Chapter 178 – Critical Madness
Chapter 178 – Critical Madness
After a loud boom, the entire world fell silent.
Maurice felt his consciousness drifting, as if he had completely detached himself from his body, he didn’t know where he was, he didn’t know what year he was in at the moment, and even for a moment – or maybe it was a certain long period of time – he had completely forgotten even his own name! He was floating mindlessly in a chaotic nothingness, surrounded by a turbulence of light and shadow that could not be intelligently understood and a deathly silence.
It took Maurice a long, long time to reassemble his fragmented mind and mend his tattered humanity–
He remembered that his name was Maurice, that he lived in the city-state of Prand, that he was a scholar of history, and that today he was going to visit an antique store located in the lower city to find out what it was that had nearly cost his daughter’s life.
He ascertained.
It’s the cozy subspace family.
Countless hisses and harsh noises like the earth tearing apart finally exploded, and once again there was something he could perceive in the empty silence of the chaos, and his newly-assembled humanity was nearly shattered by the noise once again, but just moments before total annihilation occurred, he “saw” a chaotic, void of smoke suddenly converging from all directions, enveloping all of his senses. He “saw” a chaotic smoke of nothingness suddenly converge from all directions, enveloping all of his senses in it.
This layer of “smoke” protected his mind, using the shelter called “ignorance and stupidity” to isolate him from the surrounding noise and the turbulence of light and shadow, and Maurice once again had the ability to think, and he looked around him through the smoke and realized that he could no longer see the maddening knowledge and truth. He looked around him through the smoke and realized that he could no longer see the maddening knowledge and truth, and that in the depths of the endless fog, there was only a flickering light that attracted his attention.
That is the shimmering light formed by many large and small light sources, the center is a red light, as if the size of a human head, surrounded by dozens of small blue, green and red light points, as if some kind of matrix flashing fast, seemingly irregular, but also as if it contains some kind of …… “sanity “.
Amidst the countless turbulence of light and shadow, these regular flickering shimmers became the anchor point that allowed Maurice’s mind to stabilize completely, and he realized what these flickering shimmering shimmers were after a momentary moment of astonishment –
He came face to face with Rahm, the God of Wisdom.
There were images of Rahm depicted in every university and laboratory of the Academy of Truth, and corresponding words in the Canon of Rahm – there was no human image of this god who held authority over both wisdom and foolishness; He was long hidden in the mist, and the outline that occasionally revealed itself was a plane strewn with shimmering light, with dozens of points of light orbiting a circular glow.
“Lord!” Morris was instantly galvanized and quickly saluted the matrix of light that had sheltered him, “Are you trying to guide me?”
The flickering “lights” did not respond to the old scholar, only a muffled, low tremor, and it was not until another few moments had passed that Maurice heard Rahm’s “voice” in the depths of his mind – –
“Return, contact, understand, pass ……”
“You ……”
Maurice looked at the light with dismay, unable to understand Rahm’s will, but the elusive God of Wisdom didn’t give him a chance to ask further questions – the next second, a strong feeling of rejection came swiftly, and in just a moment, Maurice was “ejected” from this chaotic and terrible place. Maurice was “bounced” out of this chaotic and terrifying place.
His body shook, his brain boiled, and his senses were flooded with information from the earthly world – the sound of traffic on the street, a distant bell, a cold wind, the crisp sound of a bicycle bell.
Then the sound of fast approaching footsteps, the concerned voice of a girl – a familiar voice, his “student”.
“Mr. Morris? What are you doing here …… Are you okay?”
Morris looked up in a trance to see Nina standing in front of him, but in the next second, the girl in front of him transformed back into a cluster of burning, arcing flames, surrounded by ashes that seemed to cover the entire city-state – and then back into human form.
His vision stiffened again as he looked to the side and saw a giant covered in shimmering starlight looking down at him, a maddening light and shadow within the giant, but the giant suddenly transformed again into a middle-aged man with a kindly face who looked at him with concern, his eyes filled with the shadows of subspace.
The streets in the distance were also trembling, the earth was writhing beneath his feet, the doors and windows of the storefronts were sometimes normal and sometimes transformed into empty black holes, the sky hung down crookedly, streams of fiery flames and indeterminate limbs loomed between the clouds, a passerby on a bicycle flew past the neighborhood, and his body was suddenly turned into fragmented concrete, but then returned to its original state the next second.
Maurice lowered his head with difficulty and looked at his wrist.
He was wearing a bracelet braided with colorful stones, and there were four stones in total.
But the stones did not continue to break down, and his sanity did not continue to slip toward madness, the world in his eyes was severely distorted, but his own ability to think and judge has been restored …… at least partially.
The old scholar quickly judged his current state – under Rahm’s protection, he was able to obtain a short balance of the “critical state of madness”. He was crazy – but God made him crazy into the shape of sanity.
He might be able to recover, but he had to find a way to do so before Rahm’s protection ended, before all the stones broke, or the short-lived critical state of insanity might collapse at any moment, and no one would be able to save his sanity from the madness.
While Maurice’s mind was thinking hard and slow, Nina and Duncan were looking concernedly at the old man in front of them, who was clearly not in the right state.
They were practicing their bikes when they suddenly saw Maurice standing in the empty lot next to them, originally Nina was trying to run to greet him, but halfway through her run she realized that something was not right on the old man’s face.
Stagnant, in a trance, not responding to the outside world, as if he was standing with his eyes open and asleep.
“It’s not sudden dementia, is it?” Duncan muttered suddenly, reaching out and waving his hand in front of Maurice’s face before turning his head back to Nina, “Has your teacher been having one of those daze episodes at school in the last two days?”
“No,” Nina said as she shook her head and stepped forward to hold the old man’s arm, “Teacher’s always been in good health, how could he suddenly go demented!”
“You can’t tell when you’re older,” Duncan held Maurice’s other arm, then looked up at the sky, “Let’s not talk about it here, it’s going to rain soon, let’s help the old man inside first.”
Nina let out a cry and joined Duncan in assisting the dazed Maurice into the store, then trotted outside into the open space to carry the bike inside.
Duncan cradled Maurice into a chair next to the counter, and the old man seemed to regain a little bit of his ability to think at this point, sitting down stiffly, his head slowly turning from side to side, his eyes finally focusing on Duncan.
“Return, contact, understand, pass ……”
Rahm’s voice echoed abruptly in his head.
What was left of Maurice’s sanity seemed to understand the words slightly.
Was this the will of the God of Wisdom? Let him continue to contact with this …… “being” in front of him?
Morris eyes Duncan temporarily stabilized to the human form, although the scene around him has been trembling, writhing, but at least he can not see the body of the Starlight Giant for the time being, reason also a little bit of the upper hand.
Maurice has realized that this ordinary-looking “antique shopkeeper” is by no means an existence that should appear in the real world.
Even his own “student”, that girl who always smiled gently and was always sunny and optimistic, was not a normal human being.
If I continue to stay here and continue to communicate with this “family”, I will probably cross the balance point of insanity in a short time, and slip from temporary insanity into the abyss of permanent insanity.
But the voice of the God of Wisdom seemed to have taken root in his mind, making him sit still, and at the same time, another even bolder thought gradually filled his heart.
In the “critical state of insanity” under the protection of the gods, even if his sanity tends to go wild, it will not go completely out of control; as long as he does not cross that critical point, he can even face subspace during this short period of equilibrium and maintain his ego and his humanity ……
It is said that the greatest but also the craziest knowledge chasers in the Kingdom of Crete will even take the initiative to utilize this point, after a lifetime of preparation, they will actively embrace the “Madness Critical Mass” with potions and rituals, and in the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to explore the truth in the sub-space, to bring the precious knowledge to the earth, and then go to their deaths with great emotion.
Now he seemed to be standing on the “battlefield” where the sages of the Cretan era had stood.
Slowly, the old man’s blank and dull face changed, he gradually showed a smile, his cloudy eyes looked at Duncan, slowly spoke: “Hello, Mr. Duncan.”
Duncan watched the change in the old man’s expression in front of him and suddenly felt a little creeped out.
How did this old man …… smile suddenly so scary?
(End of chapter)