**Chapter 676: 154. Dream**
Crimson mist twisted above the ceiling, from which indistinguishable hoarse voices emerged. Fisher couldn’t discern their exact meaning, but he felt an extreme familiarity that was quickly swallowed by a creeping danger.
This was the true form of the crimson mist, not the phantasm he saw inside the parasol tree. The source of this crimson mist was the pollution of the spirit realm by true god-level entities.
“Alagina, how can we return to the parasol tree?”
“Return?”
Alagina was slightly taken aback. Although she could see nothing, upon seeing Fisher’s extremely serious expression, she quickly took out the mechanism for transportation from her arms.
“David, we need to return now; can you open the teleportation portal?”
“Beep beep. Do you need to return now, Alagina? Has something happened?”
Alagina glanced at Fisher and said, “Don’t ask so much right now; we will talk about the specifics when we get back to reality.”
“Beep beep. Okay, David will prepare for teleportation now.”
“Buzz.”
The mechanism in Alagina’s hand responded to David’s command and began to emit strange fluctuations, while the surrounding space started to be pulled, wrapping them toward a certain direction.
But the next second, the crimson mist in the sky seemed to sense their movement, suddenly becoming turbulent, letting out a piercing scream and turning into a tornado as it rushed down toward them.
The crimson mist seemed to carry some unimaginable power; the moment it drew closer, the mechanism in Alagina’s hand began to tremble uncontrollably. The power that was supposed to wrap around them and take them back to reality suddenly shattered, emitting a loud explosion.
“Beep beep. Mechanism malfunction detected, repairing, repairing… beep beep, repair failed.”
“David?!”
Alagina looked at the suddenly dimmed mechanism in her hand without knowing what had happened, while Fisher’s expression changed, and he hurriedly held Alagina in his arms and shot toward the bottom of the ship. The enormous force immediately tilted the ship still under construction, but the condensed crimson mist showed no intention of letting Fisher and Alagina go, turning to chase after them.
The areas that the crimson mist passed over changed instantly; the original stone-paved ground transformed into lush green grass, and the unfinished iron battleship morphed into a giant whale’s head, where the mechanism working above was twisted into barnacles embedded in the ship.
“Uuuuu!!”
What terrified Fisher even more was that the whale head, which only had one mouth, seemed to come alive, struggling and emitting a roar like a tsunami, shaking its head while opening its gaping maw, from which it spit out colorful balloons.
Those balloons were not mere balloons but rather one resembling a human head, one male and one female; the woman’s expression was claws out like a hellish demon, while the man looked downtrodden, as if he had been crying.
“Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! How could I have a child like you!”
This was what the woman’s balloon angrily exclaimed.
“It’s all Dad’s fault, it’s all Dad’s fault, Amitabha.”
This was what the man’s balloon mournfully lamented.
They floated toward Fisher and Alagina while speaking, swelling and emanating blood-red light.
Fisher’s eyes narrowed as he quickly drew the fluid sword. With a flash of silver light, the strike instantly shredded the incoming balloons, bursting them open to release a blood-like substance.
That blood splattered everywhere, landing on the ground and transforming into umbilical cords, paintbrushes, prayer beads, wooden fish, and blood-streaked lotus flowers.
Fisher’s pupils contracted; just as he was about to retract his fluid sword, he felt something slippery in his palm. Looking down, he found that the fluid sword had turned into a ragged old jump rope, hanging down and dripping with blood.
“This…”
“Clap! Clap! Clap!”
“Fisher!”
Alagina seemed to realize something was wrong; she looked around, and the originally normal scene began to twist, turning into the nightmare Fisher was experiencing. Suddenly, she felt an itch in her eyes and reached out to rub them, but the more she rubbed, the itchier they became, as if something was drilling out from her eyes.
She palmed her hands flat and looked down, only to see a series of black ink-written Chinese characters bouncing and tugging at each other’s hands, escaping from her.
“Run, everyone!! That little girl is going to forget us; let’s hurry and slip away from her mind!!”
“What?!”
Alagina stared blankly, raising her head to look at Fisher, only to see that his clothing had transformed into an unfamiliar kasaya, and the jump rope in his hands had turned into a heavy string of prayer beads.
He looked at these strange yet familiar items in his hand and finally, that name inevitably escaped his lips.
“Tang Ze. Asuka?”
“Buzz buzz buzz.”
“You’re fake!! You’re fake!! You’re tricking me! The teacher that has been in my mind all along is fake!!”
But before he could say more, when Fisher swallowed hard and accurately pronounced that name, the rolling crimson mist around him suddenly halted, then instantly became extraordinarily violent, the indistinguishable, monstrous voices echoed in accurate Japanese.
“You lied to me! You’re not… you’re not the teacher! You are chaos! Why are you so cruel? Why are you wearing the skin of the teacher, his flesh and blood? Did you kill him and eat him?! Yes, it must be so, you definitely did that.”
The kasaya on Fisher tightened violently, and the crimson mist echoed like a dream, endlessly repeating the words of the girl. But because of its devil-like voice, the repetition felt like a replay of the last words of a victim, sending chills down Fisher’s spine.
“Tang Ze!! Is it you?!”
Fisher’s pupils contracted as he yelled toward the vast source of crimson mist outside the large hole, but just then, the clothes on his body suddenly cascaded upward like thousands of poisonous snakes, enveloping his body and mouth entirely.
“Fisher! Ugh!”
Seeing this, Alagina quickly raised her sword, and the ice prince blade behind her erupted with terrifying coldness, but in the next second, the aura that should have transformed into the ice prince sword sprayed countless magma, instantly burning through her outerwear, causing her to groan and cover her back in pain.
However, the magma that escaped behind her suddenly transformed into a flaming bird, which promptly snatched Alagina by the collar and flew her off to another place in the refuge.
“Fisher!!”
Fisher gritted his teeth and stood up, but his clothes had transformed into countless pale hands, coiling around him like poisonous snakes, with slender fingers piling up above him, stroking, pinching, and kneading him, trapping him in a cage of corpses, unable to move.
One massive hand covered his face, pressing against his features, distorting his skin, as if trying to rip his face off.
“You liar! Liar! Liar! Take his face off!!”
“Enough!!”
Fisher’s features were contorted from being squeezed, unable to endure any longer, he directly summoned his chaotic life force to restore his body to its original form. The next second, his black-haired gentleman form transformed into the half-phantasmal, twisted chaos being form.
“Ahhhhh!!”
As Fisher’s true form emerged, all the arms and hands covering him shrieked in terror, jumping off him and scattering into the crimson mist, instantly vanishing.
Fisher didn’t revert to his original form; he hastily picked up the fluid sword that had returned to its original form from the prayer beads, chasing after the direction where Alagina had been taken by the flaming bird.
But at this moment, the refuge in the spirit realm had completely changed its appearance.
In the dry dock, aside from the giant whale head made from the ship, there were floating schools of fish and shrimp in mid-air. Upon closer inspection, they were not actual fish but rather paper folded into shapes resembling thin green banknotes, upon which distorting faces could be seen, laughing down at Fisher, simultaneously speaking out.
“Come on, come on, let’s buy the United States! We’re about to become the richest country in the world!”
“Hahaha, come on!”
“Hahaha!”
Suddenly, while those banknote fish were happily laughing, one collided with a nearby wall, instantly turning into a pile of foam that fell to the ground and transformed from white to blood-red.
“Tsk.”
The bizarre scene before Fisher made his heartbeat quicken uncontrollably, for at this moment, he could no longer discern where Alagina had been taken; this place had lost any recognizable signs, up, down, left, right completely blended together, as if he were trapped in a dream.
Regaining his composure, Fisher tightened his grip on the fluid sword and checked the state of his Azanros form, only to find it growing weaker, as if it had no power to resist the influence of the crimson mist.
Even Azanros’ avatar could not withstand the corrosion of this crimson mist; no wonder the spirit realm had been disturbed by this pollution for so many years, and even the Mother Goddess and the many deities could not manage Him.
This pollution was undoubtedly closely related to Tang Ze Asuka.
He pressed forward through the boundless area tainted by crimson mist, which was merely the general direction where Alagina had been taken, but he had no concrete idea of where exactly she had gone.
“Alagina!!”
“Alagina!”
As Fisher searched among the chaos in mid-air, his peripheral vision suddenly caught a glimpse of a group of small square characters marching neatly beneath a patch of coral, those seemed to be the very things that had just drilled out of Alagina’s mind.
Fisher, unwilling to miss any clue, quickly swooped down. His inhuman approach did not provoke any reaction from the characters, which were barely the size of his fingertip; they simply continued to march in line, chatting among themselves like small creatures.
“Hey, heave ho. Heave ho.”
“Wait up!”
“Hmm?”
The characters turned their heads around, looking at the approaching Fisher. Leading them was a character “私” (si), who turned around, looking at him with a childish voice, asking, “What do you want?”
Fisher found their appearance curious but spoke without hesitation, “You just drilled out of a woman’s head; do you know where she is now?”
“私” glanced at the other characters and said, “We know, we just borrowed her to escape from that little girl’s consciousness.”
“.Little girl, do you mean Tang Ze Asuka?”
“Who knows, do you know?”
The characters at the back shook their heads in succession, until the last character in line shook its head; then, “私” turned to look at Fisher and replied, “We don’t know. But that little girl forgot us, so we escaped using that woman’s head.”
“.” Fisher opened his mouth, increasingly feeling strange conversing with these characters, but he still bore with it and said, “Since you know where that woman is, can you tell me?”
“We can, but you have to help us first.”
“What can I do to help you?”
“私” leaned on “禾” (he, a character part), and began writing on the stone below. Soon, another square character formed on the ground, an “愛” (ai) that Fisher didn’t recognize either.
“Check this character out,” “私” pointed to the “愛” character beneath and then, along with the hundreds of other characters behind it, looked up at Fisher, stating, “We are looking for this legendary character. We’ve heard that it exists, but we have never seen or felt it. Can you take us to find it?”
“What does this character mean?”
“I don’t know; do you know?”
“私” turned back and looked at its companions, and the hundreds of characters behind it shook their heads as well in unison. Then it looked up at Fisher again, replying, “We don’t all know.”
“.”
Fisher took a sharp breath, feeling increasingly uneasy about this bizarre conversation, but due to his concern for Alagina, he forced himself to say, “Alright, I agree to help you find it, but this might take a long time; before that, please tell me the whereabouts of that woman.”
Unexpectedly, the characters readily agreed, “Okay, you seem friendly; we’ll trust you once.”
“私” nodded, sizing up Fisher, then quickly beckoned to the characters behind, announcing, “Everyone, follow me; we’ll look for ‘愛’ with him!”
“Alright!”
“Alright!”
All the characters cheered excitedly, causing Fisher a little headache as he looked down to see them jumping and clustering onto him, almost like riding a large ship, their numbers forming a spectacular sight.
“私” standing on the supplement handbook for sub-humans on his chest pointed in a direction, saying to Fisher, “I just saw a phoenix take that girl over there; she got into a pumpkin carriage surrounded by seven dwarves to go to the castle!”
“What?”
“Come on, just believe us! Quick, chase!”
Fisher, helpless, had no choice but to follow the throng of characters towards the indicated direction. Suddenly, “私” shouted for them to stop.
“Stop! Quick look, it’s what that woman left behind!”
“Yes, yes! It’s what she left!”
All the characters shouted in unison, causing a bit of a headache for Fisher. He looked down and saw a semi-transparent crystal high heel surrounded by seaweed.
Looking at that high heel, Fisher suddenly felt he had been foolish following these entities formed from crimson mist.
Noticing Fisher’s stiff expression, “私” quickly explained, “I can guarantee this is the shoe that woman wore just now!”
“.She wasn’t wearing this just now.”
“If you don’t believe me, just wait until you put the shoe on her, it will absolutely fit her foot perfectly!”
“.”
“Or you could smell it now; it should have her scent!”
“.”
Why is this getting more and more bizarre?!
Fisher frowned, clutching the crystal shoe, glancing at the cart tracks next to the seaweed, then looking up at the seemingly endless underwater plain where the clouds looked just like real cotton candy; everything in it was filled with light yellow watermelon hats and school bags, but all were tattered and seemed to have not been mended in a long time.
A cart really did pass through here just now.
Fisher tucked the crystal shoe in his arms, deciding to run a bit further in that direction.
He flew off again, headed toward the cotton candy clouds. Sure enough, just as the characters had said, a towering castle soon appeared, with a pumpkin carriage parked at the entrance, but pulling the giant pumpkin was a snow-white unicorn, and on the unicorn’s back stood the flaming bird.
Alagina really is here?
“Look! We’re here! Oh no, this castle is inhabited by demons! I hear that this demon is very fierce and malicious, fond of eating human flesh raw, and the castle is filled with traps and mechanisms—very dangerous!”
“What?”
“Don’t worry, we promised to help you find your woman; we will assist you!”
“.”
Fisher was not interested in the words of these entities formed from crimson mist, but he was increasingly certain that Alagina was inside this abstract castle.
He drew his fluid sword and approached the grand entrance. As soon as he opened the door, darkness consumed all of his vision.
“Don’t be afraid, everyone! Let’s form a spell to help you!”
As Fisher covered his eyes, unable to see the scenario inside, the words on him suddenly jumped up and down, forming a line of text Fisher couldn’t read.
“You will never be unable to see through the darkness.”
“.
Fisher stared at the rudimentary “spell” in his hand, unsure of how to assess it, but when he looked up again, the darkness before him dissipated in an instant, revealing Alagina, unconscious, lying on the ground.
At this moment, her clothing inexplicably transformed into a princess dress, her feet clad in white stockings, and her jade feet encased in a sparkling crystal shoe, except the right shoe was missing, matching the one Fisher was holding.
Alagina had her eyes tightly shut, sprawled on the ground, beside her face lay a bitten apple.
“Oh no! Your woman has eaten a poisoned apple! It’s extremely toxic; she’ll die soon!”
“.
Fisher raised his eyebrows, moving to Alagina’s side, gazing down at her pale face; her mouth was completely clean, and there were no signs of eating, yet she was obviously poisoned, almost as if caught in a dream.
“What should I do?”
“W-we don’t know either, but we can try to run up and form a spell on her and see if we can save her!”
At this, the characters immediately jumped off Fisher and ran onto Alagina, lying down in rows, forming dense lines of text, seemingly the “spell” they spoke of.
Fisher frowned as he watched the characters jump down one after another, and just as the word “私” was about to jump down from his chest, suddenly, outside the castle, despite it being daytime, a chilling moonlight sliced through the heavens, falling through the castle’s doorway and illuminating the ground before him.
Against that moonlight, the “Alagina” in Fisher’s arms emanated crimson energy, causing his pupils to constrict as he shouted suddenly.
“Wait!”
“What?”
“私” was about to jump down when Fisher quickly grabbed it; then he forcibly pulled out the fluid sword, stabbing it fiercely toward “Alagina.” When the blade penetrated her body, Fisher felt as though he had pierced a balloon, and immediately, an endless wave of crimson mist burst forth from “Alagina,” creating a powerful shockwave that swept Fisher away.
As the crimson mist was successfully stirred up, “Alagina” beneath him suddenly transformed into a massive gouge, the same gouge he had looked up at while standing on the dock, with the spirit realm beyond.
It was enticing him to go out?!
Outside, boundless crimson mist filled the scene of the spirit realm, a hazy moonlight faintly visible through the materialized mist; it was the moonlight that had awakened Fisher, stopping him from exiting the refuge.
But the surrounding crimson mist surged even more forcefully, as if it had transformed into a great hand, trying to extract everything from the refuge; the ship, instruments, and mechanisms stationed in the dry dock all began to move toward the gap above.
Fisher gritted his teeth, exerting all his strength, yet still being dragged out through the gap by the crimson power. The atmosphere outside felt eerily silent and cold, starkly different from the refuge, and just stepping outside, his sixteenth rank strength nearly shattered.
Survival instinct surged through him as he abruptly lifted the fluid sword in his hand, which morphed into a hooked shape, catching the edge of the refuge, abruptly halting his being pulled away by the crimson mist.
“Crack crack crack!”
“Ahh! I can’t take it anymore!!”
Fisher was slightly stunned, turning to look at himself, seeing that the character “私” still struggled to hold on to him, combatting the crimson power with difficulty, preventing itself from flying away from Fisher.
“You’re still here? You are real, not an illusion?”
“Ahh! Why wouldn’t I be real?!”
“.”
What is the power of this crimson authority anyway?
“Ahh! I’m losing my grip; I… I can’t find ‘愛’ anymore! Can you eat me and continue to fulfill our previous agreement?”
The characters on him swayed in the crimson mist, unable to hold on any longer, and could only plead like this.
Eat?
Fisher hesitated; after all, this entity was formed from crimson mist. Even if it was junk food, he had to consider that it might not digest well, let alone chaos.
However, seeing its pitiful voice evoked something in Fisher’s heart. He suddenly opened his mouth wide and bit the character “私” on his shoulder, swallowing it down.
“Thank you… thank you!”
“.
“Crack crack crack!”
At that moment, the power of the crimson mist grew stronger, the walls at the edge of the refuge and the appendages holding the fluid sword emitted terrifying booming sounds, while within the refuge, all the instruments and Alagina’s ship began to soar outward, heading towards the spirit realm.
Fisher raised his gaze to see the unconscious Alagina slumped on the ship, swept away and about to be carried out of the spirit realm.
His pupils narrowed as he turned his head, looking back at the spirit realm shrouded in endless crimson mist. What would happen if Alagina got taken out; how could she survive?
Quick thoughts swirled in his mind, and soon, a bold idea surfaced.
He abruptly urged the life chaos power within him, exaggeratingly discovering that the power of chaos was trembling wildly amidst the crimson mist, until after a moment it relented and finally popped out.
He then swiftly retracted the fluid sword that had hooked the edge of the refuge, extending out again, directly slicing off part of his arm, then casting that severed arm into the void.
Under the manipulation of the chaos power, the mass of flesh began to swell and shape, transforming into a “Fisher” constructed of flesh, with black hair and muscles identical to Fisher’s, at least looking more like Fisher than his current “tentacle monster” appearance.
“Roar!”
Sure enough, the moment the “Fisher” appeared, the boundless crimson mist unleashed a piercing scream, its indistinct and terrifying roar resonating through the void, both tranquil and agitated.
Simultaneously, everything that had been yanked from the refuge, including mechanisms and ships, fell back to the ground with a tremendous boom.
The Fisher missing an arm gritted his teeth through the pain and once again drew the fluid sword with his other arm. The sword blade extended again in the void, catching the ground in the refuge, yanking him straight back inside.
In the spirit realm, the “Fisher” chased by numerous crimson mist quickly dwindled due to the chaos disappearing and collapsed into a puddle of flesh; the crimson mist paused slightly, and then let out an even more horrific scream echoing through the spirit realm.
“Hiss!!”
As Fisher listened to that terrifying power’s explosion, his entire being—both soul and body—shook simultaneously, spewing forth countless drops of blood and fragments of his soul.
His vision went blank; he felt like he would instantly lose consciousness. The gap in ranks was simply too great; merely existing in the presence of the crimson mist could reduce him to ash, let alone that mist was not even the true body of spirit realm pollution.
Yet just before losing consciousness, he had already descended into the area of the angel refuge in the spirit realm. Gritting his teeth, he used every bit of strength left to turn his head to look at the gap in the ceiling above the dock.
He shouted, throwing the fluid sword at the gap, which stretched and morphed into a thick, bizarre-scented silver liquid, swiftly sealing the gap completely, severing the connection between the refuge and the spirit realm.
In the next second, Fisher’s body crashed to the ground of the dry dock, causing him to roll several times, leaving a long streak of blood behind.
“Cough cough… cough.”
“Beep beep. Fault repair completed, confirming the status of the refuge… Miss Alagina, Mr. Fisher, can you hear me? Miss Alagina… Mr. Fisher.”
David’s voice echoed throughout the refuge, seemingly calling for Fisher and Alagina continuously since just now, but no one responded, causing his mechanical voice to carry a hint of human anxiety.
Fisher, feeling extremely weak, lay on the ground, clutching his severed arm in agony. The flesh there writhed continuously, stretching out quickly under the chaotic power, transforming into a brand new arm, while he transitioned back from the monstrous chaotic being to his original human form.
“Haha.”
After completing all of this, he lay on the ground as if exhausted, hazily looking up at the gap that had been repaired by the fluid sword, softly speaking.
“Cough cough… David, we are still here. Quickly check Alagina’s condition.”
“Beep beep. It’s such a relief to hear your voice, Mr. Fisher. Please wait a moment; David will come from the control room right away. If possible, please stay awake and relay what just occurred to David.”
“Cough cough.”
Fisher painfully covered his chest; for some reason, a sudden concept surfaced in his mind.
He suddenly inexplicably understood the meaning of the character “私” in Tang Ze Asuka’s language.
It seemed to mean… “I.”
“I” am looking for that character… love?
I am looking for love.
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(End of Chapter)
