Chapter 180 - The Power of Eternal Sleepers (1/2)

A torrential downpour, lightning flashed and thunder roared. The cold winds from the northern frigid zone carried equally freezing rainwater to splash on the spire of the castle. On this day, the Kant territory’s most respected, oldest people coincidentally had the same dream. They dreamed that time seemed to rewind back to 30 years ago, back to that similarly stormy night —— their young, strong, impartial, and benevolent feudal lord was driving a carriage, rushing back to town. And not too far ahead was the Kant castle’s tall and stately outer walls and towers. Everything was cloaked in the night and fog stirred up by the rain. The carriage raced down the endless road, like a dream that one couldn’t wake up from.

Gawain was walking down the deep and long underground corridor. This corridor led to the north tower of the castle. The soldiers who originally should have been guarding this section of the corridor were collapsed and piled up against each other at their posts. They were breathing, but their consciousness had been stripped through a dream realm that was difficult to awaken from. At the same time, this dream realm had also broken away from the fetters of illusion. It extended its feelers into the real world, leaving behind its distorted projection in the real world formed by matter.

Moss crawled all over the mottled stone walls, yet the moss continuously peeled off, revealing the decayed, deformed walls beneath it. The logic of space and time inside the corridor seemed to lose its regularity in this moment: the scenes of the dream realm and the scenes of the real world took turns to switch places. And those magic crystal lamps mounted on the walls also followed by flickering, making the ancient oil paintings between the lamps gloomy and strange by their illumination.

Boom!

A loud rumble of thunder cut across the horizon. The completely sealed off underground corridor that initially had a thick and heavy ceiling was lit up by the lightning to be bright as day. Huge cracks appeared on the pitch-black ceiling, and in between those cracked stone pieces, the dark sky could be seen. Violent rain poured from the sky.

Gawain lifted his head and looked out. Through the ceiling of the corridor, he could vaguely see the entire upper section of the north tower fragmentarily floating in the sky. Those crumbled huge stones and roof were suspended in the rainy night like they had no weight, ceaselessly spinning with the shrieking wind. As they collided with one another, bits of broken bricks and rocks scattered down.

He ignored all of this, directly striding down the long corridor flooded with wind and rain. The rainwater that alternated between dream and reality drizzled on him, now soaking him to the skin, yet vanishing next. ——Each time he observed, the outcome presented was different.

The heavy oak door finally appeared before his eyes, exactly like what he had seen previously in the dream realm. Gawain stretched out his hand, but before his fingers touched the door, a segment of shadow beside the door suddenly stirred. Amber’s figure then condensed into form. “Eh! Gawain, you’re here!”

Gawain looked at Amber. “Have you found the lantern?”

“I only made it here. I could already sense very obvious fluctuations of magical power here, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t open this door!” Amber’s voice sounded especially disheartened. Clearly, she had been full of confidence earlier, but failing to open an antique wooden door as an excellent rogue had severely hurt her confidence.

“Can’t open the door?” Gawain frowned. He turned back to glance at the direction he’d come from and realized that the strange corridor had now resumed its stability once more. The wrecked walls and roof were sealed up again; there was no longer wildly blowing wind and rain or mottled moss or collapsed brick pieces. The big oak door at the end of the corridor appeared to be sturdy and intact. Though worn down, it was tightly sealed.

Gawain looked towards Amber. “Did you see the rain in the corridor when you were here?”

The half-elf wore a complete look of bewilderment. “Rain? How could it possibly rain in the corridor?”

“Seems like you’re still in the dream realm.” Gawain was clear in his mind. “The door in the dream realm is sealed. It’s impossible to open it regardless of what you do.”

As he explained, he looked towards the oak door. Then he closed his eyes, recalling the knowledge and powers held in the fragments of the Eternal Sleepers heretic’s consciousness. “Only when you push open this door in the real world would you see this castle’s true appearance.”

He reopened his eyes. In the corridor, freezing wind and rain rolled in with a howl; a series of cracks spread over the dark stone ceiling; moss coated all the walls and that oak door took on an aged, mottled, and worn-down look.

With a light push, the door opened.

Amber’s eyes widened the instant the oak door was pushed open; she was finally seeing the same things Gawain was seeing in his vision.

Miss Half-Elf cried out, “How… How did this place become so run down all of a sudden?!”

Gawain shook his head. “Because this place hasn’t been repaired for an entire thirty years.”

Then he walked in front, walking into this place that sustained the entire illusion with Amber.

The cellar space behind the oak door was very perfectly preserved. The high tower structures above blocked the torrential rain that was pouring from the sky. The surrounding noise died out all at once; the entire world seemed to quieten down.

In the hazy dim space, the lantern’s glow suddenly lit up. The warmth radiance dispelled the darkness. Within range of the illumination, a female figure wearing a white long dress appeared.