Chapter 592 – Going Deeper
Chapter 592 Going Deeper
“Did you hear anything?”
On a natural path deep in the forest, Shirley suddenly stopped in her tracks and muttered somewhat suspiciously.
“The sound is not, but I smelled …… that kind of obvious ‘stench’,” Dog stopped beside Sherry, and made a suppressed and disgusted sound in his throat, and “More than one, mixed with the tainted sense of chaotic widowhood and the pure and blind urge to destroy ……”
“It looks like those ‘old acquaintances’ are really at it again,” Sherry grunted, “They’re really tireless, this ‘Dream of the Nameless’ What’s in it that’s worth their attention, is that so-called ‘original blueprint’ so attractive?”
Dog didn’t say anything, but just ambled lower, carefully sensing the lingering scents around him – the scents left behind by the Annihilationists and the Profound Demons.
It found something familiar in those scents.
“The Annihilationist named ‘Richard’ is among them.” It suddenly looked up and said.
“That guy still dares to come?” Shirley’s eyes widened in some surprise at once, “After smashing him like that last time, I thought that guy would have to lie down in the real world for a while at least ……”
Dog shook his head, “It looks like they all made sufficient preparations when they ‘entered the dream’, and possessed enough protection at the mind level that the injuries they suffered in the dream world wouldn’t have too much of an impact on the reality …… This is also reasonable , after all, they organized so many people to enter the Dream of the Nameless One, they must have already had a full understanding of the operating mechanism of this place.”
Sherry frowned, “Are they still around?”
“Been gone for a while,” Dog judged cautiously, “The aura of the Phantom Demon is fading fast, but it’s hard to say how far away they are from here right now – Shirley, we’ve got to be careful, that ‘Richard’ is there too, he knows you, and the last trick won’t work a second time.”
The expression on Shirley’s face tensed as she quickly confirmed her surroundings, turning her head to Dog and saying seriously, “Why don’t we just find a place to hide here then? Wait for the real world to dawn – this forest is so big anyway, that gang of cultists shouldn’t be able to go back the way they came.”
“I wouldn’t recommend that, and don’t forget about that weird and dangerous ‘erosion’ phenomenon – it happens suddenly and spreads quickly,” Dog shook his head, ” No corner of this place is safe, the only possible safe zone might be inside that so-called wall of silence, we need to find that ‘wall’.”
While saying that, it raised its head and looked in a certain direction deep in the forest, “That group of Annihilationists are also looking for the ‘Wall of Silence’, let’s follow them from afar, as long as we do a good job of hiding, the initiative is in our hands.”
“Tsk, well, I just said it off the top of my head,” Shirley smashed her tongue and said helplessly, “Let’s go then, and be careful not to get too close to that gang of cultists.”
Dog nodded, carefully confirming the scent remaining in the air and the direction it was pointing out again, and stepped forward – but it only took one step forward before it suddenly stopped again, while speaking in a quick whisper, “Attention, someone’s approaching!”
Almost at the same time that Dog’s words had just fallen, Sherry heard the sound of footsteps that suddenly appeared nearby – that sound was without warning, as if a person had appeared nearby out of thin air, Sherry instantly tensed up, and right after that, she clenched her chains with one hand and violently turned her head to look in the direction from which the sound had come.
A tall elf girl appeared in Sherry’s line of sight.
She was wearing a peculiarly styled lightweight armor, that looked like some kind of hunting outfit that was easy to move around in the forest, and reinforced in key locations, she had long, light blonde hair like sunlight, with faintly glowing blue threads woven in between the strands of her hair – and in her hand was a peculiarly styled weapon, which looked like a combination of a spear with a long-handled battle axe ……
After seeing this elf maiden that seemed to appear out of nowhere, Sherry was slightly stunned, and in the one or two seconds that she froze, the elf maiden had already taken a step towards her.
“Didn’t you receive the order to evacuate? Why are you still moving outside the wall?”
Hearing the other party’s voice, Shirley opened her mouth, the sudden turn of events left her a bit overwhelmed, but she quickly reacted, the acting skills and perception she had learned since childhood coming into play, “Ah, I …… got lost, I was just about to go over to the Silent Wall.”
The strange elf girl didn’t seem to notice Shirley’s nervousness and helplessness for a moment just now, and didn’t even show any unusual expression to Dog, whose appearance was hideous and terrifying, and who didn’t have time to hide due to the suddenness of the incident, she naturally nodded to Shirley and Dog, and opened her mouth to say, “You and your partner are in the area where the erosion phenomenon is active, and it’s not a safe place to be in! –Fortunately, you have met me, a forest ranger.”
While saying that, she indicated a certain direction in the forest with the long-handled axe in her hand, “Follow me, I’ll take you to the Wall of Silence.”
“Ah …… okay.” Shirley froze for a moment and quickly reacted, calling for the captain in the depths of her consciousness while quickly tugging Dog to follow the other’s footsteps.
They set off, heading in the direction of the “Silent Wall”, through natural trails covered in dead branches and leaves, over rugged, undulating forest clearings, and gradually deeper into the forest.
The elf-maiden with her strange weapon went ahead of them, saying little on the way.
This was certainly not conducive to gathering information, so Shirley could only take the initiative to break the silence, and after pondering the topic for a while, she opened her mouth and asked, “By the way, what’s your name?”
The elf maiden suddenly stopped and turned her head to look very seriously into Sherry’s eyes, and only after two or three seconds did she speak softly, “My name is Shireen – I hope you can remember mine.”
Sherry’s eyes widened.
……
In the depths of darkness and mist, the atmosphere of the “Lost Country” was eerily silent, Duncan, who was sitting at the navigation table and communicating with “Goathead”, was suddenly stunned, and stopped his conversation with “Goathead”. Duncan was suddenly stunned and stopped his conversation with Goathead.
He frowned slightly, as if listening to a voice from afar, and the expression on his face changed rapidly, from confusion to thought.
Goathead on the table did not react to Duncan’s sudden pause – after Duncan stopped talking, he followed suit, neither asking questions nor showing any inclination to express himself. This “goat’s head” that appeared in the strange lost country ship is like an “answering machine” in a half-asleep state, except for the initial greeting when it will take the initiative to open its mouth, most of the time as long as Duncan does not talk to it, it seldom reacts to anything.
Duncan looked at the goat head.
In the end, the goat head did not understand what “Sasloka died a long time ago” really means, it just monotonously repeated this sentence, as if its mind was stuck on this “information”.
After a moment’s hesitation, Duncan rose from his seat and stepped toward the ancient oval mirror not far away.
The goat’s head on the navigational table turned its head slowly, silently tracking Duncan’s movements with its eyes, but still not saying a word – and that wordless sight was particularly creepy.
Duncan, however, was now more or less able to ignore the creepiness of the suspicious goat-head, and he went straight to the mirror, reaching out and tapping on its surface.
Agatha’s figure surfaced on the mirror almost immediately.
Duncan paid close attention to the eyes behind him, sensing the change in the aura in the captain’s cabin – but the suspicious goat-head didn’t react to Agatha’s appearance as if he couldn’t see it.
“Captain.” Agatha in the mirror also glanced cautiously in the goathead’s direction, and was relieved to confirm that the other man really wasn’t reacting to anything before nodding her head in greeting to Duncan.
“Shirley and Dog met another ‘Shireen’ in the forest.” Duncan responded to Agatha’s salute before speaking bluntly.
Agatha opened her mouth, her expression a little stunned for a moment, followed by an immediate response, “Then Miss Lucrecia’s side ……”
Duncan nodded, “She is still with ‘Shireen’.”
The two men lapsed into a brief silence across the mirror, neither apparently having much of a train of thought.
It was only after a while that Agatha took a soft breath and broke the silence, “Captain, I have something here as well.”
Duncan subconsciously lowered his voice, “What did you find out?”
Agatha in the mirror raised her hand and wordlessly pointed to the door in the deepest part of the captain’s chamber – the wooden door that led to the captain’s bedchamber.
“Just now, while you and Goathead were talking, I traveled through the various mirrors on this Lost Country ship, and all of the mirrors’ locations and the sights they presented were not much different from the real Lost Country ship, except for this inside …… where I was stopped by a bizarre ‘barrier ‘ blocked.”
Duncan immediately looked in the direction of the captain’s chambers, his eyes growing serious as he listened to Agatha’s account of the situation.
After a few moments of contemplation, he took a step toward the door.
On the nautical table, the black wooden carving of a goat’s head creaked into activity once more, a pair of deep, cloudy, pitch-black eyes tracking Duncan’s movements.
Duncan gripped the handle of the door to the room with his hand, but instead of just pushing it open, he turned his head to stare at the goat’s head on the table – and only after a moment of staring at it did he speak in a hushed voice, “What’s in here?”
“I don’t know.” Goathead said slowly.
“May I come in?”
“I don’t know.” Goathead spoke as if repeating himself.
“…… What happens if I go in?”
“I don’t know.” The suspicious goat-head seemed to only ever repeat this sentence.
But regardless, it didn’t seem to be stopping it.
Duncan took one last deep look in the direction of the goat’s head, then withdrew his gaze and looked at the extraordinarily familiar door of the room in front of him, took a deep breath, and turned the knob with all his might.
A patch of staggeringly interlocking empty space, as if made of countless abstract lines repeatedly rendered and iterated, appeared behind that door.
Deng definitely stood in front of the door, looking at the scene inside the “room” – in that chaotic iteration of abstract lines, he could still vaguely recognize some things: beds, tables, windows, walls.
However, all of these things were lost, as if they had been reorganized in the mind of a deranged person, and then reproduced in an inverted dream, so that they could not be seen in their original normal form!
(End of chapter)