Chapter 6: The Greatest Sound is Inaudible

In this backward world not yet ravaged by headphones and speakers, most people could still achieve the first half of "sharp ears and clear eyes," and Kraft was no exception.

He felt he heard a sound, though it was extremely hard to detect, even making one suspect it was a hallucination born of staying too long in a silent environment.

It was like someone dragging a heavy sack across snow, where inferior fibers or something else ground against tiny crystals, the soft snow layer shattering under powerful external force, then space being compressed, countless intricate snowflakes collapsing into rigid snow blocks—that was the sound he heard.

If his senses were not mistaken, this sound was passing less than five meters from Kraft's window; in the darkness where even a well-nourished youth like Kraft could not see, its advance was decisive and powerful.

This made it very hard to persuade oneself with a reasonable excuse, such as explaining it as a late returner or a small thief carrying heavy loot.

No, that was certainly impossible. Kraft's hand was already on the hilt; although the otherworlder lacking exercise now occupied half of this soul, the other half, which had controlled this body for over ten years, could complete the high-difficulty move of shifting the sword from its sheath to someone else's neck in an instant.

Perhaps he would not resort to such an intense reaction for now, but even using just the scabbard, he could frontally knock out an untrained adult.

That sound, that faint sound bordering on hallucination, did not change. It seemed to linger in place, not moving away. It was continuous and low, inexplicably reminding one of a train roaring past; before all the carriages in the string had left, you would hear a constant, unchanging roar.

Kraft pictured the owner of this sound in his mind; it must be as long and massive as a train, yet able to move quietly through the snow. Those who had not seen its body could only imagine its form from the long rustling.

Content built from hearing and unfounded imagination was too erratic and bizarre, closer to a nonsensical dream than objective reality, almost making him suspect he was in a half-awake, half-asleep state, where his low-power brain mixed blurred information with subjective content without analysis, arriving at the conclusion that a train was quietly strolling before him.

But he knew he was very awake, awake enough to feel cold wind drilling in through his mouth and nose, passing the barrier of lips and teeth, swirling between the pharyngeal arches, and then being swallowed into his throat.

The cold air current, too fast to be preheated by the nasal cavity, scraped away the thin moisture on the mucous membranes, and sensitive nerves faithfully transmitted the signal to the brain. In such cold, the body's emergency mechanism began to work; catecholamine hormones secreted by the activated adrenal medulla would excite his circulatory system, pumping blood along the arteries into the Circle of Willis, then circulating throughout the entire brain to ensure this fragile organ operated normally.

So was there such a possibility: that a truly long, quiet, massive thing was passing before him, yet counter-intuitively produced only a sound hard to detect?

Then it even avoided all obstacles; in the messy village, it did not crush even half a piece of wood or a withered branch. It wandered freely in the snowy night, the boundless darkness being its sea of free movement.

In this sea, the low walls made of rock and clay were no different from the void; what it rubbed against was not falling snow, but something even more subtle and abstract, light yet capable of supporting a massive body to act according to its will.

Kraft did not understand how he had comprehended these things from a tiny sound, or perhaps no thought was needed at all; the complex and bizarre content was inherently contained within this sound.

He felt his thoughts had never been so active; whether wielding an iron sword or writing answers long since memorized, neither could compare to now. It was like a hammer forging red-hot metal, thoughts flying like sparks, a boiling soul that the human skull, evolved over millions of years, could hardly contain.

As time passed, the already full mind was filled with more information; things usually not thought of were pulled up from beneath the water, countless contents rolling past like a carousel—the thin layer of gray matter tried to find something within limited information storage to describe what was learned from this sound, thus producing the illusion of thoughts flashing like lightning.

This process was completely beyond the control of subjective consciousness; subjective consciousness was like standing before a dam with its gates open, watching everything known by the two souls surge forth.

The interconnected neural network chose the word "scales" among countless vocabulary to describe the epidermis rubbing against subtle matter; it was a fragmented shell composed of inexplicable content, enabling contact with the slightest concepts, allowing the lengthy subject to engage in meaningful activity within space.

And the subject to which the "scales" were attached far exceeded the reach of consciousness, developing from the known into the unknown depths of darkness.

Its traveling "sound" was the peeling debris generated by the friction between the "scales" and subtle matter; decay, which could not be inhibited, began the moment it left the body, falling from another conceptual space where it resided toward the space humans could perceive that overlapped with it, and finally disintegrating into information suitable for existence in this world.

Such information constantly diffused, spreading like expanding sound wave vibrations, emitting a final roar before annihilation; yet only a soul surpassing ordinary humans could, under special circumstances, contact this information and passively comprehend the existence of that source before the pitiful water-containing organic tissue, protected by a hard calcium salt dome, boiled.

And now, this tiny, fortunate individual, a hodgepodge of two souls by accident, because of double the content without expanded capacity, had reached a density touching a subtle passing line, enabling him to "hear" things unimaginable in his two brief, barren, and dull lives. He could not describe it in human language, only defining it as an indescribable existence surpassing the reality he knew.

On the edge of madness, he comprehended the meaning within the patterns of the Shi Zhu seen during the day—those things fell from a higher plane, changing and twisting during their descent, arriving in this world.

And those who received it could not understand its true meaning; using elements existing in this world to depict it, they described it as a giant snake in the night, winding endlessly, its body disappearing into boundless darkness.

Kraft sank and floated in his reverie; everything around him moved far away from him, and he did not even know if he was still standing by the window. Until a hand rested on his shoulder.

…………

"Kraft, you haven't been standing here all night, have you? Kraft?"

Vision returned in an instant; under the rare sunlight, the pupils' sphincter muscles contracted violently. In the sensation of weightlessness, Kraft found his stiff body rapidly leaning forward under the push transmitted from his left shoulder, the pristine windowsill magnifying before his eyes at a terrifying speed.