Breaking through the dense fog, the group arrived at Cassandra Auction House at 2:30 AM. For safety, the dream-entering ritual was conducted in a room in the auction house's basement. The auction house basement had many rooms hidden by illusions, and it was unclear what Grandma Cassandra intended to do.
The chosen room for the ritual was much smaller than the room where Grace and Helen were staying. A normal-sized four-poster bed was placed in the center of the room, and a burning fireplace provided light—there were no gas lamps because connecting gas pipes would render the room's concealment meaningless.
The Old Witch's Witches were still setting up, and the scent of “Dead Sleep Flowers” in the room almost made Xia De sneeze. While waiting, the Witches informed Xia De of the precautions to take after entering the dream and told him that to prevent Joey Barton from using the three passages to enter death and recall the deceased, the Orthodox Church had entrusted the Witch Council to guard the seal on the mountainside while the Holy Tree Mark sealing ritual was being held.
Grandma Cassandra and Miss Aurora planned to invite Sister Devlin to re-enter the Gap with them after Xia De returned from his dream and to guard the seal on the mountainside until the Orthodox Church's ritual concluded.
As for the seals at the peak and the Natural Church at the foot of the mountain, they would be guarded by the Orthodox Church.
As the time approached 3:00 AM, Xia De took off his coat and shoes, lay on the bed in a white shirt, and the Witches had already covered the bedside with white “Sleep Dragon Grass.”
Under the pillow was a specimen of half of the clown's umbilical cord, and it was unknown how Grandma Cassandra managed to obtain it ahead of the Orthodox Church. In Xia De's hand, besides the “Devil Amulet” given by the doctor, there were also three relic rings given by the Witches.
Those rings were placed in three velvet ring boxes of different colors but identical styles. Two were Document-level, and one was Secret Keeper Level.
“One of the common sense among Ring術士 is not to carry too many relics on your person, and even less to use more than three relics that affect yourself at the same time.”
Miss Aurora said, sitting sideways on the edge of the bed, opening the ring boxes:
“You are adventuring into the Gap, and you shouldn't be using relics, but to ensure safety, you have to use so many rings in conjunction with the ritual. Moreover, Jialinna mentioned that your resistance to the whisper element far exceeds that of ordinary Ring術士, otherwise, Grandma would at most only allow you to wear one.”
She motioned for Xia De to put all the rings on his left hand:
“This one is 【Dream Feast】, a Document-level relic. Wearing this ring to enter a dream allows a Ring術士 to slowly increase the upper limit of their spirit while sleeping. For entering the Gap in a dream, it means being able to slightly resist the negative effect of a greatly reduced spirit recovery rate in the Gap. The negative effect of the ring is a slight feeling of hunger in the dream, and as time passes, the hunger will become stronger and stronger until the user gets lost in the dream. However, owners of Ling Runes like gluttony have strong resistance to its negative effects.”
Xia De took the ring and found that 【Dream Feast】 was a golden ring with a very small emerald face. The outer ring was a spiral pattern connected to each other, while the inner ring was engraved with ancient runes—
【After entering the dream, the dream is a feast.】
“This one is 【Soul Ring】, Secret Keeper Level. When held by a spirit body, it can add an invisible energy shield to itself. The negative effect is that the holder will hear whispers and is very likely to turn into an evil spirit, but short-term wear is not a big problem.”
【Soul Ring】 was a very pretty silver ring, its style even resembling a wedding ring. Its outer surface had fifth epoch letters—
【I wish to be with you forever, to become your strongest shield.】
“Finally, this one is 【Apprentice's Ice Ring】, a Document-level relic. This is a relic of a certain transcendent apprentice from the fourth epoch, and its effect is very unremarkable. It allows a Ring術士 to remain conscious in a dream and to possess the power to manipulate ice in the dream. However, this power is only available in dreams, so except for special circumstances like today, it is basically useless. The negative effect is that it freezes the soul and releases the apprentice's unwilling resentment. I and Grandma will be watching over you, so there's no need to worry about that.”
【Apprentice's Ice Ring】 was truly made of ice, with tiny purple gems embedded in the outer ring of the ice band. The ring was unusually cold; wearing it on his finger, he could even feel the chill spreading up his arm towards his heart. There were no letters or engravings on the inner or outer surfaces of the ring, but when held up to the light, a sentence formed by tiny gem particles frozen within the ice could be seen—
【May the power of solid ice bless me, even if only in a dream.】
All three rings were worn on Xia De's fingers. As for the black crystal amulet he held, the Witches only asked about its general purpose and did not inquire further.
“In any case, be careful in the dream. There’s no need to worry about Joey Barton seeing your face; the ritual will blur your image.”
After drinking the orange-flavored sleep aid potion and the soul-stabilizing tranquilizer potion with milk brought by Grandma Cassandra, Xia De lay on the pillow under the gaze of the people around him. As the Witches lowered the black gauze curtains, the firelight from the fireplace was gradually extinguished, and the view above him became blurred.
Outside the curtains, someone was softly chanting, and someone else was softly singing. Xia De heard the sound of bells and murmurs that seemed to come from a dream.
The bed was so comfortable, like quicksand, threatening to swallow Xia De's body. He felt drowsiness wash over him, so he closed his eyes.
His body was falling in the darkness, and his consciousness was drawn by a strange pull. Xia De meditated in his mind on the clown he had fought on the icy lake under the Moonlight. The Witches' secret art guided this imagination, twisting it into a strong longing, and used it to communicate with the Gap between life and death.
“Xia De, now is the moment.”
Grandma Cassandra's blurry voice came from his ear, and in the deepest part of his consciousness, a black door suddenly appeared. There was no door panel, and black gauze swayed in the doorframe.
Xia De reached forward, pushed aside the black gauze, and behind it was cold white mist.
A momentary feeling of soul detachment gave him the illusion of broken shackles. And when he realized that the surroundings had turned into the decaying scenery of the Gap, he immediately asked in his heart:
“What do I look like now?”
【Still Xia De Hamilton.】
“But…”
【Outsider, this is your dream, not soul separation. You still haven't fully grasped those first-year basic Knowledge.】
As “she” chuckled in his ear, Miss Aurora's voice, as if from a very distant place, filtered through several layers of glass:
“Xia De, can you hear me?”
“I can hear you, but not very clearly.”
Xia De answered in his heart; he knew there would be contact before entering the dream.
“How are things now?”
Xia De looked around and found the scenery in the thick fog very familiar:
“I'm on a street in downtown Middlesburg. The Gap is even more terrifying than when we entered last week. The fog here is very thick, I haven't seen the clown or Joey Barton, and I haven't been attacked yet.”
“Grandma's ritual didn't go wrong, the target should be nearby. Be careful and look around, we'll talk again in a bit…”
The voice abruptly stopped; this contact could not continue indefinitely.
The Red Butterfly gifted by Grace and Helen could detect the location of the “nail” at close range. Xia De had used one butterfly each when confronting the clown and the count. Now that the last nail had been captured by the Orthodox Church, the last Red Butterfly was once again used by Xia De to search for the clown.
He should be very close to the clown's location now; the Red Butterfly on his shoulder was subtly agitated, wanting to fly out, but not yet to the point of actually flying. In the Gap, there was no shortage of wandering undead, so Xia De did not boldly walk on the street. After appearing at the corner of Oak Street in the city center, he stepped on the muddy ground and carefully hugged the wall through the fog, entering a shop facing the street.
In the real world, this was a tobacco shop, where Priest Augustus had even bought tobacco, but in the Gap, it was just a dilapidated three-story building that looked like it was about to collapse.
The dimness indoors was unimaginable. Large patches of black-gray mold covered the peeling walls, like lividity on a corpse. Corpse grass grew in the wall crevices, and the swirling white mist even prevented Xia De from clearly seeing the indoor walls at a glance.
The first floor was not dangerous. The fat woman's undead, carrying a heavy axe and wandering on the second floor, was Xia De's first opponent on this trip.
Her waist was probably three or four times Xia De's, and when she dragged the bloody, rusty giant axe back and forth, it was hard to say whether the sound of the axe was louder or her footsteps. Of course, sounds in the Gap would be attenuated, so Xia De only heard the noise after reaching the second floor.
She paced back and forth in the spacious second-floor living room, with the remains of furniture, terrifyingly black in appearance, and a corpse that had long turned into a mummy, scattered against the walls.
As soon as Xia De, who had laboriously jumped up the broken stairs, appeared, the fat woman stopped. The evil spirit's rotten face roared at him, revealing black teeth and a decaying mouth, and then the woman charged forward with large strides.
Xia De subconsciously wanted to cleave forward with Moonlight, but after thinking about it, he stopped:
“Ice and demon…”
Taking a slight step back, he vanished from in front of the stairs, and then the huge axe struck directly onto the already fragile floor, with such immense force that it seemed capable of collapsing the entire building.
Xia De had already appeared behind the woman and was surprised to find that a rotten pig's head was completely embedded in the back of this spirit body. The pig's head stared at him with wide eyes, and at the same time, the woman, as if having eyes in the back of her head, laboriously swung the huge blood axe backward to sweep.
Xia De did not dodge, but instead clenched his right hand. In the dream, there was no doctor's Devil Amulet in his hand, but there was a symbol of demonic script on his palm. At this moment, wriggling black pus spread from his palm across his entire arm. The pus instantly enveloped Xia De's right hand, making his arm seem to swell by a circle.
At the same time, the ice power from the relic ring also permeated this giant hand, and the coldness even made Xia De, the user, feel terrified.
“Hah!”
He raised his thick right hand high and forcibly grabbed the giant axe. The abundant sense of power allowed Xia De to pull hard, actually snatching the axe from the fat woman's hand.
The evil spirit was also visibly stunned, and then, amidst a piercing howl, it charged forward like a chariot. The black pus swelled again, and Xia De extended his right hand and squeezed hard, completely gripping the fat woman in his palm.
Cold air permeated, and when Xia De released his hand, only a lifelike ice sculpture remained on the spot. He smashed his fist into the ice sculpture, and the ice and soul shattered together. Because he used the Miracle 【Mind Blast】 during the attack, the evil spirit's outer shell peeled off, and the lingering soul appeared, which was a normal-sized middle-aged woman:
“If only I had understood in my lifetime that my appearance was actually enough…”
She left her last words and then departed.
“So strong?”
The black pus gradually faded, pulling out thick black threads that slowly flowed into the demonic script symbol in his palm. Xia De's right hand returned to normal, and he looked at his palm, sincerely grateful for the help given by Doctor Schneider.
