After everything they'd been through, the group had clearly developed a... "profound" emotional bond.
Although at first, Stelle had followed Big Bro Noldrei's line of thinking, wanting to bait these people out and then wipe them all out.
But now, she was discovering that simply wiping them out wasn't going to work.
Because Stelle found that she didn't have the ability to shatter a substance like Memoria.
This substance seemed to be connected to the power of the Aeons, and at the same time, it was highly bound to a special energy source like Imaginary Energy. To destroy such a thing was no simple task.
You either had to use a special entity born from Memoria to destroy it, or you had to use a specific, corresponding ability.
Among the current team, Acheron possessed such an ability, and Black Swan had something similar.
The others, however, did not. They would have to rely on a special entity born from Memoria to destroy it.
"Penacony is, in effect, a giant Memoriascape, filled with the power of Memoria. If you want to bring the effect of death to people within the dream, the only way is to inflict an actual loss of Memoria in your attacks. Only then can a person touch upon 'Death.'"
"And such a power exists only within the Memoriascape Memes." Black Swan explained the current situation in Penacony. Her explanation was actually quite clear and simple.
To put it bluntly, it was a power not yet controlled by the Family, a power that originated from Memoria itself.
It was just being described in a cryptic, riddle-like way through the concept of "Death."
Noldrei was slightly curious. He borrowed Stelle's body to ask, "Are you saying that to find the hidden location in Penacony's dreamscape, we need to use the power of the Memoriascape itself to do the job? Is there any way to increase the presence of these Memoriascape Memes within the Memoriascape?"
Black Swan didn't explain how to increase the number of these Memes.
Instead, she explained the reason for their existence. "Memoriascape Memes are entities that contain specific cognitions, formed from the accumulation of subconscious fragments within the Memoriascape. They are memetic lifeforms born in 'Memory,' and they obey the concepts they carry, wandering the Memoriascape, eager to devour more Memoria."
"Oh? You mean to say, these things instinctively seek out Memoria that shares their own cognition?"
Noldrei found these peculiar things quite strange. In his eyes, this thing wasn't like so-called memory at all. Or rather, memory in this world was more akin to another kind of existence—experience.
Empiricism, too, is an epistemological theory founded on what is known. It was just that here, some kind of power had materialized the experiences of life.
[Feels more like some kind of Imaginary lifeform...]
Noldrei didn't voice his suspicion, but he noticed something else that was different.
"Memoriascape Memes will attack Memoria that possesses the same cognition. Right now, we are essentially just borrowing shells created from Memoria. When we are attacked by these special entities, they are, in essence, plundering and stripping away the Memoria of that same cognition from us."
"So, in theory, if the concentration of Memoria with a certain shared cognition reaches a certain level in one place, it will inevitably be drawn to it like a shark to blood, coming to capture the prey it seeks."
"It will instinctively plunder the memories that contain a person's cognitive experiences."
Black Swan was very satisfied with Noldrei's perceptiveness. She believed that such a clever fellow could at least make his way to the presence of Nous, the Aeon of Erudition.
She explained, "Creatures like Memoriascape Memes can continuously seek out and devour Memoria of the same cognition within the Memoriascape. They will further strengthen and solidify their own entities based on the cognition they acquire, thus completing their own growth and transformation. It is an extremely special form of memetic existence, capable of expanding and roaming within human cognition."
"Therefore, if you wish to find the Memoriascape hidden beyond cognition, you must capture one such Memoriascape Meme and use its ability to reverse-track... the Clockmaker's hiding place."
Black Swan's knowledge of the Memoriascape successfully informed everyone how to find the Clockmaker's location. The only trouble now was figuring out how to make a Memoriascape Meme come out on its own to be captured by them.
"Cognition... shaping everyone's cognition in the dream. That means we have to find a way to make many people share the same cognition. And we have to maintain a large enough number of people with this cognition to keep the Memoria concentration high enough for their cognition to be captured by that Memoriascape Meme."
The first thing Robin thought of was using the power of the Harmony to shape this cognition. She could indeed achieve a similar effect with her songs.
However, the young woman had clearly never done anything so psychedelic. While many of her songs contained sadness and anger, most of them were positive and uplifting.
Creating a song that could evoke a resonant, shared cognition was actually a difficult task.
"I can do it."
Noldrei thought of something. What a coincidence, this was something he could actually do.
In the future world, merely relying on audio-visual effects was no longer enough to satisfy the needs for emotional resonance of Noldrei's era. Even language, text, and tone of voice were insufficient to meet the demands of human information exchange at that time.
Because they urgently needed a highly efficient and powerful means of cognition, the people of the future adopted an extremely complex method of communication.
And this was why Noldrei had been restraining himself until now.
If he were to use this method to communicate with others, it would cause an abnormally powerful stream of information to permeate a person's sensory systems in an all-encompassing way.
When one party was in a state of forced, unchangeable information reception, their cognition would be rapidly overwhelmed, and their brains would be infected and turn into "noodles."
"What? What did you say?!"
Stelle was beyond shocked at this point. She couldn't even begin to imagine what Noldrei would look like when he was singing.
That's right! Stelle! You can become a songstress too!
"I can be a songstress?!"
Stelle's face was a mask of bewilderment. She never thought a day would come when she could be a songstress.
"Then I'll be in charge of figuring out how to give these people a shared cognition. I'll give it a try first... I'm not entirely sure if it'll work. If it doesn't, we can try to figure something out with the Harmony."
Stelle felt that Noldrei probably wouldn't lie to her, but she had no idea what kind of song could possibly summon the so-called "Memoriascape Meme."
She figured that since her Big Bro Noldrei could do anything, his singing skills must be pretty okay, right?