Chapter 73

Kraft's first reaction was that he'd misheard, but that was clearly impossible. He examined the sentence word by word and found no ambiguity or puns.

Then Kup saw him step back, shifting his focus away from his own anger, creating a subtle distance between them.

"Think carefully—when, and what exactly do you remember?"

"Huh? Isn't being able to dream again a sign of getting better?" Kup was confused, wondering why the other was so fixated on this—did he expect him to interpret dreams like a priest?

"Quickly. I need everything you can recall—from how the dream began, through what happened, to how it ended. Even a little more detail would help."

A long, deep breath rose from behind the mask, like a deliberate act to calm the mind, or perhaps a prelude to eruption. Without needing to read his expression, Kup knew the man had become serious.

Behind his lenses, his eyes vanished in the midday sun's glare; a crimson glow reflected onto Kup, and the hand gripping the sword hilt beneath his robe tightened, pulling taut black wrinkles across the fabric.

Kraft faced him—but not him. His attention passed through the physical body, fixed on the empty void behind him, as if gazing at another person—or something else.

Kup instinctively turned to look—there was nothing there. A faint, strange fear flickered through him.

"Sorry, I'll think right away."

…

"It's like this—I've felt for a few days now that falling asleep isn't so 'empty' anymore. It sounds weird, but it's that feeling after waking up—you know you dreamed, but can't remember anything."

"I thought it was just because I stopped drinking the well water, so I didn't pay attention." He glanced up at the bird-beak mask, now exhaling steadily, certain Kraft wouldn't react violently, and continued.

"The past two days were different. At first I thought it was memory from waking in the night, because it looked just like home. But if I couldn't wake up during the day, how could it have been a night awakening?" In recalling, Kup tried to untangle the events.

"Then I realized I was dreaming—but I remembered only fragments, unclear, just like before—I couldn't move. And some things floated up to the ceiling, like that."

The object he pointed to was a wooden handle. Kraft stepped into the hut, hefted its weight, then tossed it back to Kup. "What's this?"

【Very light】

"I don't know. I picked it up on a whim, thought it might be useful. There were other things that floated, but I can't remember them." Kup caught the handle and tossed it back into the cluttered pile.

"Do you feel a heaviness, difficulty breathing in the dream—as if underwater?"

"Kind of… yes."

"But the dream was gentle, more comfortable than ordinary sleep, right? So comfortable you didn't want to leave—and thus didn't think it was bad."

"Ah, yes, exactly!" Kup slapped his forehead, fully agreeing—no wonder he was from the Academy; even his own incoherent dream, this man understood.

Now that he thought about it, it really was like sinking gently into drowsy comfort, soft as lying in water. If it hadn't felt that way, he wouldn't have thought anything was wrong—but it always lasted only a moment.

"Have you ever had a dream like that?" Curiosity prompted Kup to ask.

Kraft stared at him, silent for a long time, recalling a grim joke from his internal medicine days, when memorizing lung cancer classifications.

It was about a patient who, upon hearing the diagnosis "small-cell lung cancer," cheered—thinking it was a "small" cancer—while the doctor, face Heavy and solemn, held the report, unsure how to explain.

The unnervingly quiet atmosphere snapped Kup back to reality—he was once again the one being interrogated. "Sorry, forget I asked."

"Ah, it's fine." Kraft drew his right hand into his sleeve and asked the question he least wanted to ask: "Did you see… light? In the dream—a white, soft light, coming through the window?"

His tone was gentle, as if trying to mimic the very light he described, immersing himself in it—transporting them both to a summer full-moon night in Wenden Port, where soft light, mingled with a breeze, slipped through the window cracks and drew the listener back into fragmented dream memories.

A danger hidden in velvet, its emotion likewise half-concealed beneath a gentle surface—just like that soothing warmth: the more you pondered, the more you feared, awed by whether the silence behind it hid an unspeakable truth.

"Have you seen that white light?"

Unconsciously, when speaking of such things, the words on his tongue detached from physical vibration, carrying complex experiences within them.

"Kind of… maybe… yes, there was some light—but I really can't remember." Kup shrank back, hugging himself; despite the warming weather, he felt a chill—a simple few sentences had frightened him.

In that fleeting dream, clutter floated midair, he lay on his blanket, his foggy mind still convinced he was in his familiar home—but now he doubted it.

In that gentle, watery environment, something moved through—so faint a liquid ripple brushed his skin, and just as described, a white, soft light flashed outside—only upon being reminded after waking did he realize he'd truly experienced it.

"What was it?"

"Definitely not something good." After weighing the risks, Kraft decided to use a special method to inspect the surroundings—this development left him with a bad feeling.

Based solely on Kup's description, he'd merely drunk contaminated well water for a few days—far from enough to reach the first layer at the original progression rate. At most, he'd sink a little deeper, sleep a bit longer.

Even if he was lying, by the time of total cutoff, he'd gone at least five days without contact. According to current statistics on others' trends, he'd improved slightly—not enough to plummet uncontrollably, like greased wheels spinning out of control.

In fact, based on his answers, he might already be marked by that writhing thing—at least detected—and descending was merely a matter of time.

A rare case—but not a good one.

He could only try using his spiritual senses to see if he could detect anything. As they say, first time painful, second time no better, then gradually you adapt.

After using the dull prism medium, Kraft found he was gradually becoming able to withstand the aftereffects of short-term spiritual sense usage.

Though the experience was still no better.

He cautiously connected his spiritual sense, bypassing the dull hexagonal prism hidden in his right sleeve to avoid accidental activation.

His scattered senses enveloped the surroundings, scanning the entire small shed from top to bottom—the woodworms in the rotting timber, the two black silver coins hidden in the cracks—all revealed.

Nothing unusual. A real, ordinary, mundane environment. The matter was certainly not that simple.

Kraft activated the dull hexagonal prism in his sleeve, "sank" slightly—and the spiritual world began to fade, a mysterious atmosphere rising.

Past practice had made him adept at this movement—he could appear behind Lu Xiusi, who had just finished searching the entire room, without warning.

It was a dual change of spirit and matter. Once he understood its essence, he grew even more repulsed by the sensation. Clearly, this was the Crawlers' method of dragging people into the depths.

First, spiritual contact establishes a link. If you cannot control the depth of descent—the sensation of falling—you'll cross the threshold and be pulled down, dragging your physical form through layers with you.

What he was doing now was sinking just a little deeper—approaching that point, but not letting himself be fully dragged under.

Water not existing in the real world submerged him. Kraft knew it was an illusion—the spiritual sense perceiving the scene from the deeper layer.

As expected, once inside the Salt Tide Zone, given the terrain, not a single roof would rise above the water—everything was submerged. Low-density objects in the room, like the small wooden handle, would float upward.

A mild pressure of breathlessness—his spirit told him he was underwater, but he wasn't. His sense of smell functioned normally, emphasizing the Salt Tide Zone's harm to it—his alveoli still held air filtered through spices and herbs.

His senses disliked sinking. His reason analyzed how much more control he'd gained over this skill—enhanced consciousness learned everything faster.

This depth was still insufficient. The information from his spiritual sense was too vague. Kraft frowned and sank further. The pressure from the water became clearer—dense, moving water flowed around him.

If the previous depth was halfway, he had now passed three-quarters of the way to the first layer. Sinking further, he'd soon hit the critical threshold.

Twenty seconds had passed. If he didn't want unbearable pain later, he had little time left to hesitate—either go deeper, or prepare to surface.

In his indecision, an abnormal current brushed past the edge of his spirit.

The native inhabitants detected the intrusion from the present world; the water churned and changed direction as the swimming object rapidly approached.

Several discordant limbs sliced through the water, charging straight toward Kraft. Coinciding with the spatial approach was a shift in depth; it was rising toward the present world, matching the depth where Kraft was located.

As it drew near, its form grew clearer. A deformed body propelled by tentacles breached the range of his mental senses. Bai Guang flared, and a roar was about to follow.

"Damn it!"

Kraft surged upward with all his might, pulling back into the present world just before it could crash headlong into him. Within the vivid mental vision, a vague outline writhed unwillingly, its roar grinding against an invisible barrier, brimming with unmasked, heavy malice.

An everted gash running through the center of its body made the reason for its reckless action clear to Kraft—it was an old acquaintance. Oh no, an acquaintance, yes, but not a human.

Good, now things are clear. The fellow who was ambushed through the window isn't dead; he fled back to the deep salt tide zone.

Just as everyone was reducing contact with the deep layers, one disobedient soul drank from the polluted well for several extra days and was targeted as a key breakthrough point.

Something that might have ravaged half the region is now here to attend to you, Kup, alone. Can such a blessing be shallow? No, it will only grow deeper day by day.