Chapter 226 — A Big Shot Sneaks In
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
Wearing Charles I's face, Gao Yang strode openly along the boulevards of the "City of Reverie," not the least bit worried that he might be exposed.
Because along the way he had already seen more than twenty Charles Is...
Charles I was no earth-shattering beauty, but clearly there was a certain thrill to walking the streets wearing the face of Ansul's founding sovereign. These Everbound cultists, immersed in a virtual world, were after all still mortals with seven passions and six desires, and in certain... peculiar respects, they still had their personal hobbies.
All of it gave Gao Cen an indescribable sense of incongruity.
Was this what the Eversleepers had striven for, what they had tried to create? An illusory, beautiful, almost mythic... dream?
Gao Yang could clearly sense that this virtual world was vastly different from the illusions he had encountered before. It was not only more magnificent and grand, but also more real, easier to lose oneself in. Every leaf here, every ray of sunlight, even every speck of dust had been shaped and set running according to the laws of the real world, while the "residents" walking the streets and alleys enjoyed it all with contentment and joy, as though they had entirely forgotten this was a virtual space.
Gao Yang was also somewhat surprised—he had not expected the Eversleepers to number so many.
If this enormous city, along with the floating lands and palaces in the sky, were all fully inhabited, then the number of Everbound cultists would likely reach an appalling figure—a million was entirely possible.
A low-key cult developing in secret... could it really have that many people?
Gao Yang walked through this Phantom Hub City with a belly full of doubts, and as he came into contact with the city's "residents," he gradually deepened his understanding of this inconceivable place.
Passing along the central boulevard, Gao Yang wandered by his own intuition, searching for things that might reveal more of the mysteries of the Xuanyuan City, but when he tried to pass through an unvisited domed building, he was forced to stop.
The "dream" that should have been perfect had a flaw here. He saw that the light and shadow inside the domed building were disordered and fragmented; the floor of white marble covered less than a third of the interior, and where the marble was missing, great swaths of dull gray-black voids were visible, while the scattered, fractured light in midair connected with those voids, forming a chaotic and disordered scene.
This was already the fourth "unfinished zone" he had found in the Xuanyuan City.
He thought of the intelligence he had previously heard from the "residents."
This Phantom Hub City had been activated ahead of schedule. It seemed that in the Eversleepers' original plan, they had intended to prepare for a long time before activating this vast psychic network, but changes in the situation had forced them to start it all early, which resulted in numerous "flaws" throughout Phantom Hub City. And not only was Phantom Hub City unfinished—even the floating lands and palaces in the sky were incomplete. Many lands had only complete outlines, with no plants or color on their surfaces, while the palaces were simply empty shells containing a "psychic void" capable of devouring the mind.
Gao Heng knew what the "changes in the situation" were that had driven the Eversleepers to activate this psychic network early, but by instinct he believed it was most likely connected to the "Alignment of the Stars." Tyr had once said that those "Stormborn" who carried on mysteriously at sea, warring with the sirens, seemed to know about the Alignment of the Stars and the revival of the gods. They frequently held grand astrological ceremonies, or painted on the reefs images related to the stars and the ancient gods, and Gao Yang had reason to believe that the Eversleepers, who were close to the Stormborn, must also possess such intelligence.