Chapter 187

Chapter 187: Ritual Dream

In another room not far from the cell, Song Cheng found himself holding his breath as he watched the screens. The feeds were layered with data readouts and filtered analysis videos, the Bureau’s machinery chewing the scene into numbers and patterns.

Bai Li Qing sat to the side, face calm.

“Director, did you see that just now?” Song Cheng turned slightly, glancing at her expressionless profile. “When that doll moved—”

“I saw it,” Bai Li Qing said flatly. “Some kind of unknown ‘silk’ with a physical presence in reality. It affects flesh and mind, but… it isn’t the same as the threads used by the Alice doll in my memory.”

Song Cheng nodded grimly and refocused on the surveillance feed.

When Yu Sheng “talked reason” with the cultist, Song Cheng hadn’t been surprised. When Yu Sheng and Foxy healed him three times and then “critiqued” him three times, neither he nor Bai Li Qing reacted much. They’d both seen enough blood to know where rules bent under necessity. Yu Sheng’s interrogation style—hit without asking—was strange, but not inherently unacceptable.

But after Irene acted, something changed.

A middle-aged technician in uniform sat at a nearby console, eyes fixed on the data. “The equipment just recorded a series of unusual energy spikes,” he reported. “The waveform is strange. Its features don’t match any ‘power’ in our records, including blessings bestowed by ancient holy spirits or the spells those ‘cultivators’ use.”

As he spoke, he swapped the display. A set of violently oscillating curves filled the screen in front of Song Cheng and Bai Li Qing. Parts of the wave even exceeded the axis limits. Beside it, a rapidly morphing 3D model appeared, its shifting surfaces dizzying to look at.

“Many feature points are beyond our detection range,” the technician added.

Bai Li Qing’s brow tightened. Her peripheral vision swept across the main feed, where Irene stood like a small nightmare made tangible. “Does it resemble an entity?”

“Not like an entity. An entity’s signature is relatively simple. It wouldn’t be this complex, and it wouldn’t blow past our monitors like this.”

For the first time, Bai Li Qing hesitated. Her voice dropped. “…Dark angels?”

Shock—and something close to fear—flashed across the technician’s face. But the Director’s calm seriousness held him in place. He swallowed and answered honestly. “No. At least, it doesn’t match anything in the current database. And beyond the technical side—if dark angel power really entered the real world, this entire floor wouldn’t have many living people left.”

Bai Li Qing didn’t respond. She stared at the three figures on the screen, her gaze heavy.

Yu Sheng, who believed himself to be human. Foxy, who was very likely from outside the world. And now Irene—something beyond the system’s understanding entirely.

This “Hotel” didn’t have a single normal one.

“Keep recording,” Bai Li Qing said at last, exhaling softly. “And classify everything recorded today as confidential.”

*

Yu Sheng followed the viewpoint, moving slowly through the abandoned warehouse.

Per Irene’s instructions, he lowered his presence as much as possible—no staring into irrelevant corners, no trying to force control over the body he was borrowing.

The bald cultist was dreaming, walking through a memory-friendly scene Irene had woven for him. He’d temporarily forgotten being captured, but if he sensed someone hiding inside his thoughts, he’d wake instantly.

Within the narrow field of view, Yu Sheng listened and watched.

Distant car horns. Far from the city center. Stacked shipping containers. Pipes hanging from steel frames overhead. Metal drums with worn hazard labels, half-obscured by grime.

A chemical storage warehouse?

There were no lights, but sunlight poured through a few high windows. Early morning, or late afternoon. Some corners were unnaturally dark, and Yu Sheng couldn’t tell whether those shadows were real—or gaps where the cultist’s memory simply refused to fill in details.

Footsteps sounded nearby, and Yu Sheng’s attention snapped over.

The “parasitized” viewpoint scanned left and right, cautious. It caught sight of a marking on a drum and seemed to relax. It moved around the massive barrels and slipped through a passage at the far end, entering a hidden room.

A dim lamp lit the interior. Strange-shaped candles burned on the floor. Several figures stood around them as if they’d been waiting.

Several?

So the angel cultists hiding in Boundary City and worshiping mysterious dark angels weren’t limited to the two who’d been arrested.

Yu Sheng’s pulse jumped. Instinctively, he tried to make out faces.

The moment he did, he realized each person’s face was covered in a layer of black mist. Their bodies were veiled by vague distortion. No matter how he tried, nothing came into focus.

A faint sense of rejection pressed in. Yu Sheng’s chest tightened, and he immediately stopped “staring”—the kind of attention that could expose him.

The others were hidden.

Had they used a method in the real world to conceal themselves, so that if one member was captured, they couldn’t expose the rest?

Or was it the cultist’s own subconscious protection—censoring his companions even in an unguarded dream?

Yu Sheng kept his presence low and waited.

“You’re late,” one of the blurred shadows said, turning toward the new arrival.

“Negotiating with that curiosities association member took longer than expected,” the viewpoint Yu Sheng inhabited replied. “I had to be careful so he wouldn’t get suspicious. He’s only just been exposed to the Lord’s guidance. He isn’t devout or firm enough yet, and he’s still wary of us.”

Yu Sheng’s focus sharpened.

They were talking about Lao Zheng.

“Is it going smoothly?” another figure asked.

“Everything is going well. The target has been searching for ways to resist ‘fairy tale’ for years. His hunger for this path outweighs everything. Even with doubts, I believe he’s started trying the spirit-summoning technique I left him. The Lord’s power has already taken root in his mind. Conversion is only a matter of time.”

“…Then are we really going to accept a convert like that?” someone in the corner said. “He isn’t a qualified container. He just happens to meet our current needs. If he truly converts and with his connection to ‘fairy tale,’ he may interfere with the Lord’s descent process…”

“Once this is finished, dispose of him,” the first speaker said, indifferent. “Being able to help the Lord’s descent at all is already a great honor for him. Dying while keeping an innocent body is the Lord’s mercy. And someone with a position in a large organization would cause massive trouble if exposed. We can’t keep him around long.”

The other figures nodded in quick agreement.

Just like that, it was decided.

Then the scene wobbled.

The dream environment shifted again. They were still in the old warehouse’s office area, but the drifting shadows had rearranged themselves around the candles in a deliberate pattern. One stepped forward and dropped some kind of spice into the flame. Others bent down and began smearing blood across the floor.

They chanted obscure, difficult words. They prayed with a fervor that felt almost physical. The candle flames trembled, then slowly synchronized, flickering in a single rhythm. The spices bled an eerie color through the firelight. Smoke rose, thickening into a curtain that wrapped around the shadows like a boundary.

They drank a suspicious liquid and began chanting together.

“We pray to you, that you may break free soon;

“We pray to you, that you may awaken soon;

“We pray to you, that you may descend soon;

“We speak your name, so you may find the road to awakening within our recitation. We speak your name, just as you heard it when you set out from that far, endless road—

“An-Ka-Ai-La—mother and cradle, hope and future!

“Shelterer!

“Soother!

“The first and final caretaker!

“The one who hears our names!

“The comforter!

“Nourisher of infants and children!

“An-Ka-Ai-La!

“You, and those you shelter, will finally break free of that shell—the kingdom prepared for your descent is about to open…”

They repeated that oddly pronounced name in perfect unison, again and again, as if controlled by a single mind.

As the ritual deepened, Yu Sheng saw a hole silently tear open in the roof. A horrible, ugly tentacle reached down, accompanied by a grinding hiss and a sound that made his skull throb.

The cultists fell into frenzy. Even without seeing their faces, their joy felt dense enough to become an entity, filling the entire space.

But just as the tentacle was about to touch them and bestow a new “blessing,” the candles suddenly began to crackle, popping like they’d been tainted with impurities. The synchronized flames stuttered and broke apart. The smoke curtain tore and dissolved, the boundary collapsing as if someone had ripped it open with bare hands.

The tentacle let out a shrill scream and vanished in the blink of an eye.