Chapter 621

Chapter 621: “Assembly”

The sunlight around Nina finally faded bit by bit. She walked toward Taran Ael in doubt and surprise, as if she was still trying to confirm whether this elf scholar had really “woken up” from his hazy phantom state. After looking him up and down several times, she tested the waters and said: “Mr. Ael, you really woke up?”

But Taran Ael did not answer her. He only frowned slightly, and his face did not look good.

This made Nina suspect for a moment that the fireball explosion just now had been a bit too strong, and this Grand Scholar’s ears had not recovered yet.

But a few seconds later, Taran Ael suddenly reacted. He waved a hand at Nina in a bit of a panic, then rushed to the side and bent over, starting to retch violently.

Nina jumped in fright but did not know what to do. She could only step up and pat this Grand Scholar on the back. When he finally got a little better, she spoke, tense and embarrassed: “Sorry, I must have blown you silly…”

“No… that is not the reason,” Taran Ael said, gasping for breath as he waved his hand hard. Nina’s attempt at concern almost made him choke again. After almost half a minute of panting, this elf scholar finally straightened his back and explained with a pained look: “It is probably the medicine.”

Nina froze when she heard this: “Medicine? What medicine?”

“The medicine that lets me ‘wake up’ in this dream,” Taran Ael said. His breathing had evened out, and he was thumping his chest with his fist as he spoke. “Only I woke up? Did you see anyone else?”

Morris was walking over from the side at this moment. Hearing this, he frowned without thinking: “There are others? What exactly is going on?”

Taran Ael glanced at Morris, then subconsciously looked around at this strange, unfamiliar place. He was clearly still a bit dazed, but he still began to explain earnestly: “Lord Ted Lier, Truth Keeper, organized a small team. I served as the team’s advisor—we gathered before the dream began and drank the ‘Blood Raven’ elixir…”

“Blood Raven Elixir?!” Morris was startled at once. He looked at the man in front of him in disbelief. “Isn’t that a bit reckless on your part?”

Nina did not understand what they were talking about and could not help asking: “Mr. Morris, what is it? What is the Blood Raven Elixir?”

“A kind of magic potion, extracted from several poisonous fungi. Very dangerous,” Morris explained. “It acts directly on the mind. After a delayed effect, it can put a person into a state like death, letting spirit and flesh separate and their senses go out of place. It is used to help read extremely dangerous ‘knowledge’. The people who drink it can, in that sleeping fake death, avoid the deadly stages of corruption or the curse. But because the elixir itself is too dangerous, only after strict review by the Academy, with tight safety preparations and confirmation that it is truly necessary, will the Truth Academy allow such an elixir to be brewed and drunk.”

The old scholar explained this, then could not help glancing at Taran Ael again: “I still have to say it again… isn’t that a bit reckless on your part?”

“But it worked very well. My guess was proven—so long as we force a rather strong case of ‘mental misalignment’, we can wake up inside the Nameless One’s dream, just like a punch-card machine will automatically spit out paper tape that does not meet the standard,” Taran Ael said, spreading his hands. “Of course, the other possibility was that we would be ‘ejected’ directly from the Nameless One’s dream and return to the Mortal Realm. But now it seems… the power of this dream is even greater than we imagined. Even a fake death on the level of the mind can only let us regain clarity inside the dream. If we want to leave this dream, we may still need some other way of shocking ourselves…”

He deliberately paused here, a proud look appearing on his face.

“An advanced application of the ‘Sudden-Death Method’—I was the one who came up with this idea.”

Morris stared, dumbfounded, at this Grand Scholar who was as famous as himself. After holding it in for a long time, he finally squeezed out one sentence: “…How did Lord Truth Keeper agree to a plan like that from you?”

“He did think there were problems with my plan,” Taran Ael shrugged. “But I told him that although the matter was serious, we should still put safety first, so he finally agreed to start with a more conservative plan…”

Morris: “…?”

He had always thought he was already quite radical on the path of scholarly research. Only now did he suddenly realize that in Lightwind Harbor, this elf city-state near the border, the elves who faced the “frontier fields” every day were even bolder.

“Don’t make that face, Morris. I actually know what you are worried about. We are doing something very dangerous, and this does not really fit the code of conduct for a ‘scholar’,” Taran Ael said. He had noticed the change in Morris’s expression, and at last he put away his smile and grew serious. “But we may not have many choices left.

“You have probably already gotten the news. A condition called ‘Sleep Sickness’ is spreading in other city-states. It is clearly tied to the growth of the Nameless One’s dream. And outside my laboratory, a tree that has drilled from the dream into the Mortal Realm is using its crown to cover my roof and balcony…

“So it is time to do some risky things, because this world does not seem to plan on giving us the time to get fully ready.”

Morris fell silent.

Taran Ael once more studied the surroundings. After a moment, he shook his head: “It seems the first thing I have to do here is find the others.”

“The good news is that you should all be within the scope of these ruins. The bad news is that the scope of these ruins is huge,” Morris sighed. “Now I will tell you the first bit of experience for moving in this dream—during a first ‘dreamwalking’, even if you and your companions are in the same room in the Mortal Realm, after you start dreamwalking you will still be scattered at random.”

Taran Ael looked at Morris, and at Nina, who was standing honestly behind Morris.

He did not see the captain’s other followers.

But it was obvious that these “Lost Home followers”, who had already acted several times in the Nameless One’s dream, had gathered a lot of experience with this vast dream.

“I need more guidance.” Taran Ael looked seriously at the two people before him.

…

“What was that just now?!”

In the forest outside the Wall of Silence, a black-robed Annihilator raised his head toward the sky, watching that intense light fade with startled doubt. After a long time he could not help crying out softly.

Yet his companion in the same group could not answer the question either—another Annihilator was also staring in shock in the same direction, unable to make a sound for a long time.

Just now, a huge fireball had risen from deep in the forest. It was definitely not something that should appear in the Nameless One’s dream. It almost shone over the forest like another Sun, tearing apart all the clouds. Its intense light seemed enough to pierce time and space, and in the light and shock of that fireball’s blast, the whole forest had a moment of “restless agitation”.

Plants had grown madly, the ground had shaken, and inexplicable howls had come out of nowhere in the air.

It was as frightening as when a “corruption phenomenon” broke out.

But this terrifying anomalous phenomenon lasted only a few seconds. Before the forest could undergo some irreversible great change, the fireball disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared.

It only left the two Annihilators, who had been carefully setting “marks” a minute earlier, staring at each other in the forest.

After who knew how long, the cultist who had first cried out finally broke the silence again: “That did not look like Atlantis awakening… it was not quite like how those preachers described it.”

“Then it might be some kind of external force…” the other one said, unconsciously lowering his voice. “That huge fireball… could it be those Suntists making trouble?”

“It shouldn’t be. The Saint is watching those Suntists’s every move. They should not suddenly do something that far out of line… And besides, even if they really are going to tear things open in the end, they would not be unable to hold back this early, right? The ‘final moment’ hasn’t come yet.”

The two Annihilators muttered uneasily. After a while longer, they finally, without planning it, thought of the same possibility.

“Could it be…” one of them began, his tone hesitant and uneasy, “could it be his followers again?”

“‘His’?”

“You know who I mean.”

“…What kind of joke is that?” The other Annihilator’s voice grew more tense at once. “That kind of commotion… that kind of commotion…”

He held it in for a long time before finally forcing out the second half: “What kind of monster would have to make a commotion like that… We aren’t really going to have to fight something like that, are we?”

Even cultists who followed the Abyssal Deep seemed to finally feel a trace of fear when faced with a power they could not understand.

But just then, the sound of footsteps suddenly came from deeper in the forest, cutting off the two cultists’ talk.

The two of them turned their heads sharply like startled birds toward the source of the sound, but when they saw the figures that appeared, they let out a sudden breath of relief.

They were their comrades.

It was Dumont, Richard, and the others who had split up earlier to set marks throughout the forest.

“Did you see that huge fireball that appeared in the sky just now?” one of the two could not help saying. “Could that have been the followers of that ghost captain?”

“We saw it. It was indeed very impressive,” Dumont nodded. His voice was as always, carrying a calm that made those around him believe him. “But don’t worry. We will not run into that power. We will all be very safe from here on.”

The two Annihilators looked at each other without thinking.

“Are we getting ready to pull out?” one of them asked Dumont. “It looks like everyone has gathered.”

“Yes, everyone has gathered,” Dumont said with a smile. He walked forward slowly, leading everyone to walk forward with him. “You were the last ones.”