Chapter 229 — The Nonhuman

"So Gao Yang Cecil's resurrection really was a lie..." Another white-robed bishop's voice trembled slightly. "What awoke was no ancient hero at all! Within that body resides an external, nonhuman, indescribable... existence!"

"What is its purpose? What will it do?"

"We cannot find any pattern... those fragmented, chaotic memories, those scenes... there is almost no logic to be found! That 'nonhuman thing' seems to shuttle through world after world, constantly changing the shell it uses. Sometimes it seems to be saving a world, sometimes destroying it, and sometimes it is simply wandering about the world—those actions have no purpose at all. We simply cannot comprehend how an existence like that thinks!"

"Do those worlds really exist? Those... worlds so utterly different from ours—do they truly exist, or did they once exist?"

"That has nothing to do with us. The greatest problem now remains figuring out that 'nonhuman thing' occupying Gao Yang Cecil's shell—figuring out just what it intends to do in our world 'this time.' Does it mean to destroy, to protect, or merely to pass through? Or else... will it do something never seen in those memories—something even more terrible or bizarre?"

"It cannot be merely passing through!" A black-robed bishop who paid closer attention to the situation in Ansu suddenly spoke up. "It chose the shell of a founding duke as its vessel 'this time,' and it even established a territory near the Dark Mountains, setting about pioneering and construction like a mortal. There must be a purpose to this. And it also killed a Sleeper bishop..."

"That bishop brought disaster upon himself through rash action," someone beside him cut in. "Of course, had it not been for his rash action, we would not have obtained the intelligence we have now."

"In short," the pope suddenly spoke, and the room fell silent at once as everyone quietly listened to the pope's voice echoing in their minds, "perhaps we ought to refer to that nonhuman thing as 'Them'..."

"Your Holiness, what action should we take?" one white-robed bishop asked cautiously. "Whatever that nonhuman thing intends to do, They are a tremendous destabilizing factor. Should we consider..."

"No action!" The pope halted the thought in an unprecedentedly stern tone. "The situation could very well spiral out of control!"

"But the shell They use now is only a mortal. Perhaps if we destroy Their 'vessel,' we can banish Them back to wherever They came from... perhaps even destroy Them utterly!"

A black-robed figure standing opposite this bishop shook his head: "Too risky. In those memories we saw Them pass through countless perilous worlds—battlefields and desperate straits far more terrible than any dire situation we have ever faced. In some scenes we could even see Them fall—yet They never died. Instead, They returned to the battlefield again and again. This shows that destroying Their vessel cannot inflict any effective harm. And even if banished, They could simply come back. As for sealing... who would dare guarantee that known sealing methods would work on such an out-of-realm, nonhuman thing? If it failed, the consequences would be unthinkable. And everyone must always remember one point: the shell They use is nothing but a 'vessel.' They could probably change to a new one at any time. So any action against that vessel... is meaningless. It would only cost us our sole lead."

"And there is something even more important," added the person beside this black-robed bishop. "Do not forget the scene we saw at the very end of those memory fragments: in the starry sky, more than one shuttler was moving about, and a hidden steel palace still hung among the stars. This shows that the nonhuman thing is likely not alone. It has kin—and a lair. If we act rashly and draw more of..."

The bishop did not continue, but his meaning was abundantly clear. Everyone in the hall realized this hidden danger, and for a time the room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

The bishops suddenly felt that this situation was truly bizarre—so bizarre that it was almost laughable and exasperating at once.

A band of heretical cultists opposed to civilized society... were actually agonizing over such a matter, agonizing over how to face a "nonhuman thing." If this nonhuman thing truly had come to destroy the world, perhaps they would not be agonizing at all—but the crux of the problem was that they could not figure out in the slightest what this nonhuman thing had come to do!

This plunged the whole pack of cultists into a state of utter bewilderment.

The Pope sighed—perhaps the first sigh ta had heaved since transforming ta's own form of life.

They had thought the decryption effort was making tremendous progress, that they could seize this chance to uncover Gao Yang Cecil's secrets from back then, to uncover some of the truths of this world—but who could have imagined that the memory fragment would instead reveal a clue that caught everyone completely off guard...

Or... was this itself a part of the world's truth?

The Pope's phantom image stirred and surged, and ta vibrated ta's psychic power, sending ta's words into every mind:

"Remember the lesson of the last 'Contactee.' Do not act rashly, do not probe rashly. Observe cautiously first, and only when we have gathered more intelligence shall we make careful contact with it."