Chapter 711 — Deep in Slumber
Blade of Dawn · Page 3 of 4
"So you can tell whether a person is dreaming from their snoring..." Amber didn't react at first and muttered half a sentence on instinct, but before she finished she grasped Gao Song's meaning. "Wait... entered a dream?! The Eternal Sleeper kind?!"
No one present was a fool; after Gao Cen's reminder, nearly all of them understood. The woman knight Margarita, who had once personally led troops to clear out several cult dens within the realm, thought of those uncanny and dangerous powers of the Eternal Sleepers, and a stern expression came over her face at once. Beside her, Pi Yun stroked his beard and knit his brows: "Now that you mention it... it is indeed possible..."
The old man was, after all, a double-duty cultist who had fed at the tables of both the Eternal Sleepers and the Order of All Things' End — a veteran of the fence-sitting world, so to speak. With him saying so, Gao Yang immediately felt his judgment was solid: within the nest at the great tree's roots there existed a formless dream, and Bardwindel had fallen prey to it.
"But how is that possible?" Pi Yun's face showed incomprehension. "This is the nest of the Order of All Things' End—they don't have dream technology..."
Gao Yang's brow furrowed slightly as he suddenly recalled what had happened during the Sentinel Tower reinforcement and repair project at the Great Wall.
He had unexpectedly encountered members of the Order of All Things' End within a dream connection—among them, even Beyira, who should have died seven hundred years ago...
The Order of All Things' End did possess dream technology. Even if they lacked the technique itself, they certainly had the relevant equipment. Among the three great dark sects, apart from the Storm Children, whose behavioral patterns were rather baffling, the other two had always maintained close private ties. It was entirely normal for remnants of the Eternal Sleeper's creations to be found within the nest of the Order of All Things' End.
Pi Yun, as a double heretic of two cults, had failed to think of this at once—it seemed the old man's heart had never truly been in the cults back then; most likely he had simply joined to scrounge for meals.
Pi Yun raised his head in confusion, unable to understand why Gao Yang had suddenly glanced at him—and sighed while doing so.
Gao Yang offered no explanation. After some speculation about the underground situation, he had already formed a rough plan—one far safer than sending men down.
"Let me try to pull Bard out," he instructed those beside him. "This process requires concentration. Keep watch on the surroundings."
Amber reacted with uncommon swiftness this time. "Oh, you're going to 'meditate' again, aren't you? Guarding the ritual—I know this job well..."
...
In this endless dream—driven by obsession, repeating the pathetic self-deception of a failure—Bard had long since lost count of how many times he had cycled through.
He sat at the long table in the unchanging council chamber, bright lights illuminating the hall, the prelates seated around the table discussing shifts in the situation and subsequent plans.
Bard was speaking too. He did not know why he sat here speaking, but his mouth opened and closed of its own accord, uttering sentences he had never conceived:
"...The missionary work in the eastern part of the continent is going smoothly. We have already..."
Voices rose around him from time to time, all familiar faces. Looking at these speakers, Bard felt a profound calm settle over his heart.
Yet he vaguely sensed that he should not be so calm. He had come here... for some task.
What was the task again?
The scene before his eyes suddenly shuddered. A round of meetings concluded, and a new scene was swiftly generated. In this composite dream formed from a multitude of obsessions, the dominant figure kept changing, the dream's theme kept changing—and Bardwindel himself was but one of dozens of consciousnesses within this dream.