Chapter 572

Chapter 572: Unstable

With a strange sense of unease, Duncan led Alice at a quick pace to the side of the huge “vine” that lay quietly coiled between the shadows of the buildings.

It was even bigger than Duncan had imagined.

Even at its farthest, thinnest end, the vine’s diameter was greater than a person was tall. Its thicker “source” stretched down from a slope deep in the street, then seemed to melt straight into the night, vanishing into the dim distance. He could only see huge shapes rising and twisting between the buildings’ shadows, as if some much larger, more complete “body” still lay hidden there.

Yet that massive “body” was shrouded in a hazy blur. No matter how he looked, he could not see it clearly. Even the sunlight that fell through gaps in the high canopy seemed unable to pierce that misty layer.

Alice had never seen anything like this. She stared, stunned, clutching the puppet maid’s head in her arms. She widened her eyes, trying hard to see the vine’s “source” where it spread across the street. After a long time she finally spoke in a daze: “Captain… is this also a ‘plant’?”

Duncan did not answer. He kept watching the giant vine that almost blocked the street ahead. After a long time, he walked to its tip, bent down at its “tail”, and carefully reached out to touch its rough, hard surface with his fingertip.

Lucretia’s voice came from the puppet head in Alice’s arms: “Dad, did you find anything? Did you find the Dreamer?”

“We did not find the Dreamer, but we found a huge… vine,” Duncan said without looking up. “It looks very different from the other plants in the street. It is enormous, but it seems to be only a part of an even larger ‘plant’. I don’t know why, but I keep feeling this vine is… alive, or rather, active.”

He raised his head and let his gaze sweep over the towering tree shadows around the street.

Thick vegetation filled the whole block, yet all those plants felt dead to him, like empty illusions with no life. Only the huge vine in the middle of the street gave him a faint sense of a living thing.

After hesitating for a few seconds, Duncan took a slow breath and decided to try to make contact with this unusual vine.

A strand of ghostly green flame flowed around his fingertip like water, then quietly seeped into the vine. The firelight flashed once in the dimness and vanished.

He skillfully guided this thread of flame to spread through the “foreign object”. At the same time he told Alice to watch their surroundings. Then Duncan slowly closed his eyes. He began to feel the information the flame sent back to him, and tried to communicate with and understand this vine that seemed to spread out from some vast dream…

In the darkness, something seemed to rise and fall, gather and then fade away.

Duncan “opened” his eyes in the dark. Through this faint and blurry link, he tried his best to see the shapes that were forming and dissolving there.

Mist rose out of the darkness. Deep inside the fog, something was coming into view.

There really was something here!

Duncan’s heart leaped. He moved at once toward that vague shape. He felt as if he had turned into a swift wind or a shadow, darting through the dark mist. As he drew closer, the hazy shape quickly grew larger in his view and slowly began to show more details.

He could not help picking up speed. The blurred details also sharpened in his eyes. Little by little, he began to make things out.

A tall, imposing bow. A dark-colored hull. Gunport covers lined up along the side. Complex masts and rigging. High above, sails that looked half transparent.

Duncan stopped in shock.

He raised his head in the dark and stared, dumbfounded, at the familiar sight at the end of the mist. He was looking at his… the Vanished.

…

Nina, who was moving carefully along a rough, hard forest path, suddenly stopped. She frowned and tilted her head, listening to the sounds coming from deep in the woods.

A moment later, she turned her head and said: “Mr. Morris, did you hear something?”

“It’s the wind. It picked up all of a sudden, and the directions are all mixed… it doesn’t sound normal,” Morris said, his face growing more serious. He glanced at Nina beside him. “Go ‘up’ and take a look at what’s happening in the distance. Don’t stay in the sky too long. Be careful.”

“Alright!”

Nina agreed at once. Then she suddenly turned into a leaping arc of flame and shot straight into the sky. The bright arc whirled quickly over the forest. Almost at the same time, the forest that had been formed by a dream reacted. The trees touched by the arc’s light began to grow madly, creaking as they stretched toward the sky. The clouds high above also started to gather toward Nina and slowly formed a ring that closed in around her…

But Nina only circled in the sky for a few seconds. Before the forest’s reaction grew more intense and dangerous, she quickly flew back down to Morris’s side.

“That was scary… this place really doesn’t welcome me…” she said, patting her chest with some lingering fear.

“Maybe your radiance is too strong for this ‘other realm’,” Morris said. “Most such realms will instinctively reject any invading power that can threaten them. What did you see in the distance?”

“Deep in the forest there’s an area where something happened. It looked pitch-black. The trees and the ground there seemed rotten. But it’s very far from us. In another direction I could see very tall, long shadows lined up together. They looked half transparent, like a curtain of light. Other than that, I didn’t see anything…”

Nina spoke quickly about what she had seen in those few seconds she circled high above. She raised her hand and pointed out the rough directions as she talked. But halfway through her words, another gust of howling wind suddenly rose from deep in the forest. The chaotic wind tore through the trees, and the sudden creaking and snapping of the trunks around them cut her off.

The howling, chaotic wind seemed filled with countless vague roars. A strange tension and a feeling of rejection rushed over Nina and Morris at once.

It was as if this forest shaped by a dream was being hit by some great force from outside, as if everything here had suddenly become unstable.

The two of them glanced at each other without thinking. Right after that, they saw the giant trees in the distance start to sway and collapse like phantoms. Fine cracks quickly covered the sky. Light and shadow from the Mortal Realm seemed to shine in through those gaps. A feeling of about to wake sharply from a dream rose in their hearts.

At the same time, in another part of the deep forest, Shirley also heard the howling noise rushing in from far away. Right after that, the Annihilator walking ahead of her suddenly stopped.

Shirley’s heart jumped at once, but she quickly kept her face calm and said: “Huh? What’s going on?”

“The dream is losing stability. The operation is over. Everyone is to leave the Nameless One’s dream,” Richard said as he turned back. At last doubt showed on his face. “You didn’t get the message?”

Shirley froze for a second, then quickly adjusted her expression. She put on an innocent, confused look. “I don’t know, maybe I missed it by accident…”

“By accident?” The Annihilator who called himself Richard stared straight into Shirley’s eyes. He seemed to finally notice the sense of wrongness this “young comrade” had given him along the way. A trace of wariness and doubt appeared in his eyes. “Comrade, I think I forgot to ask… which city-state in the Mortal Realm do you operate in?”

Shirley noticed the subtle change in his gaze at once. She was very sensitive to even the smallest hint of malice from strangers. Still, she kept her harmless look on her face. “I’m in the city-state of Morka. There are lots of elves there…”

“‘Comrade’,” Richard suddenly cut her off. His voice changed, as if some hidden syllables had slipped into his speech. He stared into Shirley’s eyes. With each movement of his mouth, some kind of tempting power seemed to spread. “We are forbidden to reveal our true locations in the Mortal Realm during an operation, even when we meet ‘our own’. What a pity…”

Malicious magic had quietly gathered in his mouth. The power of the Death-Omen Bird flowed along the symbiotic pact chain into the cultist’s body. He felt the spell lock onto the mind of the girl in front of him. She still did not seem to react at all and only stood there in a daze.

Seeing this, he became even more sure of his guess.

Someone who knew nothing about the spell’s power could not be a true child of the Abyssal Lord.

He did not know where she came from or how she had made such a convincing disguise. He did not know what was going on with that seemingly flawless “Abyssal Hound”. But there was no doubt this “comrade” was fake. Luckily, he had noticed in time, and the other side did not seem to have any combat experience.

It was time to say goodbye. No one could survive under the curse of the Death-Omen Bird…

It all happened in an instant. Richard’s flash of judgment and emotion, and the bright, happy smile that suddenly appeared on Shirley’s face, came almost at the same time.

Richard stared in shock as the girl across from him suddenly beamed at him. He had time for only that single moment of shock. He had no time to react or see clearly what was happening before the girl who called herself “Sarah” suddenly swung her arm up toward him, and a fierce black shape came crashing at his face.

With one sharp move, Shirley lifted Dog and brought him down. The chain howled as the dog smashed into the cultist’s head.

“See you the hell later!”