Chapter 334

I gazed toward the garden and saw a lady dressed in splendid attire, her radiance surpassing the branches beneath the summer sun, her beauty more delicate than the lilies of May…

"What are you muttering about? 'Lady'? 'Lilies'?" Field turned around, neck craned curiously to peek at the book’s contents—he had good reason to suspect his companion was hiding something intriguing from him.

The mules, lacking initiative once again, drove the wheel hub into a mud pit; the two men bounced like beans in a hot pan, their hips and pelvises aching from the collisions.

"Damn it, Field, I shouldn’t have dragged you out with me!"

Dominic lay helplessly amid the scattered cargo, wishing he could slap his morning self for believing that ridiculous lie about driving—he must have made it up just to get out for a stroll.

The short poem he’d just recalled vanished without a trace; his mind was blank except for the rush of blood surging upward.

He strained to recall the context, but gained little—only pigeon-like fragments of phrases scattered as his consciousness approached, gone without a trace, leaving only one or two feathers as symbols of their existence.

“So what exactly are you muttering about?”

"Just a poem." Dominic realized he was about to lose this poem; he’d copied it from a volume temporarily borrowed from the Dunling Library, and now both the text and his memory were fading—perhaps he’d never get another chance to recover it.

Like the feeling that had just slipped away, people always lose certain things permanently without realizing it. This irreversible loss left his mood momentarily low.

“What poem?”

“I promise it contains nothing you’d find interesting. Watch the road!”

The cart had already entered the mountain path; if the driver so much as glanced away, they might both be promoted to the Heavenly Father’s side by tonight.

What had seemed like a road slightly too wide now appeared perfectly reasonable—the light in the mountains faded far faster than on flat ground. While the cliff walls above still reflected blinding rays, the shaded trail ahead had become nearly impossible to see.

Where vegetation grew thick on either side, the boundary merged indistinctly with the deep ravine; at a glance, it looked like a flat meadow—but a single misstep would send cart and riders tumbling down, their traces lost forever.

The third-rate driver’s neck began to sweat; his knuckles whitened as he gripped the reins, nearly choking the horses.

This at least brought some relief—Field usually didn’t cause trouble when he took things seriously.

Dominic pushed his pounding heart back down from his throat and lay down in the cart bed, resting his head on a flattened pumpkin.

He made one final attempt to recover the lost lines, his consciousness shuttling between the few lines of verse, searching for the exit of memory.

Like a craft he’d handled many times, he remembered every metaphor—the truth depicted as a sacred flower, a summer’s radiant sun, guiding the reader toward the righteous path of enlightenment; at first reading, he’d been captivated by its cleverness.

But then, in that moment, he seemed to suddenly perceive another layer—a something “nonexistent” flashed past; the paper revealed a third surface beyond front and back, seamlessly embedded within the handwritten words, surpassing even the original in harmony and coherence.

Brief, yet profound—not an illusion constructed by his own mind.

He nearly believed it was a destined revelation, yet the perspective it revealed brimmed with concepts and scenes he had never seen.

Like climbing a predetermined path toward a luminous peak just beyond reach, he was suddenly tripped by an inexplicable pit, his knees slamming hard against the ground.

The light above dimmed for an instant; his viewpoint tumbled with loosened stones, and he realized the abyss lay mere inches away.

From the horizon to his feet lay a realm devoid of light; shattered stones falling into it stirred unnatural, towering waves of darkness that rose and fell beyond earthly limits, climbing like plants toward his vision and entwining with dense clouds.

The mountain’s light spun like a wheel, hurtling into the dark valley.

All things in the world, in forms beyond comprehension, were silently and madly absorbed into the dark void—leaving only that thing which could not even be called a “thing.”

It was vast beyond imagining, its presence everywhere within the all-consuming dark void; yet it was infinitely small, small enough to slip through the gaps between words, slithering along the gaze that discovered it and piercing into his pupils.

【It saw you】

It was not he who found it—it was it that found him.

A chill, like a freezing current, ran through his body; Dominic opened his eyes, flailing his arms in panic, trying to escape the darkness—until he felt the hard, jarring vibration behind him.

His body still lay in the cart; he had apparently fallen asleep without realizing it.

Night had fallen. After days of capricious weather, the skies had finally reached their breaking point—the clouds obscured star and moonlight; the darkness above was pure, just as in his dream.

“You’re awake? You could rest a bit longer—we still have a long way to go.”

Field had slowed the cart to its slowest pace, guiding it forward by the lantern hanging from the front, stubbornly clinging to his pride rather than stopping to seek help.

They’d likely missed dinner; he hoped the cook hadn’t needed any key ingredients on the shopping list.

“When did I fall asleep?” He groped around beside him—his notebook was gone, perhaps thrown out during his fright.

While frustrated at losing all his accounts, a subconscious relief crept in—he felt as if he’d temporarily escaped something nameless, as if the aftermath of that inexplicable nightmare had vanished with it.

“Not long. I think we’ve reached… the mountain’s mid-slope?”

“I swear I’ll never take you out again. Imagine what Master Kraft would think of two fools late for grocery shopping.”

"Sorry, my fault." The culprit admitted his error with startling frankness. "I, Brother Field, Knight of the Hospital, hereby declare a night of fasting and self-reflection. That night snack is yours, brother."

Though the apology lacked sincerity, the night snack made up for it; Dominic reluctantly accepted the penance on behalf of the Heavenly Father.

With the fog of waking and a throbbing back of his head, he pondered for a long while, slowly remembering to ask whether he’d spoken any strange words in his sleep.

Just as he considered how to phrase the question, a violent flash of white replaced the darkness—brief, blinding—etching every twisted branch and twig in sharp detail, while distant mountain peaks cast twisted, looming shadows toward them.

Then darkness surged back like a tide, leaving afterimages that burned long in his vision.

Dominic stared blankly for a moment, realized the light came from beyond the clouds, and in half a breath leapt to the driver’s seat, snatching the reins from his dazed companion’s hands and gripping them tightly.

Soon, they heard the delayed thunder—a long, chaotic rumble, as if the mountain itself had awakened within the clouds, its rocky scales slowly grinding together, drowning out the panicked neighs of the horses.

The reins burned hot trails across his palms; finally, the two of them held them steady together. The sound faded, vanishing beyond the horizon.

Still shaken, Dominic turned his palms over to inspect the wounds, preparing to treat them temporarily with his inner lining.

But his hearing was again overwhelmed by a deafening roar—the reins slipped from his grasp, and the cart careened wildly into the dark.

He heard his companion’s frantic shouts nearby, yelling as he tried to wrench the bridle.

A fear deeper than falling pierced his mind.

【This is thunder】

Then what was that before?