Chapter 784 — The True Face

In this "Town After the Bell Tolls," everyone had been stripped of their virtual disguises in the Mind Network and revealed their true appearance from the real world—so why would Selina Gelfen, an ancient soul who had lost her physical body in reality and existed in the network as an ideological form, present herself in the likeness of Patty Galland?

Was Patty Galland merely a disguise assumed by Selina Gelfen? Or else…

In a brief instant, Gao Yang connected countless threads; a vast mass of fragmented intelligence seemed to erupt forth, and at last was strung together into a whole by a single line. He thought of Patty Galland's crown, thought of the scene of Selina Gelfen strolling and playing with Patty Galland along the tree-lined avenues of Phantom Pivot City, thought even of the lantern that had inexplicably appeared in the Kond region, thought of the traces of Sleeper activity that had appeared around Cecil before the Southern Unification War…

In the end, he thought of the matter he had recently been investigating, of a passage he had seen last time in Selina Gelfen's files:

Selina Gelfen, Supreme Order hierarch (deceased), female, soul-form.

Current location: Ansu / Revised / Cecil Empire—Southern Region.

So that was how it was.

Gao Yun let out a soft breath, and the many thoughts in his mind gradually settled. He was in no hurry to draw any conclusions about Selina格尔分's or Patti's condition, but several fairly reliable conjectures had already taken shape. And while his thoughts churned, Selina—Selina wearing Patti's form—had come to stand before Daniel and the others.

Gao Song's concealment was still in effect; apart from Daniel, none of the Sleepers present knew that a mere onlooker was standing quietly beside them.

The three of them saw Selina holding her lantern aloft, and none of them bothered to hide their surprise—clearly, not only was this Daniel's first time seeing her, but even Yuri and Magnum of the Two Luminaries Order were seeing this "Saint of Dreams" in such a guise for the first time. Magnum was the first to give voice to it: "Celina, Holy Chaste of the Luminaries, what are you—"

"Haven't you all reverted to your own true forms as well?" Selina answered placidly before he could finish.

Her manner was calm and composed, and her voice was that of a grown adult—but set upon a little girl of only thirteen or fourteen, all of it felt profoundly uncanny.

In truth, the real-world Patti should be nearly fifteen by now; only the lingering effects of illness and injury had always left her looking far smaller and frailer than others her age. That too had shaped her image within the mind-network, and indirectly manifested in Selina格尔分's "true form."

"True form..." Daniel muttered under his breath, and it took considerable effort to keep his expression from looking too strange.

"...My situation is complicated, so don't probe into it," Selina said with a shake of her head, then lifted her gaze to Yuri and Magus of the Equilibrium Order. "You are fortunate—you were only brushed by the upper narrators' erosion, but you were not contaminated."

"And you don't look affected either?" Yuri studied Selina, and the several owl-priests behind her. "How did you manage it?"

Selina glanced at Yuri, then lowered her head to look at her own small body, and a flicker of self-mockery passed through her eyes. "The upper narrators' contamination erodes the deep consciousness... As a soul pieced together from fragments, a mind running within the network, I have no deep consciousness to erode.

"And it is precisely thanks to that peculiarity that I not only resisted this town's erosion of me, but could even shelter other brethren who had been eroded."

As she spoke, Selina glanced back at the four masked high priests following her, and shook her head with a sigh.

"A pity—I was one step too late. Two of them had their deep consciousness already contaminated, turned into devotees of the upper narrators, become part of this town. With my abilities, I can no longer find them."

The eeriness and danger of the phantom town sent a chill through the hearts of Daniel and the others.

Gao Yang, meanwhile, watched Selina closely as she spoke, and the several "owl-priests" behind her—especially the latter. In his careful observation he found no sense of wrongness in them such as would betray replacement by an "upper narrator," and though he relaxed a little at heart, he did not dare relax fully.

This left him sighing inwardly—the "anomalies" brewing in Sandbox One were truly eerie and dangerous, and all the more so for threatening the human mind directly, striking where no defense could be prepared, so that one could never drop one's guard. Even though he himself seemed unaffected, when facing the upper narrators and their associated influence, he did not dare let down his vigilance in the slightest!

"Celina, Holy Chaste of the Luminaries, we are now trapped in this 'town after the bell tolled,' and we can no longer reach the monitoring team in the rear," Yuri said. Having confirmed that the Celina before him was indeed herself, he showed not the slightest sign of relaxing, and instead reported their dire situation. "Worse, we cannot sense the boundary of reality, so we cannot directly exit the network. The situation is not encouraging."

"I have no need to sense the boundary of reality, but I can feel that between this town and the normal network there lies a twisted barrier—it must be what is keeping us from leaving," Selina said gravely. Though that grave tone, coming from a little girl, carried a faint sense of a child pretending to be an adult, no one present minded. "My guess is that the key to this twisted barrier lies at the center of the town, where that church stands..."

"That makes sense," Daniel said, his face clearing with understanding. "On our first expedition, that church appeared only after the bell tolled—and this is the town after the bell tolled! We never found that church 'outside,' but perhaps it is right here!"

"Let us be off," Selina said, exhaling softly. "The church is not far, yet we have already wasted a great deal of time."

As the words fell, she had already turned, lantern in hand, and set off toward the town square.

The Sleepers, now two fewer, fell in step behind her, and Gao Yang followed silently as well, casting Selina a quiet glance.

...For such short little legs, she gets along pretty fast, he could not help thinking.