Chapter Sixty-Eight: Cognitive Hell (Part Five)
The sound of galloping hooves echoed through the empty and eerie archway, the silhouettes of the knights slowly vanishing into the dark red of the fortress.
The Female Swordsman and I exchanged glances.
From her eyes, I could see the bewilderment and horror that she couldn’t hide.
“What do you think this is?”
I jumped the g*n and asked her before she could find her words.
“…A hallucination?”
Sword Demon Miss answered uncertainly, staring blankly at the city gate as if tossing the question back at me.
But…
“Hallucination” isn’t completely off the mark.
“I guess when you came here before, it was probably the same situation as those knights.”
I tilted my head, signaling her to move forward, and took the lead in stepping ahead. “I’m not clear when exactly the Fortress of Silence began to rot under the horrifying Power of Sin, but from the collapsing, festering tents outside, it must have been at least half a year… maybe even more.”
“And yet, both you and those knights — there might have been even more people before — remain oblivious to the anomalies here… even those higher-ups in the Church, the higher-ranked clergy are in the dark too, I’d wager. Otherwise, what they sent here wouldn’t be coins but Pope Knights or something like that.”
Sure…
Although it’s a bit hard to swallow.
If this mess really stemmed from an experiment gone wrong, the Church would undoubtedly rush to clean it up in every way possible before any country noticed, moving quickly and discreetly.
They’d take swift action, just like they did during the unexpected landslide in Rabeli Valley — sealing off the area, hunting down witnesses, weaving lies, concealing the truth…
And then pretend like nothing happened.
That’s their style.
But right now, the situation in the Fortress of Silence was clearly different.
It was already such a bizarre and terrifying spectacle here, and not to mention the chances of those who were originally stationed here making it out alive were slim to none — they simply wouldn’t be able to escape. Otherwise, if there had been a single survivor who made it out, this place would have been sealed off long ago.
Or there were people like Sword Demon Miss.
They went out, but didn’t remember what happened here, and even saw those folks still acting normally, thinking everything was fine, and once they left, they’d never give it another thought.
So until now, no warnings had managed to escape, meaning not only did the Church leadership remain clueless about the impending disaster, but they continued sending shipments of coins…
Once those knights entered, could they ever come back out?
I thought it was fifty-fifty…
But anyway, this transcendent force clearly wasn’t something the “Goddess” Power of Sin could achieve, even though the place was already steeped in a bloody scent. There was definitely some residue of that “Deity Body” here. I had no idea what the Church was using it for — perhaps for some new experiment.
As for how the corruption came about, I figured it had to be related to those “goods” sent over from Woodward Forest…
But the Power of Sin, regardless of how it evolved, couldn’t possibly block people’s senses. And it couldn’t be so targeted, in such a broad way, to make anyone stepping near the Fortress of Silence instantly hallucinate. The nature of these two powers was fundamentally different; I knew this all too well…
So what was this exactly?
— It’s Oblivion.
A more powerful, mysterious force resembling “Oblivion.”
Ninety percent sure…
I confirmed that point in my mind.
“Are you saying the Church leadership has no idea what’s going on here?”
While I pondered, I quickly headed toward the castle, only to hear Sword Demon Miss behind me asking, “But I saw a Cardinal here earlier.”
“What you saw might be from scenes six months ago, or even longer,” I bit my nails and replied.
“…Uh…huh?”
Sword Demon Miss let out a couple of “huhs,” and her tone sounded like a mixture of being partially in the loop and increasingly puzzled, her pitch rising in confusion until it was a question mark of sheer bewilderment.
“Ha…”
My train of thought being interrupted left me feeling a bit annoyed, so I sighed, my tone becoming slightly impatient: “This is a complicated, massive situation I still haven’t completely grasped… Uh, do you understand what I mean by ‘illusionary realm’?”
Before she could respond, I continued, “It’s like if a person steps inside, or unintentionally triggers it, they’d see fake illusions or even people who don’t exist, and so forth — it’s all a manifestation of thought, yet it can cover up the true nature of the Fortress of Silence, deceiving those who come here…”
“……”
Sword Demon Miss fell silent for a long moment.
Then, she seemed to finally catch on to something: “…I just tried looking for that old man who took care of me. But I couldn’t find that gray tent that’s already grown quite hazy in my memory.”
Her voice sounded somewhat sad: “So… are you saying that old man doesn’t exist? That it was all just my hallucination?”
“Yes.”
I nodded, but then immediately contradicted myself: “Not entirely.”
“That old man you saw, wherever he may be now, whether he left or fell into an even stranger predicament, he undoubtedly existed at some point, just as you remember him, and lived here for a while.”
“…What the heck…”
The thought-averse Female Swordsman seemed thoroughly confused by my rambling. I couldn’t imagine the complex emotions swirling around in her head, nor did I have any interest in pausing to care. While talking, I was also sorting through my own thoughts: “The birth of an ‘illusion’ must be tied to a reference from reality. No matter how powerful or bizarre it is, it can’t create a realistic human event just out of a single thought… and besides, its thought process may be fundamentally different from humanity’s.”
“…So, this place is basically an ‘imitation’ of an illusion.”
“That force is copying how the Fortress of Silence used to operate normally from the outside and inside.”
Hmm…
That should be it.
Even though I hadn’t seen the illusion that Sword Demon Miss saw or knew whether those knights viewed the Fortress of Silence similarly, this “imitation” surely had a very complex… interactive content?
I had no idea how to describe it, but it was evident that everything within the illusion was functioning so naturally that, no matter how much time passed, no outsider could detect any anomalies…
Perhaps those who did notice the oddities were all trapped here and never made it out?
I wasn’t sure…
Ultimately, it was just too complicated…
Even having the ability of “Oblivion,” this wasn’t something I could handle.
“Forget it, thinking about this is pointless.”
Speculating here wouldn’t help, so let’s head into the fortress and maybe we can figure out what’s really going on…
“I suspect this power is particularly bad for those who think too much… it could be that simple-minded folks, like you, can just walk out effortlessly. While I’m still not sure about this, just to be safe… Sword Demon Miss, stop asking questions. Don’t use that dense brain of yours to think about anything, just focus on the situation that could arise before us… stay alert, we’re going into the castle now.”
As I said that, I halted and looked up.
In front of us, the huge doorway had the wind whistling through it, sounding almost like a woman’s eerie wail. The open, decaying giant door looked like the bloodied maw of a monster ready to devour, and the swirling dark red mist filled with a foul scent was rushing toward us with the unsettling wind.
Let’s go…
I still felt a bit tense inside.
It wasn’t like the strong enemies I had faced before…
What’s more terrifying is the unseen, unknown dangers.
Sigh…
I really didn’t plan on doing anything…
Why…
Couldn’t I let these things go…
“Ha—”
I took a deep breath, then stepped forward.
The moment my foot hit the ground, I suddenly felt a tightness around my neck, sensing something wasn’t quite right.
Sword Demon…
Why was she not moving?
!?!
The instant I realized this, I abruptly turned around.
Behind me…
Where was Sword Demon’s shadow?
