**Chapter 1000**
**The Abyssal Worms and the Shadow Realm**
Eivass wasn’t planning to take Arsen to Morgan’s Wonderful Dream House. Even if Isabel didn’t mind, he did. After all, the “wonderful little props” inside were gifts from Madam Morgan, imbued with the essence of the Path of Love. Eivass hadn’t even used at least half of them yet. If an outsider were to enter, wouldn’t they think His Majesty the Pope was a pervert! Therefore, Eivass would never bring anyone there.
Eivass intended to take Arsen into the Dream Realm through his own acquired knowledge. This level of knowledge was certainly not something he learned at Avalon. It was part of the essential knowledge inheritance required for High-Tier Divine Arts.
In the classroom, the teacher was still reading from the textbook, and the other students were all occupied with their own tasks. However, Eivass’s action of getting up and pulling Arsen away still caused the others to feel a slight surprise. Even Mia, the owner of the dream, looked up at them, but she soon became immersed again in the beauty of the “younger version of Arsen” beside her. Since the dream owner didn’t care, no one else would either.
When Eivass and Arsen walked out of the classroom and into the outside, Arsen’s heart suddenly stirred, and he subconsciously looked back. At that moment, Arsen felt a chill run down his spine. He clearly saw everyone in the classroom behind them—including the teacher, Mia, and the “young Arsen”—turn their heads in unison and stare at him expressionlessly.
“Let’s go, don’t mind them.” Eivass pulled Arsen along and said casually, “That is the dream owner’s subconscious wariness and resistance towards those entering her dream. It’s like an inflammatory response when a wound feels a foreign object…”
“…Oh, sorry,” Arsen interrupted softly. “I only have a primary school education, I don’t understand.”
Eivass was silent for a moment, then continued, “In short, if Mia were an Extraordinary, she could instinctively resist and attack us at this moment. After all, this is her dream, and we could easily get injured or even die due to her imagination… I mean, if you don’t want to cause her permanent mental trauma.
“There are many ways to enter the Dream Realm from a dream, and the two you mentioned are both correct. But their commonality and key point lie in ‘moving away from the dream’s existing borders.’ For a dream owner who constructs their dream by the sea, they cannot imagine ‘what lies beyond the sea.’ Therefore, it is ‘non-existent.’ But the problem arises: since there is a sea here, if you travel outwards along the sea, will you suddenly fall into the Void?”
“…No, I don’t think so,” Arsen gradually understood. “Because ‘a ship sails on the sea,’ and the sea is continuous. Unless the other party believes there is ‘the end of the world’ at the end of the great sea, the ship cannot sail into the Void.”
“That’s right,” Eivass nodded approvingly. “Similarly, since this is a cliff, it means that the side facing you is rock, right? Rocks theoretically extend high enough to form a bottomless cliff. And when you stand on a mountain, the reason you can’t see the bottom of the cliff and consider it an abyss is because you are too far away… So, if you were falling, wouldn’t you be getting closer and closer to it? But during this process, the cliff face is continuous—just like the sea. Because the dream owner hasn’t fallen off the cliff, this place hasn’t ‘refreshed’—or rather, been imagined and constructed by them. But it is logical and inevitable in its composition…”
“I understand.” Hearing this, Arsen completely understood. “Find the weak point of the dream!”
“A weak point in the scene,” Eivass added, “not in logic or events—a place that should exist in the other party’s perception but temporarily does not because they are far from it.”
“…In other words,” Arsen frowned slightly, “if I fall out of a dream, I will enter the Dream Realm? But based on my experience… if I fall in a dream, I just wake up suddenly.”
“Waking up suddenly in a dream is proof of passing by the gateway to the Dream Realm,” Eivass said meaningfully. In principle, those who can suddenly wake up due to the content of their dream are actually only one step away from entering the Dream Realm. For example, a person falling off a cliff… they essentially “crash due to insufficient rendering speed.” It’s like a game crashing because of exceeding the graphics card’s memory— As they fall, their brain tries to quickly weave “what is below the cliff” according to the speed of their descent, but due to the sudden high demand, their blood pressure becomes excessively high. Ultimately, the rendering cannot be completed, resulting in a “dream collapse.” This is the same principle as when someone with no experience or cognition has a sensual dream, or dreams of being murdered, and wakes up. Because the “rendering module is lost, missing key components”… a person cannot dream of things they do not know and cannot imagine.
But if, during this process, one does not try to “analyze” and “fabricate,” but instead gives up thinking… for example, when leaping off a cliff, one chooses to close their eyes. As long as the dream does not collapse at this moment, when consciousness returns, the dreamer will, after falling into that boundless darkness, arrive at the “Abyssal Worms” of the Dream Realm.
This place does not belong to any Heavenly Envoy, any Disciple, or any Pillar God. If one must say, it has some connection to the “Void.” This place is inhabited by worms ranging from two to three centimeters to seven to eight hundred meters in length. These worms can devour the dreams of mortals in the Material Realm to solidify the foundation of the Dream Realm. They can also devour the corpses of Phantom Demons who have been cast off cliffs, turning them into nutrients, and then through their excrement, converting them back into the power of the Dream Realm.
This is the “recycling station” of the Dream Realm, an extremely dangerous place. If one is accidentally devoured by these worms, their physical body in reality might even lose its soul. Even in the best-case scenario, the soul will be injured if they wake up due to an intense pain from a bite or a bump. However, if one is completely swallowed, they will never return to the Material Realm. The next time they are seen, it will be as excrement.
For those who cannot fly freely in dreams, if they wish to leave this place, they must climb the cliff. On the Abyssal Worms, there are dense protruding blades. These blades are as white as moonlight, and they are actually sharp and cold “moonlight salt.” The worms will immediately dehydrate and die upon contact with this special salt. Therefore, they are trapped here by this cage, only able to continuously devour dreams and go nowhere. When the worms multiply too much, to the point where worms swarm out of worms, it is called a “Worm Calamity.” According to elven records, such a disaster has occurred three times so far. While it is not a disaster that leads to World Destruction, it is very terrifying—to use an analogy, it’s like a toilet exploding. And it explodes in a very aggressive manner… for example, the toilet turns into a warm fountain.
Upon contact with them, one might be “decomposed.” Even the trees, grass, deserts, and seas of the Dream Realm… they eat whatever they can. Once swallowed by their mouths, they can “delete” everything and revert it to the Void. Other than that, they have no special abilities, and can even be killed simply by sprinkling a handful of moonlight salt. Eivass did not want to go to such a dangerous and filthy place. Besides worms, the Worm Canyon only contained worm excrement! This excrement is slowly devoured and absorbed by the Dream Realm to supplement missing parts, but this does not prevent it from having a “decaying stench” that greatly terrified that elven scholar.
His destination was the Shadow Realm. At least there, he knew people, and it wouldn’t be too perverse. The method to enter the Shadow Realm was also very simple: find a place “where there is no light, and travel through the gaps where shadows fold upon shadows.” A common approach is a dim, lightless forest… But somewhere like that might not be entirely absent from the school.
(End of Chapter)
