Chapter 259 - 258: Knowledge Beacon

Chapter 259: Chapter 258: Knowledge Beacon

So, this world only seemed safe. You never knew what disaster might befall you in the next moment...

’Fucking hell!’

Lloyd cursed to himself, indignant over the painter’s tragic fate.

Even though they had never even exchanged names, the man had remembered his promise and had the final painting delivered.

Lloyd glanced at the painter’s final work again. After a moment’s thought, he picked up a nail and hammer, took the painting down, and hung it in the adjacent lounge to keep it from getting dirty while he researched the Orbits.

Even if laymen couldn’t appreciate the painting, Lloyd still wanted to preserve it properly.

After that, he went home. Not feeling much like cooking, he went out and picked up dinner for two.

Evelor was coming home rather late today, so Lloyd collapsed on the sofa, waiting for his sister while flipping through a cheap paperback novel.

But perhaps because the novel wasn’t very good, he started to feel drowsy as he read and eventually fell asleep.

Then, Lloyd found himself in an unfamiliar military camp.

Cover and trenches were set up in all directions, and hundreds of Soldiers were hurrying about, seemingly preparing for an important battle.

They wore clothes of a style Lloyd had never seen before, with a somewhat retro look. The weapons in their hands were oddly-shaped spears that looked a bit like Magic Staffs capable of physical attacks.

In the distance, across the battlefield, stood towering spires. Tall and majestic, they were like colossal pillars holding up the gray canopy of the sky.

But they were too far away for Lloyd to make out their specific design. He could only tell they weren’t the same type as the familiar Twisted Spires; their general silhouette was more like that of the Veto Sanctuary.

Just then, Lloyd heard a majestic command from behind him, spoken in a dialect he couldn’t understand at all.

He turned to see a tall, powerful Armored Knight issuing orders in that same incomprehensible language.

The Knight appeared to be nearly ten feet tall. His armor was entirely silver-white, with smooth, flowing lines in a form-fitting design. It had a futuristic, almost sci-fi structure, like something high-tech from Earth.

His faceplate was a V-shaped crystal, dark red, which pulsed faintly with his breathing, like an indicator light.

But at the shoulders, elbows, and knees, there were sharp, classical-style angles and embellishments. He also wore an emblem on his chest, giving the entire suit of armor a sort of "classical sci-fi" feel.

Following the Knight’s commands, the Soldiers in the camp took their positions. Each found cover, then braced their spears like rifles and aimed into the distance.

The Knight, for his part, unslung a Two-Handed Heavy Sword from his shoulder, plunged it into the earth before him, and gripped the hilt with both hands as he gazed into the distance.

The sword looked incredibly familiar to Lloyd, just like the one the painter had tried to show him in his final moments.

’If it were a bit more ruined, with a few more rust and blood stains, it would be a perfect match...’

’But to the naked eye, the painter’s work was just an indecipherable mosaic...’

Lloyd didn’t dwell on it, quickly following the Knight’s gaze toward the horizon.

Beneath the giant towers, a dense, swirling mass of pitch-black things was gathering, like a black tsunami ready to sweep over them at any moment.

At this critical moment, just as the great battle was about to erupt, Lloyd’s vision suddenly went black. He couldn’t see a thing, as if he had simply fallen into a normal, dreamless sleep.

After an unknown amount of time, he felt something soft and fragrant gently tapping his cheek. A familiar scent filled his nostrils—his sister’s.

Lloyd slowly opened his eyes to see Evelor’s emerald-green eyes, very close to his own. They were filled with anxiety and worry, and shimmering tears were beginning to well up.

Seeing her little brother open his eyes, Evelor exclaimed in alarm,

"Yi, you’re awake! Are you okay? Are you sick? I came home and found you lying motionless on the sofa. You scared me to death!"

"Huh? No, I’m fine. I think I just fell asleep?"

Lloyd paused, stunned for a moment. He reached up to rub his brow, recalling the strange dream he’d just had.

"Huh? But you never sleep at this time of day."

Evelor was still worried. She caressed his cheek and pressed her forehead against his, checking his temperature.

"Hmm... no fever. Does anywhere else feel uncomfortable?"

"No, no. I was just a little tired from work today, so I took a quick nap. I’m fine, don’t worry."

Lloyd quickly reassured his sister and pulled her over to the dining table so they could eat dinner.

They made small talk over dinner, but Lloyd was somewhat distracted, his mind still on that dream.

He was almost certain that the strange dream had been caused by the painter’s artwork.

’That painting was actually a Knowledge Beacon, something that could also be called a Lighthouse...’

To put it simply, if Forbidden Knowledge was a swarm of poisonous moths in the darkness, then the painting was a candle flame, attracting those deadly moths to their doom.

Of course, not just anyone could light this "candle." The two investigators who couldn’t make sense of the painting, for example, were perfectly safe. They didn’t even feel there was anything wrong with this "candle," just that it was ugly and bizarre.

’But I could see it. On one hand, it was because my inspiration was high enough. On the other, it might be because I’ve always been an artistic person with a good eye.’

’It might even be because I happened to need a bit of Forbidden Knowledge right now to achieve Transcendence within the Twist system, and had subconsciously developed a craving for it...’

Lloyd roughly summarized his thoughts.

His understanding of a Knowledge Beacon didn’t come from a textbook or anyone’s journal. It came directly from the content of the Forbidden Knowledge he had received in his dream.

It felt a bit like waking up and suddenly finding himself smarter.

However, this knowledge was all rather fragmented and unsystematic. Only a small portion of it roughly described the concept and purpose of a Knowledge Beacon, and even that was very brief. The more in-depth, detailed content hadn’t "sprouted" in his mind yet.

The rest was even more fragmented and currently impossible to interpret. But it hadn’t been swept into his mind’s "recycling bin," either. It was just left there, like the fill-in-the-blank questions on a test, waiting to be completed.

Through these few interpretable fragments of knowledge, Lloyd was able to piece together what had happened to the painter.

’First, I can be sure the painter didn’t do it intentionally to harm me.’

’A Knowledge Beacon is almost always the product of a flash of inspiration or a happy accident. To create one intentionally is an incredibly complex, troublesome, and dangerous process.’

’The painter definitely didn’t have the ability to make one.’

This, too, was something the fragmented knowledge in his mind told him.

’So the painter must have had a sudden, brilliant idea about a sword. He made a draft, which unfortunately formed a Knowledge Beacon. Then he was assaulted by Forbidden Knowledge, his Rationality slowly eroded, and by the coloring stage, all he could do was scribble chaotically.’

’Until finally, he met a violent end at home...’

’Sigh... If I’d known, I wouldn’t have asked you to draw a sword. I should have followed my heart and asked you to paint some cute, barefoot girls...’

As Lloyd pieced together the sequence of events, he couldn’t help but blame himself.

But he didn’t have time to dwell on his guilt. He recalled the situation again and realized how exceptionally dangerous it was to have Forbidden Knowledge poured into his mind while he was asleep.

’While I was asleep, my panel couldn’t function properly. I had to rely on my physical constitution alone to endure the Spiritual Contamination from the Forbidden Knowledge.’

A sharp, retroactive fear washed over Lloyd.

Fortunately, when he opened his panel to check his own status and used Enhanced Investigation on his sister, he found that nothing was wrong with either of them.

He hadn’t received any alerts for Spiritual Contamination, only for obtaining the scattered Knowledge Fragments. And those notifications had only appeared in a series of DING! DING! DING!s after he woke up.

But Lloyd could vaguely sense that he had suffered from Spiritual Contamination. It just hadn’t had time to drive him mad before it flowed away into the distance.

If he wasn’t mistaken, it had flowed in the direction of his dear Elolo.

The Spiritual Contamination he had suffered in his sleep had been shouldered by Elolo, that fledgling Saint.

It was just like how he helped bear her Spiritual Contamination while she slept.

For a moment, Lloyd was filled with emotion. If he hadn’t rescued Elolo, he probably would have been admitted to a psychiatric hospital this time for sure.

’Thank you. My Elolo really is the best...’

Lloyd gave Elolo a thumbs-up in his mind while flipping through the stories about Bizarre Derivatives that his sister had collected especially for him.

’Hmm... They’re fake at a glance. No need to even use Identification Divination.’

’And they’re terribly written. They must all be rejected manuscripts...’

So Lloyd made the excuse that he was going to his room to read, but in reality, he entered the Thought Realm a little early to check on Elolo.

’Please don’t let anything happen to you because of this!’

Following Lloyd’s whispered prayer, his vision blurred. He crossed a thousand miles, Infiltrating to Elolo’s side.

Fortunately, Elolo seemed to be fine. She was asleep on the sofa, lying on her stomach with a fashion magazine spread out in front of her. It looked like she had dozed off while reading.

This made Lloyd let out a huge sigh of relief.