Chapter 805 — Entering the Dream
Blade of Dawn · Page 3 of 4
On the walls to either side of the corridor, the hanging portraits had come alive as well; the Augustuses of the past two hundred years surfaced one after another upon their frames, hurling all manner of loud curses at Luo Yan as he passed, or uttering strange whispers that left one dull and irritable. The dusk light beyond the windows wavered uneasily, as though the whole palace had come alive—and was full of wrath.
But in the end, nothing could harm Luo Yan, who resolutely rejected this nightmare; the Typhon ruler hurried away from the most dangerous corridor, away from where those portraits could fix their gaze.
In the relatively "normal" long hall, the omnipresent low murmuring now seemed, on the contrary, almost kind and friendly.
Deep within the palace, a faint sigh, as though it might not exist at all, reached Luo Yan's ears—a sigh tinged with helplessness.
It was the sigh of the curse's root, of the palace's true master.
For Luo Yan, the best response to the owner of that voice was—not to respond to Him at all.
The twilight glow from beyond the palace streamed through the tall glass windows into the long hall, casting pale golden lattices across the floor; compared with a moment before, that radiance no longer wavered.
Luo Yan exhaled softly and prepared to leave the hall, returning to the palace's more outer regions.
But suddenly his steps halted, his gaze fixed hard upon one of the doors along the side of the long hall—the handle had turned, and then the door was slowly pushed open a crack.
Luo Yan's mind snapped taut in an instant.
In this palace, every door meant danger of varying degree, and those that opened of their own accord usually carried the most thorough malice.
But that was not certain; sometimes the dreams of Augustus family members were linked together, and then the one who pushed a door open might be...
A figure in a black court gown of intricate design, black hair falling smooth, thin golden chains adorning the strands, pushed open that door and appeared before Luo Yan Augustus.
The Typhon ruler visibly let out a breath of relief.
"Father?" Matilda too had clearly tensed for a moment upon seeing the figure in the hall, but after confirming that it was Luo Yan's face, she relaxed—family members still living would not become evil spirits in this palace. "You have also... entered the dream?"
"It seems I entered at the same moment as you," Luo Yan said, somewhat relaxed now, though before his daughter his features remained stern. "It is already midnight here."
"I am in the imperial capital of Cecil, just fallen asleep; midnight is still some way off here," Matilda said. "Have you done something here? Just now I felt this palace suddenly become... unusually restless."
"I went to the deepest part to ask some questions," Luo Yan said briefly. "They should be very angry now."
"...Did you run into danger?"
"Of course. There is no safety here."
Hardly had Luo Yan finished speaking when a piercing shriek suddenly came from the corridor leading to the palace's deeper regions—a shriek that seemed to churn the mind, leaving one dazed and heavy for an instant, and silencing the murmuring whispers in the long hall for a brief while.
But soon the shriek faded, and everything returned to normal.
"...It is your elder brother," Luo Yan said after a few seconds of silence, breaking it. "He is the 'newest one' here; his voice can still occasionally pierce the corridor's barriers and reach this side."
Matilda drew a breath and could not help saying softly, "Elder brother..."