Chapter 756: 56. She
In mid-air, the watery moonlight suddenly exploded, shattering the connection formed by the debris of the building in an instant, accompanied by a series of sounds like bubbles bursting.
“Pop! Pop! Pop!”
Upon closer inspection, the moonlight around Renee had already formed an “infinity” rune, endlessly cycling and infinitely expanding.
Although the entire dream still existed and suppressed the ranks of everyone present, Renee was, after all, a True God wielding infinite authority, and this suppression soon seemed inconsequential after the dream began to teeter.
Suspended in the air, Renee coldly raised her hand aimed at Hela in front of her, as the halo behind her rotated like a lunar disk, her great power surged to its limit and struck down.
“Buzzing!”
Hela, smiling and about to speak, was suddenly struck by the immense lunar disk.
“Boom!”
Her entire body instantly turned to ashes in the air, disappearing without a trace, leaving only some gray-black particles drifting like remnants of a vanished presence.
“.”
Renee raised her hand, frowning slightly; although she had attacked with full force from the beginning, she had not expected the Incarnation of the Ocean to be hit and destroyed so easily.
Her purple eyes glanced over her outstretched palm forward, but all she saw were fragments of paper bags falling, and the golden-haired beauty had disappeared without a trace, even her presence extinguished in the cataclysm of destruction.
Is she dead?
Renee confirmed several times but still felt no presence.
She had to split her focus to check the situation on the other side with Asuka and Fisher; upon seeing that the dream’s master, Asuka, was desperately pursuing Fisher, a sound of a paper bag being blown upward by a breeze slowly reached her ears.
“Swish.”
Her pupils slightly contracted as she quickly came to her senses, gathering power again to aim forward.
However, she only saw fragments of the paper bag being blown about chaotically, landing on the rooftop of a large building.
Yet as the paper bag fragments slowly descended, it was like ink splattering onto a white paper, blooming layers of indistinguishable darkness.
“Whoosh.”
As if the darkness penetrating through the void spread ceaselessly, gradually crossing dimensions from the top of the building in all directions, until it filled all of Renee’s line of sight.
“Swish.”
In that boundless darkness, it felt like being in an immensely vast ocean; Renee could see nothing and could only hear the distant sound of waves, as if echoing from ancient times.
From the endless darkness, pale arms of unknown races slowly rose, each holding a body of an “Angel”, chaotically combining in the air until they completely formed a headless female figure.
Finally, countless withered, god-like, fearsome arms held up a golden-haired head, eyes closed and face bloodied but smiling, elevating it like a crown above the headless body.
“Are you very angry? Silly child?”
That headless body slowly reconnected with her head, and after that, it seemed to possess a soul and opened its playful blue-golden scattered pupils.
In those pupils, there was a frown from the vast darkness not far away, where Renee stood.
“Is this your other incarnation?”
“More accurately, it is not an incarnation, as it does not possess any of my authority nor my consciousness, acting independently. It is merely a protective measure I left in the Sea of Souls. When I discovered the Sea of Souls had been taken, it activated together with my other three incarnations.”
In the darkness, Hela touched her unscathed head, chuckling softly,
“It possesses the power to effortlessly take down any deity within your barriers except for you, and as long as it exists, my three incarnations will revive without limit. Although I cannot face that group of thieves at the same time, it can be considered my trump card left here.”
“Except for me?”
Renee was momentarily taken aback, looking at the endless darkness spreading behind Hela, a drop of cold sweat slowly trickling down her forehead.
Of course, besides a sense of overwhelming caution, her heart also rose with suspicion.
If the protective measure left by the Ocean in the Sea of Souls is so formidable, why has it remained dormant for so long?
Moreover, why could a deity like Ramastia, who possessed two authorities, be stronger than she, yet could not kill her?
Unless…
Seeing Renee’s slightly changing expression, Hela smiled and slightly pointed her red lips at Renee, saying,
“Indeed, because the unconscious authority within you is what I sent into this world. It belongs to me, so it is equally under the protection of this mechanism. Therefore, when your previous self was killed, not only would your authority not vanish, but your consciousness would also regrow.”
Renee remained quiet, silently staring at Hela walking in the darkness and the “boundless darkness” behind her as a protective mechanism.
For a long time, both Renee and Ramastia had assumed the infinite authority could not be destroyed due to its uniqueness, yet now they realized that the reason for the perpetuity of that infinite authority was actually the backup plan the Ocean left in the Sea of Souls.
“.”
After a brief silence, the moonlight in Renee’s hand grew brighter; her gaze remained fixed upon the boundless darkness behind Hela, and then she spoke,
“If the protective mechanism behind you cannot kill me and possesses the power to kill other deities, conversely, except for those few gods working together, I am the one most likely to kill it alone.”
“. I am telling you this hoping you’ll betray me, silly child.”
Hela seemed a bit pained as she rubbed her head, then returned to her usual smiling demeanor,
“You are the one I brought to this world; it has nothing to do with the world’s belonging. Honestly, I just wanted to test the nature of the barriers set up by that coward Azanros, but essentially, we have no conflict, right?”
Underneath Hela’s long eyelashes, the blue-golden colors mirrored Renee’s increasingly blurred figure, and her words followed,
“I just need to temporarily separate the nature within Fisher’s body from him, and everything will end.”
“.”
Renee pursed her lips, not immediately responding and not decisively rejecting either.
Wavering?
Perhaps a little, especially since she had previously naively fantasized about abandoning everything in the world with Fisher, willing to bring along those people he cared about.
The Ocean wanted the nature within him, while she just wanted Fisher.
This might be the reason for Renee’s wavering, yet she also had countless reasons to refuse.
Renee let out a breath, coldly staring at Hela in front of her, and said in a deep voice,
“You deceitful scoundrel, other than wanting the nature within Fisher, everything you said is likely false. I cannot and should not make this decision myself; Fisher has already made a choice, and I choose to believe in him.”
Hela, being rejected, showed no anger; she simply sighed, shook her head, and said to Renee,
“Alright. Actually, I didn’t hold much hope because Fisher and his nature are indeed inseparable.”
This last sentence was light; Renee hadn’t even caught it clearly when she suddenly felt a chill at the back of her head.
So fast!
The moonlight on Renee flashed and countered the aggressive force coming from behind.
But soon, the entire dark ocean roiled, surrounding the floating Renee more fiercely.
Hela watched Renee struggle to counter the attacks with a smile, while she turned and left, directly crossing this seemingly endless darkness to land back on the high building outside.
She stood at the edge of the building, casually glancing around the city, and soon spotted Fisher confronting Asuka.
“. It seems time needs to speed up; I can’t hold off those crazy little girlfriends of his in the dynasty.”
Hela chuckled and shook her head, leaping down from the high building and flying toward Fisher and Asuka like an angel.
Just behind her, in the space wrapped in boundless darkness, thick moonlight flickered through, yet still struggled to break through that black barrier.
“Crack! Crack!”
The streets of Tokyo seemed to boil over.
The glass walls on the exterior of the upside-down buildings reflected the blood-red sunset projected from the far west, clawing and chasing after drunken people on the ground.
Nighttime Tokyo smells of alcohol, as if the entire city and even the country were intoxicated, revolving between the crisp sounds of the money counting machine and the flashy, dizzying lights, the dream that would never awaken.
Fisher ran through, and countless bills around him came alive, swirling in the air like a tide, while unfamiliar faces printed on the bills began to repeat their words densely.
“Where are we going, Teacher Fisher?”
“Where are we going, Teacher Fisher?”
Fisher’s face remained cold as he waved his hand, sending those bills flying like they were swept by a tempest, turning into clumps of dense foam sticking to the walls, looking extremely disgusting.
On the sides of the buildings, countless faces wearing grotesque smiles jumped down like lemmings, one after another, all facing Fisher as they leaped from the high rises, raining down onto the street before Fisher, splattering blood.
“Slap!”
“Slap!”
“Slap!”
One by one, bodies in suits with hollow smiles fell, instantly piling up into a wall of flesh before Fisher, the bloody scent causing him to abruptly halt.
It was not out of fear of the flesh wall ahead, but because something was coming from behind.
With a cold face, he suddenly turned around, the shadow on his face seemingly taking tangible form, only his cold gaze dragging a ghostly light as he abruptly turned back.
“Teacher Fisher!”
What entered his sight was Tang Zeming Asuka with black hair.
With a chilling smile, she spread her arms and lunged toward Fisher, who quickly extended his hand to brace her shoulders but was still overwhelmed by her immense force, crashing into the flesh wall, causing the fallen bodies to shatter into pieces.
“Cough!”
The stench of bodies immediately surged as Tang Zeming Asuka held Fisher’s face and slid him across the pile of corpses on the ground.
Before he could react, the corpses around him seemed to come alive, reaching out their arms toward him.
As if wanting to completely drown a struggling victim sinking in water, Fisher gritted his teeth, watching the dark-haired Asuka, her face obscured, feeling the whole dream begin to cave in behind him, as it sought to drag him down into the depths.
“Ahhh!”
Fisher gritted his teeth, the power within him suddenly released, and in an instant, layers of energy waves erupted from him, sending Tang Zeming Asuka flying away.
But on the buildings to both sides, people with smiling faces of Tokyo crazily lunged toward Fisher; he stood up with a cold face, catching one person’s neck with one hand and, like cannonballs, flung them all back.
“Bang! Bang! Bang!!”
The immense impact caused the flight trajectories of the bodies to explode into clouds of bloody mist along the way, temporarily halting the advance of the other shadows, yet on the rooftops, those shadows seemed endless, showing no sign of ceasing.
No, he needed to break this dream quickly, or else Hela would arrive soon.
He raised his gaze to the sky, which had remained quiet for a long time; most crucially, those steel cages that Asuka had used to restrain Renee and Hela had all disappeared.
He took a breath, pulling out the Fluid Sword from his bosom, looking down at the dream beneath him that seemed to be collapsing.
Then let’s see if it is possible to break this dream from the inside with brute force.
“Buzzing!”
As the waves of his will surged, the golden Fluid Sword on the hilt suddenly vibrated and extended, transforming into a highly pointed spear-like shape.
Fisher’s muscles flexed and gathered strength, aiming this spear harboring immense power at the depression in the dream below.
“Whoosh!”
Then, he swiftly raised his hand and drove the Fluid Longspear deep into the ground.
Just in the next moment, all of Tokyo instantly turned pale.
That raw power, roughly akin to a demigod’s, directly formed a massive beam of light in the heart of Tokyo, causing all scenery around Fisher to begin reverting into ashes.
The surrounding temperature gradually became scorching, evaporating everything like the sun.
“Dong!”
Centered in that spot, Fisher focused on what lay below, yet suddenly heard an extremely ethereal and clear sound; he realized this was the sound of his spear reaching the edge of the dream.
But such a powerful spear instantly vanished before the dream, as if it had never existed.
Attack, disappeared?
Fisher’s pupils slightly contracted, but then he rejected this thought.
It hadn’t disappeared; the Fluid Sword had a sense of impact; it was not disappearance but more like the dream was too hard, so hard that perhaps even a True God’s power could not break through.
No, external force methods won’t work either; if True God-level power could not penetrate from within the dream, neither could external ones.
“Teacher Fisher really can’t do it, can he? I told you.”
At that moment, Asuka’s ghostly voice suddenly came from behind.
Fisher instinctively turned around but was suddenly clutched by an extremely cold, chilling body that tightly wrapped around him.
That bone-chilling cold instantly snatched away all the heat from Fisher’s body, then Asuka’s weight gradually increased, becoming as heavy as a mountain.
At first, Fisher could just barely support it, but as her weight escalated dramatically, the very ground he stood on began to crack, and he could no longer endure, suddenly counter-throwing Asuka onto the ground.
“Boom!”
The surrounding buildings slightly shook, and Fisher wiped the cold sweat off his face, then lowered his gaze to firmly grip the ground beneath, scattered black hair yet still fiercely staring at him was Asuka. He lowered his eyes, but as he gazed into her scarlet eyes, the force in his hands held back again.
But Fisher remained motionless, while Asuka reached out her hand, tightly gripping Fisher’s neck, making his breath increasingly difficult,
“Teacher Fisher, you… can go nowhere.”
“Cough.”
The sunset gradually sank; under the myriad buildings’ glass walls reflecting the light, the standoff between Fisher and Asuka on the ground mirrored countless times in the glass walls, depicting Asuka’s crazy smile in profile amidst her black hair.
Time is running out.
“Whoosh.”
From behind, a gust like a dangerous wind blew past, and Fisher had no idea when Hela would arrive.
If she directly took the nature within him, it would likely mean the end for this world.
Should he kill Asuka?
Death within a dream probably means real death; if he killed the master of this dream, could it break the dream?
But…
Did Asuka do anything wrong?
She waited a full ten thousand years for him; the pain and solitude she endured, even from others’ narratives or her brief words filled with anguish, one could tell.
“Asuka, can you disperse the dream first? Please.”
“. Teacher Fisher, if this dream were so easily dissipated, it would have long since vanished in the river of history, and it would not still exist today, making it difficult for the gods to dissolve it. This is not just a dream; it is also revenge.”
Fisher’s expression grew increasingly troubled as he felt Asuka’s grip beneath him intensifying, trying to drag him forever into oblivion.
He wanted to take a deep breath and help himself make this decision, but that hand gripping his throat didn’t stop.
Perhaps he wanted to apologize to Asuka, for the unending wait she felt, for the injustice she had endured, so she wouldn’t resent this world or himself so much, that she sought revenge for everything she’d experienced.
But whether he had the right to apologize to her on behalf of fate was still uncertain; perhaps he could only apologize for himself?
“I’m sorry.”
Fisher bowed his head, but the strength he should have added to the hand gripping Asuka’s neck was long overdue.
He merely gazed at Asuka beneath him, but as the sunset reflected, in a fleeting glance, he seemed to see his reflection in the glass wall of the nearby building.
In that blurry reflection like a mirror, he and Asuka were in the same posture, yet vastly different.
In the mirror, Asuka’s hands were not pressing on his neck but, instead, resting at her sides as if she had given up; she wore an ancient magical outfit, her face reminiscent of Jasmine, just like how she looked upon their first meeting ten thousand years ago.
She simply gazed quietly at Fisher, tears streaming silently down her face, until she was full of tears.
However, Fisher was not dressed in the familiar white shirt and black trousers but in a robe.
The reflection of the Fisher in the mirror was a perfect reflection of him; everything was identical except for the clothing.
As Fisher turned his head to look at the reflection, the Fisher in the mirror also stared blankly at him outside the mirror.
But just seeing that self in robes in the mirror made Fisher seem to understand everything.
Why was that robe placed in the small room he lived in Kyoto within the dream?
Why did others die, yet only he, Asuka, say he would never truly die?
Fisher, stunned, released the grip on Asuka’s neck. In the mirror, the Fisher in the robe also let go of the tearful, surrendering Asuka’s hand.
Yet unlike the motionless, puppet-like Asuka seen in the mirror, the Asuka beneath him suddenly turned the tables, pushing Fisher fiercely down onto the ground, dragging him into the earth, to the depths of this dream, to the dimness of consciousness.
“Slap!”
Only when pressed hard onto the ground, beginning to slowly sink in, did Fisher seem to come back to his senses, pulling his gaze away from the mirror’s reflection.
He turned to look at the Asuka before him, head lowered, eyes glowing scarlet, softly said,
“So that’s how it is.”
The Asuka before him paused slightly, yet she continued to persistently drag him deeper into the ground,
“It’s alright, Teacher Fisher; we’ll soon be together forever, just as compensation for my ten thousand years of waiting, alright?”
“You’re not Asuka, are you?”
Fisher gazed at the “Asuka” before him, who suddenly halted in her actions, then lowered his gaze slightly, shifting his sight from her as if observing himself, even his words sounded like he was repeating to himself,
“Yes, she is the Magic Lord, the president of the Creation Society, the guide of all Trans entities. Yet until the very end, the chaos within her could not be suppressed. Clearly, this dream, whether it’s Asuka or Jasmine, is under her control; she ought to have the ability to control this dream and even the chaos within her. So why, in the end, could she not overcome the chaos?”
Fisher mumbled, and gazing at the “Asuka” with scarlet eyes before him, he finally understood everything,
“She always knew that chaos was interfering with her but couldn’t eliminate its influence. Because the dream remained in her heart, that Asuka, who had always existed in the form of me, could never expel the chaos as long as her heart was still waiting for me.”
That robe, the one he was wearing, actually proved everything.
Couldn’t Asuka have known that someone from another world like Fisher wouldn’t appear dressed in garments unique to her world?
She should have realized that it was merely the manipulation of chaos, everything was false, but dreams are memories, and that dream exists in the form of Fisher; severing it means severing the memory of waiting for Fisher.
She was unwilling to do so and thus continued to endure with difficulty.
She merely fantasized, hoping that one day, the long wait would end, and they could meet again.
If that were the case, as long as new memories could be created with Fisher, even if she didn’t remember him, it wouldn’t be regretful.
But a thousand years passed, two thousand years passed, three thousand years passed…
She waited for nothing, instead fearing that human memories might be too fragile, leading to a forgotten past, making her have no choice but to force herself to deepen that memory, causing the dream within her mind to become increasingly entrenched.
Over time, back and forth, until one day, she could no longer make a choice between the two.
To possess the memory of Teacher Fisher while letting the chaos grow, or to completely forget and eliminate its evil?
“Asuka chose the third option, hence she tried to leave this world with that chaos. As long as she leaves here, the destruction brought by the growth of chaos would hold no meaning for this world, and she could maintain her memories within her mind, living on just like this. But she just didn’t know that this world has limits; in the end, she could never get out, could she?”
As Fisher spoke, he reached out and gently held the arm of the “Asuka” that was tightly gripping his neck. His eyes reflected the surrendered Asuka pinned beneath him, then he gazed at the “Asuka” with scarlet eyes and softly said,
“So, she perished on the path of wanting to preserve her memories and fled, her soul fell into the Sea of Souls and was pulled by Ramastia. Yet even so, the memory she retained within her continued to exist and had become a pollution, lasting in the Spirit Realm for so long.”
The “Asuka” in front of him changed color slightly, and just as she was about to say something, she saw the Fluid Sword in Fisher’s hand gradually extend, pressing against her neck.
His pupils shrank slightly, yet in an intangible manner, he completely merged with the image of the Fisher in the robe in the mirror, and then he said,
“The invincibility of this dream is because of me, isn’t it? And you are not Asuka; you are merely a representation of her obsession, or rather, you are [Dream].”
Upon hearing this, the “Asuka” with scarlet eyes paused slightly, and then her expression turned increasingly sinister, her form began to wriggle violently, her voice becoming ethereal and indistinct,
“That bastard… for ten thousand years of waiting, she willingly bore no resentment, making it impossible for me to take action. That soft persimmon, bullied by her parents, betrayed by you, yet she held no hatred; why? I finally found a fixed anchor point. You… don’t even think about it.
“Don’t you dare!!”
Listening to the sounds swelling from the increasingly expanding Crimson Mist, Fisher lowered his head, but his heart ached even more.
He slightly tilted his head, looking at the Asuka lying on the ground and gazing at him, seemingly never resenting anyone, even in such an unfair fate.
Perhaps the contents of this dream truly are what she desired.
A perfect family, a normal school life, a competent lover.
Perhaps the world composed of dreams is also something she desires to immerse herself in.
But why, when looking in the mirror at the moment Fisher was about to raise his blade to eliminate himself, to break the dream, was she still so quiet, only watching him?
As if saying,
“I finally see the real you, Teacher Fisher.”
Fisher’s hands trembled uncontrollably; he gritted his teeth, praying and whispering,
“I’m sorry, Asuka.”
The next moment, the Fluid Sword easily plunged into Fisher’s own neck.
“Crack.”
There was no sound of blood spraying.
Only the massive crashing sound of the entire dream fracturing, accompanied by the increasingly inflated and sinister roar of the dream.
(End of this chapter)
