Chapter 712 — Beiyila in the Dream
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
Bard felt a wave of dizziness in his mind. The boundary between reality and dream had never been so clear, and he sensed that he was waking rapidly. Before he completely broke free of the dream, he heard Gao Yang's steady instruction: "Once you wake, hold your position immediately. Do nothing except stay awake, and wait for us to come down and rendezvous."
The council chamber began to collapse. Chunks of earth and stone dissolved into ethereal motes and lines of faint light that scattered into the void. Beiyila, standing in the middle of the hall, watched it all in bewilderment—and then, suddenly, a flicker of clarity entered her eyes, and her expression came vividly to life.
As though waking from a great dream—or perhaps only half awake—she looked with a half-dreaming expression toward Gao Yang, whose figure was on the verge of vanishing entirely, and her lips parted slightly.
On the surface, Gao Yang opened his eyes. The sensations of the real world rushed back into his body, while the connection originating from the mental plane gradually subsided. Without surprise, he saw Amber's big round face thrust before him again, and he reached out to push it away. She, unperturbed, flailed her arms to keep her balance as she retreated, loudly babbling: "You're awake!"
Gao Yang gave a faint "mm," gently shaking his head to dispel the last trace of discomfort. The final echo from the dream surfaced blurrily amid the motion and quickly faded: "...Brother, I've made a mess of things..."
His expression twisted oddly into a frown, but the next second his face returned to normal. Yet Amber, who had just been pushed away, came crowding over noisily: "Hey, what's wrong? Your expression went all serious just now..."
Gao Yang had to push this shame of all creation away once again.
How was it that this fellow, who was unreliable in everything else, was sharp as a hawk only when it was entirely unnecessary?
"Nothing. A bit of dizziness—it's gone now," he said offhandedly, ignoring the "special remedy for dizziness and headaches in the middle-aged and elderly" that Pi Yun had recommended to him, and began issuing the next orders: "Action team, come here. Bard's exploration mission below has achieved its expected objective—we're going down to rendezvous."
"You're going down yourself?" The female knight Margarita beside him was startled. She had already been surprised to see Gao Yang arrive at the entrance of the giant tree's root system, and she had never imagined that this "His Imperial Majesty" actually intended to descend personally. She immediately felt this was highly inadvisable. "It's likely very dangerous down there. You—"
"I've already been down once. The danger factor of a mental excursion is hardly lower than physical exploration," Gao Yang said with a smile, waving his hand to cut the knight off. "I've already destroyed the dream 'trap' below. It was done with a special method—if that trap was set by a person, then the caster is certainly dead; if it was set by some kind of magical device, then the device is certainly scrapped as well. There will be no more danger. And as for whether there are threats with physical form beyond the dream trap... didn't we all see the images Bard sent back on his way down?"
Margarita seemed about to say something more, but Gao Yang cut her off again: "Speaking of which, your personality really is a bit like Philip's—you're both quite the sticklers."
Margarita immediately straightened her chest and declared with great solemnity: "Earnestness and caution are essential qualities of a knight—"
"Yes, yes, that's exactly what I mean."
Margarita: "..."
Once again the female knight failed to keep up with Gao Yang's line of thought. In the moment she was stunned, His Imperial Majesty had already passed her by and was striding toward the entrance not far away.