The moment their vision cleared, they found themselves facing off against an unexpected group. This wasn’t because they were part of Legacy or the government, but precisely because they were part of neither.
Sylas was fairly certain of this conclusion because they were a ragtag group of three, or so it seemed.
They were led by a gruff man whose eyes were red with fatigue. To his left was a middle-aged woman with short cut hair and a tightly held pearly white crossbow, and on his right was a young man who couldn’t have been more than 17 or so years old.
They immediately struck Sylas as a family, and right now they were in the middle of a cascade of danger.
Swinging scythes fell from the air and swiped at them from all directions. They were trying to make their way to the other side, but given how things had gone in this world until this point, Sylas didn’t believe that this overly simple “trap” was all there was to it.
If it was just about avoiding the swinging scythes and making it to the other side, any one of them could do it in their sleep. But with the trend of the puzzles of this world only becoming more difficult the further he descended, Sylas didn’t believe that that was the end.
Since Sylas didn’t move, Alex didn’t move either. Both didn’t seem to care that there was a family about to lose their lives.
The middle-aged man noticed them, but he only grit his teeth. He understood the ways of this world well enough to understand that it was impossible for him to expect anything of Sylas and Alex. In fact, had he been in their position, he would do the same—observing from the side and waiting to catch something that might help him and his family protect their lives.
Sylas, though, wasn’t observing the family very much. He had already seen through the mystery of the puzzle. The real reason he didn’t move was because he didn’t want to be interfered with. Who knew what people on their last legs might do out of jealousy? If he could avoid the confrontation and let this pyramid kill them instead, he would be more than happy with that.
He closed his eyes instead, feeling out the differences caused by Ithkuil to his psyche. They were still quite shocking to him.
But if he had to guess why there were so many, it must be that the laws of the world had a lot of filtering to do when it was commanded through normal language.
As much processing as humans had to do to understand other humans, wouldn’t the system or the world itself have to do the same?
When Sylas communicated what he wanted the Runes to do, how exactly did that process work?
He always described a lot of what he did with this world as moving his “intent.” When he opened his notifications, he did it with his “intent.” When he chose an option from the system, he did so with his “intent.” When he communicated with the system to trigger the activation of a Skill, he did so with his “intent.”
But if he boiled it down to what it truly was, wasn’t he just thinking a thing?
His intent was just a complicated formulation of thoughts, and ultimately, his thoughts were formed in the language of Earth even if said thoughts didn’t come out with words themselves.
As any linguistics expert would tell you, just the act of thinking in another language changed the intent behind things. Different cultures, back when Earth used to have many hundreds of languages, would even have different types of humor and sense of what was and wasn’t funny just based on how they thought. And this went beyond just wordplay.
This kind of language you had could dictate so much.
Every time Sylas came across one of the words on the altars, his mind kept going back to the word “Enlightenment,” when in reality it was a completely different word before him.
He realized now that his language was actually too simple and ambiguous by extension of that.
Thinking in Ithkuil gave his thoughts a sharper edge to them, greater refinement. It was something that was hard to explain, but he could think more clearly and even understand himself with greater clarity.
The most shocking thing Sylas realized was that had he been thinking in Ithkuil since the very start of his journey, it would have taken him half the time to raise his Madness Comprehension to Gold.
Just the language itself made him feel like he could deduce things with greater speed because the neural connections linking every word in his vocabulary were so granular and focused that he had no choice but to refine his thought to the greatest levels of specification.
If he didn’t, it was almost like he didn’t have the right to have a thought at all.
‘Truly amazing…’
This was the translation of Sylas’ thought, but in reality, the raw emotion of his words was far more than anything he would have ever expressed before.
It was almost like Ithkuil was also making him more emotional at the same time. And that thought alone made Sylas think of something more profound.
Why was it that intelligent creatures evolved to have emotions? Was that the natural state of the universe?
Why was it that this language that allowed him to hear the rhythmic beating of the Earth’s heart so much more clearly also made him so much more in tune with his own heart?
“—Please! I am in possession of something that will be of great help to you, I am certain. If you save my family, all of my possessions are yours! If not, I will let these guillotines destroy it!”
Sylas opened his eyes and only now seemed to tune the world back in. His gaze sharpened when he saw the large gold coin in the man’s hand.
With a step, he suddenly accelerated into the line of swinging blades.
