Chapter 1241 — Sentinel?

"Stories... right, that's another question," Gao Yang said with a solemn expression, "Maggie mentioned that after Mojin wandered 'over there' several times, he always heard 'another self' telling stories to the Lady of Night, and the Lady of Night traded the things She saw in Her dreams in return; but when Mojin returned to the real world, no matter how hard Rong tried to recall, he couldn't remember the contents of the dreams the Lady of Night described. Did you ask that book about this? What are the Lady of Night's dreams?"

"I didn't get the chance to ask," Amber shook her head with some regret, "I was suddenly 'thrown' back into the real world, and there was so much I wanted to ask at the time that I didn't think of it. I only know that the shadow goddess seems to be in a perpetual state of 'dreaming,' and that whether awake or asleep, Her 'dreams' never cease. I can't imagine what that must be like; the affairs of gods are truly beyond comprehension."

"Enya once told me that a god's 'dreams' are by no means ordinary dreams. As beings born from the currents of thought, all of a god's mental activity can in fact be regarded as mapping onto the real world; even for a god who has left the currents of thought and gained freedom, its dreams remain inextricably linked to the real world," Gao Yang stroked his chin, speaking in a low voice as he pondered, "And precisely because of this mapping, gods consciously control their dreams to prevent their power from spiraling out of control and dissipating—on this point, even Amorn, Milmina, and Enya, who have now gained freedom, are no exception.

"But I don't know whether the shadow goddess is still subject to this rule; after all, she has been away from this world for too long—over one million eight hundred thousand years of isolation from the currents of thought... enough to turn her into an 'extraterritorial being' with almost no connection to our real world. How much disturbance her dreams can cause on our side is entirely unknown."

Amber blinked suddenly at this, raising her eyebrows at Gao Cen: "Then that makes her even more of an 'extraterritorial wanderer' than you—wandering clear off the edge... The difference is, yours is just meant to scare people, while hers is the real thing."

Gao Yang instantly delivered a knuckle-rap to the half-elf's head: "No one would take you for mute if you kept quiet."

Such a clever half-elf—shame she had to have a mouth.jpg.

Amber, struck, clutched her head and fell silent with a "Mother o' mine," while Gao Yang shook his head, feeling somewhat rueful.

The question of gods' dreams, the question of the currents of thought's mapping... these were two of the most striking among this world's many bizarre rules, and in the early days they had even made him resistant and bewildered—all of it had overturned his understanding of the "material world" and blurred the boundary between matter and consciousness. For a soul that had crossed over from Earth, the spectacle thus presented was... almost absurd and disordered.

Yet this world truly did operate this way: mind could affect matter, matter could affect mind, and the two could not only map onto each other but even, under the right conditions, transform into one another—whether it was mages using mental power to shape all manner of magical phenomena and alter the forms of matter, or mortal currents of thought projecting forth gods, or gods' mental radiation altering reality out of thin air... all these phenomena that seemed "unreasonable" to an Earthling were in essence fundamentally the same.

Sometimes Gao Yang couldn't help but think... if there were a theory that could explain this mutual influence and even mutual transformation between mind and matter... perhaps it would be equivalent to explaining this world's "underlying truth."

Would that theory be hidden within the truth of magic? Or hidden in some deeper domain that mortals had not yet even imagined?

He had inadvertently sunk into thought, but soon a voice jolted him awake from his musings: "Hey, hey, hey, you've spaced out again?"

Gao Yang gave a start and came to his senses, seeing a small hand waving vigorously before his eyes; he looked up at the hand's owner, and Amber instantly clutched her head again: "You already knocked me once! One mistake doesn't deserve a second knock!"

"All right, all right, let's get down to business," Gao Yang waved his hand, organizing his thoughts as he spoke, "Let's set aside the matter of Wilde and the Lady of Night for now; what concerns me more is that 'sentinel' you mentioned at the very end... What exactly does sentinel mean?"

"I don't know; it's just one warning in total, and there are far too many possible interpretations," Amber shook her head vigorously, "But one thing is certain: this warning must be extremely, extremely important, otherwise it wouldn't fill the entire book—and such a special 'book' at that."

"Sentinel—it most likely refers to some kind of 'guardian,' and this guardian should be an exceedingly powerful and dangerous existence, or else the thing it guards is extremely dangerous, with the potential to spread contamination and turn the sentinel itself into a source of danger," Gao Yang said thoughtfully, "By that standard, the dragons' personnel tasked with watching over the Tower of the Reverse Tide could be considered 'sentinels'; the Iron Legion deep in the wasteland of Gondor could also count as 'sentinels'; even those Sentinel Towers the elves set up at the nodes of the Great Wall are 'sentinels.' And should any one of these sentinels go wrong, it would be a crisis worth vigilance—yet I feel that compared with the pages upon pages of 'beware the sentinel' warnings in Wilde's 'book,' none of these quite measure up."

Amber frowned slightly: "Not quite measure up?"

Gao Yang offered no further explanation; instead, more thoughts surfaced in his mind—

Beyond the things he had just mentioned, there were in fact other existences in this world that could be called "sentinels."

Those monitoring satellites suspended high in the sky, and the orbital space station "Vault of Heaven" encircling the planet.

These legacies of the Pathfinders, used to monitor the planet's condition and keep constant watch on the magic tides and the gods, seemed far more suited to the name "sentinel" than any of the things he had just mentioned—and if such things ever went wrong, they would indeed quite "measure up" to triggering a warning of the highest order.

But how could anything have gone wrong with them? True, they were all long out of repair, but that merely meant they were gradually ceasing to function, becoming tombstones adrift in space. Gaoyang could ascertain the condition of the vast majority of them, and he could confirm that none of those satellites and space stations were in any danger of going out of control. And even if, to take a step back, they did lose control and plunge toward the earth... for the civilization on this planet today, with a heap of satellites and space stations crashing down from orbit, however much "caution" one exercised, would it do any good?

Even the Dragon God in the days of his full glory said he could not withstand that thing.

In Gaoyang's view, since the warning Amber had seen mentioned the words "beware the Sentinels," that proved that where the dangerous "Sentinels" were concerned, the "caution" of mortals was of some use; otherwise the warning would have been quite unnecessary, and the people of the whole world might as well have lain down and done nothing...