Dream Ghost

The moment the bronze door closed behind him, the light on the fourth level went out. Not vanished, but transferred—the silvery-white light shrank from the void into Shen Heting's chest, like a lamp being collected inside a lantern. The old man's body became clear in the light, no longer a faint outline projected by consciousness, but a near-tangible existence. The fourth level's rule of "possession" not only protected his consciousness but also reshaped a temporary vessel for him.

"Your anchor point." Shen Heting held out his hand. "Give it to me."

Lin Ye took out the silver-white anchor from his pocket—the one Shen Heting had left for Chen Xuan twenty-one years ago. The old man took the anchor, held it in his palm, and closed his eyes. The runes on the surface of the anchor began to glow, and the silver-white metal wires seemed to be infused with life, extending from the anchor and wrapping around his fingers, wrists, and forearms like a silver snake. The runes left marks on his skin, not as brands, but as an "awakening." He was using his consciousness to activate the energy stored within the anchor.

"The exit to the fourth level isn't the way we came from." Shen Heting opened his eyes. "The way we came is through the first, second, and third levels. But the rule of the fourth level is 'possession.' You possess me, and I possess you. When two people's consciousnesses overlap, a new passage can be opened."

"Where does it lead?"

"I don't know. But it won't be in the same place."

Shen Heting pressed the anchor point into the void. A silvery-white light exploded from the anchor point, like a supernova erupting. The light tore a crack in the darkness; the crack's edges weren't straight, but jagged, as if something had gnawed at it from the inside. Lin Ye's World Tree perception detected a powerful fluctuation of consciousness the instant the crack opened—not from one person, but from many. Like a swarm of bees, like a colony of ants, like countless tiny consciousnesses simultaneously sending out the same signal.

"The Dream Weavers." Shen Heting's voice deepened. "They're outside. They're not here for me, they're here for you. You have the sixth fragment, Qiu Ye's consciousness, and Lin Yuanshan's remnants. You alone possess what they need."

Lin Ye remained silent. His consciousness was fully prepared, the rules written at his fingertips coalescing into invisible blades. Su Wanning was on the other side of the rift—he could feel her silver threads, like extremely fine tentacles, probing the edge of the rift. She also sensed the Dream Weaver Society.

"Let's go." Shen Heting gave him a push.

Lin Ye passed through the crack.

On the other side of the crack was the first level. A grayish-white plain, a glassy surface, the smell of dry dust. But it was different from when they arrived—people stood on the plain. Not one person, but seven. Seven people, dressed in identical black uniforms, with a symbol embroidered on their chests—a circle, a vertical line, and a dot. The exact same symbol as in Zhao Lin's dream. The exact same runes as on the bronze door.

Dreamweaver.

Standing at the forefront of the seven was a woman in her forties, with short hair, sharp eyes, and a thin scar on the corner of her mouth. She held no weapon, but Lin Ye could sense the rules around her distorting—like heat waves, like ripples in water, like air deforming under high temperatures. Dream Realm Ruler. At least mid-stage.

"Lin Ye." As she uttered his name, the corners of her mouth turned up slightly, not in a smile, but in a sense of confirmation that she had finally met him. "The third fragment. The sixth fragment. Qiu Ye. Lin Yuanshan. You alone possess four things we need. You are more valuable than we anticipated."

Lin Ye didn't answer. His extended perception locked onto the locations, levels, and rule structures of the seven people. Three were early-stage Dream Domain Masters, two were peak Dream Weavers, and two were late-stage Dream Weavers. Seven people, seven different abilities. They weren't there to negotiate; they were there to capture them.

Su Wanning's silver threads unfurled behind Lin Ye, weaving a net twenty meters in diameter in the air. It wasn't a defensive net, but a dividing net—she divided the battlefield into seven zones, each corresponding to one person. Not to trap them, but to "isolate" them, preventing them from supporting each other.

"You're fourth on the left, I'm third on the right," Su Wanning's voice came from behind, very steady.

Lin Ye moved. His consciousness simultaneously wrapped around and locked onto the ankles of the four people on his left. Not a restraint, but a "delay." 0.5 seconds. Within 0.5 seconds, their movement speed would be halved. Su Wanning's silver threads wove four cocoons within 0.5 seconds, wrapping the four people inside. Not killing, but "trapping." The interior of the silk cocoons was a maze; they needed time to find the exit.

The three people on the right were not trapped. The short-haired woman tore through Su Wanning's web of threads—not with brute force, but with rules. Her ability was "deconstruction," capable of dismantling any structure woven from rules. Su Wanning's threads before her were like paper burned by fire, their edges curling, turning black, and then turning to ash.

Lin Ye's rules exploded beneath her feet. "The ground temperature rises by a thousand degrees." Not literally a thousand degrees, but a "feeling." Her consciousness was deceived by the rules, believing that lava was beneath her feet, and she instinctively jumped up. The instant she jumped, Lin Ye's consciousness wrapped around her ankles. Not a delay, but a "fixation." It fixed her in mid-air, with no foothold, no way to dodge.

The short-haired woman looked down at him, the scar at the corner of her mouth twisting slightly. She didn't panic. Her "deconstruction" of rules extended to Lin Ye's entangled consciousness, like an invisible pair of scissors, snapping it off with a snip.

Lin Ye took a step back. The instant his consciousness was severed, the residual consciousness increased by one percent. It wasn't a residue from devouring, but a "backlash." Her ability wasn't just to deconstruct rules, but also to reflect the fragments of deconstruction back to the caster.

"Your abilities are strong." The short-haired woman landed back on the ground, stretching her immobilized ankles. "But you rely too much on the rules. Rules can be deconstructed. You write one, I dismantle one. You write ten, I dismantle ten. How long can your consciousness sustain that?"

Lin Ye didn't answer. His rulebook simultaneously wrote three rules: "Temperature Increase," "Gravity Doubled," and "Air Depletion." All three rules took effect around the short-haired woman. The temperature rose, and sweat began to bead on her forehead. Gravity doubled, and her knees slightly bent. The air was depleted, and her face began to pale.

She dismantled one rule. "Temperature Increase" was deconstructed. She dismantled another. "Gravity Doubling" was deconstructed. When she dismantled the third, she paused. The structure of the "Air Extraction" rule was more complex than she had anticipated—it wasn't written by Lin Ye, but by Qiu Ye. Although Qiu Ye was asleep, its rules still lingered in Lin Ye's consciousness. Those rules weren't from the Lin family, nor the Shen family; they were primordial rules from three thousand years ago, etched into Qiu Ye's consciousness by the first generation of Night Watchers. She couldn't deconstruct them.

The short-haired woman clutched her throat. Her face turned from white to red, then to purple. Without air, her consciousness began to dissipate, and her deconstruction abilities became inaccurate. Lin Ye gave her no time to recover. His consciousness coiled around her ankles again, this time not to hold her in place, but to "drag" her. He dragged her from the center of the battlefield to the edge, away from the other six people.

Su Wanning's silver threads wove a cage along the edge. Not a cage to confine her, but a cage to "isolate" her. Inside the cage, there was no air, no gravity, no temperature. A vacuum of rules. Her deconstructive abilities had no objects to deconstruct in this vacuum of rules—without rules, there was nothing to dismantle.

The short-haired woman knelt in the cage, her hands supporting her on the ground, gasping for breath. Not gasping—there was no air, she couldn't breathe. It was a struggle. Her consciousness was struggling, trying to create a new rule in the vacuum of rules—"there is air." But rules cannot be created in a vacuum of rules. This is the core of Su Wanning's silk thread ability: not to trap the enemy, but to trap the "rules" themselves.

Lin Ye turned to face the remaining six people. Four were still trapped in the silken cocoons, while two had already broken free. The two were peak Dream Weavers, a man and a woman, both very young, around twenty-five or twenty-six years old. Their abilities weren't combat-oriented, but supportive—the man could accelerate consciousness recovery, and the woman could strengthen the rules governing her teammates. Without the short-haired woman's deconstruction abilities, they were no match for Lin Ye.

Three minutes later, all six people were trapped inside the silken cocoons. Su Wanning's silver threads wove seven cocoons on the plain, like seven silver-white silkworm pupae, faintly glowing in the grayish-white light.

The short-haired woman watched him from inside the cage. Her complexion had returned to normal—Su Wanning had left a small amount of air in the cage, enough to keep her alive but not enough to restore her fighting ability.

"You're better than we expected," she said.

"What are your expectations?" Lin Ye asked.

"Early stage of the Scroll level. You're actually at the mid-stage of the Scroll level." A slight smile played on her lips, the scar twisting into a strange arc. "But you have Autumn Leaf on you. You haven't fully mastered its rules yet. Once you do, you'll be even stronger. Stronger than the seven of us combined couldn't defeat you."

"Then why are you still laughing?"

"Because you're doing things for us." Her eyes shone with a light, not of fear or anger, but of a certainty that "you're following our script." "You went to the First Seal and devoured three scroll-level creatures. You went to the Fourth Processing Plant and took forty-one fragments of consciousness. You entered the World Tree and took Qiu Ye and Lin Yuanshan with you. You thought you were fighting against us, but you were actually helping us collect them. The more you collect, the more we'll take in the end."

Lin Ye looked at her.

"You can't take it away."

"Do you think you can hold out?"

Lin Ye didn't answer. He turned and walked towards Su Wanning. A thin layer of sweat covered Su Wanning's forehead, and the silver threads trembled slightly at her fingertips. Maintaining seven cocoons and a regular vacuum cage was extremely taxing on her, but her hands were steady.

"Don't believe what they say," Su Wanning said.

No news.

"They're using words to distract you. They're making you doubt every decision you make. The more you doubt, the more opportunities they have."

Lin Ye looked at her. Her eyes were bright, not with tears, but with a light that said, "I know what you're thinking."

"I have no doubt."

"Then why did you stop?"

Lin Ye was silent for a few seconds. He stopped, not out of doubt, but because the short-haired woman had said something—"The stronger you are, the more we will take away." The "take away" she spoke of wasn't defeat, but "harvest." Like a farmer planting crops, fertilizing, watering, weeding, and then harvesting them with a sickle when they grow large. He was helping them plant the crops. Every step he took to become stronger was helping them plant an even bigger fruit.

"That's their thinking," Su Wanning said. "It's not the truth. The truth is, the stronger you become, the harder it is for them. When you get the sixth fragment, they lose one. When you find Shen Heting, they gain another enemy. You're not crops, you're a knife. A knife doesn't wait to be harvested; a knife cuts people."

Lin Ye looked at her, and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

"When did you become so eloquent?"

"I learned it from you."

Lin Ye turned around and walked back to the cage. The short-haired woman was still kneeling inside, her hands supporting her on the ground, but her expression was no longer confident; it was a faint unease, like someone had seen through her tricks.

"Go back and tell your people." Lin Ye squatted down to look her in the eye. "I'm collecting things. But not for you, I'm collecting for myself. Everything you want is on me. If you want it, come and take it. But if one comes, I'll kill one. If two come, I'll kill both. If seven come, I'll kill all seven."

He stood up, turned around, and left.

Su Wanning retracted the silver threads, and the seven cocoons vanished simultaneously. Six people tumbled from the threads, collapsing to the ground, gasping for breath. The short-haired woman stood up from the cage, watching Lin Ye's retreating figure. He didn't turn around. Su Wanning followed behind him, the silver threads dangling from her fingertips, leaving two thin streaks of silver light on the ground.

Autumn leaves lay dormant on Lin Ye's wrist, their gray veins almost invisible in the grayish-white light. But they were still there. They were just asleep. When they awoke, Lin Ye would take them to see new colors.

Shen Heting stood at the edge of the plain, watching Lin Ye walk over. His body was clearer than when he first emerged; the fourth-level rule, "Possession," was still providing him with energy, but the energy was waning.

"What you just said," Shen Heting looked at him, "is something you'd kill one if one comes, and two if two come. Your father said the same thing."

"How many did he kill?"

"He didn't kill a single one. He couldn't bring himself to do it." Shen Heting's lips curled up slightly. "You're more ruthless than him."

"It's not that I'm ruthless. It's just that I had no other choice." Lin Ye took out the silver anchor from his pocket and handed it to Shen Heting. "Yours. Here you go."

Shen Heting took the anchor point and held it in his palm. The metal piece was warm, slightly warmer than his body temperature.

"Let's go. Let's go home."