Chapter 1141 — The Second Type of Transgression and the Exile of the Observer
Blade of Dawn · Page 4 of 4
"If my human part had not won true freedom, I would not be here discussing these topics with you — topics enough to trigger my own collapse," Enya said flatly. "I know what you fear. Rest assured — what you face is the freedom the dragons of Tarronde bought with a million years of forbearance and the fate of their entire race. If even such a desperate blow cannot break free of the dark fate, then this world need not seek any hope at all."
Gao Yang mused a while, then nodded lightly: "...You are right."
Then he exhaled, bringing the topic back to the beginning: "I recall we began by discussing those signals that suddenly went dark amid the stars. We said two 'filtering factors' have left our universe — which ought to be exceptionally thriving — so empty, so that among the stars, apart from the Pathfinders, no other civilization is seen breaking free of its planet's bonds. One of them is the loss of control of the gods; the other... is the Devil Tide.
"Now let us speak of the Devil Tide.
"What in essence is the Devil Tide? How exactly did it sweep across and reshape this world? What is the difference between the calamity that struck the Gondor Empire seven hundred years ago and the true 'Great Devil Tide' capable of destroying the world?"
"These questions — can you answer them now?"
Silence fell over the hatchery for a time. Enya seemed to be carefully weighing what she would say next, and in that quiet the faint hum of the ventilation apparatus and the low-power running of the arcanomechanical devices became noticeable, surrounding them like a summer afternoon breeze — until at last Enya broke the silence.
"I know you have already realized that the Devil Tide that struck the old Gondor Empire and the true Devil Tide are two different things. You call the former the 'minor Devil Tide' and the latter the 'Great Devil Tide.' But in truth the difference between them is even greater than you imagine — so great that the former cannot properly be called a Devil Tide at all. It is indeed connected to the Devil Tide, but in essence it was merely a 'pre-tremor' that never took shape.
"And as to your understanding of the Devil Tide, there is one point I must correct: you believe the Devil Tide alters the fundamental nature of all things in the world. That is not so.
"The true Devil Tide... what you call the 'Great Devil Tide' — it does not alter the material world at all. In fact, it does not even interact with any physical substance. It is merely a formless wind that blows across the entire star."
Gao Yang's eyes went wide in an instant; the immense shock even made him lose some of his customary composure: "What did you say?! You say the 'Great Devil Tide' does not affect the material world at all? How is that possible?!"
"It is the truth."
"Then what does the Great Devil Tide affect? And what of those repeated, very real ends of the world?"
"It does not affect the macroscopic world, but the 'observer' itself," Enya's voice came calmly from within the eggshell, carrying a cold clarity honed over one million eight hundred and seventy thousand years. "It displaces every point of informational contact between the observer and the material world, throwing the observer's mind and the real world into disordered interaction. In essence it is not a storm of physical destruction, but a... collective exile whose reach extends to the scale of a celestial body.
"So it was not the world that was destroyed, but 'the world as seen through the observer's eyes.' Yet if one regards this process from the observer's standpoint, the two are indeed one and the same thing."