Chapter 907: Simulated Universe·Unknowable Realm (13)

"Seal off all exits! Prohibit any personnel movement!"

The electronic synthetic sound from the loudspeaker instantly drowned out the protesters' shouts.

The Armed Archaeology School resembled cold war machines, clad in ready-to-deploy mechanical armor, like the return of an imperial war. Yet this was not a reenactment of history; this time, the weapons were firmly held in the hands of organic life.

"For truth and dignity, breach the quarantine line!" someone shouted from the crowd, and the protesters surged like a tsunami toward the "Dam".

Pativiya stood in the center of the crowd, feeling a chill surge from her feet up to the celestial crown. The Armed Archaeology School wielded a non‑lethal suppression weapon—an active suppression device—that, the moment it activated, instantly paralyzed the limbs of a massive wave of protesters, causing hundreds of bodies to collapse to the ground.

Xing also sensed something odd in her body; she seemed to briefly lose control of it and collapsed to the ground. She moved her eye muscles to look around, and more and more people entered the paralysis zone—some fell, but more gradually rose again. In the low line of sight, the silhouettes of the standing merged into a forest that blocked the sky.

The active suppression device halted more and more protesters, trapping them inside the Library. In anger they hurled books at the blockade, but against the assault of "knowledge" they were met with... a burst of blue light flashing from the plasma cannon's muzzle.

That was also the final hue countless scholars saw before death.

A roar reverberated through the Library's dust, heat waves devouring the oxygen, burning and suffocation arriving in succession. Ismail's magnificent dome shell collapsed with a thunderous crash in the explosion, and a massive crystal chandelier fell with sparks, forever pinning several fleeing figures to the ground.

Xing felt as if she had been thrown into a furnace, her lungs' oxygen sucked out completely, each breath like swallowing scalding sand and gravel. She struggled to rise, only to find her hand pressed on a still‑smoking tome, its ash‑covered pages mingling with a warm liquid that stained her fingertips red.

... they have merged forever with the knowledge they pursued all their lives.

All around was a veritable inferno.

——

Zero Zone.

"Armed Archaeology School... so its focus isn't archaeology but armament?" Aileen exclaimed, realizing, "... when needed, they can also serve as the Broad Knowledge Society's enforcers to suppress rebellious scholars."

"One could say this school is the Broad Knowledge Society's true engine of violence," Leikan said, a flash of surprise in his eyes, having not expected the Society to adopt such extreme measures to suppress its own scholars. He had assumed its scholars would handle violent issues with calm and gentleness, but the reality was the opposite; they seemed never to spare violence against their own.

Moreover, the quality of the Armed Archaeology School is almost comparable to that of a regular army.

"Bloodshed has broken out, Leikan. If it were you, how would you settle this?" Hugo sat on the sofa, his heterochromatic eyes looking straight at Leikan through the goblet in his hand.

"Settle it?" Leikan shook his head. "This matter can no longer be settled. Violent suppression is clearly not the optimal solution for handling a protest; even if this protest is forcibly quelled, fissures within the Broad Knowledge Society have already formed and cannot be mended. Unless—"

Hugo let out a light laugh. "... Unless?"

"Unless the internal scepter allocation system of the Broad Knowledge Society is completely overhauled, but since antiquity, 'reforms' have always been blood‑soaked affairs that cost countless lives, and the same applies within the Society. Scholars who wield scepter authority will never relinquish it easily; they will only dispatch the Armed Archaeology School to kill more people."

"As expected, Leikan… your thinking is still so rigid," Hugo raised his head and drained the dark‑red liquid in his cup. "Have you ever considered what the biggest variable is that caused the school war to evolve this way?"

"Obviously the scepter system," Leikan replied without hesitation.

"Exactly. Suppose... I mean suppose, if we could destroy all remaining scepters of the Broad Knowledge Society—or hand all those scepters over to the corporation—do you think such disputes would still arise?"

Leikan's brows knit quickly. "Your method... is truly absurd."

"If they don't let you sit at the table to eat, why let them eat properly at all? Why not just flip the table over so no one can eat?" Hugo's mouth curled into a suggestive smile. "... There has never been absolute fairness in this world; the only fairness is total annihilation. In any case, even if those people obtain the scepter system they won't know what foolish deeds they'll commit—so why not simply destroy the scepter system, allowing everyone to return to the starting line? Isn't that better?"

——

Because of a mishandled operation by the Armed Archaeology School, a chain reaction from the plasma weapon caused a cascade explosion that indirectly destroyed the Library's translocation portal. Both the Broad Knowledge Society and the protesters saw this explosion as unmistakably signaling that the conflict was escalating irreversibly.

"History's butterfly flapped its scaled wings once again."

And Ismail, now occupied by the scholars, faces a peace negotiation between the Broad Knowledge Society and the scholars that remains far off. The former attempts to admonish the latter—scholars shine because of the Society—while the latter strives to prove to the former that the Society's brilliance stems from the scholars.

Self‑reliant scholars launched an unprecedented academic exchange. The first universal emergency printer was their scholarly achievement.

Xing stretched lazily, preparing to face a new day's work.

As a storage and relay hub of universal knowledge, Ismail's stored knowledge became the scholars' greatest support. Using the collection's resources and their own research, everyone divided labor and began producing livelihoods within the Library.

"That signal—have you ever considered viewing its existence from a higher dimension?"

Xing found Pativiya inside the Library; although this protest incurred many casualties, she was fortunately unharmed. At that moment she was discussing the troubling signal with a scholar researching multidimensional space, transcribing the data into their model.

After a series of experiments, they finally discerned the signal's nature—a ripple permeating an imaginary‑number background. It originated from an unknown point and vanished beyond an unreachable range. As long as one remains within the ripple's domain, the mysterious error infiltrates the experimental data.

But unlike ordinary ripples, wherever it appears the wave values are exactly identical, showing no attenuation and unaffected by spacetime distortion, as if...

a solitary wave.