Chapter 105: Silence |
The room inverted in an instant.
As if passing through the surface of water, the officer suddenly left the room where he had been standing and arrived at that strange ceiling inside the mirror.
But the officer did not show any sign of panic. He only looked toward the spot where the soldier had originally been tied up.
Unsurprisingly, the strange man from the mirror appeared in front of the officer.
Face to face like this, the officer could clearly see the man's features.
The man looked ordinary; his features were not very pronounced, but because his appearance differed from the people around the officer, his ordinary face still managed to attract attention.
This was Samuel’s face from his “Wu Lang” period.
“Do you want to look through my memories?” Samuel asked cheerfully, “I’m more than happy to share.”
He had deliberately handpicked this memory. If the officer was willing to view it, Samuel was certain it would bring a surprise.
That was simply Samuel’s sense of ritual.
After all, at this moment he genuinely looked like that.
Samuel hurried over to the edge of the rooftop in three quick steps, leaned against the railing, and waved excitedly at the officer.
“Come on, come on, take a look.”
But the officer had no intention of stepping forward.
Caution had always been one of his best traits.
If the other party could pull him directly into a memory, there was no way he would go along with the intruder’s wishes.
He didn’t know what Samuel was trying to do, so the safest course was to ignore it for now.
He raised his right hand slightly, and a pure white gem appeared in his palm.
The gem floated a little as he watched Samuel.
“I’m a bit curious,” the officer said with an almost indifferent tone, “you possessed that soldier just to see me?”
After all, that soldier had accomplished nothing. Saying Samuel possessed him for some specific reason didn’t sound right.
“Who knows? Maybe it was just a spur-of-the-moment idea.” Samuel glanced at the white gem in the officer’s hand and shrugged.
His gaze moved up to the officer’s eyes.
Instantly, he felt the officer belonged to that particularly boring type.
There was expression on the face, but the eyes were like a pool of dead water—calm to the point of dullness.
“Is that so.” The officer was noncommittal. “Then what made you think that doing that would let you see me?”
“Are you fishing for information?” Samuel asked with a smile.
“I’m interrogating.” The officer answered calmly.
“Wow.” Samuel covered his mouth, “How interesting.”
“But actually, I don’t know.” Samuel laughed and lowered his hand, shaking his head, “It was probably just an intuition.”
“I just felt possessing that soldier might lead to something fun.” Samuel’s answer was matter-of-fact.
“Something fun…” the officer repeated, “I understand.”
He actually seemed to believe that answer?
He actually believed it!
“A Law Seeker of Absurdity.” The officer stated with certainty.
“Why does it feel like all of you can spot that I lean toward Absurdity at a glance?” Samuel put one hand on his hip.
The officer just looked at Samuel with a faintly exasperated expression.
“If you restrained yourself a bit, perhaps we wouldn’t be able to judge so easily,” he said.
“What if I’m lying?” Samuel pressed.
The officer looked at Samuel, paused for two seconds, then replied.
“This is the realm of the mind. Lying is impossible.”
“Lying is impossible?” Samuel opened his mouth, then closed it, and a delighted expression spread across his face, “No way, really can’t lie.”
Watching Samuel look like he’d just bought a new toy, the officer shook his head.
“Absurdity Law Seekers, I do have experience dealing with you,” the officer said in an even tone, “in fact, you’re exactly the kind of restless people I’m best at handling.”
“Huh?” Samuel scratched his hair and chuckled, “Handling me?”
The officer didn’t answer, he simply lifted the gem in his hand slightly.
In the next second, the sound of glass breaking rang out.
Crack.
A network of fine fissures appeared across the ground.
Not only the ground, but cracks formed through the surrounding air as well.
Then…
Bang.
The surrounding environment shattered like glass.
This memory-constructed scene collapsed with a roar, leaving only pure “white.”
White above, white around, white beneath.
Nothing remained, not even shadows.
Samuel and the officer stood at a distance that was neither very far nor very near, facing each other.
“Ah…” Samuel wore a disappointed look.
He had planned to give the officer a good show now that the officer had stepped into his memory.
But the officer refused to take the bait.
Seeing the original scene vanish, the Wu Lang visage began to twist and turn into Samuel’s current face.
He glanced around the pure white space.
He stomped his foot and felt something beneath his foot; although the ground was invisible, there was something underfoot.
It was flat, without a single dip.
He waved his hand and felt no resistance in the air, and sensed no unseen obstacles nearby.
“Is this the thing you said you use to deal with me?” Samuel asked curiously, pointing at the officer from a distance.
A bolt of lightning appeared from nowhere and struck toward the officer.
The officer looked up at the lightning and seemed entirely unfazed.
In truth, he actually could not react to the lightning.
But he did not need to react.
Boom!
After the lightning came the thunderclap.
Yet the officer remained unharmed.
Samuel peered with interest.
So he could withstand a lightning strike? That didn’t seem like an especially powerful ability.
Still…
Samuel’s expression shifted to intrigued amusement.
“You missed me.” he said, smiling.
“Mm, missed.” The officer nodded and actually answered Samuel.
He didn’t seem surprised and remained standing in place.
Samuel considered for a moment, and a slingshot and a stone appeared in his hand. He pulled back, aimed at the officer’s head from afar, and fired.
The officer did not dodge or flinch; he watched as Samuel aimed and launched.
Whoosh!
The stone flew toward the officer’s head.
One second, two seconds, three seconds…
The stone flew and flew and flew…
Eventually it traced a parabola and dropped to the ground.
Although the distance between the two appeared to be only a hundred or two meters, the stone—despite not being particularly fast—kept flying for over ten seconds before it weakly fell in front of Samuel.
The stone had indeed been flying toward the officer, Samuel could watch it go forward without obstruction, but in the end it simply fell helplessly at his feet.
Having seen Samuel’s attempt, the officer seemed thoroughly accustomed to this scene.
He leisurely released the gem from his hand and leaned back.
A chair with armrests materialized behind him; he sat down, hands on the armrests, and the gem floated beside him without falling.
Samuel watched and grew more interested.
He stepped forward and tried to walk toward the officer.
One step, two steps.
Samuel’s walking speed quickened and quickened.
Finally he broke into a run.
Full speed sprint.
No matter how he walked or ran, the distance between them remained unchanged.
This wasn’t like a treadmill where the ground continuously moved backward; Samuel was clearly moving forward.
But he simply could not get closer.
After running for about three minutes, Samuel’s speed finally slowed and he came to a stop.
He looked back.
The stone that had fallen a short distance in front of him was now a little behind his heels.
The stone that originally lay not far ahead of him should have long been left behind as he ran, yet now it sat less than half a meter behind his foot.
He was certain he had not been running in place.
Turning around, he bent down to pick up the stone.
This time there was no obstruction — he could touch it without having to reach forever.
Standing upright, Samuel’s gaze shifted repeatedly between the stone in his hand and the officer not far away; the whole thing felt increasingly amusing.
The physics here were completely different from the outside world.
Out there, a meter is a meter, two meters two meters; distance is a fixed number.
Here it seemed different.
One meter, ten meters, a hundred meters, a kilometer — all were merely small segments of the space between him and the other person.
They were simultaneously very close and very far.
The space here was relatively static.
No matter how one moved, it remained relatively motionless.
Not just space —
Time was relatively static, too.
This mental projection of Samuel could contact Samuel’s body, but could not communicate.
There were no physical barriers, only an inability to exchange messages.
The reason was simple.
Time here was stretched like the distance between him and the officer; one second here might be an instant in the outside world, one day here an instant outside, perhaps even one year here equated to an instant out there.
Samuel’s body in the external world was relatively still from the perspective of this projection.
No matter how fast Samuel’s bodily reactions were, faced with such an enormous time dilation, by the time the body received a message, reacted, and replied, untold ages could have passed here.
“A proto-Divine Realm?” he recalled Ethen’s Perpetual Arboretum not long ago.
But he quickly dismissed that inference.
Although the scene here was somewhat absurd, it was far removed from the Perpetual Arboretum.
It gave off a completely different feeling.
If Ethen’s Perpetual Arboretum was a town, this was like a child calling their bedroom a “secret base” during make-believe.
“So it’s the embryo of a proto-Divine Realm,” Samuel chuckled, “a Divine Realm foundation?”
The officer did not answer. He only spoke slowly.
“You are so fearless because you are only a spirit projection now; even if you die it would cause no harm to you, correct?”
Completely wrong, but Samuel was curious what the officer would say, so he naturally nodded.
“If you won’t die, then of course there’s nothing to fear.”
He had only answered what a person who cannot die would feel, without claiming that that person was himself.
That was not lying.
Obviously the officer had no interest in playing word games, and he continued.
“Given that, what if the spirit collapses here, and brings back the memory of that collapse to the host? What then?”
“Huh?” Samuel blinked and pointed at him, “You want me to collapse? You?”
The officer paid no heed to Samuel’s taunt.
“In this place, I cannot hurt you, and you cannot hurt me.” His tone remained even. “You will not feel fatigue here, you will not feel hunger, you will not feel sleepy, and you cannot harm yourself.”
“You can do nothing.”
“You can’t harm yourself?” Samuel twisted his arm.
There was tactile sensation, but not much, and it didn’t hurt.
“Wow.”
Samuel held his arm and waited, expecting the officer to continue.
“You aren’t the first to enter here,” the officer’s expression remained as calm as still water.
“But before, many people went mad after leaving.”
“They mostly chose to hurt themselves desperately, seeking stimulation.”
“People are like that; deprived of stimulation for a long time, they collapse, unable to settle and feel anything.”
“Law Seekers of Absurdity,” he said, looking at Samuel, “if you, who chase after stimulation, were to wait bored in an environment void of all stimulus for months or even years, would your spirit collapse?”
“If you return to your body carrying memories of such deathly silence, can your host really bear it?”
Samuel brought his left index and middle fingers to the corner of his mouth, pressing upward lightly to force a smile.
“I see.” Samuel chuckled.
“Is this Silence? I’ve never seen an ability like this before, what a novel experience.”
The officer did not take offense; he only nodded calmly.
“In that case, you will have a very long time to experience it.”
The pure white space fell silent.
No one spoke.
Samuel looked at the officer and pursed his lips.
He felt this place was far inferior to Ethen’s arboretum. This was not boastful talk; it was fact.
After all, a place that had driven many to madness or death seemed rather unimpressive to his eyes.
It wouldn’t be hard for him to break out of here.
But he had no taste for games that had been cracked.
So he decided to play by the rules.
He would wear the officer down.
See who cracked first.
Time passed bit by bit.
Samuel stared at the officer out of sheer boredom.
He casually sat down on the ground and zoned out at the officer sitting in the chair nearby. He casually created an alarm clock and placed it on the ground to keep time.
The officer did not stop him.
He couldn’t stop him.
As he had said earlier, in this place neither Samuel nor he could do anything to the other.