Hearing Merlin's explanation, Lin Qiye's brow furrowed tighter and tighter.
"A higher dimension... Jinian mentioned something similar back then. She seemed to say that our world was merely one of Azathoth's dreams?"
"You could understand it that way." Merlin nodded. "For example, when we stand beneath the blazing sun, the light shining on our bodies casts our shadows upon the ground. Those shadows exist because of us. Once we turn and step beneath the shade of a tree, they vanish along with us...
To the ants on the ground, they see that shadow and give it a name. But is what they see truly us?
No. It is only a shadow. Through it, they cannot glimpse what we look like in the three-dimensional world, nor can they harm us in the slightest by stepping on it. To those ants of the two-dimensional world, we are 'unnameable.'"
"You mean that darkness devouring the universe is Azathoth's projected shadow... and we are merely insects on the ground observing them?"
"Though it sounds despairing, that is the truth."
"Then doesn't that mean we can never defeat Azathoth?"
Merlin fell silent for a long while. "Yes... theoretically, no existence in this dimension can possibly harm Azathoth, much less defeat them... unless someone can undergo Dimensional Ascension."
"Dimensional Ascension?"
"Ascending from the dimension we inhabit to the one where Azathoth's true body exists. A shadow can never defeat a person. Only a person... can defeat a person."
A flicker of hope ignited in Lin Qiye's eyes.
"How can one undergo Dimensional Ascension?"
"...It is difficult." Merlin shook his head. "The difficulty of Dimensional Ascension lies in making a shadow grow flesh and blood, crossing the barrier between dimensions, and becoming a true higher-dimensional existence... So far, only Yelander, the Holy Lord of the Western Holy