Chapter 1662: Awakened from the Dream
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The process of Hao Ren seeing through the truth of L’Haronne was even more complicated than he had let on because intuition and hyper-senses were difficult to explain using mere words. His judgment on the matter was thanks to the experiences he had gained in the past two years. Be it Lockmarton’s corruption of reality through the nightmare, or the army-creating Dreamer, the nightmares created by them left a mark on him and allowed his psyche to evolve.
The effect of this slight evolution was his ability to better control his mental powers, and he was especially sensitive to the dissonance caused when entering an illusion or a dream. That dissonance was not perceptible to mortals or even demigods who were not as strong.
Those entering the dream would never realize that they were in one, yet Hao Ren was an exception. He would be very awake in any dream, even when he was in one created by gods.
Of course, that only heightened his sense of judgment in the dream of L’Haronne. But the one who allowed him to confirm everything was still Noobie. The clumsy and laughably weak tiny one did not have much strength, but one of her “natural talents” could not be replicated by anyone else. As a being of pure chaos, a harmless being from the same root as the Mad Lord, she was the best scouting tool for anything to do with mental interference.
The silver-haired, red-eyed goddess curiously looked at the little one running circles beside her. She could sense a tinge of the aura of madness from her, but she did not take action. She could feel that Noobie was really harmless, and she could tell from her eyes, the attitude of the people before her, and if they bore any hostile intent.
After understanding how Hao Ren saw through the dream, she laughed helplessly, “I never thought the dream world that I had created was torn apart by this tiny one… Unexpected, unexpected.”
As she continued, she lay her eyes on Vivian, “And I can sense from you, the aura I left behind ages ago, but…”
While Vivian had mentally prepared herself, she still got nervous when the goddess of creation cast her eyes on her. She took half a step forward and opened her mouth, yet no voice came out.
“You are different from what I had expected…” The goddess looked conflicted as she blinked. “No matter your powers or your spiritual structure, all had deviated from my expectation. And it seemed you did not grow into the persona and memory I gave you. I could feel that… aside from the aura, you had grown into a totally different being.”
As she finished, she strained herself to get up as she same on the rock that she was laying on. Her vision swept across everyone. “And your appearance as well, it is really unexpected. Sigh, seems like in the end, everything did not go according to plan.”
“I had rejected the Throne of Destiny,” Vivian finally mustered up her courage. “And I did not complete my duty as a guide. I had lost all my memories by the time I got to the other universe…”
Hao Ren placed his hand on Vivian’s shoulder as he looked at the goddess of creation. “The Throne of Destiny is flawed. I did not want to tell you this just after you wake up, but your plan would not have succeeded from the beginning. The system you designed has bugs, and the guards you left behind were caught in a civil war. Even Vivian, this lady here, was infected by the power of madness. It took us a lot of effort to resolve that. So…”
Hao Ren did not continue, but his intention was clear enough. As for the goddess of creation facing this truth, her face was calm, as though she had already anticipated this. “Is that so. So it is then. Seems I underestimated my old nemesis… Vivian, is that your name now?”
She looked Vivian in the eyes and noticed the latter’s nervousness. She broke into a calming smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t eat you. You’re worried that I’ll be mad because of the issue with the Throne of Destiny? Actually, that doesn’t matter at all, I pretty much guessed it would have happened once I realize that you had a different personality.”
Hao Ren looked at the goddess of creation and Vivian in turn and quickly understood the former.
As he had thought, the goddess of creation was not a goddess who would force her will upon others. Perhaps she had created a series of primordial memories and commands for her divine incarnation, but with the incarnation splitting apart, and Vivian’s personality born from it. The ‘mission’ of the guide and the lady of the throne had lost its meaning.
This calmed Vivian down somewhat, and Hao Ren too heaved a sigh of relief. If possible he did not want to bring out that chain-bound scripture out…
“So tell me what had happened outside. I have been asleep for far too long.” The goddess of creation gently held her head. It seemed like she had not fully recovered from her 10,000-year-long slumber. “The fact that you’ve managed to get here… Does that mean the situation outside is not that bad?”
“Frankly speaking… it’s pretty terrible.” Hao Ren shook his head resignedly. “The era of life in the Plane of Dreams ended, and now it is in the age of withering. The only good news is that the seal you had placed before had yet to fully unravel. As for us, we are from another universe.”
“I had expected that much, as I had sent her… Vivian to the universe beyond. I really believed in the existence of other universes.” The goddess of creation smiled. “But to see a visitor from the beyond with my own eyes is really something else. If in the past, I would have grandly welcomed you all, but now, well, you know. So tell me about the world beyond.”
“‘Of course, we have to start from the head honcho of our world. You can probably guess, if this universe has you, it would be normal for other universes to have gods as well. As I’m a representative of the god there…”
Trying to explain the setting of another world in a few sentences was extremely difficult, so Hao Ren tried to summarize their origins and introduced Raven 12345 briefly. Of course, he had also mentioned the situation in the Plane of Dreams, including the progress of his actions there: The remaining ecosystems, the crazed First Borns, the surviving guardian giants, the Gate of Solenne, the rebuilt World Engine, and the Battle of the Core System, plus Salaman’s fleet who is standing by in the material world.”
“A massive pantheon? I don’t know about this at all, seems like I’m really out of touch…”
“Ah, is that so, most of them were corrupted… I had tried to save them, but look at the state I ended up in…”
“Oh, Lockmarton. Dear Lockmarton, he was my first child, I had made too many mistakes with him, and his end is probably some sort of salvation I suppose…”
“Amantir is destroyed, huh… I had created the guardians myself, hoping that they would look after that place. I never thought the corruption had spread to them as well.”
After the briefing, the silver-haired goddess shook her head awkwardly. “Seems like you had really helped me clean up my mess.”
“Frankly, they were a mess, but that’s what my job description entailed.” Hao Ren shrugged. “Inspectors are meant to clean up messes.”
The MDT floated over and added. “But not every mess is left behind by the gods.”
“Shut it.” Hao Ren glared at the MDT. “She’s already very embarrassed as it is.”
“No worries, it is the truth after all.” the goddess was accepting on the fact, and by now she had somewhat recovered, and looked much more sprightly. “I have been in the dream for far too long. It is time to face reality now. But speaking of which… Can’t you guys be a little gentler in waking someone up? You actually summoned the projection of the Star of Creation over L’Haronne, right in front of me… There’s nothing crueler than this.”
“I knew you were Rheia.” Hao Ren noticed that the goddess was almost similar to Rhea, only her hair and eye colors were different. “I did not want to use that to wake you up, but I could not think of any other stimuli to wake a real goddess from her dream.”
“Rheia is an incarnate of me in L’Haronne. But I’m curious, how did you know, or guessed that she was my incarnate.”
“Perhaps you were very into this ‘character role-play’ yourself, but outsiders were not influenced by that.” the one answering her was not Hao Ren, but Nangong Sanba who had been quiet for quite a while now. While the latter was about as confused as everyone else earlier, after realizing the truth of L’Haronne, he quickly pieced many things together. “No one had dared to approach the Great Pit, nor study it, and no one could make such a bold judgment towards the pit, but Rheia did all of it. Perhaps Rheia was a very ordinary female mage in L’Haronne, but on the other side, Rheia is a special being: She was the only one curious and is willing to take action in search for the truth of the dream world while ordinary civilians in the dream would not have been interested, and are probably repulsed by it.”
“And there is another important reason as well,” Hao Ren continued, “We are a group of outsiders and are an unstable factor that has ‘invaded’ the dream from reality, and the unstable factor is a very potent awakening tool of a dream. Based on normal dream operations, there would have been a rejection reaction, and in truth the disaster on L’Haronne was the manifestation of this adverse rejection. Of course, before the rejection even took place, we had already made contact with the first level of protection of the dream.”
“That was me, or Rheia.” The goddess smiled, “The entire dream world revolves around her. So the dream around here is the most stable, and the most consuming part. If you lot were just ordinary intruders, you would have been consumed and assimilated the moment you met Rheia before truly believing that you are an L’Haronnean and becoming a mercenary for the rest of your life…”
“That’s pretty scary.” Lily stuck her tongue out.
“And in fact, the assimilation had happened.” Hao Ren purposely stopped for second, and that reminded everyone. “It had happened once, look at your hands. Is the mark of the World Tree still there?”
