Chapter 36: Hikigaya Accidentally Gets Philosophical
Compared to the people in Washington D.C. feeling that the sky was falling and the earth splitting, Hikigaya, who had just consumed a nuclear bomb of an unknown megaton yield, re-savored the 'meal' and then his expression suddenly turned a little unpleasant.
Because just now, he finally felt the difference between that nuclear bomb's energy and his own energy.
In this world, no one had ever been able to quantify the energy level of a God Slayer.
But today, Hikigaya did it. This was based on the fact that since becoming a God Slayer, he had extensively used natural forces in nearly every authority and every battle. Nuclear energy is also a natural force, containing many elements familiar to Hikigaya.
In fact, before consuming this nuclear bomb, Hikigaya had made many preparations, not just for showing off. His goal was to see if he could quantify the energy he controlled by using a nuclear bomb.
He did not doubt his ability to deal with the nuclear bomb. A considerable part of a nuclear bomb's destructive power exists in the form of shockwaves, and the rest includes radiation and high heat.
The power of the Earth Master allowed Hikigaya to ignore shockwaves, and the power of the Sky Master allowed him to control heat. As for nuclear fission or nuclear fusion, the authority of the Sun could handle it; it was just a matter of time.
It turned out that the time was so short that it surprised Hikigaya himself.
He just swallowed it.
None of the preparation was needed. Hikigaya simply used the power of the Setting Sun first. Before the authority could fully manifest its power, the energy of the nuclear bomb was completely swallowed by him.
It was as swift and clean as eating an egg for breakfast.
And Hikigaya never expected that the nuclear bomb, which he had always considered awesome and the only potential source of trouble for a God Slayer from before his transmigration until just now, had such little energy!
In an instant, Hikigaya estimated that the energy of this nuclear bomb, whose megaton yield he didn't even know, had a difference of ten million times compared to the energy he could command!
In other words, the single-entity energy of a God Slayer is at least several million times the maximum energy currently controllable by humanity!
But what made Hikigaya's face turn unpleasant was not this, but a theory he suddenly recalled reading before his transmigration.
It was called Superstring Theory, which posits that the universe originated in a ten-dimensional universe. Due to the unstable symmetry structure of this ten-dimensional universe, it decomposed during the "Big Bang" into a four-dimensional universe and a six-dimensional universe. The four-dimensional universe expanded rapidly, forming the current universe over 15 billion years, while the six-dimensional universe rapidly contracted into a minute world of 10^{-32} cm.
In other words, the true spacetime of the universe is actually a ten-dimensional space, where four dimensions constitute the recognizable and analysable space of daily human life. Perpendicular to it is another extremely small, six-dimensional manifold.
A caterpillar walking on a straight line can only move back and forth—that is one dimension.
A flat amoeba can move back, forth, left, and right on a spherical surface—that is two dimensions.
A bird can move up, down, back, forth, left, and right—that is three dimensions.
Adding the one dimension of time, the world familiar to humans is four-dimensional, collectively known as spacetime. In this spacetime, four numbers are required to accurately locate a single point.
By extension, existence above four dimensions can see the human world with complete clarity, both inside and out, much like humans viewing a circle on a two-dimensional plane.
This theory reminded Hikigaya of his enemies and the location of his enemies.
The gods and the divine realm.
He had once entered the divine core world of Athena. In that place, besides the four dimensions, he could sense other things, but he could not discern them, nor could he analyze them.
That was probably a world beyond four dimensions.
And the fact he had to admit was that God Slayers, like humans, have brains and eyes that evolved only to cope with various situations in three-dimensional space and four-dimensional spacetime. They do not possess the ability to discern and analyze objects in higher-dimensional space.
If the divine realm is the six-dimensional universe hypothesized by humans, then the gods who can project their power into the four-dimensional universe in the posture of an Unorthodox God are beings that have already unified all natural forces. Their method of descent is to warp spacetime. According to the conclusions of humanity's most brilliant minds, the energy required to warp spacetime instantaneously would be one hundred billion times the maximum energy that modern humans can command!
If this is what gods are, then these life forms are too terrifying. Such horrific beings could absolutely not have originated from four-dimensional space like humans.
Only life forms inherently born from a higher-dimensional world could achieve this level.
Perhaps, before they became the gods of humanity, they were the indigenous inhabitants of that six-dimensional universe, entities that naturally integrated all natural forces.
This allowed them to change the structure of spacetime, control the number of spatial dimensions, arbitrarily combine and change particles, and create unprecedented forms of matter, fabricating the mythical worlds with incredible properties.
Hikigaya hoped he was overthinking it. After all, in many ways, the gods and human science do not seem to align.
Just consider: how can the concept of "Victory" be a source of power?
But one thing Hikigaya could be sure of was that the individual power of a god must surpass that of a God Slayer, because a Heretic God is only a part of a god's power, and the power of a God Slayer, in turn, comes from a portion of the Heretic God's body after its disintegration.
However, the moment he thought that such gods were still defeated by generations of God Slayers, Hikigaya's mood brightened again.
"I dare you to come down here yourself and play."
Seriously, he hadn't expected that simply quantifying the energy level he commanded would bring up so many seemingly vexing thoughts.
Reading too much random philosophy is truly not beneficial.
Hikigaya secretly thought that he shouldn't have tried to show off.
Regathering his composure, Hikigaya descended from the sky and returned to the ground.
The first thing he saw was Anne's expression... sorry, he couldn't see it at all. She had put her helmet back on sometime earlier.
She had clearly taken it off again when they were talking happily before.
"This is also a manifestation of the Sun power you control?" Even without seeing her expression, Hikigaya could hear the surprise in Anne's voice.
Make no mistake, Anne definitely did not think she was weak, but she was surprised by the increasingly strange powers Hikigaya demonstrated each time.
Because before this, she had always thought that her own constant transformations made her strange enough.
Moreover, the powers of God Slayers are mostly lethal and straightforward; their use is self-evident. How is it that Hikigaya has such a variety of tricks?
Anne had to admit that even though this wasn't the first time Hikigaya had used his authorities in front of her, she still hadn't figured out his methods.
Hachiman Hikigaya was truly the most unpredictable God Slayer she had ever encountered.
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