novelraw Chapter 371: Layered Dreamscapes
Chapter 371: Layered Dreamscapes
In the instant Erwind, draped in his pure white cape, turned his head, the colors within Fisher's field of vision became monotonous, as if devoured, as though the entire world contained only black and white. Twisted by Erwind's soul, which was already nearing the Mythical Rank, his dreamscape began to exhibit properties identical to reality.
Before Fisher could even ready the magic in his hands, he immediately felt a massive force transmit from right in front of him. Erwind, whose speed was many times faster than his, struck violently upon Fisher's defending left arm amidst a pure white radiance. The immense force pressed him down sharply, and the space around him instantly erupted with a shattering sound, like breaking glass.
"Crack, crack, crack!"
Erwind's entire dreamscape shattered with a loud boom. The two of them continued to sink together, until Fisher coughed and continuously fell from the sky, crashing heavily onto a steel deck that reeked of salty sea breeze. He crashed straight through the deck, falling into the cabin space further below.
But the danger hadn't disappeared. Before Fisher could get up, a fully constructed high-ring lightning magic shot out from his hand. However, Erwind plunged straight down without dodging. The massive force instantly severed the magic Fisher had constructed and continued to descend. Following another loud bang, Fisher retreated backwards and leaped up, returning to the deck.
Taking a deep breath, he suddenly found the surrounding scene very familiar. It was exactly atop the Iceberg Queen Ship from before he came to the Northlands. On the deck, countless crew members who had followed Alajina to flee the Sardin Woman's Country were running around busily, completely unaware of the large crater Erwind had just smashed into the deck.
Looking up, Fisher saw Alajina, with her white ponytail, standing at the bow gazing out at the boundless ocean before her. The parrot named "Steel Knife" spread its wings and flew up from the railing beside the deck, returning to the arm of the Cangniao-zhong, Aoxi, up on the mast.
This is my dreamscape?
Fisher only roughly scanned the scenery before his eyes for a second before withdrawing his gaze. Because the next moment, another fierce gale struck from below. Having prepared in advance, Fisher used one hand to pull the Weaver and fly toward the mast, while hurling down streaks of [Fire] magic, consuming everything beneath the deck in flames.
He twirled once in mid-air and hopped beside Aoxi, almost knocking the illusory Aoxi right off. Before he could even say sorry to Aoxi, Erwind's pursuit from below had already arrived."Rumble!"
From the burning sea of fire, Erwind abruptly hugged Fisher on the mast, directly snapping the entire mast in half. The mast whistled as it was about to fall, and the Aoxi in the dream scrambled to spread her wings and fly away. But countless times faster than the falling mast, Fisher and Erwind were already entangled, continuing to crash toward the position where Alajina stood.
"Boom!"
The two of them descended entangled with each other, piercing entirely through the steel ship, falling all the way into the freezing ocean.
"Fisher, even in soul strength, you're still inferior to me. Where went the techniques you read about in the Soul Completion Handbook?"
"Right here..."
The two of them sank toward the abyss at the bottom of the sea along with the completely pierced, rapidly sinking Iceberg Queen. The utterly realistic dreamscape truly gave Fisher a sensation of choking on water. But he quickly reacted, violently pressing one hand against the back of Erwind's head, followed closely by the other hand blossoming with a dazzling aura of [Destruction].
[Destruction] Prime Magic, Erasing Light Magic.
As an invisible light like an eraser bloomed from Fisher's hand, Erwind's entire head was instantly blasted away into nothingness. Yet, he showed absolutely no signs of losing life. The shining cape behind his back forcefully swept up, pushing aside Fisher, who was suspended in the water and unable to dodge in time.
Once again, as the sound of shattering space around them resounded, the two of them spun and plummeted from the sky once more. Only, this time, he fell straight in front of his tiny, rented apartment in Saint-Nazareth. The surrounding environment was bustling with traffic. Erwind's headless body slowly descended in mid-air, while from the wound where the head had vanished, flesh and blood were growing endlessly.
The pure white cape fluttered behind his back, but the deformed lump of flesh grew larger and larger, until it was far more enormous than even his entire human body, transforming into a skelless blood-flesh dragon.
"Saint-Nazareth, the pearl of human civilization, a flower blooming toward the light..."
Within the mouth of that massive blood-flesh dragon, a scorching fiery glow increasingly condensed. As his words fell, he violently spat out a blistering beam of light. That beam pushed straight forward from the front of Fisher's rental apartment, slicing across the entire ground of Saint-Nazareth all the way until the beam entered the ocean. The massive impact pierced cleanly through Saint-Nazareth's midline, with the Golden Palace as the coordinate. In the blink of an eye, a wave of fire a full hundred meters high swallowed the entirety of Saint-Nazareth.
Leaping up to dodge this strike, Fisher had just prepared to launch an attack when he suddenly felt something and turned his head. He found that beneath the environmental factory shattered by Erwind, wailing workers emerged—out-of-towners whose bodies had long ceased to exist and whose souls had been squeezed dry. Blood trickled out from beneath the gorgeous Golden Palace. Family members, servants, and enemies connected by bloodlines were chained by the shackles of schemes and dragged into a roaring inferno. Beneath the azure ocean was not clarity, but the raging fire burning the hometowns of others; they were slaves bereft of dignity...
Within the Royal Academy, which was supposed to be the highest institution of learning, a roaring stench of medicinal chemicals raged. Politicians on the New Party's rostrum held Nario in their hands. In the church, statues of the Mother Goddess turned their backs to the praying halls, as vile transactions of equivalent exchange were struck within these sacred, hidden spaces...
Amidst a Saint-Nazareth engulfed in a sea of fire, Erwind—transformed into a giant dragon—lowered his head bit by bit, looked at Fisher, and asked,
"Exactly how many times must we repeat past mistakes? Just what kind of punishment is needed to stop them from making such ignorant errors again? Exactly how advanced must technology be, how superior must systems be, to change this ugliness?"
Caught in a moment of stun and deep thought, looking at the scene before him, Fisher seemed to sense a bit of familiarity. But before he could recall where this familiar sense of pondering came from, he was pinned down by the roaring Erwind. That massive force crushed the space, shattering it yet again, forcing Fisher to dedicate all his power entirely to constructing magic.
Erwind's power exceeded his imagination; to defeat him, he had to pay a greater price.
Thus, in the next second, amidst the shattering of space and dreamscapes, enduring the pain of extracting soul power, he continuously began constructing magic for battle.
"Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz!"
During their fall, streaks of lightning magic bloomed from Fisher's hands. Initially, Erwind didn't pay much mind to such attacks, but as the magic struck one after another, as if feeling pain, he let go of Fisher's body. However, Fisher continued to construct magic.
"Roar! Now that's right. Let me see what the Soul Completion Handbook has given you!"
"Vrum! Vrum! Vrum!"
The blood-flesh dragon that Erwind had transformed into abruptly spread its sky-obscuring fleshy wings. Accompanied by a sonic boom, the surrounding dreamscape shattered with flashes once more, until the next layered dreamscape appeared again.
Bolstered by the Ring of the Magic Monarch, the dreamscapes seemed endless, materializing the deepest subconscious thoughts hidden in both of their minds again and again.
Fisher and the giant dragon draped in a pure white cape behind him entangled continuously in their fall. During this time, the sounds of sonic booms and the flames, lightning, and ice activated by magic rose and fell in succession. Amidst the clashes of light and flesh, the figures of the two cycled repeatedly through different dreamscapes, presenting their unceasing battle in an extremely bizarre manner.
He saw two illusory figures fly out from the tip of the quill pen Jasmine held, sketching the elegant handwriting left behind from when she did her homework with a destructive radiance...
He saw a boundless lavender field brushed by a gentle breeze. In front of an opulent carriage, a Dragon-kin covered in red scales gazed into the distance, looking at the unconscious figure left at the port, unwilling to leave for a long time, completely unaware that in the sky dome above, Fisher and Erwind were biting and tearing at each other while plummeting at breakneck speed.
"Crack, crack, crack~"
The endless sound of shattering space, as kaleidoscope-like dreamscapes flickered with light.
He saw piles of complex, precise Death-Rot Plague research manuscripts fluttering in the wind. Before the desk of Dr. Tolga, who had grown so drowsy from research that he didn't even have time to take off the bird-beak mask acting as simple protection on his face before hurriedly falling asleep on the research table, Fisher struck Erwind's dragon chest with a space magic, causing a portion of his body to shatter.
And then, the color of the entire dreamscape was plated with an extremely warm hue, illuminating the figures of Fisher and Erwind like the sun.
"Fisher, I am officially inviting you to attend my coming-of-age ceremony in my personal capacity. Are you busy that day? I prepared a gift for you. Plus, I can take you to our family's library by Nari Lake. You can take back whichever book you want..."
Before his eyes, the young Elizabeth smiled, leaning her pink lips close to Fisher's ear and quietly whispering to him thus.
And at that time, the young, penniless Fisher also looked at Elizabeth beside him with exasperation and said,
"It's your birthday, yet you still want to give me a gift. It should be me giving you a birthday gift, shouldn't it?"
"Mhm, according to common sense, that is indeed the case. But... your being able to come is already the best gift for me. Well, if you could just kiss me again, that would be even better..."
Amidst such young sweet nothings that seemingly never considered the future, behind those two continuously nearing figures formed by the dreamscape, the library bookshelves toppled layer by layer. The flames spat out continually from the mouth of that terrifying blood-flesh dragon successfully backed the present Fisher into a dead end.
In the dream, just as the young Fisher gently reached out to cup Elizabeth's beautiful face, making contact with her soft lips, the surrounding dream illusion once again vanished accompanied by the violent sound of shattering glass.
"Rustle..."
Fisher and Erwind sank once again. Until unknown when, their cheeks were traced with silhouettes by the red setting sun. The carefree chirping of cicadas and gentle breeze within the fields of Schwari played a chasing melody.
"Tolga, look quickly, our wheat has ripened!"
Within the cascading golden farmlands, a barefoot little girl with red hair wearing linen clothing and a white cloth wrapped around her head spread her hands, running through the wheat field against the breeze. All the while, she turned her head back to call out to the figure sitting under the simple eaves catching the cool breeze. Inside their not-so-wealthy room, the more precious things were only a few worn books fetched from who knows where, and an iron statue of the Mother Goddess...
"Crack, crack, crack~"
Dreamscapes shattered layer by layer in their tit-for-tat battle, continuously constructing the most precious and beautiful memories in their minds over and over again. But beautiful stories eventually have an ending, and quite an obvious upper-hand and lower-hand dynamic also began to emerge in their battle.
Although Erwind came to the Northlands to borrow the Spirit World—or rather, the Soul Completion Handbook—to enter the Mythical Rank, judging from just now, he truly was just one step away from the Mythical Rank. This minuscule gap was basically negligible; treating him as a Fifteenth-Tier Mythical Creature was not out of the question either.
The "Body and Soul Unity" nature of Mythical Creatures compensated for the fragility of his soul to a certain extent, allowing his soul to also possess immense combat capability within the Crevice between the reality and the Spirit World. Fisher's ability to continuously and rapidly construct magic using soul power gave him the capital to confront Erwind. However, with the passage of time and the continuous depletion of soul power, although both sides suffered attrition, undoubtedly, if this dragged on any longer, Fisher would definitely lose.
"Rumble!"
As magic crests were instantly engraved and released one by one, Fisher's brainpower and soul power were almost completely depleted. It was only at this moment did he feel somewhat grateful for the [Strengthening after Breeding] ability bestowed upon him by the Demi-Human Completion Handbook. If it wasn't for the fact that he and Valentiina had just recently performed the Holy Matrimony, gaining him a much stronger soul recovery ability than before because of it, otherwise he would have been sucked dry long ago.
Yet even so, he couldn't drag this on any longer; he had to fight a quick battle and make a quick decision!
"Crack, crack, crack!"
The surrounding space and dreamscape shattered once again. The Erwind dragging a massive body and Fisher once again plummeted with the shattering of this dreamscape. At this moment, this sinking force forcibly interrupted Erwind's original attack. Although Fisher's figure also swayed, he was affected far less than Erwind...
"Roar!"
Seeing that terrifying giant dragon draped in a pure white cape spinning and brandishing its claws in the fall of the dreamscape, Fisher quickly realized this was an opportunity found once in a thousand years.
He mobilized the mana all over his body once more, coalescing a magic flashing with exceedingly dangerous light in his hand. This move was already considered one of Teacher Helson's ultimate trump cards. Aside from him, in all of Naris, only Fisher had learned it. It had but two characteristics: fast, and tremendously powerful.
14th-Circle [Destruction] magic, Annihilation Star.
As that point of profound blackness manifested in Fisher's hand, even though Fisher smartly only constructed its materials and engraving process, the consumption of this magic was still not small. The instant this magic was revealed, Fisher suddenly felt a bout of severe pain transmit from all over his body, followed closely by all seven of his orifices beginning to bleed.
But he was completely unhindered by the pain, simply hurling the magic in his hand out quickly.
As a series of tiny dots carrying invisible destructive power sped toward Erwind, who was plummeting alongside him, that massive energy instantaneously swallowed Erwind's colossal body. The space of the entire dreamscape shattered once again, gradually being enveloped by the Universe-like profound blackness spreading from that 14th-Circle magic.
As that blackness intermingled with a bit of starlight continuously spread out, Erwind's strong and massive body was also annihilated bit by bit. But before Fisher could fully see this scene clearly, he had already crashed heavily onto the ground.
"Cough, cough, cough!"
The massive force coupled with his originally extremely weak soul made him cough violently. Covering his eyes, nose, and mouth, he panted continuously, but everywhere he touched was only blood reeking of iron. This was not real blood; it was merely his soul reminding him that his current condition was exceedingly poor.
The pain of the soul was very similar to the pain produced when the physical body was injured in reality; it all only existed to remind you that you had taken damage, that's all.
Fisher lay painfully panting on the ground of this layer of dreamscape. In the distance, as the giant dragon's figure was swallowed bit by bit by the magic, a puddle of bright red blolod, however, crashed down once more. It slowly landed not far from him, once again forming into the humanoid Erwind draped in the pure white cape.
"...Are you out of mana, Fisher? If you don't use magic anymore, you'll die."
"Dong! Dong! Dong!"
In the distance, an extremely familiar, intermittent tolling of a bell sounded simultaneously with Erwind's words. However, Fisher completely ignored the massive threat that had just landed before his eyes. He merely endured the pain all over his body with some disbelief, sitting up and subconsciously turning his head to look back.
Indeed, he hadn't misremembered. Before him stood a church school with the emblem of the Mother Goddess Church painted on its gates and walls. The intermittent tolling of the bell, utterly distinct from other churches, was very familiar to him. Because when he was young, he had secretly climbed up the bell tower to study the structure of the bell-striking mechanism, only to find he couldn't put the darned thing back together after taking it apart.
Because of this, the priest had hired a mechanist to repair it. In the end, after spending money to fix it, the bell still tolled intermittently when struck. Fisher had even thought about fixing the thing before leaving to study at the Higher Academy of Saint-Nazareth, but ultimately never succeeded—he didn't have the talent for steam mechanisms.
But none of this was the key point. The most crucial point should be...
Fisher's pupils shrank slightly. He seemed somewhat unable to wait, following the distant bell tower downward with his gaze. Past the ginkgo trees growing by the wall, past the clamor of the orphanage children running all around, past the rather rudimentary gates and walls, he finally saw, at the entrance of that orphanage, the back of a nun sitting there on a small stool.
The nun was dressed in a very modest and elegant black robe. Only through a tiny gap in the black cloth on her forehead could a wisp of long golden hair be seen. With her back to him, she held a Scripture of Creation in her hands, looking very angrily at the Kadou-Naris mixed-blood child facing her—a child who had made a mistake yet stubbornly refused to change.
"Fischer Benavides, you've caused trouble again, haven't you!"
The nun spoke thus. Yet, the one who answered her wasn't that young, ignorant, stubbornly obstinate child, but the Fischer Benavides from twenty years later.
"Sister Teresa."