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Chapter 134: A Forgotten All-Dreaming Tale
Chapter 134: A Forgotten All-Dreaming Tale
"The size has been adapted to your current physique. It was not originally like this when I wore it, mind you."
Well, it was still rather tight in a certain area. For example: my chest and hips.
"I'm surprised that you have this kind of clothing in your wardrobe," I commented with an unsure grin.
She smirked. "I sincerely hope that you won't damage it in the slightest."
"I guess this is expected of borrowing clothes from a lady."
With all of the potential problems addressed, we departed for the new location of my bastion, or maybe an outpost.
"Why don't you use that portal spell so that we can immediately arrive at our destination?" I asked with a smirk.
"Saddly, that spell only works when the other end of the passage is within the close proximity of something or someone that was bound to my directly. Like per say, a contract~"
"I assume that you can't freely create a spell of similar nature to allow you to travel around the world because it's arcane by nature, then." I sighed a heap of disappointment through my grin. "And arcane by nature, is weird and convoluted."
"If only that you aren't limited by the fact that you can't perform a simple ohrtending, I would have taken you under my wing as an apprentice." Kuzunoha chuckled. There was a similar tone of disappointment escaping from her throat.
"Well, I guess the world needs to nerf me in some way." A smug smile began to form on my face. "Otherwise, I would be too much of a perfection."
"You really live up to your name."
Now that this topic was brought up…
"And what do you mean by that?" I playfully asked, but not too playful that I was given an equally jesting of an answer.
"Hmm, the lore for the origin of the word itself is extremely ancient, and has been devoured by the All-Dreaming Beast. But in core-value, it persistently means that you're narcissistic in nature~"
"Wait, an All-Dreaming Beast?"
"Do you want to know?" Kuzunoha smiled devilishly, shrinking the roof of her gaze as she cast it to the side. "Harboring this enlightenment might damage your psyche if you're not mentally fortified to comprehend it."
Something akin to knowing that you were living inside a video game that may or may not be shut down or tampered with at any given time? Like the realization that your whole life and meaning exists to be composed of mere data and highly-trained artificial intelligence?
Well, I doubted that there was anything that could be as reality-breaking as that fact.
"Sure, lay it all out."
"This is just based on my research and personal observation." Kuzunoha widened her grin into a manic edge. "But when it comes to the matter of time and space, this world, Carcosa, is currently engaging in an ever-ongoing chase with something.
"There exists an insurmountable amount of information of the past that has been destroyed. When I prod further, there is nearly an infinite amount of existential void behind us, like an impossibly long graveyard that is left behind this very world.
"And that graveyard is expanding, catching up to us in every minute, every second we travel through time and space." Her eyes were devoid of life as she eerily tilted her head, as if trying to process this information alone had affected her very mind and existence considerably.
"And to make the matter worse, there is a physical and spiritual trail that can be traced when you delve into that graveyard.
"Something impossibly gargantuan and infinitely dimensional is eating and consuming the very world that we live in." Her words faded to black, and I felt something gripping my throat, slithering—all-encompasing manner of malicious embrace that came out of nowhere, and not even coming from Kuzunoha herself.
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"And that very being is also carrying the same signature of the beginning that started this whole universe.
"Numerous destroyed and shredded records refer to this being as the All-Dreaming Beast, an entity that is so full of paradox and oxymoron, that many scholars of the past were troubled on whether to deem this entity as the conceptual force of entropy or an outright god."
Kuzunoha then pointed her gloved finger at my face. "The knowledge about the Valtherion race as a whole is also one of the destroyed pieces of information that I manage to scavenge in that very graveyard."
From this point onward, Kuzunoha began to start giggling for no reason as she mumbles incomprehensible words while conveying nonsense in front of my face.
Just by listening to her in this state alone, I started to lose Sanity unknowingly.
"... I apologize for my impertinence just a moment ago." Kuzunoha expressed her guilt with a flustered face. "It's been a while since I tried to reclaim my memory that is related to the All-Dreaming Beast."
"Well, I can see why you're having a hard time conveying all of that information," I chuckled as much as I was disturbed. "I saw the whole reality shift into something scary as you lay out your words, all while you began to get possessed by madness."
"Thankfully, I managed to filter most of the dangerous parts," Kuzunoha sighed with relief. "No matter how powerful someone's mind is, they are still vulnerable to the danger of knowledge."
Now I started to wonder what kind of reality-bending effect would happen if I began unveiling the fact that we all live inside some stupid VRMMO world, and that there was an actual real world inhabited by the very creator of this universe.
Then again, this world felt too vivid, absurd, and mind-breaking to comprehend for it to be a mere simulation of digital data strewn together.
There was also my case of getting a random vision when I reached zero in terms of Sanity, and I doubted that all of those details and emotions were something that could be emulated with the technology of humanity in the year 2030.
Yeah, the more I tried to make sense of the whole big picture, the more I lost my sanity.
Ignorant is a bliss, they say.
Thankfully, our bliss was accompanied by a calming peace as we only encountered a single Calamity Object in our journey.