Chapter 920 — The Void

Perhaps in the future, every important department ought to be equipped with a magitek device carrying "Frigid Mind" or a similar spell effect—an "emergency disaster-prevention apparatus," like a water vat kept for fighting fires. Should an incident capable of throwing an entire department into chaos occur, the magitek device could be activated at once to force the staff into calm; even if it lasted only half an hour, it would be enough to salvage many a situation... A workable notion, to be discussed with His Majesty later.

For a moment, thoughts quite unrelated to the present crisis surfaced in Victoria's mind, but she promptly reined them in and refocused her attention on the situation at hand.

This sudden anomaly... what on earth was it?

The Ice and Snow Duchess was deeply learned in the traditional magical arts, yet in the modern field of magitek she felt her knowledge sorely lacking. She shook her head in bewilderment and murmured a quiet prayer, as though to herself: "Goddess of Magic... where exactly has something gone wrong..."

The prayer brought no answer; the Goddess of Magic, Mirmyna, made no response at all.

No—it was not merely the absence of a response. Even the faint sense of being glimpsed, the "transcendent feeling" of establishing a connection with a being beyond the mortal plane that ought to follow a prayer under normal circumstances, failed to appear. Victoria felt only a void at the end of her prayer; in the keen spiritual perception of a Legendary-tier powerhouse, she even felt as though she were facing some kind of "hollow."

There ought to have been a god there—but now there was none. The moment the realization struck her, the Duchess's eyes flew wide open.

……

A "gale" likewise swept through the neural network built upon the arcane net—and to the world within that network, this gale was entirely substantive.

Across a vast, boundless expanse of sky and earth, countless grey-white chaotic lines writhed and danced fiercely through the air, sweeping across the whole world amid howling wind. As the gale raged, the once-clear, bright sky flickered between light and dark; cracks of every size and strange, shimmering, disordered patterns of light kept spawning from every corner of the heavens, only to be swiftly repaired by another force. And the world's sole "city" at present was sheltered within a layer of translucent, silver-white "light cocoon." The cocoon shut out the harsh "weather" outside, and within the city, stability was maintained.

Inside a large pyramid-shaped structure at the heart of the city, Yuri was anxiously watching the runes and data rising and falling before him, his tone urgent: "A colossal stream of anomalous data is 'flowing through' our network—absolutely enormous!"

"Can it be caught?" Wendy asked from the side.

"Not from my end. It's too strange, there's no way to get a handle on it, and it's still moving fast along the 'unconscious zone' at the very edge of the network..." Yuri's face was full of confusion. "What in the world is this thing..."

"Whatever it is, it's obviously here to cause trouble!" Magnum's loud voice suddenly burst out. "If you need me to, I can go to the edge of the unconscious zone right now and try throwing a few mind storms at it..."

"Shut up and be quiet. Your mind storms probably won't do a thing against this strange data!" Yuri shot Magnum a glare at once, then his expression turned even more bewildered. "Wait, this strange outsider... it's moving away? It's receding from the boundary, and it's getting faster..."

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Magnum's eyes went wide. "Don't you tell me it was just 'passing through'!"

"I don't know whether it was just 'passing through,' but it's about to vanish from our sight," Yuri said rapidly. "Semler, can you reach Naritil and Duvalt outside the city? See if they have any way to deal with this."

"I'll try. The load is lighter now, so it should be fine."

In the hills outside the city, the giant white spider still crouched quietly atop the summit. The wild winds of the network world could not stir her body in the slightest, and the chaotic data and information instead calmed rapidly around her.

The city's safety was already assured, the network's overall load was improving, and this sudden storm seemed about to pass. Yet Naritil had not relaxed in the least. Invisible threads were spreading outward from the void around her, covering the sky, the earth, the flowing water, and every mind behind it all like an immense web. Everything in the neural network was gradually becoming the tips of her silk, and her perception spread out as never before.

In that moment, the "neural network" verged on perfection. It began to reorganize itself in the manner it had been designed for at the very beginning, and to operate as its name suggested.

Duvalt stood on the high ground near the hill, watching Naritil's work from afar. He could see the way the threads spread, and at the same time he was drawing on his own power to help Naritil extend her perception further and search for the "outsider" that meant to wreak destruction.

Then, at some instant, one of the "silk threads" on that vast web was suddenly plucked unnaturally.

Perhaps it was merely an accidental touch, perhaps a probe born of excessive curiosity, perhaps a provocation emboldened by daring. Whatever the reason behind it, the thread... had been plucked.

The web-weaving spider vanished from the hilltop in an instant. She had already traced that plucked thread, and in this world built of minds, her speed outstripped the swiftest, most fleeting thought of any human.

Duvalt caught only the single sentence she left behind: "I'm going to feed! You stay here and keep watch!"

The old man in the black formal wear, standing on the high ground, was taken aback for a moment. He shook his head with a helpless smile and muttered to himself: "...Since splitting into two individuals, I feel more and more like a nursemaid..."

Just then, a few leaping golden runes appeared out of thin air in the air beside the old man. The runes trembled and gave voice: "Duvalt, this is Semler. How are things on your end?"

"Naritil seems to have found the intruder's trail, and she's gone off to feed," Duvalt said offhandedly. "Things here are gradually stabilizing. But until Naritil sends word, I wouldn't advise shutting down the city shield."

"Good, understood."