Chapter 190: "The Hero Forgotten by Time" Rast
"Let’s not talk about Senior Sister for now—let’s get to business."
Rast withdrew his gaze from the night outside the window, where Ingrid had vanished, and turned his head toward the Little Snow Ferret perched on his shoulder.
"In these past few months, the matter I entrusted to you, Dean Silver—"
"How has the investigation into the newly emerged Nightworld Remnants been progressing?"
Although it had taken Rast nearly four months to subdue Ingrid, bringing this proud Head of the Surveillance Bureau under his command,
He had always been clear about what he was going to do next. The future had long been planned—
That was to carry out further exploration into the Nightworld, into the subsequent Nightworld Remnants of the Sixth Era.
According to Starfall University’s past experience in exploring the Nightworld, each Bygone Era would, in total, manifest twelve Nightworlds, each corresponding to a different historical period.
Now, in the Seventh Era, the Nightworld recorded six already perished Bygone Eras. So, unsurprisingly, there would be a total of seventy-two Nightworlds—quite similar to the Seventy-Two Demon Gods of Solomon in Rast’s previous life’s mythology.
And the twelve Nightworlds of a single Era usually followed the chronological order of that Era’s history.
From the Bronze Age when the first spark of civilization ignited; to the flourishing Silver and Golden Ages of great prosperity; then the turning point where glory turned to decline; and finally the terminal phase where the light of civilization dimmed and was extinguished.
The past Nightworlds that had been conquered by the Night Travelers, those Nightworld Remnants of the first five Bygone Eras, all followed such a pattern—until all twelve Nightworlds of an Era were fully conquered, the Era’s final calamity would obliterate everything, then begin a brand-new cycle once again.
However, the Sixth Era civilization Rast had personally experienced was different.
According to logic, the Sixth Era civilization should have entered irreversible decline as early as the outbreak of the Iron Cross Plague in Deep Blue Port.
Even though the Shoreguards managed to keep the spark of human civilization barely alive for another hundred years, it was ultimately only prolonging the inevitable.
In the words of the Gravekeepers' legend Noah, following the laws of the plane—or the so-called "Order of the World"—the life cycle of the Sixth Era had already come to an end and was destined for termination.
If the Battle of the Fractured Coastline had been lost by the Shoreguards,
Then, deprived of the protection of the Shoreguards and the final Legendary powerhouse, the surviving human settlements across the continent would have been wiped out in the following decades, ushering in the terminal calamity as expected, and thus restarting according to the Order of the World.
But—
In the Battle of the Fractured Coastline, Sisel had won.
That Old Man used his final strength to drag all the Legends still able to walk the Western Continent into death alongside him.
He almost single-handedly rewrote the fate of human civilization in the Sixth Era... Reversing the clear-cut historical trajectory that had been delineated by the Order of the World into an unforeseeable fog.
Afterward, he entrusted the position of Shoreguards’ leader—and the mission of safeguarding civilization—to Grey.
Since the Battle of the Fractured Coastline, there had been no more Legendary-tier beings left in the world... Although Beast Tides, the Iron Cross Clan, and the Cult Group still posed latent threats, without the pressure of the Legendary tier, these hidden dangers no longer felt as suffocating.
What Sisel left to Grey and future generations was an infinitely vast, perilous yet vibrant, truly free world.
And Grey, who had inherited Sisel’s duty and mission to become the new generation of Shoreguards... Just how far she could lead the remnants of humanity across that vast wilderness—
Even Rast, who had lived through it all, could not say.
However, according to Starfall University’s statistics, at the time when Rast participated in the Battle of the Fractured Coastline, fewer than half of the twelve Nightworlds of the Sixth Era had appeared.
This meant that the Battle of the Fractured Coastline was not the end of the Sixth Era’s history...
It might even mark the beginning of a new era.
This new era would be the final golden years of the Sixth Era civilization and would become the convergence point of the Nightworld and Present World, of the Sixth and Seventh Eras... The very "Pale Interregnum" obscured in mist from a thousand years ago, now a blank space in the historical records of the Present World.
And Rast felt a powerful premonition in his heart.
Those hidden truths he yearned to uncover—
The true cause behind the "Fall of Canaan" two hundred years ago, and the origins of that seemingly intact Canaan Town lying between the Nightworld and Present World.
Also, why he had been trapped in the Nightworld Remnant for over three centuries, the true nature of Xiao Ai’s current form, and how he could reunite with her—
Even the origin of this "Nightworld" that had never existed in the previous six eras, yet abruptly appeared in the Seventh Era.
All of this—
He might find the complete answers within that final segment of the Sixth Era—the "Pale Interregnum".
…
"I knew you were going to ask about that, I’ve already looked into it for you."
Dean Silver yawned atop Rast’s shoulder. "It took a lot of effort for me to gather this intel, I even ate less dried fish these days."
She lazily stretched out her fluffy snow-white tail, which curled through the air.
In the next moment, a dossier appeared at the tip of Dean Silver’s tail and was gently presented before Rast.
"Speaking of which, I did contribute during your subjugation of Ingrid. Once you’ve established that organization, don’t forget to reserve me a spot on the organization’s totem in return."
"Of course. At that time, Ingrid and I will certainly revere you, Dean Silver, as the Divine Guardian Beast of the Cult. We’ll assign two caretakers to serve you tea, fan you, and groom your fur daily."
Rast stroked Dean Silver’s snow-white fur, took the dossier from her tail, and spread it out.
When he saw the writing presented on the dossier, Rast’s eyes narrowed slightly.
"In the past four months, two brand-new Nightworlds have emerged. One lies within the Empire’s territory, the other in the unclaimed extreme northern icefields of the Holy Kingdom of Fran."
"According to the pioneering intelligence returned by the Lionheart Institute and the Strategy Team of Starfall University—"
"The historical background of these Nightworld Remnants shows that their level of civilization has significantly surpassed that of the Present World."
"This is the highest level of human civilization ever discovered across all Nightworld explorations and may be defined as near-future or even a science-fiction era."
"After you cleared the 'Remnant of the Age' in the Arcane Tower last time and concluded the Battle of the Fractured Coastline, it seems that a certain rule restriction in the Nightworld was lifted, drastically accelerating the appearance rate of new Nightworld Remnants."
Dean Silver’s voice rang in Rast’s ear at just the right moment.
"Whereas in the past, a Nightworld gate would only appear every few years, even a decade or more, now they are springing up like mushrooms after rain."
She plucked a dried fish from her sub-dimension with her tail and nibbled on it, then licked her small paw. "At this pace, within two more years—before your graduation—all seventy-two Nightworlds will fully emerge."
Rast’s gaze remained fixed on the dossier. "The historical background of the Sixth Era’s subsequent Nightworld Remnants is near-future, even science-fiction?"
"Yes."
Dean Silver nodded. "The Nightworlds explored by us Night Travelers across the five previous Bygone Eras, though varied in technological trees, differed only slightly in detail—for instance, some were magic-based civilizations, others pushed metallurgy and alchemical technology to the extreme."
"But overall, in the first five Eras, the pinnacle of human civilization never exceeded the Steam Age—"
"Afterward, these civilizations would decline for various reasons, their technology stagnating or regressing until the end of the era."
"Before now, no era’s civilization had ever truly entered the Atomic Age, let alone an Information Age like the Present World."
Dean Silver yawned. "That’s why we always believed that the current human civilization of the Seventh Era in the Present World stood at the pinnacle of all eras in terms of technological development—an unprecedented Information Age."
"Thanks to the existence of the Nightworld, even when human civilization in the Present World was still in the budding Bronze Age, those Night Travelers of past generations could peer into previous civilizations’ inventions and creations through the Nightworld Remnants, thus avoiding many of civilization’s usual detours."
"It was precisely by drawing upon the experiences of prior civilizations through the Nightworld that humanity in the Present World could develop rapidly within a mere millennium into today’s Information Age."
"Only—"
Dean Silver glanced down at Rast. "As it stands, the civilization of the Sixth Era is clearly even more exaggerated than our Present World, to an almost unimaginable degree."
"Clearly, their technological level had previously stagnated at the Steam Age and even regressed—"
"But after the Battle of the Fractured Coastline, humanity of the Sixth Era seems to have undergone an inconceivable technological explosion."
"In less than two hundred years, they completely surpassed the Present World’s technological level, covering ground that took the Present World four or five centuries and still remains unfinished."
Hearing Dean Silver’s words, Rast’s expression revealed little surprise.
After all, though outsiders might be unaware, Rast, as someone who had lived through it, understood everything.
Leader Sisel had, by his own power and through his comprehension of the laws governing stellar motion as the bearer of the "Sun" Sequence, spent centuries in mental deduction to formulate a complete model of controlled nuclear fusion.
Before he chose to die in the Battle of the Fractured Coastline, Sisel had already stored all knowledge related to "Controlled Nuclear Fusion" within "The Fool’s Library" and passed everything down to Grey.
Even Rast himself had contributed by transmitting all knowledge and technical details of the future world to Grey through The Fool’s Library.
One could say that from the very beginning, Grey had stood on the shoulders of giants.
Under her leadership, the subsequent Sixth Era civilization entered the fast lane, undergoing a "technological explosion" in a short span of time. This did not come as much of a surprise to Rast.
"A science-fiction era... Just how science-fiction are we talking?"
He looked at the Snow Ferret on his shoulder. "Has humanity already built interstellar spacecraft capable of traversing star systems, left their original homeworld, begun colonizing outer space, and even constructed Dyson spheres to capture stellar energy, developed planet-destroying cannons and heaven-scorching divine weaponry?"
"And during the exploration of the unknown cosmos, did they accidentally provoke some Fallen Empire, which is why the Sixth Era civilization met its end?"
"It's not even two hundred years—we’re not getting that dramatic with the technological explosion."
Dean Ferret rolled her eyes at Rast and patted his shoulder with her fluffy tail. "It's just near-future, really. The structure of tech cities and nation-states remains intact."
"However, in most subdivisions of technology, they've already completely surpassed the mechanists of the Present World—"
"For example, in that Nightworld Remnant, biotechnology is highly developed. Mechanical organ modification, transplants, mecha armaments—those are the basics. In the most cutting-edge domains, they've even managed to create fully mechanical bodies capable of housing human consciousness, allowing one to live as a mechanical species through artificial human technology."
"And the entertainment technology in that Nightworld is also remarkably advanced, such as..."
Dean Silver’s voice paused for a moment.
"Such as what?"
"Such as those virtual realities you only read about in online game novels—VR games that fully simulate human senses and offer full immersion."
Dean Silver leapt off Rast’s shoulder, stood upon the windowsill, and looked at him seriously.
"Right, there's one more thing... It had to be kept confidential, so it wasn’t recorded in the dossier. I can only relay it verbally."
"A Night Traveler discovered someone’s figure in a Nightworld—a massively popular virtual reality VR game based on historical figures across the entire continent—as one of the game’s NPCs."
"Someone’s figure?"
"Mhm..."
Dean Silver’s tone turned somewhat subtle:
"Orphan of Deep Blue Port, Shoreguards of two centuries past, spiritual guide and pillar of the Legendary Leader Grey."
"The hero who, by his own strength, reversed the outcome of the Battle of the Fractured Coastline and saved the civilization of the Sixth Era..."
"The one called 'The Man Forgotten by Time', 'The Heartless Tyrant of the Netherrealm', 'The Lonely King Who Turned Away From All Beings'—"
"Rast."