Climbing up the stairs in the cellar and leaving the north tower from the ground, Gawain and Amber saw exactly how the castle had changed.
As Gawain speculated, the castle as a whole is shrouded in a long-term illusion, and all the appearances it presents are created by the dreamer Lilith Kant in the dream, but at the same time It's not just a dream, the boundary between reality and fantasy is particularly blurred here, they overlap and influence each other, things that happen in the real world can interfere with the dream, and things in the dream will also be reflected into reality.
Only when the dream fades away completely can one see the eroded and riddled appearance of the castle.
In the most severely eroded area of the dreamland, half of the tall and majestic north tower has disappeared. It broke from it, and the entire upper half has collapsed and collapsed as early as many years ago. The remaining megalithic structures are uneven like broken bones. The ground points to the sky, showing a hideous appearance in the early morning light, while the open space around the high tower can be seen everywhere with bricks and tiles that have been buried in loess and vines; the main body of the castle that is far away from the north tower is preserved It is still intact, it is a place where "reality is better", so the servants living in the main body of the castle have indeed maintained the castle. The uneasy cracks and the wanton growth of vines and moss, and as the power of the dream faded, some of those vines and moss had even climbed to the high spire of the main building.
On the way to the main building of the castle, Gawain and Amber met Knight Philip who was hurrying over.
The young knight has not experienced battle, but destroying a huge magic center by himself is enough to make him exhausted. Philip looked very tired, and there was still a deeper psychological fatigue in his eyes, but After seeing Gao Wen, he immediately cheered up and stood up straight: "My lord! I am glad to see that you are safe and sound!"
Gawain looked at Philip's expression and nodded slightly: "It seems that you have seen something that is psychologically stressful."
"Yes, my lord, as you expected," Philip sighed, "The place where Steward Carter disappeared is the 'inner boundary' of the dream, where there is a... a ritual site full of blasphemy and sin, I really can't describe the scene there .”
Gao Wen nodded: "Take me there to see if you haven't demolished that place completely?"
"Of course not, my lord, those are all evidence of cult members," Philip nodded, "but those people... I'm afraid they can't be saved."
"...I guessed it," Gawain sighed, "take me there to see the situation. By the way, Amber, you go to the castle first. I guess the people there should have woken up and are in panic. You go Find the advisor, treasurer, chief knight, and priest in the castle, let them calm down and call the supervisors and knights in the territory, and I will go to the main hall to preside over the overall situation soon."
Amber blinked: "Are you sure those people will listen to me?"
"You are more or less the Duke's guard now, do you think you have no right to speak in front of the servants of ordinary minor nobles?" Gawain glanced at this guy, "And now that the dream is over, what happened to this castle in the past thirty years Correct cognition is returning to everyone's brains, and this unbelievable shock will cause everyone to fall into a huge panic. In this situation, it is easy for people to accept guidance."
The second half of Gawain's sentence didn't seem to enter the half-elf's head at all, and Amber's whole body started to drift just after hearing the first half of the sentence. At least 60 ways to make money popped up after her mind ran around quickly. And the eighty methods of deception basically revolve around the central idea of Hu pretending to be a tiger, but it is a pity that she was seen through by Gao Wen within a few seconds of floating, and the latter stared directly: "You dare to use me You have been deceived by your name, I will slap you on the wall!"
Amber rolled her eyes: "Can't you threaten in another way?"
"Then shoot the ground," Gao Wen waved his hands, turned his head and walked away, "Anyway, if you dare to lie, shoot the wall, and if you dare to steal, shoot the floor..."
However, the upright knight Philip asked worriedly after following Gawain's footsteps: "Then what if she lied to you that she didn't steal something after stealing it?"
Gawain stopped in his tracks and looked at Philip silently: "...Have you considered getting your head permed?"
"ah?"
Gao Wen sighed in his heart: Sure enough, the most difficult thing about living in another world is not being able to communicate with the locals, even if the other party is flattering.
The two came to the underground hall discovered by Philip Knight.
The magical power entrenched in the hall has dissipated, and the depressing and crazy atmosphere has also disappeared, but it is still a eerie place. In Gawain's sight, the platforms neatly arranged around the stone pillars are like a An anatomy table exuding a bloody smell, and on these anatomy tables, the "lambs" to be slaughtered are still alive.
Gao Wen noticed the tubes that connected the victim's head and the stone pillar, which seemed to be some kind of biological tissue. They were entangled and growing blood vessels and nerves, but they obviously did not proliferate or mutate from the human brain. One end is connected to the foundation of the stone pillar, where there is a layer of swelling and distorted flesh and blood structure, like some kind of independent organism tightly attached to the runes of the stone pillar, while the other end of them is connected to the human body. Should be some kind of parasitism (and possibly surgery).
Since Knight Philip destroyed the runes on the stone pillars, these "biological tissues" attached to the stone pillars have shown obvious signs of weakness and dying at this moment. They began to shrink and crack, and a light red liquid flowed out from the cracks. More than half of the victims connected to them are dead.
Even those who did not die obviously cannot be saved. They have been connected to those "nerve cords" for too long, their individual consciousness has been completely obliterated long ago, and their brain tissue has suffered irreversible and destructive damage. The nerve cells are only providing computing power for this huge "human brain array computer". As the magic power here dissipates, they will die soon.
The only thing to be thankful for is that they no longer feel pain in the process.
"I can't recognize what it is," Knight Philip suppressed his disgust and squatted with Gawain near the foundation of one of the stone pillars. He pointed at the twitching and shrinking biological tissues in front of him with his scabbard, " Even in the ancient books that record the craziest black magic, and the crazy ravings of those heretics, I have never heard of such... creatures in the world. The eternal sleepers are not druids, they do not transform species or summon The ability of life, these biological tissues should be where they found and reproduced, specially used to extract souls, but... where did they find these things?"
"Perhaps these are the ones cultivated by the End of All Things to help the Eternal Sleepers," Gawain frowned. "After all, they are related."
Knight Philip was very surprised: "Will the cooperation between those cultists be so close?"
"If the reason for their fall is as I think, then the close cooperation between them may exceed the imagination of most people in the world," Gawain sighed. This 'technique' of
After all, Philip is a warrior, and he is a little slow in this regard: "Technology?"
"The letter left by Viscount Victor mentioned that this is a 'computing node' built by the Eternal Sleepers," Gawain pointed at the victims connected by nerve cords, "They seem to be trying to create a Replacing the 'real dream' of the real world, and using the power of the dream to achieve something, and this requires terrifying computing power you can simply understand it as brain power. Any great magician's brain can't accomplish this feat, That's why they came up with this crazy idea of connecting brains together to create a 'brain-array computer', you know what that means?"
"Meaning they're going to kill more people?"
"This is just the appearance, but the deep meaning is: this means that these cultists are not only crazy, but also possess crazy technology!" Gao Wen said seriously, "They are still living in the world even though they are rejected by the mainstream society and live in seclusion. It is constantly developing, and has even developed new technologies that far exceed the level of contemporary magic. You must know that cultists with crazy thinking are not scary, but what is terrible is that these cultists have scientific research capabilities and even scientific research capabilities are not weak!"
While speaking, he stood up and looked around the entire underground hall.
"The most terrible thing is that if the crazy technology they created is used in the right place, it will make their technological progress even more terrifying..."
After collecting some rune rubbings and wreckage samples, Gawain and Philip Knight left this place.
After the power of the dream receded, the main hall of the castle was one of the areas that had changed the least. Except for the signs of aging accumulated over thirty years on the outer walls, pillars, and ceilings, it was still brightly lit, clean and bright. The daily cleaning behavior of the living servants in the castle is real, and the characteristics of the intersection of dreams and reality ensure that their cleaning effects are not limited to dreams.
In fact, due to the end of the dream effect, the vaguely eerie aura that had always been entrenched here also disappeared, and the main hall of the castle was much warmer and more peaceful than before.
It's just that the warm and peaceful atmosphere couldn't reassure the people gathered in the hall.
Fear gripped everyone, even the Chief Knight who had guarded this place faithfully for thirty years.
When the dream is over, the people in the castle suddenly wake up, their shielded consciousness and memory are fully functioning, and the moment they gain the ability to think freely, everything they have experienced here in the past thirty years has become bizarre. Nightmare sleepwalking through an aging castle, tending to a phantom who has been dead for decades, and a ghostly mistress wandering the ruins of the North Tower are all eerie.
And for those servants and knights, advisors, and executives who are old enough, things are even more terrifying: they clearly remember when the bones of the old and young masters were secretly sent back to the castle, and they also clearly remember when the bones of the old and young masters were secretly sent back to the castle How the mistress of years ago used magic to control everyone's minds in madness. What happened every day after that, and the changes that occurred in the castle every day, all flooded their hearts.
And those who were summoned back and lived near the castle were also in fear, because anyone who frequently entered and exited the castle had been affected by dreams, but compared to those who had never been in the castle for thirty years The servants and knights who had not left the castle had less fear.
But no matter what, as long as you realize what you have been through, no one can remain calm.
Amber was standing on the high platform at the end of the main hall, scratching her head anxiously.
It is the place where the lord can usually stand, but now no one has any opinions on the "little girl" standing on it, because everyone knows that it is the Duke's bodyguard. In this emergency situation, she is the Duke's The spokesperson stood there, so instead of questioning her, everyone cast their expectant eyes on her.
But this made Amber wish she could immediately find a chance to go back to the shadows and become a big shot. It turned out that the feeling was not as good as I imagined before!
"Don't panic, don't...don't be nervous! The Duke is going to purify the last lair, don't panic, he'll be here soon, he'll be here soon!"
Amber stood on the stage and comforted everyone in vain. Just when she felt that she would lose control of the scene if she dragged on for another second, Gawain finally appeared with Philip Knight.
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