it; even the slightest damage would be a tremendous loss.
“Fine. He’s a dead man anyway, so I’ll leave it at this.”
Ardius gave a satisfied eye-smile.
“Shall we head down, then?”
Although Zion’s foolishness had infuriated him to no end, he had gained something from it. The fact that the Egoist had not appeared despite the damage to the Spine of Knowledge.
Below the REM zone, there were no projectiles, so the Egoist could manifest at any time to eliminate intruders.
It was one of the reasons why even certified lucid dream divers were reluctant to descend into the deep layers.
‘The Egoist isn’t manifesting. It’s about time for it to collapse.’
And this was exactly what Ardius had been aiming for.
No matter how fast mental processes were, to have descended to the 5th layer meant a considerable amount of time must have passed in reality. It was safe to assume that Shirone had suffered a fatal injury and was now close to death.
‘Will I finally get to see it? The Ataraxia?’
Ardius’s eyes shone more intensely than ever before.
* * *
Armin burst open the door and entered the 5th layer. Amy followed, supporting Shirone, who was panting for breath.
Having barely escaped the collapse of the REM zone, Shirone could no longer walk and slumped to the floor. His face was not just pale; it was becoming faint.
“Shirone! Are you okay? Snap out of it!”
Amy worriedly caressed Shirone’s cheeks.
But all she received in return was a rough push and a cold voice.
“Get away from me.”
Amy backed away with a sorrowful expression.
Even in such a critical situation, with his mental world collapsing, Shirone’s frozen heart showed no signs of thawing.
Shirone, who had been glaring up at Amy, seemed to be on the verge of disappearing. He moved his lips as if to say something, but the moment Amy turned away, his mouth closed again.
Amy looked around, her heart pounding.
No matter what she saw, she would never criticize Shirone. Even if it was some ill feeling directed at her.
“This place is…?”
But she couldn’t see anything of the sort.
What spread before her was not a raw display of emotions, but the flow of history, organized by category.
The Spine of Knowledge that Shirone had once told her about.
When she had heard the story, she had only imagined a vague diagram, but seeing it in person, she realized what an incredible feat he had accomplished.
Having the Spine of Knowledge etched into the 5th layer was only possible by treating every single piece of information with care.
Understanding was impossible without connecting the causal relationships of all acquired information.
Shirone had done it.
She could clearly see how much effort he had put in to catch up with the intellectual abilities of the other students at the magic academy.
Like Ardius who had been here moments before, Armin instantly grasped its nature.
The categories of information on the shelves were divided in such a way that any item could be understood independently.
‘This child… just what is he?’
Above all, this was the realm of the subconscious.
There is information one never forgets in a lifetime. People call this foundational knowledge.
Shirone had elevated the Spine of Knowledge to the state of foundational knowledge.
As Armin wandered through the library, repeating exclamations of admiration to himself, he discovered a section that had been utterly wrecked.
Books were torn to shreds, and the shelves were destroyed.
“It seems they’ve already been here.”
Discovering the惨ly smashed bookshelf, Amy felt a pang in her heart. She knew better than anyone what Shirone had gone through to complete the Spine of Knowledge, and a wave of resentment towards them washed over her.
“Those wicked bastards. Do they have any idea what this is…”
Amy gathered the scattered papers from the floor, and tears finally fell.
She could not forgive Zion. She would make him pay, one way or another.
“Wait a moment.”
Armin stopped her.
The broken bookshelf was regenerating, as if a living creature were healing its wounds.
Amy watched the process with a look of astonishment.
“How is this possible?”
“Normally, it would be impossible. But a mutually complementary knowledge base is formed in a net structure. Even if one path is blocked, it immediately bypasses it and establishes a new one. The Spine of Knowledge will soon be restored to its original state.”
Reina asked.
“Then why did they destroy it? Ardius should have known. He’s an expert.”
“He did it *because* he’s an expert.”
Reina tilted her head in confusion.
But Armin’s explanation ended there. There was no sense in praising the enemy when they would soon be facing off.
Zion had destroyed it, and Ardius had stopped him.
He couldn’t imagine any other scenario.
He was a man derided by the world as a grave robber, but he possessed immense intellectual pride. He must have been deeply impressed upon seeing Shirone’s subconscious.
Like an invader who feels no desire to deface the cultural relics of another nation.