Chapter 177

The dream was illuminated by a soft white light, and the sense of being watched grew stronger; he realized this dream was progressive.

There was no longer any need to seek comparisons; alongside the increasing brightness of the dream came extended duration and progressively delayed awakening times, along with an irresistible descent into sleep. Since the appearance of the "Bai Guang," the author had not eaten breakfast once.

All known knowledge was applied to explain the current condition, but yielded nothing. From Humoral Theory to his new, unpublished treatise, after multiple self-examinations and consultations with colleagues, he was forced to admit that there truly existed diseases beyond their understanding.

According to the recorded trend, within no more than two months—possibly even shorter—the moments of awakening and falling asleep would merge, trapping him in a dream from which he would never wake. Losing control of consciousness, even with meticulous bodily care, he would eventually develop various ailments and succumb to death.

This struck a heavy blow to his will, causing the journal to skip several dates.

Yet he eventually returned, determined to record, as a firsthand witness, this rare illness during his final days, and to complete before then the book that might profoundly impact the entire system, with the help of trusted friends.

When mentioning that book, Kraft could sense his pride—greater than any emphasis on death.

The humiliation lay in how, before death, a man would try anything—even the church, which he had always scorned. After a church-connected friend summoned a priest to exorcise the affliction with no effect, the final resort was arranged: he was to stay in a church for several days.

If the Heavenly Father saves no unbeliever, then at least His own grounds wouldn't be defiled by demons, right?

But because his work had such poor relations with the church, the author could never bring himself to move in, forced to bow daily to those "dogmatic," "brainwashed with holy water" priests, bishops, and seminary colleagues. A truly "well-connected" friend somehow arranged for the author a spot atop the church's bell tower.

Aside from the hunchbacked bell-ringer who brought meals each day, no one would disturb this final silence—and it was convenient for timing.

Under "insistent kindness," he yielded to his friend's urging, moved his belongings to the tower's peak, and reluctantly yet meticulously recorded this environmental shift. From this height of dozens of meters, he seized every remaining half-day to complete the final volume of his manuscript; what followed were only proofreading tasks.

The dream's progression deepened into its next stage. Its contents grew increasingly real and detailed; he discovered he had gained limited control over his dream-body, able to move his fingers and touch the damp bedside. He even wondered whether, if he could never awaken again, his spirit might live on within the dream.

It was clear the author had swiftly passed through fear, denial, anger, and despair.

The turning point came after he gained true dream-body mobility. When he awoke chilled from the water-dampened bed, holding his favorite scalpel, he instinctively opened the window—and saw not the sun hanging high, nor the long-absent moonlight of night.

But a strange celestial body. Nearly half a page of descriptive text was written, then entirely crossed out and blacked over, merely stating it was "impossible to look away" and "brought an extraordinary experience."

He gazed at it, lost in awe, for what felt like an eternity—or perhaps only an instant—then awoke again to the long-missed sunrise, his body dangling from the windowsill. Fortunately, the kind bell-ringer heard the noise and rescued him; otherwise, this great discovery might never have been recorded.

At last, the author found the key to the dream.

【So familiar a trope】

Reading this, Kraft understood nearly what the manuscript's author had endured—though his own experience differed slightly. He continued reading.

After temporarily finding an "exit" from the dream, the author began pondering what had drawn him here, and what the recurring bright Bai Guang signified.

Before he could figure it out, new symptoms emerged. He occasionally experienced a strange shift in perspective: while writing at his desk, he saw papers inside his drawer; in severe cases, he even saw his own internal organs, often accompanied by indescribable discomfort.

The manuscript described this as a suffocating, narrow constriction, like birth, as if the world were too low to contain his soul.

Unlike Kraft's experience of being knocked on at night, the author eventually discovered the Bai Guang's origin during one instance of looking down from the window. A soft, luminous creature with countless tentacles and appendages drifted in the reversed flow of the Tem River flooding into the city, attempting to climb the towering outer wall of the bell tower.

When it saw him, it emitted a shriek like "a thousand pipe organs and ten thousand engorged vocal cords." In a single glance, he understood: the force pulling him into the dream originated from it; the immense height differential prevented it from feeding.

He owed gratitude to that friend: though blessed by no Heavenly Father, the church's own bell tower had granted him the chance to gaze upon that celestial body and escape.

A prolonged struggle ensued between the man and the creature: each night, the author had to quickly realize he was dreaming and fix his gaze upon the celestial body, while the creature relentlessly climbed the tower.

He faithfully recorded this process, which any ordinary person would dismiss as a bizarre tale, dedicating most of the pages to detailing precisely on which day he grasped the true nature of "x-ray vision," and from which day his spirit could directly perceive the force pulling him into the dream—and resist it.

"I feel I am transforming; my soul becoming tangible, while the human body cannot match it," the author wrote. "And I cannot tell whether this transformation stems from 'training' or from repeatedly gazing upon that beautiful celestial body."

【"Beautiful" celestial body?】

"I should kill that creature. I've thought of many ways to deal with a being that hardly possesses intelligence—but is it truly worth it? I would lose the only pathway into that world."

"It is a key, a key that walks on its own, capable of guiding me to the other side… and also…"

A brilliant idea took shape in the recorder's pen: he should not kill the creature, but maintain this dangerous equilibrium. If he could find a way for others to be perceived by it, it would become a "magic" capable of making anyone who established contact with it vanish into thin air.

Yet this "magic" had two problems to solve: first, the user and the target must occupy equal status, requiring prolonged conscious resistance; second, he needed a medium through which the target could be perceived, just as innate sensitives were.

He solved the second problem.

……

……

【I understand part of it now】

Kraft folded the pages. The record ended here; the remaining portion must have been the one corroded by mold alongside the holy text, now irrecoverable.

This sufficiently explained part of the truth—the original researcher, deeply curious, had deciphered the deep-layered creature's feeding mechanism and developed a simple little application. Then, this manuscript wandered into the world, passing through many hands until it reached a believer who was likely also entangled.

All fits together.

The Bai Guang-emitting guide, another world, the circular object suspended in the sky. The multi-armed, multi-legged angels with curled fingers and toes in the hall now had their counterpart.

But the current situation cannot be explained solely by this: the rampant fungi, the parasitized shells—how do they connect to the creeping creature? This only helped him trace the possible origin of the heresy.

But at least the identity of the "angels" is now clear. Since he couldn't figure it out now, Kraft decided to deal with it first before further consideration.

"Kup, light a fire."

He opened the oil container, poured it along the window, and spilled one can onto the floor. A tried-and-true trap, replicated in the study.

As expected, at the center of the fungal red glow indicating the enemy's position, the Bai Guang slowly flared.

But this Bai Guang differed from his experience: it was veiled by an uneven misty haze, yet its overall brightness far exceeded any previous instance—surpassing even the peak intensity witnessed in Wenden Harbor.

"Mr. Kraft, shall I throw the torch?" Kup lit the torch he carried, watching Kraft stare at the Bai Guang rising like a moonwheel before him, seemingly lost in an untimely thought.

The brightness grew endlessly, reaching blinding intensity, yet retained an unnatural softness and serenity—even the attendant, whom he'd only seen once in memory, sensed something was wrong.

"Kup, you and Martin go down the corridor first, to the highest point possible. Then look up." Kraft took the torch, speaking quickly and clearly. "Remember: make sure it's not chasing you before you look."

"Look up?"

"Yes. Go high and look up—find the moon in the sky, and then you can return. Now, go."

"But—" Martin started to ask, but Kup dragged him back without hesitation into the corridor choked with fungi.

He pushed aside the desk, drew his sword. The Bai Guang surged and rose; the fungal caps in the room glowed crimson with condensation, quickly drowned by the stronger radiance.

Kraft heard the sound of the courtyard wall collapsing. A "column" of fungal light rose before the window, its form rivaling the trunk of a century-old forest giant, segmented yet twisting and coiling in contradiction, forming a motion toward the window.

Then came a second, a third—countless luminous nodules and appendages sprouting magnificent, flourishing fungal bodies, like soft scales, velvety lips, or silk brocade folds, adorning mouthparts that spat teeth and spores, resembling a colossal, brilliantly colored snake-ball coiled and hissing.

"Now it all makes sense…" Amid the low hum of a thousand fungal throats, his whispered muttering was meaningless. If fungi controlled human shells in the real world, what did they infect in the deep layer?

A vast entity, shaped from a long list of names, its body nourished by an entire forest's nutrients.

"Edward, why didn't the church burn you for three days and nights back then!" Now this thing wouldn't be finished in three days and nights.