Chapter 624 – The Beginning of the Collapse

Chapter 624 The Beginning of the Collapse

Taran-El felt the childish but piercing scream almost chisel through his soul.

It was as if an invisible force was tearing at his mind, a massive mind pounding at his memories, and the scream spanned the dimensions of space and time and concepts, echoing over and over again through every phase of his life that he could remember, and despite only lasting for a very brief moment, it still exceeded tenfold, a hundredfold, the agony and confusion that he’d felt when he’d drank the Blood Raven concoction at the time.

And then he felt the entire Dream of the Nameless One begin to crumble, the winds howling, the earth tearing, the distant remains of the World Tree rapidly collapsing, and the silhouettes of the forests even further away rumbling and curling up as if gravity were rolling backward, and all of this sinking back into darkness in a matter of seconds, and he was aware of the dissolution of his dream, and then immediately after that, of the real world, and the light appearing at the end of that darkness, on the opposite wall on it as if it were flowing and swirling like a vortex, and gradually stabilizing, and then he heard the voices of other people around him –

He woke up, in the real world in the early morning hours.

Everyone was waking up.

“What happened …… How did the Dream of the Nameless One suddenly collapse?”

“I don’t know, it seems like a gale has risen …… I only remember the earth rolling backward in the distance ……”

“Is anyone hurt? Is everyone there? What time is it now?”

Someone was talking nearby, sounding dazed and confused, and the situation seemed chaotic.

Taran El struggled against the sharp stabbing pain in his head – the effects of the scream from earlier had accompanied his awakening to the real world, and now he felt as if he had a headache as if he were literally going to die suddenly – before the frantically spinning scene in front of him finally stabilized slowly.

He found himself sitting on a low cave-in in the corner, surrounded by the Knowledge Guards who were rapidly coming to their senses and trying to make sense of the situation.

Not far away, the curtains had been drawn back, and the early morning sunlight was spreading along the rooftops of the city block; outside, the streets were still quiet, with only the occasional noise to be heard.

Taran El held his forehead and slowly stood up from the corner, his thoughts were still confused but he managed to brace himself a little after hearing the conversations of the knowledge guards around him, “It might have something to do with the last sound I heard ……”

Finally someone noticed the poor state of the great scholar, and one of the knowledge guards next to him walked over quickly, just in time to help Taran-El, who looked like he was about to fall, “What did you say?”

“I think I may have come into contact with Silantis’ consciousness, but ……” Taran-El said with a frown, but stopped abruptly just in the middle of his sentence, then looked to a certain location in the room with a furrowed brow, ” …… Lord Ted Reel didn’t come back?!”

The others in the room seemed to react at that moment, and several lines of sight instantly focused on the reclining chair in the center.

That was the chair that the Truthkeeper Ted Riel sat in when he was “dreaming” – now all the dreaming operatives have returned to the real world, but that chair is still empty.

After a moment’s silence, someone broke the silence uneasily: “…… Could it be that His Excellency the Keeper of the Secrets woke up earlier than us and left first?”

“No, that would be out of character for the Secret Keeper, and the door to the room is left with a seal that leaves a mark when it’s opened by someone – whether it’s opened from the outside or the inside.”

Taran El frowned as he listened to the conversation coming from beside him, and he gently pushed aside the assistance of a bystander and stepped to the chair.

The small table beside the chair still held the containers that had once been used to hold the potions, seven droppers and a large beer bottle resting quietly there, reflecting the light of the morning sun that poured in through the window.

Faintly, he heard some more noise coming from the window – it seemed to be chaos coming from some unknown direction.

Someone shrieking in the street, someone running through the corridors.

The trees were silhouetted outside the window.

……

Nina awoke from her ever-collapsing dream of the Nameless One, and after realizing she was back in the real world, she couldn’t help but fume for a moment.

This time the ending process of the Dream of the Nameless One …… didn’t seem to be quite the same as any of the previous ones.

This time it was more sudden, more violent, with a sense of chaos and disintegration, as if it was not “waking up”, but was torn apart from the inside out by a force.

She looked up and saw that Mr. Morris across the table was also looking thoughtful, and it was clear that his teacher also felt that something was wrong with the end of the Dream of the Nameless One.

And just then, she suddenly heard Shirley’s voice coming from the direction of the window, “Hey, hey, hey, hey, you guys, look outside! Crap!”

Not being able to read the other party’s use of vulgar language again this time, Nina subconsciously got up and turned her head to look over at the window.

The shadows of the luxuriant trees swayed outside the window, reflecting into her eyes.

Trees, trees everywhere, the same tall, lush, unknown trees as those seen in the forest in the Dream of the Nameless One, growing all over the streets, crowding the city, filling every inch of space in the field of vision, the unbridled green as if it were another “infinite sea”, countless canopies converging to form a huge wave of green, covering the sky in between buildings, even with the tallest trees, the most beautiful and the tallest ones, and even with the tallest ones. The canopy of the trees formed a huge wave of green, covering the sky between the buildings, and even merging with the tallest towers and bell towers, presenting a weird and grotesque symbiosis. This scene was as if a forest had been directly “superimposed” on the city-state, as if dream and reality were merging into one, eroding each other into an unimaginable gesture.

Vanna, Maurice and Nina came to the living room in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring blankly at the scene on the street outside, several people were half speechless.

Sherry, for her part, saw that chaos had begun to break out on the streets in the distance.

The residents of the city-state had woken up in the early morning, and the shocking changes on the streets had clearly broken through the “cognitive boundaries” of the previous situation. The forest that covered almost the entire city brought about a great panic, and the plants that blended in with the buildings were directly destroying the functioning of the city on a physical level! –Some people were screaming, some people were trapped inside their houses, some buildings were almost swallowed up by the whole, and only a few broken walls and roofs could be seen among the tangled trees, while the people who originally lived in those buildings were afraid of life or death.

There was a loud popping sound over one of the nearby neighborhoods, there was a steam pipeline leakage, high temperature and high pressure gases gushed out from the valve, steaming into a big white mist in the canopy, and there was a water pipeline rupture at an unknown node, a huge column of water broke through the ground between the streets, forming a surprisingly large scale “spring” in the sky between the trees. The “springs” were formed between the giant trees in the sky on an astonishing scale.

In the distance, the shrill siren of a steam walker sounded, the Citadel Guard seemed to be trying to take some action, the Academy’s Knowledge Guards seemed to be reacting, and Nina heard the familiar sound of whistles coming from the streets – the familiar sound of a whistle.

Despite still being in a state of chaos, and despite the fact that everyone had been hastily awakened from their dreams, the years of training and a series of complex, tightly-organized emergency response processes had come into play – and those forces maintaining order had rushed rightfully into the dense forests that covered the city-state.

At this moment, however, they were faced with a challenge far beyond their imagination.

It was a lush forest with vibrant plants.

It was something that had only been recorded in ancient and absurd legends and tainted scrolls.

The elves who lived in the Age of the Deep embraced the home of their forefathers – that boundless green inferno – in a way that no one had ever imagined.

In a trance, a wind blew through the city-state, and that wind swirled the branches and leaves of the forest, and countless leaves made green waves in the wind, and it seemed as if the murmur of the forest came from between the waves-

“…… You are not elves ……”

Gorgeous pieces of colored paper whirled and fluttered in the dense forest, lightly passing through the twisted and mutated buildings and architecture and the high and low sky-high trees, and the wind in the forest wrapped around the waves of leaves, bringing with it layers and layers of clattering noises, as well as blurred murmurs and whispers.

Lucrecia’s figure coalesced out of the whirlwind formed by the colored pieces of paper and landed on top of a giant tree near the academy district.

Holding a nearby branch in one hand, she stepped carefully on the top of the tree and looked out at the street that had been covered by the forest and distorted by dreams.

She heard the whisper that filled the wind, and could even feel the unspeakable disappointment and irritation that mingled with it.

“Rabbi.” She called softly in her mind.

The Nightmare Bunny’s voice soon sounded in her mind, “Rabbi is listening oh~~”

“What’s the situation with the cultists? Did they mess up?”

“Rabbi is not sure oh – but they look as if they are quite confused as well, the speed at which the dream world collapsed seems to be beyond their expectations …… Even that saint was alarmed, the personnel who entered the dream were called in for questioning, and Rabbi almost exposed the …… Fortunately, Rabi dispersed and hid himself inside them in advance ……”

Lucrecia frowned.

“You still ‘ate’ them all? I remember reminding you to control your appetite.”

“No, no, it’s just those cultists who entered the dream realm, the rabbi left some cotton on them, it’s for the safe and sound completion of the task entrusted to me by the Mistress,” the rabbi hastened to explain, “There’s still a lot of cultists on the ship, the rabbi didn’t touch them… …”

Lucrecia was silent for a few seconds, and only after feeling the tension and trepidation that was gradually passing along the soul connection in her heart did she slowly say, “Keep my orders in mind, it’s for your own good – and don’t forget, that ship, and everyone aboard that ship, is my father’s prey.”

The nightmare rabbit’s voice immediately rang out, this time taking on an undisguised panic and nervousness, “Yes, Rabbi understands, Rabbi absolutely ……”

Lucrecia directly cut off the communication with the rabbit.

She then settled her mind, which led to a slightly rusty mental call for another name.

She soon heard a response coming from the distance-

“Lucy, I’m listening.”

“Dad, there’s something going on in the city-state,” the Witch of the Sea spoke in a grave tone, “In the real world, something big is going on – you’d better come back soon! .”

(End of chapter)