Chapter 56: Chapter Fifty-Five: Residual Dream

“Mr. Kraft?” The boss retracted his hand, fleeing from the cold touch—it reminded him of a drowned corpse pulled from the sea, skin whitened and wrinkled by water, fine grains of salt clinging like sandpaper in the creases, offering friction meant to grip and drag down another victim.

Lu Xiusi and Li Si turned their gazes to Kraft’s face; beneath the golden strands of hair, his eyes lay open and still, the waterlogged hand blocking the outstretched fingers, yet offering no question to his surroundings, as if still in the daze of waking.

But that gaze was not clouded—it fixed on some elusive point in empty air, beyond them, higher than the ceiling, farther still.

Kraft’s lips trembled; his raised hand opened. Lu Xiusi thought he meant to use it to rise, so he gripped Kraft’s hand—but Kraft did not return the pressure.

His cold, stiff fingers traced a pattern, but physiological limits caused the motion to fail each attempt; Lu Xiusi could not decipher what he tried to draw, and released his hand in confusion.

The pale, rigid body abandoned its attempt to mark the air, instead bracing against the floor, peeling its upper half from the icy stone slab.

The mechanical, non-living rhythm of its movement made the daily sight of him feel alien—an incomprehensible consciousness controlled this body, forcing reluctant joints to flex and extend, as if after centuries, relying on fragmented muscle memory to replay old motions.

He spent several seconds rolling over, balancing awkwardly face-down, then crawled into a half-kneeling posture—this movement came more smoothly.

While the three stared in astonishment at his strange actions, his gaze pulled back from infinite distance, his eyes turning with his neck to survey his surroundings, finally settling on the stove.

A damp hand seized an unburned log, dragging it from the fire with a trail of sparks; the charred front half blazed, warping the air around it, ash falling in fine, whispering flakes.

“Put that down, Kraft!” Li Siton tried to stop the newly awakened man from further danger, but the burning coal barred his approach.

Kraft rose, leaning on the stick, holding it level with his brow; the firelight flickered in his pupils, reflecting shifting red and yellow glows. His movements grew smoother, indicating rapid adaptation—but Li Siton did not know whether this was good.

Silence in response to questions could signal mental aberration, especially when the man held a hot object; lack of self-awareness posed grave danger to himself and others.

Li Siton restrained Lu Xiusi, who had stepped forward to speak, pulling him back discreetly to a distance, hiding behind the long table.

The boss, sensing something wrong, had already retreated behind the counter, clutching a silver-white, winged circular amulet symbolizing the Church’s deity.

Li Siton’s decision proved correct.

The instant Kraft regained mobility, he swung the stick like a hammer, smashing it against the wall; the blazing fire left a brilliant arc on the retinas before striking the stone.

The brittle carbonized portion shattered and burst; internal hot fragments ignited anew upon contact with air, spilling countless flames in all directions.

Kraft watched without fear as the hot embers passed by his ears and hair, walked to the table, and, like writing on a slate, left black scratches upon its surface.

The drawing motion was natural, fluid—as if he were sketching anatomical diagrams from class, repeatedly studied in chalk, as if the lines had long been marked on the surface with invisible ink, and he merely traced what already existed.

He made the first stroke: a long, closed arc occupying most of the table; the crude charcoal stick moved his entire body, drawing a perfect circle with symmetrical precision.

The charred tip fractured during drawing, sparks and flames flickering constantly, as if painting a luminous object with fire itself. Merely a circular outline—yet the posture required no explanation; one could not help but believe it represented something vast, suspended.

Then, with blows like chopping or slicing, swift, sharp strokes tore a straight black line across the circle—as if wielding a sword or other sharp blade.

The intended mark was precisely such a crack: abrupt, deep, shattering the whole’s integrity. But if this thing were so immense, what could leave such a scar upon its surface?

This was not the end; more crack-like lines were added, none crossing the circle’s boundary, proving Kraft drew a fractured, intact sphere.

The two behind the table were transfixed by the chisel-like drawing; the crude lines held some inexplicable magic, unlike any technique known to any painter, conveying information no other artwork could reach.

After a series of actions impossible to judge as either slashing or creation, a perfect circle, riddled with intersecting fissures, appeared on the table.

The pattern still lacked one decisive stroke to fully express the object—anyone who studied it closely sensed this absence, even without ever having seen the real thing, intuiting its essence from Kraft’s desperate sketch.

It was a profoundly jarring experience—as if stepping from a narrow room to face the full moon hanging in the night sky, an uncaring celestial body unchanged by millennia of human change, yet bearing scars wide enough to swallow cities.

Contemplate it. Be awed. Fill your soul with primal reverence for the colossal and the mighty.

The silver winged circular amulet, clutched in his hand, slipped unnoticed, bounced off the counter’s edge, rolled into a floor crack, and vanished into darkness.

Its owner remained oblivious, staring blankly with the others at the black-drawn figure, waiting for its completion.

After a long silence, the drawer’s hand descended again, beginning at the far left edge of the circle, drawing a horizontal line.

This stroke was bold yet precise, immense wrist strength guided by supreme control, cutting through the smooth patina formed by years of use—as if slicing the surface of the thing within the drawing to reveal what lay beneath.

The pressure deepened, reaching its peak as it passed the center; faint popping sounds echoed continuously. The wide scratch turned pitch-black, then lightened after crossing the center, ending at the opposite boundary.

A long, spindle-shaped mark now cut across the image, dividing it into upper and lower halves, radiating inexplicable dynamism, imbuing it with chaotic traits between inanimate celestial body and living thing. In a strange illusion, it seemed ready to split open along the horizontal fissure, revealing the dark, undrawn side beneath.

Having completed the final stroke, Kraft seemed drained of all strength; the will that had lifted his stiff, cold body collapsed, and he toppled backward, half-slumped onto the nearby chair, chest heaving with ragged breaths.

Humanity returned to him; his limp movements revealed the true state of a man who had drowned long ago.

“I understand… puke!” A muffled utterance; thick fluid surged up his throat. Kraft vomited a great gulp of water—truly, he looked like a drowning man.

Despite nausea and exhaustion, the moment he awoke, he used the nearest materials to record what he remembered, unsure whether it was his own will or another’s driving him.

Like most dreams, memories from the dream fled rapidly—but this time, his consciousness reached out as he woke, snatching one handful, preserving what he deemed essential.

【Celestial body, inverted fall】

Good. He had drawn the last thing he saw. Intuition told him it was tied to leaving the dream.

Consciousness continued sorting earlier fragments: those chaotic, flowing memories felt like desert sand from another world, slipping uselessly through his fingers; disjointed images flashed like a revolving lamp, and only with great effort could he grasp a few keywords.

【Fall, white light, writhing song】

And…

【Spirit, senses】

Kraft stored these words away, along with the incomplete images he had not yet sorted.

At that moment, a hand rested on his shoulder.

“That just scared the hell out of me—are you alright, Kraft?” A deliberately slowed voice sounded beside him; the hand’s owner leaned close.

“I’m fine.” Kraft regretted saying it immediately—he realized he had “seen” the person without turning: a “transparent man.”

A humanoid creature, built of hollow structural supports, connected by flexible, extensible tissues, and covered with a skin where sparse, elongated hairs grew locally, had draped its complex forelimbs over his shoulder—making him shudder.

Had he not been utterly weak, Kraft would have leapt from the chair. His knowledge of human anatomy allowed him to quickly recognize it as a perfectly transparent, standard human form—within its gallbladder, he even saw tiny stones.

【Spirit, senses】

That thing reappeared in his consciousness; he soon realized—not only people, but everything appeared to him through a transparent lens, all things laid bare within his spiritual senses.

Yes, this was my sense. Intuition confirmed it—naturally, without surprise, perhaps because he had already been startled within the dream.

【Turn it off】

The dream’s residue continued to prompt.

Kraft instinctively prepared to obey—but his final glimpse within the spiritual senses caught his attention.

On the staircase from the front hall to the second floor, the spiritual senses revealed a very faint object, unlike any other item or person—not blurred by distance, but inexplicably indistinct within the range of perception.

In an imperfect analogy, it was caught between “being” and “not being”—like the edge of hearing, or the blind spot on the retina—unconfirmable in spiritual senses, yet undeniable in existence.

In visual sight, the staircase was empty—no object, no person.

It seemed to move slowly, large in volume, strangely viscous—more like… writhing?

Kraft rubbed his eyes, staring hard at the staircase—nothing was there.

“This might sound strange, but could you check what’s on the staircase?”