Dream Ghost

The interior of the pyramid was much larger than Lin Ye had imagined.

Behind the stone gate was a narrow passage, its walls covered with runes. Dark red light seeped from the gaps in the runes, making the walls appear to be bleeding. The passage was so narrow that only one person could pass at a time. The four people lined up in a row, with Gu Yan at the front and Chen Xuan at the rear.

Lin Ye was third, with Su Wanning ahead of her. Her silver threads floated gently on the walls on either side of the passage, like unseen hands touching the runes. With each touch, her brows furrowed more.

"These runes weren't carved by Dreamweaver," she suddenly said.

"What do you mean?" Lin Ye asked.

"The rune systems are different in style. The runes of the Dreamweaver Society are straight lines and sharp angles, like they were carved with a knife. These runes are curves and arcs, like... like they grew out of the ground."

Gu Yan stopped and looked back at her.

"You're right. This pyramid wasn't built by the Dream Weavers; it's something from much earlier. The Dream Weavers simply occupied it."

"Something even earlier? The first generation of the Night's Watch?"

"Even earlier than the first generation of the Night's Watch." Gu Yan turned around and continued walking. "The first generation of the Night's Watch were the group that sealed away the primal fears three thousand years ago. This pyramid was built at least ten thousand years ago. It may be a relic of the previous civilization cycle."

Lin Ye stared at the curved runes on the wall. The lines writhed slowly in the dark red light, like sleeping snakes. When his senses reached them, he felt a strange resonance—not a threat, not hostility, but a weariness that had transcended countless years and was almost gone…

After walking through the passage for about ten minutes, they came to a stone door. The door wasn't locked, and Gu Yan pushed it open.

Behind the door was a huge circular hall.

It was at least fifty meters in diameter and estimated to be over twenty meters high. Countless luminous crystals were embedded in the dome of the hall, as if the starry sky had been brought underground. The light from those crystals was not white, but pale blue, similar to the light from the teleportation array at the association headquarters, but more ancient and quieter.

There is a huge circular groove on the floor of the hall.

It's exactly the same groove as the one in the Third Seal. It's about ten meters in diameter, and seven crystals of different colors are embedded in the groove. Six are bright, and one is dark.

Lin Ye stared at the groove, his heart skipped a beat.

"This is... a seal?"

"Yes and no." Gu Yan walked to the edge of the groove, squatted down, and reached out to touch one of the crystals. "This is an incomplete seal. Its structure is exactly the same as the third seal, but it has never been activated. The Dream Weavers discovered it and then turned it into a processing plant."

"Renovation?" Su Wanning looked around the hall. "Where's the processing equipment?"

Gu Yan pointed to the surroundings of the hall.

Along the circular wall was a ring of metal shelves that stretched from the floor to the dome. Each shelf was filled with transparent containers—exactly the same as those in the third processing plant. But there were far more of them, at least a hundred.

Lin Ye's senses extended and swept over those containers.

One hundred and thirty-seven. Each container held a dream creature. Most were fragments or pages, but the contents of the containers on the shelves deeper in the hall slightly distorted his perception.

Roller stage.

At least three.

"Why aren't they moving?" Su Wanning asked.

Indeed, the black matter in those containers was completely still. Not asleep, but in a "frozen" state. It was as if time had stopped inside the containers.

"The Dream Weaver will use the residual power of this incomplete seal to suppress them." Gu Yan stood up. "Although the seal is not activated, it is itself a huge rule field. Within this rule field, all dream creatures below the Codex level will be suppressed to a state of stillness. Only consciousnesses at the Dream Domain Ruler level can move freely."

"You just said there are two consciousness entities at the level of Dream Domain Overlords," Lin Ye said.

"Yes. They're not here. They're deeper inside."

Gu Yan pointed to the other side of the hall. There was a door there, larger than the stone door at the entrance. There were no runes on the door, only a relief carving—a huge eye, with a crescent moon reflected in its pupil.

It's exactly the same as the association's logo. It's exactly the same as the mark on Lin Ye's palm.

Lin Ye walked to the door, reached out his hand, and pressed it on the relief.

The blue mark on my palm lit up.

The door slowly opened.

Behind the door was an even smaller room. It was circular, about twenty meters in diameter. In the very center of the room, a ball of light floated. It wasn't blue, nor gold, but pure white, like a miniature sun. At the center of the light, something was slowly rotating.

"What is that?" Su Wanning asked.

Gu Yan's expression changed.

"The core," he said. "The core of the fourth processing plant. The Dreamweaver will use this core to control the entire plant's operation—suppressing dream creatures, maintaining the rune array, and transmitting fragments of consciousness."

"What if we destroy it?"

"The entire factory will collapse. All the dream creatures will awaken simultaneously. One hundred and thirty-seven, including three scroll-class." Gu Yan looked at Lin Ye, "You can't devour them all."

Lin Ye did not answer. He walked up to the ball of white light, reached out his hand, but did not touch it.

His sense of form penetrated the white light, allowing him to see what was inside.

It is neither a machine nor a crystal.

is a person.

A huddled, naked old man, his body covered in runes. His skin was gray, like a stone that had been sitting for decades. His eyes were closed, and the corners of his mouth were slightly downturned, as if he were having a bad dream.

He has a mark on his chest.

It was exactly the same as the mark on Lin Ye's palm.

But the mark was gray.

He is already dead.

No, he wasn't dead. His consciousness remained. He drifted slowly within that white light, like a fish trapped in amber.

"Who is he?" Lin Ye asked.

Gu Yan remained silent for a few seconds.

“I don’t know his name,” he said, “but I know who he is. He is the last descendant of the first generation of Night’s Watch. For three thousand years, his family has guarded the seal generation after generation. He is the last. The Dreamweavers brought him here and will use his consciousness as the core to drive the entire factory.”

"Is he still alive?"

"His body is alive. Ninety percent of his consciousness has been drained, leaving only the most basic life-sustaining functions. He won't wake up, won't think, won't feel anything. He's just... still here."

Lin Ye stood in front of the old man, looking at his gray, wrinkled face.

Three thousand years of protection.

In the end, it became a battery.

He reached out and gently pressed his hand on the old man's forehead.

The blue mark on his palm emitted a warm light. The old man's brow twitched slightly—not from waking up, but from some deeper, instinctive reaction. It was as if someone had covered him with a blanket in the cold of the night.

"I want to save him," Lin Ye said.

Chen Xuan walked to his side and looked at the old man.

"How can we save him?"

"Put his consciousness back in," Lin Ye said. "His body is still intact. Ninety percent of his consciousness was extracted, but ten percent remained in his body. That ten percent is his 'root.' As long as the root is still there, the transplant will be successful."

"Do you possess that 90% fragment of consciousness?"

Lin Ye looked at the shelves around the hall.

One hundred and thirty-seven containers. One hundred and thirty-seven dream creatures. But there are some things that aren't in the containers—in the corner of the hall, there's a cabinet. Exactly the same cabinet as the one in the third processing plant.

Lin Ye walked over and opened the cabinet door.

Inside were rows of glass bottles.

Much more than the third processing plant. At least fifty.

Lin Ye looked at them one by one.

Zhao Min. Shen Yutong. Wang Jianguo. Li Xiuying. Zhang Wei. Chen Fang. All the names he had seen before at the Third Processing Plant were here. Not the originals—they were copies. The Dream Weaver had copied each fragment of consciousness multiple times and stored them in different processing plants to prevent them from being wiped out at once.

He continued watching.

Lin Yuan. His father. There's also a copy here.

He continued flipping through the pages.

At the very bottom of the cabinet, there was a bottle with a yellowed label. The handwriting was old, as if it had been written decades ago.

"Lin Yuanzhou".

Lin Ye's hand stopped.

Lin Yuanzhou.

His surname is Lin.

He picked up the bottle and held it up to his eyes. The light inside was faint, even paler than his father's, almost gone. But he could feel it—a connection between that light and his mark. Not a connection between a fragment and its owner, but a blood connection.

His grandfather.

Or perhaps an even more distant ancestor.

"Lin Ye." Chen Xuan walked over, saw the label on the bottle, and fell silent.

"He's also a descendant of the Night Watch," Lin Ye said. "The Dream Weavers didn't even spare him."

He carefully placed the bottles back in the cabinet—now was not the time to take them. He needed to find the old man's fragments of consciousness first.

He continued flipping through the pages.

Deep inside the cabinet, in an unlabeled bottle, there was a ball of light. Not faint, but bright, as if it had just been drawn out. The color of the light was not ordinary white, but a deep, amber-like golden yellow.

Lin Ye picked up the bottle.

His sense of form told him that this consciousness was a perfect match for the body of the old man in the room.

He found it.

Lin Ye took the bottle and walked back to the old man.

"Su Wanning, help me."

Su Wanning walked over, silver threads hanging from her fingertips, wrapping between the bottle and the old man's forehead.

"I need your rule intervention," she said. "To establish a channel between the old man's consciousness and the fragments in the bottle. Once the channel is open, the fragments will automatically flow into the old man's body. But this process requires a continuous and stable output of consciousness; it cannot be interrupted."

Lin Ye nodded. He placed the bottle on the old man's chest, his right hand on the bottle and his left hand on the old man's forehead.

Interference with rules.

He created a "path" between the bottle and the old man—not a physical path, but a path governed by rules. The fragments in the bottle realized there was a path to follow and began to slowly, drop by drop, flow into the old man's body.

The old man's body began to change.

His gray skin slowly regained its color. His withered muscles gradually became fuller. His brows were no longer furrowed, and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly—as if he were having a sweet dream.

Su Wanning's silver threads trembled slightly. Maintaining the consciousness channel was very taxing on her; fine beads of sweat appeared on her forehead, but her hands remained steady.

Lin Ye felt his own consciousness being consumed. Not drained away, but resonating with the old man's consciousness. He "saw" some images—not memories, but feelings. That feeling of standing on the edge of darkness, guarding it alone for three thousand years. Lonely, but not desperate. Exhausted, but not giving up.

The old man's finger twitched.

Then his eyelids twitched.

It wasn't that it was open; its eyelashes were trembling. It was as if it was trying to open its eyes, but without enough strength.

Lin Ye increased the intensity of rule-based intervention.

The last drop of golden light from the bottle flowed onto the old man's forehead.

The bottle is empty.

Su Wanning retracted the silver thread, took a step back, and leaned against the wall, panting.

Lin Ye removed his hand from the old man's forehead and looked at his face.

The old man slowly opened his eyes.

His eyes were deep brown, with large pupils, as if they hadn't seen light in a long time. He stared at Lin Ye for a long time. His lips moved slightly, but no sound came out. They moved again, and this time there was a sound—a hoarse sound, like sandpaper rubbing together.

"Who are you?"

Lin Ye didn't know what to say. He wanted to say, "I'm here to save you," he wanted to say, "I'm a descendant of the Night's Watch," he wanted to say, "Your mission is over, you can rest now."

But what he said was:

"I am your family."

The old man's eyes welled up with tears.

He didn't cry, but in his deep brown eyes, something shattered, and something else grew back.

"Family." He repeated the word, as if chewing on a piece of candy he hadn't eaten in a long time. "I haven't heard that word in so long..."

Lin Ye grasped his hand.

The old man's hands were thin with distinct knuckles, but his palms were warm.

"I'll take you home," Lin Ye said.

The old man looked at him and slowly, with difficulty, nodded.

Suddenly, the crystals on the dome of the hall began to shimmer.

It's not a malfunction.

It's an alarm.

"Dreamweaver will detect that the core has been activated." Gu Yan's voice was tense. "They are remotely initiating the factory's self-destruct program. We have less than ten minutes."

Lin Ye stood up and gently put the old man's hand down.

"Su Wanning, take him away."

"And you?"

"I'll go get those bottles." Lin Ye looked at the cabinet. "The consciousnesses of over fifty people. They can't stay here."

"It's too late. Fifty bottles in ten minutes—"

"Take as much as you can."

Lin Ye rushed to the cabinet. He opened the cabinet door and began stuffing the bottles one by one into his pockets. When his pockets were full, he stuffed them into his clothes. When his clothes were full, he held them in his hands.

Chen Xuan and Gu Yan also came to help.

Su Wanning helped the old man to the entrance of the hall. The old man walked very slowly, but his consciousness was returning, and each step was more steady than the last.

Four minutes and thirty seconds.

Lin Ye ran towards the entrance carrying a bunch of bottles. Chen Xuan and Gu Yan followed behind, also carrying bottles.

The crystals on the dome flickered faster and faster, and dark red light surged from the runes on the walls, washing over the ground like a tide.

Seven minutes.

They ran into the passage. The runes on both sides of the passage began to peel off, falling off piece by piece like dry plaster, revealing the black, cracked stone walls behind.

Eight minutes and fifteen seconds.

They rushed out of the pyramid.

On the open ground, the traces left behind by the three gatekeepers after they vanished remained—fragments of the old man's wooden staff, remnants of the boy's time, and the mist of the woman in black's sword. They drifted slowly across the ground, as if bidding a final farewell.

Lin Ye didn't stop. He held the bottle and followed Gu Yan into the forest.

Nine minutes.

They ran into the Forest of Fear. The dark red leaves rustled overhead, as if urging them on.

Nine minutes and forty seconds.

They ran out of the forest. The gray mist of the Misty Coast spread out before them like a soft carpet.

Nine minutes and fifty seconds.

Gu Yan activated the anchor point.

The white light engulfed everything.

Lin Ye felt that falling sensation again—his consciousness detached from the dream continent, passed through the sea of ​​subconsciousness, and returned to the real world.

He opened his eyes.

The association headquarters, a teleportation array on the third basement level.

He stood in the center of the rune array, holding a pile of glass bottles in his arms, covered in sweat, his fingers trembling from exertion.

Su Wanning stood beside him, supporting the old man. Chen Xuan knelt on the ground, panting heavily. Gu Yan's consciousness projection slowly faded in the light of the teleportation array; his body was still in the medical room, but the projection was about to give way.

"I...I'm going back now." Gu Yan's voice was very weak. "If you need anything...call me."

His projection disappeared.

Lin Ye looked down at the bottle in his arms.

One, two, three… he counted in his mind. Thirty-two. Adding the ones Chen Xuan and Gu Yan had, there were forty-one in total.

The consciousness of forty-one people.

He didn't take it all out, but he took most of it.

The old man stood beside the teleportation array, looking at the unfamiliar, bright underground space, at the association staff in white uniforms, and at the "eyes holding the moon" sign on the wall.

"Where is this...?" he asked.

"Home," Lin Ye said. "Your new home."

The old man looked at him, his lips trembling slightly.

This time, he cried.

Three thousand years of protection, three thousand years of solitude, three thousand years of waiting.

it is finally over.

Lin Ye stood beside him, holding the bottle in one hand and supporting the old man's shoulder with the other.

The blue mark on my palm is glowing quietly.

It looks like a smile.