Chapter 521 – Beyond the Boundaries of the Dreamland

Chapter 521 – Beyond the Boundaries of the Dream Realm

The intruder’s mind reaction disappeared, not because it was eliminated by itself, but because it somehow got out of the “building” formed by the distorted dream world.

Heidi frowned, sensing the information that came back from the personalities she had released, and at the same time, her gaze swept over the “ward” in front of her.

As the intruder’s mind reaction disappeared, the ward was rapidly returning to its original state, the horrific deformities caused by the contamination gradually faded away, the withered flesh-like walls turned back into the neat white walls of a medical facility, the cracked and rotting scorched earth also returned to the floor, and on the outside of the ward, the eerie atmosphere that filled the entire facility was also rapidly dissipating.

But Heidi didn’t relax her frown in the slightest, instead becoming more and more alert to the eerie changes of the moment.

Because this is not normal: the eroded and distorted dream world is a closed structure, the intruder’s consciousness here is the attacker of the dream world, but also part of the dream world, if you want to forcibly get out of the dream world, it will cause a great deal of “commotion”, of course, strong enough “dream world experts Of course, strong enough “dream experts” can suppress this kind of noise is very small, but the intruder …… is not so strong.

Heidi knew her own ability, as an “outstanding student” who had studied at the Truth Academy, and had received her father’s meticulous teaching since she was a child, she had always had confidence in the field of dreaming, and she didn’t believe that the “intruder” could get out of this twisted nightmare without attracting her own attention at all. She didn’t believe that the “intruder” could get out of this twisted nightmare without attracting her attention at all – the other party must be hiding in some way, or in some cognitive hole.

She hesitated, and slowly made her way to the bed in the center of the room.

The strange elf maiden still lay calmly in the hospital bed, her brow furrowed, showing no signs of awakening.

Theoretically, this girl was the core of this dream, and her distress caused this distorted “medical facility” to appear in her dream, but under normal circumstances, she should have woken up by now.

Because the intruder’s power had already left – whether the cultist was hiding or had really run away, the contamination he had left behind had obviously subsided, and after the contamination subsided, it was only reasonable for the trapped person to wake up in the dream immediately.

For in most cases, one can do countless strange and bizarre things in one’s dreams, but only one thing one can’t do – continue to sleep in one’s dreams.

Even in a nested dream within a dream, the human consciousness must be “active” in the last layer of the dream.

Heidi stepped forward to check the elf girl’s condition, then she hesitantly reached out and helped the other girl to sit up, then pushed her back towards the bed.

To no avail, her “patient” remained asleep.

“The fall response is ineffective ……” Heidi muttered to herself, looking serious and thoughtful, “Is this not the last layer of her dream? The ‘middle layer’ of the dream-within-a-dream? That’s not right either …… Even if it’s the middle layer, the ‘fall response’ can still be awakened ……”

She muttered, then suddenly stopped, as if she suddenly thought of something, turned around and ran towards the outside of the ward.

The sound of rapid footsteps echoed in the medical facility, Heidi quickly ran through the deep and long corridors, and along the way, she saw one of the personalities that she had released earlier – the “Heidi” with the golden cones were still wandering around the facility, checking the corridors, checking the stairs, or examining the The corridors, or the stairs, or the empty rooms with their doors closed and strange atmosphere, seemed to be busy.

Heidi ran through these personalities, each one turning to catch up with her and quickly rejoining her, and the personalities scattered throughout the rest of the facility received instructions to return to their original bodies one by one, appearing from nearby forks in the road.

The medical facility no longer contained the structure she was familiar with, the dislocated projection of the dream had caused a large number of disorganized corridors, dead-ends, and forks to appear within the building, and there were even some staircases that were upside down and twisted, connecting rooms and halls that didn’t make sense spatially at all from a spatial structure that looked eerily unimaginable like an absurd abstract painting.

However, such a disorganized space was nothing to Heidi, who had often dealt with dreams, and she easily distinguished the right path, avoiding the dead ends that would lead to those infinite loops, and finally managed to arrive at the end of the road—.

A large door stood silently in front of her sight, with the word “Exit” written on it.

Heidi paused as the last of her personalities ran from behind her and quickly merged into her, she took a soft breath and slowly walked towards the gate.

It was the exit of the “medical facility”, and theoretically, the “border” of this twisted dream world.

She placed her hand on the door handle, slowly calming her heartbeat.

Dream boundaries are dangerous, they represent the “cognitive limits” of the dreamer, and as a “visitor”, crossing the cognitive limits of the dreamer would mean letting one’s consciousness fall into a huge “undefined” area. As a “visitor”, crossing the limits of the dreamer’s cognition would mean letting one’s consciousness fall into a huge “undefined” zone, where the subconscious mind dominates the chaos that is no longer under the control of the dreamer, and where the unwelcome trespasser will encounter all kinds of dangers, and …… will even encounter those horrible creatures that hover at the edge of the mortal’s sanity and lurk in the spiritual realm.

Heidi hesitated – it wasn’t medically sound to continue on.

The amethyst pendant hanging from her chest was no longer warm, and the “fake” product, which was essentially a piece of cheap glass, was now cold.

Feeling the coolness of the pendant, Heidi made up her mind.

She decided to trust the reaction of the magical pendant, which had never had a problem until now.

“This step is less than fifteen demerits in a professional class ……”

Ms. Psychiatrist muttered, pushing the door open with a firm hand. The expected vast darkness and chaotic shadows did not appear, nor did she see the lurid abyssal chasm or the spirit world monsters.

Heidi stood at the border of this dream world, dumbfounded at the sight before her.

A lush …… forest appeared in her vision.

As far as the eye could see, there were giant trees in the sky that had never been seen before, and the huge canopy of branches and leaves was interlaced in layers high up in the sky, covering the sun, and there were countless flowers and shrubs covering the earth, and in the middle of it, you could see many small bushes of staggered heights and vibrant vines, and the unknown birds’ calls echoed between the giant trees from time to time, sounding new and… …unfamiliar.

The sunlight flooded this dense forest, and the vibrant life it brought was a sight that Heidi, who had lived in the city-state since she was a child, had never seen before.

She couldn’t even comprehend it all.

She simply couldn’t imagine why there were so many, huge trees growing together, why the precious land was strewn with strange plants but no people were to be seen, why the sound of the waves could not be heard next to her ears, and her nose could only smell the scent of the plants and the dirt.

She fell into confusion, that was a double confusion from senses to cognition, even as a senior student of the Truth Academy with a master’s degree plus a full scholarship, she was in a trance for a while to the point that she almost forgot where she was and what she was going to do.

But fortunately, the professionalism cultivated over the years coupled with strong mental self-control skills allowed her to quickly come to her senses after just a few seconds of bewilderment, and she took a big sharp breath, forcing herself to return to a state where she was able to think calmly.

Then she glanced back in the direction she had come from.

The “medical facility” was right behind her, surrounded by a large expanse of huge trees and countless crisscrossing vines, the walls of which were covered with unknown plants, the man-made building appeared abruptly in the middle of the forest, appearing out of place.

But Heidi quickly made some judgments from the out-of-place sight-

“The scope of the dream should indeed be confined to the interior of this medical facility, and this odd place outside the gate is not a structure …… some sort of mutated ‘limbic consciousness zone’ as a dream should be?
“Can’t see any elements related to the city-state of Prand, all of them are unrecognizable plants …… Is it a scene located in this elf’s subconscious? But even an elven city-state like Lightwind Harbor or Moco doesn’t have vegetation on this scale ……

“Or …… is this outside the real ‘last layer of dreamland’? Then this is way too big, and so much detail …… Her brain should have burned out long ago ……”

Heidi muttered suspiciously to herself, then felt around and pulled out a brightly colored ball of wool.

She snapped her fingers around the threads of the ball of wool and threw the ball of thread hard into the distance.

The brightly colored ball of thread rolled across the ground, jumping and scattering amongst the wet rocks, dirt, and vines.

Heidi stared intently at every moment the ball of thread rolled, making sure that the lines that fell to the ground were not blurred and counterintuitive.

If there was, it was proof that there were hidden “cognitive voids” in this seemingly “richly detailed” area, and she had to be careful to avoid those voids in order to prevent falling into the nightmare.

The threads rolled smoothly to a great distance, with no irregularities in between.

Slightly relieved, Heidi finally took the first step towards this “weird place” full of plants, following the general path of the threads.

She had already put away her revolver for the time being, and only held the “Golden Cone” for protection in her left hand.

In this “fringe area” where the situation was unknown, it was best not to use something that made too much noise – although the lush vegetation here looked pleasing to the eye, there might be something hidden in the silence of the surroundings.

She had to be careful not to awaken the “beings” that slept at the borders of mortal consciousness.

As she cautiously moved forward, a question grew in Heidi’s mind:
Did the cultist escape from the dream world in a similar way? Instead of “waking up”, did he run directly to this strange place outside the dream world?

This front …… will not have any trap?
Heidi’s mind was spinning all kinds of thoughts, but suddenly, her heart moved.

In the next second, she snapped her head up to look in a certain direction that her intuition pointed to.

Between a few unknown trees, in a small forest clearing, quietly stood a figure with its back to itself.

It was a stranger in a light-colored southern-style jacket with straggly blonde hair and a slightly hunched back, and despite the fact that his back was turned this way, the two long, pointed ears poking out from the edges of his hair were the first thing to fall into Heidi’s eyes.

An elf?
(Time to push the book, titled “The Anecdote of the Unusual Priest”, in the light novel category, by Jerome Vigil, himself one of my readers. It is said that the original name of the book is Masked Priest Gatling Bodhisattva …… style can be roughly imagined. Anyway you can support it.)
(End of chapter)