Chapter 169 — Into the Dream Again
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 3
At Gao Song's words, everyone turned pale with shock: "An Eternal Slumberer?!"
This was utterly beyond their expectations. Even the ever-composed Hedy nearly lost her grip on her staff. Her eyes wide, she glanced at the mercenary captain lying dead on the ground: "This mercenary was a cultist of the Eternal Slumber in disguise?!"
"No, he was merely used as a springboard by an Eternal Slumberer," Gao Yang said, rubbing the space between his brows as he relayed what he had learned from the cultist. "This fellow must have had the misfortune of suffering a nightmare at some point in the past, and a powerful Eternal Slumber cultist used that nightmare to leave a coordinate in his mind. That turned him into a one-time 'vessel,' allowing a Shadow cultist to swiftly 'descend' whenever the need arose."
Such grotesque facts made Amber break out in goosebumps: "How does this kind of cultist sound even more sinister than that Society of Universal Demise?!"
"The Eternal Slumberers are indeed more bizarre than the Society of Universal Demise," Pi Yun said in a low voice. As a druid who had truly received the tradition, he knew a great deal about matters concerning cultists. "The Eternal Slumberers devolved and transformed from the Church of the Dream God. They were originally priests who calmed hearts and banished nightmares, but after their fall they became past masters at weaving nightmares and terror. The most powerful Eternal Slumber bishops all possess the ability to walk within people's dreams, and they can link one person's dream to another's, making themselves all the more elusive and impossible to guard against. Their special powers make them more terrifying than ordinary cultists—but if there is any good news in this, it is that... the Eternal Slumberers do not act with the extreme bloodthirst of Universal Demise or the Sons of the Storm. They merely drag people into all manner of nightmares and illusions, occasionally commit a kidnapping or two, but rarely take the initiative to cause slaughter."
Hearing this, Hedy said thoughtfully, "I have also heard of the Long Slumber cult. They truly do seldom cause large-scale deaths, but their actions are stranger and more grotesque than those of other cults. Personally, I feel that a cult like theirs—one that seems to conceal some vast plan and does not often kill—is all the more frightening."
Gao Yang felt the same: "Any dark sect is dangerous, without exception. That they do not kill only means they are doing things more terrible than killing—things even harder to guard against than slaughter. Besides... the Eternal Slumberers are the only sect apart from the Sons of the Storm that deals with the Society of Universal Demise. Both Universal Demise and the Sons of the Storm are cruel, bloodthirsty sects. Eternal Slumberers who can get along with them... cannot possibly be good folk."
"The more I hear, the more creeped out I get," Amber said, unable to resist rubbing her arms as though to scrub the goosebumps away. Then she raised her head and looked at Gao Yang with curiosity: "So just now, you were dragged by the Eternal Slumberer into their 'nightmare'? And then what? You got out?"
Gao Yang laughed: "We had a little contest in the world of consciousness, and then that fellow died. Most likely he wasn't any great figure."
Amber said "Oh," and Hedy looked at her great-great-great-grandfather with considerable admiration and conviction. Only Pi Yun eyed Gao Yang up and down with suspicion: "An Eternal Slumberer capable of descending through will alone... would that be a minor character?"
"At any rate, not as strong as me," Gao Yang shrugged. "The fellow's dead anyway. How strong he was in life hardly matters now."