Alaya and Amala

Merlin had been about to dispel Avalon's barrier when he saw Sovell looking as though he had suddenly turned against his teacher.

He immediately grabbed the staff beside him, pointed it straight at the boy, and muttered:

"Did the magical energy fry his brain? That shouldn't have happened..."

Meanwhile, Sovell had already lost his patience and shouted at Merlin:

"Answer my question.

You have neither identified yourself nor explained your purpose, yet you point your staff at me. Such insolence!

If you leave now, I shall not hold you accountable.

But if you insist on remaining here, do not blame me for showing no mercy."

Hmm... yelling some sense into him would probably be difficult. Maybe I should just knock him out.

As Merlin thought this, he answered Sovell to keep him occupied:

"I am Merlin, the Magus of Flowers.

Of course, a visitor should explain his purpose. The problem is, you are the visitor."

That single reply left Sovell utterly bewildered.

"I am the visitor?"

"Yes, you are the visitor. I'm just a harmless Incubus tending my own garden, and you suddenly barged in."

"An Incubus? Then my arrival here was not without cause."

"Might I ask what that cause is?"

Sovell naturally had no intention of keeping him guessing:

"My name is Silver. I am the Storm King, the Lord of the End. My mission is-"

At that, Sovell swung the Holy Spear in his hand, sending a blade of light slashing toward Merlin.

"To preserve human civilization."

Alarm shot through Merlin. Not daring to let his guard down, he hurriedly dodged aside.

"Preserve human civilization? Alaya...? Damn it, I still let my guard down."

Alaya, whose full designation was the Counter Force • Alaya Consciousness, was a collective consciousness formed from the unconscious minds of all Primates-humanity.

It was a safety mechanism that answered humanity's prayers to avert a destructive end.

Alaya took its name from the Eighth Consciousness of the Buddhist Yogacara school.

The so-called Eighth Consciousness, Alaya, stored the seeds of all dharmas-all things and phenomena-in the world.

The first seven consciousnesses were, respectively: eye, nose, ear, tongue, body, mind, and Manas Consciousness.

The first six governed human perception and understanding of the world, while the seventh clung to the perception of Alaya as the "self."

Alaya, in turn, was the origin and foundation of the existence and activity of these seven consciousnesses.

As mentioned earlier, the Tower of Radiance, the Holy Spear, Rhongomyniad, was in its true form the Anchor of the Star, which fixed the world's inner and outer layers and its physical laws in place.

Who could have forged such an anchor?

A mage? Impossible.

Even the gods of legend lacked such tremendous power.

Then there could be only one answer.

The Counter Force.

But Alaya Consciousness was not the only Counter Force involved in forging the Holy Spear. A second Counter Force had also participated.

This second Counter Force was the consciousness that stood opposite humanity and answered the planet's wish to continue its own existence: Gaia Consciousness.

Its namesake, needless to say, was Gaia, the goddess of the earth and eldest daughter of Chaos, the primordial god of spacetime and chaos in Greek mythology.

Gaia and Alaya had forged several Anchors of the Star together to stabilize the world's inner and outer layers and its physical laws.

Some might find this puzzling:

Wasn't Gaia the consciousness that sought to preserve the planet's own life? Why would it help Alaya, which represented humanity?

Because humanity currently occupied the status of the planet's [Primate].

Humans were the [Primates] of all living things.

At least until another species qualified to replace humanity and occupy the status of [Primate] appeared, humanity held dominion over the planet.

If humanity and its civilization were destroyed, there was a high probability that the planet itself would also die.

Thus, unless humanity and the planet faced an irreconcilable conflict in which only one could survive, Alaya and Gaia Consciousness did not actually harbor any deep-seated hatred for each other.

Either could cooperate with the other when needed, provided doing so did not threaten its own continued existence.

For example, as mentioned above, they had jointly forged several Anchors of the Star, including the Holy Lance Rhongomyniad.

The Holy Spear contained the divinity and immense power of both, allowing it to stabilize the world's physical laws.

Of the two, Alaya Consciousness's divinity arose from humanity's collective consciousness, and Alaya's power made up a greater share of the Holy Spear, giving it the dominant role.

Its divinity was therefore more active than that of Gaia Consciousness, which represented the planet.

Just moments earlier, Sovell had poured an enormous amount of magical energy into the Holy Spear in a short span of time. The Holy Spear had assimilated that energy and imbued it with Alaya's divinity.

Under Sovell's control, that divine magical energy had been compressed inside the Holy Spear, while he had drawn the overflowing portion into his body.

The Alaya divinity within the magical energy that entered Sovell's body had resonated with his human consciousness.

Alaya had answered Sovell's subconscious wish to live, actively manipulating the magical energy to repair the damage that the magical backlash had inflicted on his body.

Sovell's elevated body temperature and chaotic magical energy were manifestations of Alaya manipulating that energy to repair his body.

But Sovell's consciousness had already fallen dormant because of the Holy Spear's magical backlash and the overload of magical energy flowing through him.

Thus, in the course of repairing Sovell's body, Alaya's divinity had unwittingly taken control of it.

Using that as its foundation, it had begun carrying out its mission to preserve human civilization.

The result was Silver, who now stood before Merlin, calling himself the Storm King and the Lord of the End while attacking him outright.

To put it in terms of a dark joke, Sovell had probably achieved what they called the union of man and spear over in Seres.

The instant Silver declared his goal of preserving human civilization, Merlin realized that Alaya had influenced Sovell.

To a mage of Merlin's caliber, the Counter Force had never been a secret.

After Jesus Christ ascended to heaven, the continent's Age of Myth receded, and the Age of Humanity began.

From that time onward, the ultimate purpose of a mage's existence had been to reach the origin of all things in the world-

The [Root].

As an analogy, if all things in the world were flowing water, then the [Root] was a vortex from which clear water continuously overflowed.

Every phenomenon in the world was a ripple stirred up by the water flowing out of that vortex.

For this reason, some also called the [Root] the [Swirl of the Root].

And it was the Counter Force that had always obstructed mages from reaching the Root.

Of course, if one continued this reasoning using the teachings of the Buddhist Yogacara school, the [Root] could likewise be called the ninth consciousness, beyond the ordinary eight-

Amala Consciousness, the stainless consciousness.

By practicing their chosen path, cultivators purified the seeds of defilement within Alaya Consciousness-reducing and undoing evil causes and karma-and nurtured its seeds of purity-increasing and advancing good causes and karma.

They ultimately reached the state of Amala Consciousness, attaining enlightenment and liberation.

In the Yogacara school, Amala Consciousness represented the purest and most fundamental spiritual state and faculty of cognition.

It was the pure nature of mind inherent in all sentient beings, regarded as the true essence and [Root] of all dharmas.

As for mages breaking through the obstruction of the two great Counter Forces, Alaya and Gaia, to reach the Root-

That might correspond precisely to the process in Yogacara teachings by which sentient beings transformed from Alaya Consciousness into Amala Consciousness.