Chapter 634

Chapter 634: .

Shirley felt that she had been sinking in darkness for a long time. She kept sinking, as if the whole world had suddenly turned into nothingness and she would fall into an endless sleep in this descent.

Until a huge force suddenly grabbed her arm, and Dog’s voice rang directly in her mind: “Shirley! Wake up! Wake up! Don’t sleep!!”

Shirley finally jolted awake from that dream of falling, and she almost sprang straight up from the spot: “Dog! Fire! The city is on fire again!”

That horrible scene of flames spreading across the sky still seemed to burn in her fading memories. The crushing fear of seeing an entire city swallowed by fire made her heart pound wildly. She could not remember how long it had been since she last had a nightmare like that. When she woke up, she was not even sure if she had truly awakened, or if she had fallen into another nightmare that was about to go up in flames.

But Dog’s voice pulled her back from her panic: “Shirley, there’s no fire. That was just a dream. There is no big fire here now…”

Shirley finally woke up completely. She shook her head. The scene in front of her was still a little blurry, but she could see lush green filling her vision and hear the sound of flowing water by her ear. She also saw Dog beside her. That let her relax at last. She leaned against Dog without thinking and took a few deep breaths: “That really scared me to death… So what was that just now… Why was the whole city suddenly on fire? Where are we now…”

“We are inside the Nameless One’s dream.” Lucretia’s voice suddenly came from the side, cutting Shirley’s muttering short at once.

Shirley looked up toward the sound. The strange blur in her sight finally faded away. She saw the “witch” Miss standing on a tree stump not far away. At the same time, she saw the thick forest around them and a stream flowing across a clearing in the woods not far ahead.

She stared blankly for two or three seconds before she finally understood their situation. She hesitated, straightened up, looked around at the forest, and spoke in a low voice: “We’ve come back to this forest again?”

Right after that, something else suddenly came to her mind. Her face changed at once: “Wait, what about the Mortal Realm over there?! We’re dreamwalking again now, so is the city ‘outside’ still burning…”

“There is no more Mortal Realm, Shirley. At least, not for Lightwind Harbor as it is right now. The Mortal Realm has already been completely swallowed by Atlantis’s power.” Lucretia looked calmly at the girl who was panicking again and explained patiently. “Do you remember? When my Father contacted us before, He told us that Lightwind Harbor in the Mortal Realm had already disappeared. From that moment on, we had already fallen into Atlantis’s dream along with the whole city. The forest that invaded the city, and the city that was invaded by the forest, were all part of the dream.”

Confusion still showed on Shirley’s face. She had not yet sorted out what was happening in front of her. Seeing this, Lucretia only shook her head lightly: “It’s like how the elves in the city would disappear after nightfall. Anything swallowed by Atlantis’s dream will vanish from the Mortal Realm. We always thought that only the elves could ‘disappear’ in this way. Now it seems… even an entire city can ‘dreamwalk’ under the influence of the Elder Gods.”

Shirley slowly widened her eyes. The fact that the whole city had already been swallowed by a dream made her feel a cold shock. After a long time, she finally spoke in complete confusion: “Then… what kind of situation is this now? How did we end up in this place again…”

“This is another layer of the dream. Shirley, look up. This is no longer the ‘forest’ we are familiar with.”

Listening to the witch’s words, Shirley finally noticed that something in the forest looked a little off. Only then did she realize the strange “sky” that showed through the treetops.

She hesitated, then raised her head.

An endless, astonishing structure came into her view. It hung above them, held up by branch-like masses as huge as mountain ranges in the sky.

It was as if another forest was hanging upside down above the heavens. The vast canopy wove itself into a second land above the plains and mountains. Vines that glowed with soft light and clusters of light, airy spores drooped from the treetops. Dotted gleams lit every corner beneath the canopy. Branches of unmeasurable length and thickness stretched across her vision and met in the farthest distance, becoming a “trunk” like a towering peak. Along the path of that trunk, countless “smaller branches” drooped down and fell all the way to the ground.

Where those “small branches” reached the earth, dense plants grew. Under the cover of the sky’s canopy, they formed a forest.

“This… this thing…” Shirley gaped, stammered several times, and finally managed to form words. “Atlantis!!”

“Yes. Atlantis. We have finally met her.” Lucretia raised her head and quietly gazed at the canopy that almost completely blocked out the sky, and at the faint shapes between the leaves that looked like man-made buildings or settlements. “This is the World Tree that slumbers deep in the elves’ racial memory… It is even more magnificent than I imagined.”

“Wait, give me a second. I’m all mixed up. I need to sort this out…” Shirley said quickly. At the same time, she could not help but look up again at that amazing giant tree that seemed big enough to cover the whole world. “We’ve come down to a deeper layer of the Nameless One’s dream, and the real Atlantis is sleeping here. Then what? Are we going to talk to this tree and see if she can keep sleeping?”

Lucretia did not answer. Her face turned serious and her mind sank.

“Rabby.”

The rabbit’s voice answered in her heart at once: “Rabby is listening~”

“What is happening on that ship right now? Are those cultists doing anything?”

“Rabby was just about to report to you. Things seem a little strange here…” The rabbit’s voice sounded very low, as if it was hiding from someone’s sight while answering carefully. “Those cultists suddenly all hid in their cabins. Rabby heard them talking… They said the Saint felt a bad omen in fate, so all actions are stopped for now. They also said the Ender sent a warning that a new Great Hollow is about to appear, and they must move away quickly…”

“A bad omen? Moving away from the Great Hollow?” Lucretia’s eyes changed slightly. “You mean those cultists sensed some danger and are running away?”

“It seems so. The ship is running at full speed in one direction now. Before this, it was only drifting slowly.” Rabby spoke in a cautious whisper. “Mistress, Rabby suddenly feels a little scared. Did Rabby get exposed? Did those cultists sense Rabby and get scared away…”

“No. You are not that important.” Lucretia answered without the slightest hesitation. “You are not even a match for that ‘Saint’. That ‘Saint’ must have gotten some other piece of information…”

“Then… what should Rabby do now?” The rabbit’s voice really did sound a little panicked. This evil spirit that was so good at moving inside nightmares seemed to be heavily affected in the Mortal Realm. “Those cultists don’t seem to plan on entering the Nameless One’s dream again. Rabby has no way to return to your side through the dream…”

“Stay hidden and behave yourself. I will come and get you later,” Lucretia said quickly. “Don’t worry, I will appear in front of you. And if I cannot find you, then my Father will appear in front of you. Don’t forget, you have seen Him before. Do you understand what I mean?”

As soon as she finished speaking, the Nightmare Rabbit let out a near shrieking scream: “Rabby understands!!!”

Lucretia ended the link with a blank face.

Shirley was still standing nervously beside her, as if she were waiting for the witch’s answer.

“Those Annihilators seem to have sensed something. They have paused their actions,” Lucretia exhaled softly and said to Shirley. “We still don’t know whether there is any change in the actions of the other group, the Suntists.”

Shirley thought for a moment after hearing this, then spoke, not quite sure: “So that means we don’t have to worry about running into those Annihilators here?”

Lucretia just looked at her calmly. Two seconds later she spoke: “No. It means the changes in this dream have already gone beyond those cultists’ plan. They have once again made a huge mess that even they cannot clean up. And we… are now inside that mess.”

Shirley was startled by the slightly gloomy tone of this “sea witch”. She froze for a moment. Just then, a faint rustling sound suddenly caught her attention.

The sound came from the direction of the stream. At first, it just sounded like ordinary water.

But soon, a strange noise rose within the sound of running water. That noise spread outward, and it seemed to start affecting the soil, stones, and shrubs along the banks…

Shirley saw fleshy tentacles rising out of the stream.

The soil began to writhe like the skin of a soft-bodied creature.

In the shadows in the bushes, something with sharp teeth was chewing on something.

And on the tree closest to her, at the tips of the lush green branches, the leaves slowly opened their eyes.

Shirley slowly took in a cold breath.

The whole forest seemed to have started to wriggle.

She finally let out a sharp, powerful scream: “I know why those cultists didn’t come back – run!!”

…

Vanna opened her eyes in the middle of wind and sand.

The memory of the city suddenly going up in flames still lingered in her mind. The noise and explosions from the streets still seemed to echo in her ears. But after a long stretch of darkness and falling, she realized she had once again returned to that familiar place.

“Traveler, we meet again.”

A familiar voice came from beside her, and the blowing sand died down along with it. Vanna raised her head and saw, once more, the old giant in the tattered robe.

She understood what was going on at once.

She had fallen from the dreamwalking city down into the deeper layers of this dream.

“This will be the last time we meet, traveler,” the giant said again.