Krafft's Anomaly Notes

Chapter 394 Dragon Scales
His pupils suddenly contracted, and a sense of crisis pierced his mind like a cold, bright light. The chill ran down his spine and spread to his torso and limbs.

The body quickly made a defensive movement, contracting muscles and tilting the neck back, then realized that the fluctuation existed within itself and could not be escaped by spatial avoidance.

His mental body suddenly tensed up—he could hardly describe this natural stress reflex, as if countless tendons were clenched tightly in the depths of his consciousness, his scattered senses coalescing and his invisible limbs retracting.

Things that were originally soft and floating curled up tightly and hardened into a dull, dense texture.

The fluctuation made its final, arduous advance, like water splashed on the beach, quickly diminishing and dissipating before being completely smoothed out and stopping in front of the hypothalamus.

Sweat mingled with the rain stinging his face, streaming down. He hadn't experienced anything like this in a long time—not just a threat to his life, but a fear from a higher level.

Incomprehensible, irresistible. Even the active lakebed beneath Dunlin can be interpreted as a profound biological wonder; but what about things in the clouds?

It could never be a creature made of flesh and blood; there is no known or imagined material that could make it reasonably exist.

He closed his dry eyelids, enjoying a moment of escapist darkness, before forcing himself to open his eyes and look into the depths of the rain clouds.

The fleeting flash of lightning illuminated a winding, undulating arc, its massive size creating the illusion of slow movement. Only when compared to the reef-like peaks amidst the clouds and mist could one discern the curvaceous, swaying form of its body, a sight even the Priyère Basin could hardly contain.

Even now, consciousness is still unable to judge the truth from the information given by the senses. Or rather, consciousness refuses to let the senses convince it from a visual and auditory perspective that there is a living mountain range suspended in the sky, which people living in the shadows have overlooked in countless gazing upwards.

As the emotions intensified uncontrollably, reason made the most rational choice—to refuse.

He reached out and grabbed the window panes that were swaying in the wind and rain again, his knuckles tightening inch by inch, the hinges creaking, until they slammed shut against the window frame and were locked in place by a metal latch.

The turbulent air pounded irregularly against the window, forcing rain and thunder through the cracks. The homeowner had already moved away from the window, closed his eyes, and plugged his ears with cotton balls.

The mental body, curled up to its maximum extent, was dull and dense, resisting change and quietly savoring the suppressed fluctuation, thus distracting itself.

He chose to convince himself that what he saw and heard was merely a cognitive bias created by some ingenious means, just like a rain shower, which comes down in torrents and with amazing force, but dissipates even faster.

"It's just an illusion."

His lips repeated the same thought to himself, speaking quickly, as if subconsciously trying to avoid being interrupted.

This viewpoint is clearly far more credible than others. Memory unearths the images, contrasting them with ordinary rainy days, interpreting them as cloud shadows sculpted by high-altitude storms, their outlines coincidentally revealed by lightning.

Surprisingly, countless similar cloud shadows could be found in past memories. They were common in the past, but were never considered to be unusual, let alone as living creatures.

This seems to strongly support the theory of cognitive polarization.

He took a deep breath of the warm indoor air and imagined the clouds drying out, being blown away by the wind, their huge outlines spreading across the horizon, eventually becoming a gray shadow.

My heart was still pounding like a drum, but it gradually slowed down, and my emotions calmed down.

My thoughts began to drift back to simpler things: the warm fire, the damp cuffs, and my fingers touching the fresh lacquer on the back of the wooden chair.

Consciousness tamed his emotions, and he pulled himself back from the edge of the cliff.

However, the established perceptions have not dissipated; on the contrary, there is a tendency to trace back along the memory, rendering suspicious traces in the cloud and rain weather seen in the past.

He recalled the first rainy day he arrived here. They were in such a hurry to unload the goods from the truck and move them to a dry place that they didn't even have time to look up. All he remembered was the ripples in the puddles and the splashing of his shoes. But now, looking back on that scene, he saw a strange, long shadow in the broken reflection of the ripples in the puddle, sliding down the surface of the water and disappearing into the ripples of the sea of ​​clouds.

It's as if I've gained a completely new understanding from the books I've read. The words remain the same, but the perspective has changed, and the results are entirely different.

More memories are being embellished. On the eve of the successful drug production, before my thoughts were disturbed, I seemed to recall something hard yet light falling out of the window, then transforming into a slender, wandering object that infiltrated the room or deeper inside.

He chased the intruder for half the monastery, but without seeing its appearance, he described it as a "snake" without thinking.

These contents are buried in the extremes of nature, seamlessly embedded in the past, as if they were always there, just like a painting covered in dust. Now, with a gentle breath, the key details beneath the pattern begin to emerge.

The things that were once most firmly held in my mind no longer seem reliable.

He was unsure whether to trust his memory or his reason and logic. But if even the most basic memories could be altered, the edifice of thought built upon them could collapse in an instant—so what was there to believe in?

Fortunately, he guessed at least one thing right: it was indeed just an ordinary rain.

Before self-doubt triggered a second uncontrollable emotional outburst, the tapping sounds outside the window became sparse. Once noticed, only a few scattered drops remained on the eaves, gathering in the belly of the dripping beast and then splashing into the courtyard water trough from its mouth.

The mountain showers came and went quickly.

He removed the cotton ball from his ear. The thunder had faded into the distant mountains, leaving only a low, lingering echo within the stone wall.

A moment later, the echoes were exhausted, and birdsong and human voices crawled out from every corner, intertwining in fragments to fill the void.

His recent experience left him with a lingering fear of windows, so instead of opening them, he pushed open the door and walked into the long corridor, letting his feet lead him aimlessly.

When he came to his senses, he was already standing at the door of the abbot's reception room. Raymond looked at him in astonishment, as if he had seen some rare animal. Behind him was Field, who was holding a book as tall as his eyebrows.

"You finally got it done?"

"Perhaps?" Kraft replied. He was indeed calming down, as if after a struggle and a wave of change, he had broken through a membrane and found himself in an empty space with no further obstacles.

As initially speculated, once that understanding was fully synchronized, if there was something substantial behind it, it might come knocking on our door.

It now seems that it really was just cognitive bias and illusion.

He tentatively glanced outside. The sky after the rain was a clear, deep blue, and thin clouds drifted slowly high above, their edges trimmed into fine, delicate wisps by the wind.

There wasn't even a shadowy figure, let alone any terrifying creatures that roamed and twisted for miles.

"It shouldn't be a big problem." Kraft's tense shoulders finally relaxed, and he began to appreciate the rare good weather.

He pushed open the window of the reception room and gazed at the open, unobstructed sky. The clouds were not distorted into any frightening shapes, which made him feel particularly at ease.

There's just one thing that's particularly strange.

The clouds we had just seen reappeared on the other side, repeating themselves like a rubbing or imitation.

It was as if several rows of huge, staggered mirrors had appeared in that spot, reflecting the sky in them.