Chapter 859 - 858: The Narrator Project

At first, only the ceaseless wind blew across the empty fields.

But soon, Yuri sensed an unusual presence rapidly gathering. It was shapeless and formless, yet its intense presence drew everyone’s attention—as if a massive creature, invisible to the naked eye, had approached them. This creature hid its form, but low breathing and the oppressive instinctual presence emanated from all directions.

Everyone widened their eyes in tension and confusion. Semyr instinctively summoned the Combat Staff, Wendy’s brow furrowed instantly, and Magnan’s figure unexpectedly emerged from the air. He hadn’t had the chance to greet Yuri and the others with his loud voice before he was already staring wide-eyed in Gawain’s direction—

A semi-transparent, indistinct outline had already appeared in front of Gawain and rapidly solidified into an entity in the next second.

It was a giant white spider.

She lay quietly on the flat grassland, surrounded by an almost transparent white cocoon. The blades of grass swayed at the edge of the cocoon, surging as if licking, and the moment the white spider appeared, Magnan’s voice of exclamation rang out: "My ancestors! Mental Breeze—"

Gawain casually pointed in Magnan’s direction: "Shut up."

An overwhelming mental storm instantly crashed onto Magnan’s psyche. The latter didn’t finish saying the four words ’mental breeze’ before he exploded into a brilliant firework—but of course, he reformed after two seconds, immediately clamped his mouth shut, and remained obediently standing, seemingly unable to stir up a mental storm any time soon.

Gawain had some combat experience with Magnan before, so he was prepared.

This sudden little incident jolted everyone awake; after a brief moment of stunned panic, Yuri was the first to regain his composure. He watched the spider within the cocoon warily, even though he had a vague idea that this "God" should be in a controlled state. He instinctively swallowed: "Your Majesty, this is..."

"The Supreme Narrator, the part that was preserved," Gawain said casually, glancing at the apprehensive Eternal Sleepers, "Relax, it is harmless. Even direct gaze will not cause contamination—divinity and humanity have both been stripped and purified, leaving only the pure mind and the remnant ’personality’. Essentially, it is similar to Magnan or Selena."

As he spoke, the transparent cocoon enveloping the entire white spider trembled gently, and then, as if waking gradually from a long slumber, the enormous white spider suddenly moved, and the whole cocoon silently shattered and dissipated.

The "Supreme Narrator" awoke, its staggering limbs moving bewilderedly on the spot before eventually finding balance. It lifted its body, its purposeless head turning in this unfamiliar world, and though it had no eyes, lights flowed across its head, transmitting a confused, dazed emotion to everyone’s mind through those lights.

Almost simultaneously with the white spider’s awakening, a black figure also appeared out of nowhere—a black-robed old man holding a tattered lantern, Duvalt, emerged beneath the white spider. He, too, looked bewildered at the surroundings and quickly noticed Gawain and the others standing not far away.

"Welcome back," Gawain smiled and nodded to them, "I hope this ’slumber’ hasn’t caused you too much harm."

"We..." Duvalt finally began to speak hesitantly. He sensed the tense atmosphere around him, yet seemed indifferent to it all, only murmuring in confusion as the tattered lantern in his hand flickered, "We should have fallen into eternal darkness..."

"We should have perished," Nariteer in her white spider form also finally rid herself of confusion. She turned her head to "gaze" at Gawain, "What happened?"

"You indeed perished once," Gawain sighed, saying helplessly, "But didn’t you know? As long as conditions are right, data can undergo ’restoration’."

"Data restoration?" Nariteer’s voice was tinged with confusion, "What is that?"

"It’s complicated to explain. You just need to know one thing—at the last moment, I ’saved’ you," Gawain explained, pointing at his head, "It’s a massive amount of data, but you should know, that even the sum of the Sandbox World’s data is nothing to me."

Nariteer was momentarily taken aback, then slightly lowered her head and looked at Duvalt at her feet, "Duvalt, do you understand?"

The black-robed old man, holding the tattered lantern, stared at Gawain with eyes full of astonishment. Suddenly, he seemed to understand something, pondering before sighing, "I think I know..."

He recalled the events of that day, remembering what happened when he forcibly entered his divine form and tried to corrupt Gawain’s mind—he had quickly fallen, with no time to analyze anything, but finally, he had the opportunity to sort through those events and understand what happened to himself and Nariteer.

"I should have known..." He wore a complex expression, "Corruption is mutual, and the devouring of the mind can certainly be... Your memory and soul vast enough to terrify gods, when we recklessly established a connection with your mind, the outcome could never be simply ’failure.’ At that time...you ’devoured’ Nariteer and me!"

Nearly everyone stared in shock at that moment. Even Yuri and Magnan, who had firsthand experience of the former part of the battle, couldn’t help but look at each other. The bishops of the Eternal Sleepers looked at Gawain with a newfound reverence. Veronica stood silent, her eyes growing profound, while Aunt Heidi wore a pensive expression. Only Gawain remained unfazed, looking up at Nariteer and spreading his hands: "Didn’t I just ’regurgitate’ you?"

If Amber were present, she would surely have immediately quipped about it being "not eating if you spit it out, at most you held it," but the elf embarrassment was busy managing public opinions post-establishment of diplomatic relations with the Sacred Dragon Kingdom and didn’t come along, leaving no one to respond to Gawain’s quip.

The atmosphere thus turned somewhat uncanny.

As for the events that happened, they were indeed similar to what Duvalt had said, only this wasn’t Gawain’s first time "devouring" another mind—several years ago, he’d done it once before, devouring a reckless to the point of regretful Eternal Sleeper. The other party attempted a psychic intrusion into "Gawain Cecil"’s consciousness but was torn to shreds by Gawain’s vast memory repository and broken down, absorbed. It was thanks to that devouring that Gawain had obtained much intelligence related to the Eternal Sleepers, eventually becoming an "Wanderer from Outer Realm" invading the mental network.

What he did to the Supreme Narrator was essentially similar to what happened back then—although the difficulty and scale were different, in front of the miraculous satellite database, it was merely a matter of download capacity.

Gawain found it hard to explain the specific principles involved to outsiders, but he figured the people present probably didn’t need much explanation: they would roughly attribute such matters to the awe-inspiring prowess of the ancestors, the Wanderers from Outer Realm, or the legendary pioneer.

Of course, "devouring a god" sounds wonderful, but Gawain estimated that he could only attempt such a thing once—if it weren’t for the consciousness world formed by the mental network, encountering such an intelligence-restrained divine mind like the Supreme Narrator, and if the devoured side wasn’t lacking experience and relatively weak, he would not have succeeded.

The perfect conditions required in this process were so stringent that it was not replicable—in the end, the sea demons were quite adept at physically "devouring gods".

Fleeting thoughts crossed his mind momentarily, and Gawain coughed lightly twice, then looked at Nariteer, breaking the silence once more: "So I meant to tell you, I could have had a better plan—but you didn’t listen back then, you just ran off, and I almost didn’t have time to ’pull’ you back."

The long limbs of the giant spider scratched the ground aimlessly twice, and Nariteer’s gentle voice directly entered everyone’s minds: "I was... in a hurry at the time."

"I understand," Gawain smiled, "completely understandable."

"Your Majesty," at this moment, Semyr finally found the opportunity to speak. The serious middle-aged man couldn’t help but step forward two steps, glancing nervously at the giant white spider as he spoke, "You preserved the Supreme Narrator, are you planning to..."

As Semyr spoke, Nariteer and Duvalt’s attention simultaneously focused on Gawain, with Duvalt directly voicing his own confusion: "You’ve kept us here, what do you intend to do?"

"I want to conduct some follow-up research," Gawain said candidly, "We, who are present, have a subtle relationship with the gods, and we’re all curious about the powers and weaknesses of gods, so we need the ’Supreme Narrator’. Moreover, I want to verify some personal guesses—your very existence as a ’god’ devoid of most divine traits intrigues me greatly."

He shared his thoughts, calmly and honestly gazing at Nariteer and Duvalt, with no intent to hide the curiosity and inquiry in his eyes.

The "Supreme Narrator" was the most valuable asset he salvaged from the mental network, a unique divine sample that encompassed the entire Samsara of a god’s birth, death, and rebirth, with traits like divine and human separation, elimination of mental pollution, and safety and controllability, making it irreplicable. Therefore, Gawain spared no effort to retain "it," even naming the new computing network of the fledgling empire as the "Narrator Neural Network."

Faced with Gawain’s response, Nariteer, a bit uneasy, withdrew part of her limbs, her massive body swaying gently, with a sigh she said: "So, is this then another ’experimental’ project?"

"This is indeed an experimental project," Gawain nodded, "but not all ’experimental projects’ are bad. There are experiments where both parties agree and willingly participate, harmless experiments, and mutually beneficial experiments..."

"I understand," Nariteer interrupted Gawain, "I still understand this knowledge..."

Gawain raised an eyebrow: "So, what’s your opinion?"

Duvalt gently closed his eyes, while Nariteer, after a moment of silence, softly said: "What significance would this have for us—we are, as you once said, individuals that should have perished; there’s no place for us in the real world. Of course, if you insist on doing this, then go ahead..."

"But I prefer that all of this be based on fair cooperation rather than coercion," Gawain shook his head, "The former Eternal Sleepers’ cult no longer exists, this is Cecil, carrying out Cecil’s order—I don’t wish to force you."

Duvalt opened his eyes: "We need a reason."

Gawain quietly looked at the other, only after a few seconds did he slowly say: "Just think of it as remembering those who once lived in Sandbox One."

Nariteer moved her long limbs slightly.

"The history of Sandbox One has ended; its former residents no longer exist. When people in the real world die, their relatives remember them, their neighbors remember them; even if no one remembers them, there’s at least a body left in the world. However, those personalities created by the sandbox have no one to remember them in the real world, nor do they leave any remains in the network," Gawain said calmly, "Nariteer, Duvalt, you – are what is left of their legacy.

"I do not intend to manipulate your thoughts with this statement, but I hope you consider: the ’Supreme Narrator’ is the last memory of the entire Sandbox World. If you are willing to remain here as citizens of Cecil, this would also be an extension of those who once lived in Sandbox One."

Nariteer and Duvalt fell into silence simultaneously, and upon seeing this, Gawain did not pause but continued, "Additionally, if you’re willing to stay, I promise to provide you with a means to connect with the ’real world.’

"You are currently in a new network that’s different from the mental network; there is no sandbox system here. New terminal technologies can allow you to interact with the real world to a certain extent—I can provide you with this information to prove I’m not lying.

"In exchange, I hope you become a part of this new network. Of course, you will be subject to the network’s rules—these rules are primarily to protect the network’s nodes. I can assure you; they are harmless to you.

"How you weigh this situation is up to you to decide."

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