Chapter 784 — The True Face
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
When the two Mystery Order hierarchs Yuri and Magnum regained their clarity, Gao Yang ceased his direct communion with Daniel and once more became a harmless, silent wanderer from beyond the realm, listening quietly from the sidelines.
In a sense, he felt that he—this "extra man" who had trailed the Sleepers from first to last without anyone knowing—was perhaps the most terrifying element in this bizarre place…
Meanwhile, Daniel learned from the Hierarch of the Radiant Order, Yuri, what the man had experienced while recalibrating his mind.
"You're saying… you saw a projection of the Upper Narrator deep within your own memories?" Daniel's expression was extraordinarily grave as he stared into Yuri's eyes. "And the part of your memory that symbolizes the 'latent self' has already begun praising the Upper Narrator?"
The Hierarch of the Radiant Order nodded, his face dark, and Magnum beside him chimed in: "I ran into something similar—damn it, I was back decades ago, still a priest in the God of War's church. The chapel was packed with people, and all at once everyone started praying to the Upper Narrator… I swear, from the day I forsook the God of War to become a Nightmare Mentor up to now, the worst nightmare I've ever woven doesn't even come close!"
Listening from the side as the two Order hierarchs recounted their experiences, Gao Yang realized that both men must have been "converted" to the Sleepers' priesthood partway through life—one had once been a noble of Typhoeus, the other a cleric of the God of War's church—yet clearly they had severed all ties with their pasts entirely, rising to the Sleepers' upper ranks through their own strength and long years of loyalty.
In that respect, their histories were much like Daniel's—before becoming a dark priest, he had been a high-ranking mage who broke away from the Typhoeus Mages' Association, and he too had been "converted" to the Sleepers partway through.
"Now I must confirm one thing," Daniel said, his gaze fixed on the two Mystery Order hierarchs, Yuri and Magnum. "Have you already been contaminated by the Upper Narrator?"
Yuri and Magnum exchanged a glance, and neither voiced any objection.
Deep within their respective memories, at the very lowest strata of the subconscious that ought to belong to them alone, they had personally experienced the eerie corrosion of the "Upper Narrator." Toward that power, so incomprehensible to humanity, they would not be careless in the least—still less would they blindly trust their own judgment of their own condition.
After all, if the contamination came from one's own subconscious, then it was impossible for a person to perceive that they had already been contaminated.
And Daniel was the Mind Network's security director; in the fields of mental early-warning and contamination defense he had already attained considerable mastery. For this hierarch to undertake the examination was entirely reasonable.
But before that, the Hierarch of the Radiant Order first raised a question: "Daniel, Hierarch of the Supreme Order, how is it that you remain unaffected by the anomalous environment here?"
Daniel's expression did not change—because he had long since discussed this with Gao Yang and prepared the answer he ought to give at this moment: "As security director, I have a habit bred by my work.
"I never immerse my mind wholly in any single stratum of consciousness. During this expedition, I likewise kept a portion of my thought-threads in a shallower layer of consciousness.
"When changes began in the town, the mind I had left outside detected the anomaly and roused me on its own."