Chapter 383: Dream of Eternal Slumber, It? Him? Them!

"Noelle, do you remember how long we have been here?"

Two figures walked across an endless wasteland of ash that seemed to stretch into eternity; the soft, yielding sensation of walking upon the remains of everything burned to cinders had persisted for an indeterminate age.

In this world devoid of light, sound, magic, or void energy, time had been utterly diluted. Whether it moved fast or slow, no one could say; lacking any frame of reference, Sieg and Noelle could only gauge the passage of time by their own physical states and their alchemical tools.

"Twenty-four days, seven hours, eight minutes, and I don't know how many seconds. The physical toll is far worse than anticipated. This world drains our internal energy at a terrifying rate, and to this void of a realm, we are like sponges soaked in water dropped into a desert—losing our moisture with every passing moment."

Noelle’s reply came after a slight pause, the exhaustion heavy in her voice.

As dragons, even in human form, the power flowing through their veins far exceeded that of other races, granting them superior resistance and strength. Yet, in this world where nothing existed, this "high-energy" state became a fatal disadvantage.

Sieg and Noelle’s power leaked into the world incessantly. It was not something they could suppress; the entire withered realm drank from them, and it was hard to say what level of strength would be required to resist such a drain.

"Good. Keep thinking, keep moving forward. Over such vast distances, changes in perspective are incredibly subtle. We only need to continue in that direction. If you feel hungry, just tell me. At the very least, our supplies are sufficient for now, and we can maintain optimal efficiency."

Sieg smiled and patted Noelle’s head. He appeared less weary than she, showing no signs of deep concern.

But in truth, Sieg, whose magic circuits relied on a living dragon-armor graft to function, lacked the innate mastery of magic that a true dragon possessed. He was utterly unable to stop the leakage of his power, and the nameless magic armor had become a crushing burden.

The weakness creeping through his body was far more severe than Noelle’s. The supplies in his storage were never meant for a dragon, and this environment—so extreme that it defied all foresight—was dragging them both into an abyss of emptiness.

Yet, it was better than when they had first arrived. They were no longer wandering like headless flies; the direction they had chosen was where a turning point might lie.

Seventeen days, eighteen hours, thirty-six minutes, and seven seconds later, Sieg, who had been trudging through the dark, caught a glimpse of a light. It was tiny, dim, but in this world of absolute, suffocating blackness, it was impossible to ignore.

Light meant energy. Whether through combustion or some other process, to emit light required something that this dead, silent world lacked.

A variable. That was what Sieg needed. If nothing changed, regardless of how they rationed their supplies, they would eventually become two desiccated corpses—corpses that, in the absence of microorganisms, would never even decay.

But the light’s progression was so agonizingly slow that one’s heart sank. It was too far, too small. After ten days of trekking, the flicker looked much as it had at the start. Noelle aside, even Sieg began to wonder if it was a cruel prank designed to offer false hope.

"What are you thinking? I still have to go back and deal with the dragon affairs; I can't die here."

Shaking his head in imitation of Wang Yu’s habits, Sieg gently nudged Noelle’s back, urging her forward. If that man were here, he would have buried his head and marched without a second thought once a goal was set. Sieg realized he still couldn't control his own chaotic thoughts.

"Brother, does that light look a bit bigger?"

Noelle stopped, asking with a mixture of doubt and hesitation, a faint joy buried beneath her question.

Sieg paused, then peered intently at the light. The imperceptible glimmer had indeed, as Noelle suggested, grown to twice its original size. Though still pitifully small, the news was enough to stir their numbed spirits.

"Let’s go!"

With a wave and a smile, Sieg led Noelle, whose steps had suddenly grown lighter, back onto the path.

Forty-two days, seven hours, fifty-six minutes, and some seconds later, the full scene of that light finally appeared in their field of vision.

The two dragons had consumed more than half of their supplies. Fortunately, their wills remained firm; they had not succumbed to madness in the dead world, though they were wrapped in a shroud of profound exhaustion.

"Brother, we're almost there."

Noelle tugged at Sieg’s sleeve, her voice brimming with undisguised joy.

"Yes."

Sieg replied, sharing her joy, though he kept his own hidden thoughts to himself: this light was not quite right.

On the ash-covered plain not far ahead, a figure appeared, looking quite aged, sitting cross-legged on the ground, staring up at some unknown point in the pitch-black sky.

A lantern by his side served as the world’s only light source, illuminating a small radius. It was this glow that had guided Sieg’s path.

Beside the old man lay several bodies. They were dead, their frames withered and devoid of any wounds. It was clear they had died of organ failure, having run out of the substance required to maintain the bare minimum of their biological functions.

"Ah... so more poor souls have fallen into this place. My apologies. Are you here following the light, just like them? But this is not the place of energy you imagine. This light is merely what it emits."

The old man seemed to notice their approach. He lowered his head and looked at them, speaking calmly while shaking the lantern. His surprise and apology were sincere.

The old man’s words made Sieg’s heart sink. His worst fears were confirmed. He felt none of the properties of normal light in this glow; it did not dazzle the eyes, and his magic could not perceive it at all.

"The Lighthouse. The name of this artifact is truly ironic. It is called a lighthouse, yet this eternal flame cannot guide those lost in this world to an exit. Not for them, and not for you..."

The old man raised the lantern. The reason for the light’s unnatural nature was clear: it was the property of an artifact.

The light was not born of energy or conversion; it was simply the nature of the object to be "an eternal light." Nothing had changed; the world remained dead and silent, its energy eternally void.

"It’s alright..."

Sieg patted the stunned Noelle, signaling her to sit. Though the hope for energy had vanished, finding a sentient being to converse with was not entirely bad, though...

Sieg’s gaze swept over the corpses near the old man—humans, elves, dwarves, five in total. One wore different attire than the others, and the insignia on the uniforms of the four others seemed familiar to Sieg.

"Explorers? The second wave, those who set sail after the Morning Star explosion..."

Sieg stepped forward, observing the clothes and emblems. He confirmed they were indeed among the explorers who had ventured beyond the Endless Sea, though he could not fathom why they had died here.

"You recognize them? It is a pity. They were a courageous and curious group. They told me many stories of the outside world, and I shared what I knew with them. In the end, they accepted their deaths with peace."

The old man’s voice rose, questioning Sieg.

"I do know of them. I never expected some would perish here. Old man, who are you? What is this place? If you can, tell me how to leave, or at least, tell me the story of this place."

Sieg composed himself and spoke respectfully. He had sensed the old man’s state: a projection, its influence on the outside world unknown, as if he existed on a different layer of reality, untouchable.

"No problem. It has been a long time since we had visitors. If I could, I would wish that no one ever fell into this place to die in vain. But since it has happened, all I can do is share my story."

"Since you know them, your era cannot be far from theirs. Abyss creatures—that is what you call those beings from the stars, correct?"

The old man cleared his throat, agreeing to answer Sieg’s questions, but asking one of his own first.

"That is correct."

Sieg nodded, truly shocked that this place was linked to the Abyss.

"There is likely more than one civilization in this world. We were the previous one, and you are the next. As for me, you may call me Flo, the deity of the previous civilization of sentient beings: the Dream God."

The old man’s first sentence threw Sieg into turmoil. The word "civilization" carried a heavy weight, and the phrase "previous civilization" brought a crushing sense of oppression.

"Your reaction is much faster than ours. We gave those beings from the stars too much time to grow and develop. By the time we were prepared for a full-scale resistance, it was already too late. One being from the stars—what you call an Abyss creature—had grown to an unimaginable level of power."

"Kingdoms were as fragile as building blocks before it. Legends were not even qualified to touch it, and the gods had no way to stop it. It learned too much, too comprehensively. The civilization of our era was wiped out in a difficult and futile resistance."

The old man spoke of destruction with a calm that suggested he hadn't witnessed it himself.

"It was over. Everything was over. Nothing could stop that thing, which looked like a giant octopus. Our military was worse than toys before it; we couldn't even sting it."

"But at least you appeared, didn't you? And it seems we didn't leave nothing behind. The City of Sin, and so on—the explorers said as much. There are ruins that prove we once existed, and the ending wasn't entirely hopeless."

As the old man spoke, a hint of laughter mixed with fury crept into his voice. Sieg listened, his mind in such disarray it was hard to describe.

"The fury of a civilization is perhaps the final 'gift' we, the extinct, left for that being: a dream from which it can never wake, an eternal cage."

"Those Abyss creatures learned too much—so much that they lost the ability to distinguish what would bring them trouble. It was so powerful that we could not harm it, so we had to borrow its own power to deal with it."

"One of their abilities was to occupy the void. I do not know how it did it, but it could forcibly occupy a piece of the void and use that power to distort the material world. It was one of its greatest abilities, but it was also this ability that doomed it. In that state, they, who were almost immune to the power of gods, were finally influenced by me."

Together with the last survivors of that civilization, before it could obliterate everything with its might, I exhausted every ounce of my strength in a ritual to force it into a dream.

It was the final day before the civilization’s ruin; its power was boundless, yet its will was so fragile it made me laugh. Alas, it was a slow learner, and only on the eve of total annihilation, with its own unwitting aid, did I manage to weave this dream—a dream where reality and illusion became indistinguishable.

Its power could influence its own being, and the void it occupied allowed it to manifest thought into reality; thus, the moment it failed to discern the waking world from the dream, everything was already over.

It was consigned to its own cycle, forever dreaming of the day it razed that civilization, only for everything to reset to the beginning once the destruction was complete, over and over again, in an endless loop.

The old man sighed softly as he spoke.

It is a pity that I only succeeded in trapping it within a cage where dream and reality entwine; the next step, casting it into the deepest abyss of the void, remained unfinished. Its physical instincts proved far more resilient than its will.

Driven by instinct, its shell extended tentacles, clawing desperately at the material world, spontaneously cleaving the world born of its dream into two: one, a desolate, silent wasteland—this place—and the other, a realm where all its energy converges, the site of that eternal, repeating day.

These two worlds serve to bar my further progress. I was split in two by its power; my shell remains in that energy-laden realm, mindless and inert, while my consciousness stands before you, capable only of watching and recounting.

Yet I have time in abundance. My followers persist as recurring reflections; though they are but shadows, within this world it has constructed, they may be deemed real. As long as it does not perish, I shall not die. I will watch it until it is utterly undone.

The Tidal Barrier—is that what you call it? This wall, to you, is merely the phenomenon of it clinging to the material world to resist the fall; to it, that is the anchor driven into the heart of reality.

Zieg’s eyes flickered. The Tidal Barrier, born of such a thing? That would mean Wang Yu and Aivia, who fell with them, must be trapped in that other world.

Tell me, how did you find your way here? The others who arrived did so through coincidences beyond my understanding. It seems the bomb you detonated, the Morning Star, tore a fissure in the anchor it uses to secure itself, creating gaps in this sealed world. But while one may enter, leaving is an impossibility.

The old man asked how Zieg had fallen into this place. The impossibility he spoke of cast a shadow over Zieg’s heart, yet he did not refuse to answer.

Because our dragon deity, the Dragon God...

Zieg began to recount the events he had endured.

Wait, have you perhaps misunderstood something? How could a deity harm its own kin? And how could your god open a rift to drop you here? The power that forms the Tidal Barrier belongs to it alone.

As Zieg reached the eve of their descent, Fro, the Dream God, suddenly interrupted, his brow furrowed in profound confusion.

The words struck home, jolting Zieg, whose mind had been sluggish from the deluge of revelations. Indeed, why? How could the Dragon God know of this place? What was the purpose of its actions, and how, in truth, did the Dragon God become a deity?