More and more people gathered in the Stigma Space.
In the past, when they were immersed in the Stigma Space, they hadn't truly grasped how powerful the entity leading the Will of the Stigma was.
But today, the era had taken a leap to the very edge of what humanity could bear.
Kiana had long been curious about what Noldrei's ultimate goal was in leading humanity to this point.
It wasn't just a question that the Otto who had charged into the Imaginary Tree was curious about; it was a question on the minds of Cocolia, Welt Yang, Dr. Tesla, and everyone who had followed Noldrei to fight the Honkai.
The encoding of genes determined the existence of the Will of the Stigma, and the process of transcription could be arbitrarily altered like a program.
In Misteln's hands, this ability would have been a power for her alone. But in Noldrei's hands, it became a powerful engine driving the progress of human history.
"My fellow kin, I have been in this era for some time now. I believe you may have all sensed that something isn't quite right—why the history of the Honkai and the history of the Stigma have suddenly been exposed to human civilization."
"Why this matter of the Honkai, so deeply tied to the development of human civilization, has suddenly been revealed to everyone."
"Some believe it's because of the creation of Stigma battlesuits. Others think it's the development of technology. And of course, some might attribute it to the detestable internal political struggles of Schicksal and Anti-Entropy."
"None of these are the primary reason. It is because the conflict with the Honkai has been mutually demoted to a secondary position by both Schicksal and Anti-Entropy."
"Honkai Beasts have a very famous characteristic: they think using their dreams. We can think of it in reverse: if a Honkai Beast were to awaken in reality, they would abandon their ability to think and, in reality, truly... walk toward the death of their own life."
"Welcome to the world of Imaginary rules."
Everyone immersed in the Stigma Space witnessed a startling scene.
A great golden tree shot up from the ground, its canopy wreathed in a multicolored glow. Countless unfamiliar memory fragments floated in the air.
Some people tried to gently touch these fragments with their fingers, and a stream of strange memories flowed into their minds like a rewinding tape.
The space was filled with floating memories from different sources, woven together like a great net that made everyone who entered the Stigma Space afraid to move.
The contents of the memories were naturally a mix of good and bad. No one dared to be certain that absorbing too many memories from the Stigma Space wouldn't turn them into someone else.
"This is a part of the Will of the Stigma, the fragments of the 'self' you encounter in your Stigma battlesuit trials."
"It's very likely you don't know who is latent within you..."
Noldrei had yet to appear in the Stigma Space, but the scene he had created was already bewildering the users of the Stigma battlesuits.
Most people were waiting for Noldrei to tell them what the new world was really like.
They watched the wondrous, bubbling changes around them, filled with anticipation for what might happen next.
---||---
Kiana felt the fluctuations within the Kaslana Stigma Space. She thought for a moment and decided to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her older sister.
Durandal looked at Kiana with confusion. "What's wrong? Why are you suddenly so quiet today?"
"Don't you find it strange? Why do I feel like the Noldrei right now isn't directly declaring his authority or giving a passionate speech?"
The reason Kiana felt something was off was that she had discovered Noldrei was using a new method of communication: direct memory transfer within the Stigma Space, which gradually made people's spiritual will converge with his.
This strange method of communication was more like a top-down indoctrination.
It was like the first appearance of written words and pictures, the first songs and languages, the first radio, the first television. Whoever wielded this power was instilling their own will into others.
Now that Noldrei could directly instill memories using the Stigma, he would surely turn it into a tool for instilling his own will.
"This strange communication method... I feel like it could very well become the unique way Stigma bearers communicate in the future."
The moment Kiana thought that her spoken language might be replaced, she felt that all her past remedial studies had been for nothing.
"Is this how new humans communicate?" Durandal marveled at this "interactive communication." She now fully understood why Noldrei was doing this in the Stigma Space.
"Memories contain emotions, experiences, and knowledge, completely surpassing the outdated information exchange of the past. An ordinary person in the Stigma Space is like having no privacy at all."
Durandal was also worried about what Noldrei was planning, but they had all been brought into the Kaslana Stigma Space by him. She had no idea what kind of ideas Noldrei wanted to express to these millions, nearly tens of millions, of people.
"Is this highly efficient communication method what Noldrei meant by 'tolerating' us?"
Durandal suddenly remembered how Noldrei had mentioned several times that communicating with them was, for him, a frustrating exercise in patience. Now, it seemed he was most likely telling the truth.
Kiana explained, "I tried it once. I was thinking if he could just directly pour the knowledge into my brain. But he said that memory is closely related to associative ability and logical thinking. It's not like I would just 'know' things by getting the memory. If it worked that way, I'd probably end up like a typical college student who quickly forgets their high school knowledge."
"No, it's more than that. This communication method alone is not enough. His new world shouldn't be this simple," Cocolia interjected. She believed that so far, Noldrei was merely explaining the method of "communication" to these new humans with Stigma battlesuits. What came next would be his true vision for the new world.
Welt Yang watched this scene with astonishment. He had never imagined Noldrei would use such a method to present the new world.
This communication method had completely surpassed books. A tome of social philosophy could be compressed into a tiny sliver of memory.
"That tree doesn't look like it's made of Imaginary power, but it seems similar to it. Do you know, Elysia?" Misteln asked Elysia with some curiosity.
"That's the Gene Tree."
Mobius looked up at the tree, her face devoid of expression. This was the true secret hidden within Noldrei's body.
The true thing the man from the future brought back—the genetic data of all humanity.