Mob lowered his head in silence.

"You don't have to answer me; just keep it in mind." Reigen's lips curled into a slight smile as he gently patted the boy's shoulder. "I'm just giving an example. Every single person from the Intelligentsia Guild on the Celestial Screen is an unreachable genius to ordinary people. However, there are geniuses among geniuses. Before the Genius Society—it might be a bit hurtful to say, but those people from the Intelligentsia Guild are nothing more than a bunch of monkeys that can talk and communicate."

"The smartest monkey in the eyes of monkeys, given the title 'Perfect Scholar'—how big do you think the gap is between it and a human scientist?"

—

【"I've said it before, haven't I? The circle of knowledge. Whenever I try to step out of it and create a larger circle, accidents happen." Herta counted them off tirelessly. "At critical moments, the database is scrapped due to a storage component failure; core researchers in the team encounter a shipwreck during a holiday trip; a collapse caused by an accidental touch during a particle transformation experiment... Disasters always appear at the perfect moment to shatter my efforts."】

【"Is that how you became the the Savior?"】

【"You think I wanted this? I'd rather trade all my prestige as the the Savior for one instance of nothing happening." Herta stomped her foot in dissatisfaction.】

【Herta snapped her fingers with a'snap', and the surrounding scenery began to change rapidly—they had arrived at another laboratory of the Intelligentsia Guild.】

【Scholar Maurit's gaze swept over the dead synchronization index, his heart as desperate as an ape that had stumbled onto a starship.】

【Dozens of "Staffs" were concentrated in the same star sector, cold electronic cables connecting their calculation systems. But these mechanical megastructures responded with nothing but silence.】

【He had intended to achieve a multiplicative calculation effect and build a complete nervous system. But the inorganic cells created by the Emperor surpassed human intelligence, and the Scholars had no way to activate them. The dead genius mocked the incompetent mediocrities in the silence.】

—

Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World.

"That Scholar can't even crack the legacy of a dead genius?" Emilia sat on a low stool by the window, her eyes full of confusion. "For this attempt of his, the opportunity for countless people to use the Staff's computing power was sacrificed, yet it still didn't work?"

"Hmph."

A light snort came from the stool.

Betty leisurely held a cup of black tea, her eyes full of disdain.

"No need to mention that Scholar, Emilia." Betty waved her hand. "I'm afraid even if you gathered the entire Intelligentsia Guild—all the schools, all the Scholars, and all those who call themselves 'Heads'—their heads combined still wouldn't be able to fully crack the legacy left by Rupert II."

Although she knew nothing about technology, she was proficient in magic. Magic that some could easily master might be a chasm that others could never cross in their entire lives. In her view, "technology" and "research" followed the same logic. Mediocre people, even if they spent their whole lives and gathered countless others like them, could never catch up to the footsteps of a genius.

"Based on the timeline, Screwllum hasn't been born yet, right? If the King of Planet Screwllum were to appear, he might be able to crack the legacy left by Rupert II." Natsuki Subaru shrugged. "It's a bit of a shame; too bad we won't get to see the Staff system in full operation."

"Subaru, you really do love watching the spectacle~" Puck floated above Subaru's head, gently patting it with his small paws. "Forget about inorganic lifeforms like Screwllum. Who knows if there's any residual Anti-Organic Equation in those Staffs? If it accidentally infects Screwllum and turns him into Rupert III, the whole universe will face another catastrophe."

—

【But this had nothing to do with Stelle; after all, she was just a research assistant who had just lost her job.】

【Just as she was about to turn and leave—】

【A murmur.】

【Very soft, very thin, almost swallowed by the noise of cosmic background radiation.】

【But that voice was like a needle, piercing deep into her consciousness... like the wriggling of organic cells, the flow of electrons in inorganic circuits. To use a description of organic life: those voices from closed hearts.】

【They were enucleated neurons, lacking the function of thought.】

【They were asynaptic neurons, lacking the function of communication.】

【But why were they still making sounds?】

【Stelle touched their "skin," and subtle vibrations were transmitted through her fingertips.】

【Stelle felt "sadness."】

【Mindless cells, weapons of slaughter, the Emperor's Sword capable of annihilating an entire star system in a microsecond. However, Stelle sincerely empathized with them; her heart trembled, and tears flowed uncontrollably.】

【"What's wrong?" Herta walked over and asked.】

【Stelle wiped her tears and told Herta all the emotions she had felt from the "skin." Herta pondered for a moment and stated that later, with the assistance of the IPC, the Guild decoded a message from the Staffs—there was a core responsible for questioning, a command center that once connected all individuals.】

【But regarding the core, the Staffs provided no information. Location, function, everything was blank.】

【The prevailing view was that the so-called core was Rupert II. Now that the genius was dead, the remaining inorganic cells were nothing more than the residue of the Emperor's mind.】

—

Record of Ragnarok.

"Annihilating an entire star system in a microsecond..."

Nikola Tesla's pupils trembled violently. As the man in the arena of gods and humans who understood "science" the most and had complete control over electromagnetic power, he found it difficult to imagine what kind of scene that actually was.

A microsecond—that is the time it takes for light to travel 300 meters.

Yet in the hands of the Emperor, it was the life and death of an entire star system. Furthermore, what were inorganic cells? Tesla felt that he recognized the words on the Celestial Screen individually, but they were combined in an inconceivable way.

"What's wrong, Tesla? You look quite pale." Leonidas I, the King of Sparta, glanced sideways, a hint of confusion flashing in his eyes.

As a hero from a millennium ago, he completely misunderstood terms like "microsecond," "star system," and "inorganic cell." He only knew that the massive mechanisms in the sky, looking like stars, were created by a human Emperor II. He speculated that this "II" was some legendary creator god whose power far surpassed the gods in this duel between gods and humans, and that the stars in the sky might have been created by this Emperor.

Tesla did not answer; he just stared fixedly at the megastructures on the Celestial Screen. At this moment, his mind was in a state of great upheaval, and all his thoughts were screaming the same conclusion:

Ants.

Whether humans or gods.