Deep Sea Embers
chapter-571

Quickly reacting, Shirley relied on her years of experience reading people and mastering disguises. These skills had sharpened her ability to maintain an unflappable poker face. She loosened her grip slightly on Dog’s chain and looked at the man with a mixture of curiosity and caution. “Is something the matter?” she inquired.

The man, whose aura had felt overwhelmingly dark, seemed to relax his tense facial muscles at her question. “Don’t worry, fellow brethren. The rules of navigating the Dream of the Nameless One are still not completely understood. Experiencing some discrepancies as you enter this dream is normal.” He paused, looking at her with renewed skepticism. “However, it’s unusual to see someone of your youth here. Are you certain you should be venturing into the Dream of the Nameless One?”

“Age is irrelevant when it comes to one’s connection with the abyss,” Shirley snapped back, shaking her sturdy, black chain for emphasis. Dog let out a soft but menacing growl in agreement. “Don’t let my youthful appearance deceive you. I am an experienced summoner.”

The man, who appeared to be a member of the shadowy Cult of Annihilation, dispelled his initial doubts with a strained smile. “Ah, I apologize for my skepticism.” His gaze then shifted, landing on a line in the distance that seemed to demarcate some unseen boundary. “Hmm, the erosion boundary… we’re fortunate. It appears we’re not far from the ‘wall.'”

Feeling a sense of relief that his focus had shifted, Shirley took mental note of the unfamiliar terms he’d used—’erosion boundary’ and the ‘wall.’ Keeping her face expressionless, she filed away this new information for later consideration. “I noticed the boundary was expanding quite erratically earlier. Truthfully, it was quite unsettling.”

“The erosion zone was expanding, you say?” The man lifted an eyebrow. “That sounds quite unfortunate. However, as the Dream of the Nameless One continues to evolve, such occurrences will likely increase in frequency. According to those Enders, the degradation and eventual collapse of this dream are inevitable. That’s why it’s imperative to locate the ‘Silent Wall’ as quickly as possible. We shouldn’t delay any further.”

As he spoke, the man lifted his right hand slightly. An ethereal dark chain materialized beside him, suspended in the air. The chain’s end coalesced into a terrifying entity—a ‘Death Crow,’ appearing half-decayed, a grotesque mixture of bones and swirling shadows.

As the creature known as the “Death Crow” materialized, it immediately unleashed a piercing, discordant cry that seemed to echo ominously within the dream. Its wings, a macabre construct of skeletal bones and tattered membrane, beating vigorously as it soared briefly into the air. It seemed to sense some form of energy or current within this surreal world before landing deftly on its master’s shoulder. Despite its apparently limited cognitive abilities, the demon somehow conveyed information to the man, who promptly determined a general direction to move in. “We should head this way,” he said, gazing towards the dark, foreboding depths of the nearby forest.

In silence, Shirley followed the tall man, whose aura dripped with an unsettling darkness. She guided Dog and carefully ventured deeper into the labyrinthine forest.

Beneath her seemingly calm demeanor, Shirley’s thoughts were racing at breakneck speed. She was scrutinizing the man’s motives, contemplating how she might subtly pry information from him without arousing his suspicions, strategizing about how to emulate a credible member of the Cult of Annihilation, and also formulating a quick-act plan to incapacitate him should her cover be blown.

Shirley felt her mind invigorated, functioning at peak efficiency—liberated from the routine drudgery of numbers and text that had once dulled her cognitive abilities.

Walking cautiously, she maintained a precise distance from the cultist. A distance too close might raise alarms, but staying too far away would place him out of the range of Dog’s reach. It was crucial for her that he remained within striking distance of her loyal canine companion.

Breaking a few moments of tense silence, Shirley adopted a false name as she cautiously inquired, “I’m Sara. What’s your name?” Her upbringing in a rough neighborhood, where deceit was often a survival skill, gave her the confidence to tell this small lie effortlessly.

The cultist responded without turning, “Richard. Names are of little importance, young comrade. Our Nether Lord offers us direct pathways to the ‘Essence.'”

“Ah, you’re right. I was just curious,” Shirley agreed hastily. She then added, as if an afterthought, “Were there many others who ‘entered’ the dream this time?”

“A dozen or so brothers and sisters from our church are here,” Richard revealed. “They hail from various city-states, but I’m not privy to the details. The higher-ranking Annihilators handle the planning. I’m much like you—simply following orders passed down from the emissaries.”

Feigning a touch of frustration, Shirley mumbled, “They don’t give me much information because of my age. They just sent me in to gather intel. And then, to make things worse, I immediately ran into the expanding erosion zone upon entry. I’ve really had a streak of bad luck today—thank the Nether Lord for watching over me.”

Richard glanced back at her, his eyes devoid of suspicion since Dog served as her strongest credential. After all, only members of the Cult of Annihilation could cohabit peacefully with such demonic entities. That much was clear, and as long as it was, they were undeniably “brethren” in this twisted fellowship.

In her mind, Shirley assessed that Richard, the cultist, likely viewed her as nothing more than a naive and perhaps somewhat problematic recruit. Recognizing this, she felt a slight surge of confidence.

She began to carefully play up her role as an “inexperienced” member, peppering their conversation with subtle, probing questions.

In her mind, she heard Dog’s voice tinged with confusion, “Shirley, why do I sense that you’re unusually animated?”

“Are you kidding? I’m on the cusp of doing something incredibly useful!” While maintaining a neutral facial expression, she continued conversing with the cultist ahead of her. In her inner dialogue with Dog, she added, “If I can successfully extract useful information from this guy, the captain will undoubtedly reward me. I might even get to skip memorizing vocabulary lists for a few days. What do you think, Dog? Could I perhaps negotiate my way out of math homework if I manage to capture one of them alive?”

Dog mentally retorted, “How do you plan to bring someone back from a dream?”

“Ah, right. I overlooked that detail,” she mentally conceded.

Meanwhile, deep within the urban area, the dream world seemed to have spilled its essence into reality, suffusing every visible inch. Vines twisted and trees erupted as if sprouted by the stuff of dreams, engulfing buildings and transforming the block into a haunting forest. Sinister, dark vines crawled up towering walls while small, sharp thorns wrapped themselves around lampposts. Imposing trees obstructed the entrances to alleys. The canopy of the trees spread over rooftops, their branches intermingling with dormant buildings, assimilating into the concrete walls as if part of the same organism. It was as though the very architecture of the city had entered into a grotesque symbiosis with this unnatural forest.

Within this eerie, almost suffocating silence, the footsteps of Duncan and Alice sounded garishly out of place—a jarring dissonance disrupting the otherwise seamless dream, echoing down deserted streets.

Duncan’s brow furrowed as his eyes scanned the shadow-shrouded avenue before him. The sprawling canopy of trees above seemed to swallow any source of light, whether it was the ethereal “sunlight” that seemed to filter in from a distant ocean or the otherworldly, faint luminescence that could be compared to starlight. The result was an ambiance of unsettling dimness.

Both Duncan and Alice found it increasingly disturbing that they hadn’t encountered a single soul during their trek. Even if the city was under some sort of curfew, they should have at least spotted church guardians patrolling. Yet, the streets were eerily empty, as were the houses they passed. Despite the lights being on, indicating that these homes had been occupied until very recently, there was no visible sign of life.

Every aspect of this environment deviated from what they would have considered normal, heightening their sense of foreboding as they ventured deeper into this unnerving dream.

“In this neighborhood, swallowed up by this twisted forest, there’s an unsettling absence of life. The streets are barren, the homes vacant,” Duncan noted, his eyes shifting towards the puppet head that Alice cradled in her arms. “It’s like everyone has simply vanished—almost as if they’ve become like you.”

“Like us?” The voice that emanated from the puppet’s mouth was Lucretia’s, tinged with a slight warble that made it sound eerie. “Are you suggesting that everyone in this city might have been pulled into this strange ‘dream’?”

Duncan shook his head, uncertainty creasing his brow. “It’s hard to say for sure, but the areas that Alice and I have traversed are devoid of any human presence. Have you come across anyone else from the real world who has been transported into this dream?”

“Not at all,” Lucretia answered quickly. “Right now, I’m journeying with an elf who goes by the name ‘Shireen,’ and neither of us has encountered anyone else from our world.”

Absorbing this information, Duncan turned to Alice, “Have you noticed any ‘threads’ around us?”

Alice shook her head, her expression equally serious. “No, not a single one, throughout our entire journey here.”

A heavy gravity overtook Duncan’s face. Soul threads were never invisible to Alice’s unique sight; regardless of how adept the hiding techniques employed were, she could always see the ‘threads’ that linked people to the real world, floating in the air like ethereal strands of connection. The absence of these threads, combined with Lucretia’s corroborative report, pointed toward a chilling conclusion: within the range of this metamorphosed landscape, people were indeed missing.

This phenomenon deviated from their prior experiences, such as their encounters with Taran El or the elf girl from Pland. Although there seemed to be a connection to the so-called “Dream of the Nameless One,” the magnitude and influence of this specific dream seemed to have escalated to an unprecedented, even incomprehensible level.

Lifting his gaze, Duncan surveyed the dark core of this aberrant neighborhood. Amid the inky blackness, a certain shadow captured his attention.

What he saw was a massive structure that weaved through the buildings. It bore the appearance of a colossal vine or, alternatively, seemed like an exposed part of some underground root system.

The structure lay in the darkness, as silent and immobile as everything else in this eerie environment. However, for some reason he couldn’t quite articulate, Duncan sensed that this gigantic “vine” was markedly different from the surrounding foliage and architecture. It radiated an inexplicable sense of menace or import, setting it apart from the twisted forest and vacant buildings. It felt as though this immense structure harbored some secret, some clue to the mysteries they were grappling with.