Chapter 574 : Entering the Dream

Beneath the pitch-black night sky, in the near seas surrounding Moncarlo’s main island, the colossal half-dream-realm creature—the pseudo-moth—struggled desperately in the sky above the water. Over a dozen massive, serpentine water snakes had risen from the ocean, writhing through the night air and tearing into the dreamlike moth, attempting to drag it down from the sky. Though one of the water snakes had been destroyed by an earlier explosion, this did little to lessen their grip on the pseudo-moth.

Standing on a nearby island, Edward fixed his eyes on the restrained pseudo-moth at the horizon, channeling even more power to pull it from the sky. After losing one water snake, he promptly conjured a new one to fill the gap and increased the force pulling downward. The pseudo-moth’s altitude began to visibly decline.

“Useless... merely commandeering one or two cannons through dreamwalking isn’t enough to stop me…”

Edward muttered coldly as he watched the pseudo-moth dragged ever closer to the sea. In a panic, Withered Wing had the moth thrash its tendrils in every direction, injuring nearby water snakes. But Edward’s conjured serpents continuously drew on the vast ocean for regeneration—any minor injury was instantly repaired. The pseudo-moth, however, was not so fortunate: covered in wounds, it had lost countless tendrils and was torn in many places. Its healing simply couldn’t keep up. Wispy silver blood sprayed from its injuries, dispersing into the air.

As the injuries mounted, the pseudo-moth’s power began to wane, and it struggled more and more to resist being dragged down. Meanwhile, at a nearby harbor, a unit of Moncarlo city guards—wearing uniforms—had somehow arrived at the shoreline and opened fire on the pseudo-moth. Bullets struck its body from a not-so-distant range, causing only minor damage. These appeared to be spiritually enchanted rounds.

Withered Wing immediately noticed the faint pain and turned his attention to the squadron on the shore. His already panicked heart surged with suppressed rage. It was bad enough to be overwhelmed by Edward, an old Crimson-rank powerhouse—but now even his underlings dared attack him?

Enraged, Withered Wing didn’t care how these guards had resisted the pseudo-moth’s earlier hypnosis and remained awake. Regardless, he launched a counterattack against the “grunts” who had dared to lift a hand against him. He commanded the pseudo-moth to lash out with two elongated tendrils, sweeping toward the squadron over a hundred meters away. In an instant, the guards were struck and collapsed to the ground in spasms. Their dream cocoons were stripped away by the tendrils and absorbed into the pseudo-moth’s body. If Withered Wing could escape successfully, he could use the nutrients stored in those cocoons to help the pseudo-moth recover.

The moth’s tendrils were incredibly dangerous: once touched, an ordinary person’s dream cocoon would be ripped away instantly. Even someone like Edward, who could resist the stripping effect, would still suffer severe mental damage. Regular city guards stood no chance.

But despite eliminating the cannon fodder, the core problem remained. The water snakes were still dragging the pseudo-moth ever closer to the sea. In desperation, Withered Wing pushed the struggle to its limit—willing even to lose chunks of dreamflesh just to break free. He knew that if they pulled him into the ocean, it would be over.

As the pseudo-moth continued to tear itself apart in its death-defying struggle, it was nonetheless inexorably drawn downward. Then, just as it was about to be pulled into the sea, sharp whistling noises pierced the night sky, followed by a thunderous volley of explosions all around the moth.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!!

Explosions detonated midair, fire and flames engulfing both the pseudo-moth and the serpents biting into it. The violent shockwaves rippled outward, sending tidal waves crashing in all directions—reaching all the way to the nearby harbor. The squad of city guards that had just collapsed was nowhere to be seen.

“Another bombardment… and from multiple directions at once?! How is that possible!? How can he control so many fortresses simultaneously? Even a Crimson-rank Moth-Chaser shouldn’t be able to dreamwalk through that many puppets at once! Did he use some kind of mystical artifact…?”

Edward’s thoughts raced with alarm. But the situation left him no time to reflect further.

As the fire and flames quickly faded, the heads of the water snakes gnawing at the pseudo-moth vanished—shattered by the blast.

These serpents were made of sea water imbued with Edward’s spirituality, granting them both material and spiritual structure. The pseudo-moth’s tendrils could affect the spiritual component, while the artillery shells damaged the physical form. Conveniently, the shells carried too little spirituality to harm something as intangible as the pseudo-moth, meaning the explosions shredded the water snakes without hurting the moth at all.

With the binds on him suddenly broken, Withered Wing realized that the mysterious force behind the earlier blast had returned—wiping out all the serpents restraining him. Seizing the opportunity, he commanded the pseudo-moth to ascend at full speed, flying away from Moncarlo and once again attempting to phase into the dream realm.

“You’re not getting away!”

Edward, gripping his bronze wand, shouted with fury. From beneath the moth, more massive serpents surged from the sea, leaping to snap at it once more. At the same time, cannons from Moncarlo’s various coastal fortresses roared again.

Whistling shells streaked through the air, raining down upon the battleground where the pseudo-moth and the serpents clashed. They exploded midair, their shockwaves sweeping through the serpents chasing the moth, shredding or scattering them. Once again, the pseudo-moth remained largely unaffected—thanks to its ethereal nature—even when caught in the blasts. Seeing this, Edward gritted his teeth, anxiety rising.

“Why… how can that guy control so many coastal batteries all at once? And why are the shells exploding midair? That shouldn’t be possible!”

Indeed, he remembered clearly: the fortress shells were impact-fused. They shouldn’t detonate unless they hit something with sufficient force—they weren’t designed for airburst.

What Edward didn’t know was that the ones controlling the batteries weren’t dream-puppets under Withered Wing’s control at all—they were Dorothy’s corpse marionettes.

Thanks to Moncarlo’s bloody underworld and black market trade, unclaimed corpses from a variety of causes flooded the city daily. These bodies, if not claimed by relatives, were sent to corpse collectors—either sold to the Chalice society as raw materials or ground into fish food. It was from these collectors that Dorothy had acquired a large supply of usable bodies. After the pseudo-moth’s hypnosis knocked out the entire city, she rapidly deployed her corpse marionettes to seize control of key strategic fortresses.

Dorothy had previously stolen the Waters of Youth and deliberately left traces of hypnosis on the auction staff—luring Edward into using his extreme methods to locate a Blackdream Beyonder within the city. In doing so, he found Withered Wing and sparked a confrontation between them, thus completing her goal of using Edward to track down Withered Wing for her.

While the plan succeeded, Dorothy knew that if Edward and Withered Wing really fought, the latter stood no chance on Edward’s turf. He likely wouldn’t even be able to escape. But Dorothy’s target was the divine artifact on Withered Wing—she couldn’t let Edward capture him.

That meant ensuring Withered Wing could escape, no matter what.

And seizing control of the coastal defense batteries?

That was Dorothy’s way of leveling the battlefield.

The coastal fortress cannons were being operated by Dorothy’s corpse marionettes, and the shells they fired had undergone some subtle modifications by her hand. Anticipating that Edward might use currents of water to smother the shells and prevent detonation, Dorothy had embedded a small corpse-insect into each warhead. These little bugs could channel her electrical current, generating a spark within the warhead to trigger the explosion.

Thanks to these corpse-insect fuses, Dorothy could manually detonate the artillery shells—even if they missed their target, or merely grazed past midair, she could still trigger a remote detonation. It was with countless well-timed airbursts like this that Dorothy hindered each and every water serpent pursuing the pseudo-moth.

Over the dark ocean, with the aid of the relentless bombardments, the pseudo-moth controlled by Withered Wing was on the verge of fully escaping Moncarlo. Its body had become even more translucent, indicating it was about to exit the restricted zone and phase into the Dreamscape. Nearby, dressed in robes and suspended in the air, Dorothy watched the scene unfold and softly spoke.

“It’s time. Get ready—I’ll leave it to you shortly, Senior Neph.”

“I understand…”

Just as she finished speaking, a shadowy figure manifested beside her in midair. It was Nephthys, floating in a semi-transparent spirit form. She was currently in a state of astral projection, accompanying Dorothy.

“Alright. Now’s the time—let’s go.”

“Mm!”

At the perfect moment, Dorothy gave the final order. She first commanded all the corpse marionettes in the fortresses to stop firing and jump into the sea. Then, Nephthys’ spirit drifted down to the magic carpet beneath Dorothy, anchoring herself to a bone shard bound to its surface.

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Next, Dorothy removed her hooded cloak, revealing underneath an oversized Moncarlo city guard uniform. Her silver-white hair was tucked beneath a cap, and her face was concealed by a mask.

After shedding the cloak, she quickly activated two sigils on herself. Then, riding her magnetic-levitation magic carpet, she charged straight toward the pseudo-moth that had been gradually approaching her. Along the way, she pulled out an ornate rifle inlaid with countless lenses.

As the pseudo-moth loomed ever larger and its color faded ever paler, Dorothy raised the rifle and pulled the trigger. A blazing orange beam shot out, striking the airborne pseudo-moth and leaving a small hole in its surface. Feeling the impact, Withered Wing turned around and saw what looked like a Moncarlo city guard riding a flying artifact and aiming an enchanted rifle at him at close range.

“Still clinging to me…”

Seeing this, Withered Wing immediately associated the scene with the guards who had attacked him at the harbor. He quickly assumed this attacker must be one of Moncarlo’s elite guards and, like before, reflexively swept two tendrils of the pseudo-moth toward the assailant.

In his eyes, the city guard elite panicked and tried to dodge on their strange flying device. Although they narrowly avoided the first tendril, the second caught their upper body. Their dream cocoon was instantly stripped away by the tendril. The unconscious figure wobbled midair and then fell straight down—plunging toward the dark sea.

With the last obstacle removed, the pseudo-moth finally broke free from Moncarlo’s restricted airspace. Its colossal body faded into complete transparency and vanished into the night sky. And just like that, Withered Wing successfully escaped Edward’s pursuit and phased into the Dreamscape. From that moment, Edward could no longer stop him.

“No!!!”

Standing on Moncarlo Island, Edward let out a furious, unwilling roar as he watched the smoke from countless explosions swirl across the distant sky, realizing that the pseudo-moth had successfully fled.

Behind the curtain of smoke, out of Edward’s line of sight, Dorothy’s unconscious body was plummeting toward the ocean from a high altitude. She was now about 100 meters above the surging black waves below. Falling from this height was extremely dangerous.

At that moment, from the bone shard bound to the falling magic carpet, Nephthys’ spirit suddenly emerged. She immediately flew toward Dorothy and fused with her.

Once she had successfully entered Dorothy’s body, Nephthys seized control. She opened Dorothy’s eyes and, during the rapid descent, adjusted her posture—facing downward, arms extended, body aligned into a straight line. Then she closed her eyes.

With a splash, Dorothy’s body entered the sea in the proper diving posture. Though the angle was correct, the impact from such a height still inflicted heavy damage. Fortunately, Dorothy had preemptively activated a Devouring sigil and received a physical enhancement blessing from Vania Chafferon, drastically increasing her bodily resilience. She barely withstood the impact.

Upon entering the water, Dorothy plunged deeply. Under Nephthys’ control, she inhaled a mouthful of seawater and extracted oxygen from it—thanks to a Water-Breathing sigil, another mystical item she had acquired from the Abyssal Church.

As she swam, Nephthys guided her first to retrieve the enchanted rifle Ignis Converta, which was floating on the surface, marked with a sigil beacon. Then, she directed Dorothy’s body toward a nearby islet close to Moncarlo. Soon, she made it to shore.

“Ugh… blegh… cough, cough…”

“Dorothy” staggered up the beach, vomiting seawater and coughing violently. After a few deep breaths, she raised her head and looked toward the distant night sky.

“Miss Dorothy… has entered the Dreamscape, hasn’t she?”

Nephthys murmured softly with Dorothy’s voice, gazing skyward.