Chapter 698: Feather

In the house at Tizamotown, Tewanako.

Amid violent shaking of the building, Amandina woke up.

She sat up dazedly, turned her gaze to the window, and saw the sky had turned gray and pressed low—both the red moon and the stars completely obscured.

In near-absolute darkness, Amandina turned her body and fixed her eyes on the nearby.

Robert, neatly dressed, was slowly rising, moving sluggishly as if struggling to adjust to the absence of light.

After the trembling of the earth and the swaying of the building ceased, Robert used his spiritual sight and spotted Amandina.

He hesitated a moment, then said:

"We… woke up?"

He remembered that before entering the "Dream Festival," he and Amandina had come here under the pretense of a date to meet up; once forcibly drawn into that special dream, they had temporarily parted—one staying put, the other going to Saint Cien Church.

Amandina glanced again at the suddenly noisy street outside, thought for a few seconds, then said:

"Probably…

"But I don't know what's happening now."

Robert recalled his dream experiences and fell silent; Amandina also made no move to speak.

After a long while, Robert asked in a low voice:

"What happened to you afterward?"

Amandina suddenly laughed once:

"Nothing much."

Robert closed his mouth again.

Amandina, with night vision, looked at him and smiled with complex emotion:

"What else do you want to ask?"

Robert fell silent for a moment, then said:

"What did you experience afterward?"

Amandina felt the quiet darkness within the house; after a long, dead silence, she whispered:

"I saw the one who gave me power."

"The one who gave you power?" Robert asked in shock.

Amandina smiled:

"After we touched that black tomb, we didn't actually fall asleep—we only truly passed out after receiving the power."

"How is that possible…" Robert's face showed utter disbelief.

Amandina made no effort to convince him; instead, she spoke to herself:

"Receive supernatural power, immediately fall unconscious or into deep sleep, then awaken fully mastering that power—body and spirit both altered to some degree…

"Doesn't this count as a low-level version of dying first, then being reborn?"

"What are you talking about?" Robert grew even more confused.

Completely incomprehensible!

Amandina's eyes flickered slightly, and she laughed:

"That person told me—perhaps it was a teaching."

"Teaching…" Robert stared at Amandina across from him, confirming her condition only through spiritual sight.

He felt his fiancée was different now, as if she had grown up overnight.

Amandina wanted to tell Robert in detail about her experience, as she used to, but countless words surged to her lips and were swallowed back down.

She sighed:

"Aren't you going to check on Father Cali? He probably won't last much longer."

Robert snapped out of his thoughts and blurted:

"He fled to the tomb and was killed?"

"He's dead," Amandina replied.

Robert's expression shifted repeatedly, but he didn't ask who the killer was.

Amandina thought for a moment and said:

"Before you go to see Father Cali, I need to tell you something.

"The desire you felt when you first faced him didn't come from within you—he used a ritual to petition the devil and gained the power to influence you."

Robert's eyes widened sharply, his mouth opened, but no sound came out.

Amandina said no more, stepped forward, passed Robert, and headed for the staircase.

She paused, gripping the staircase railing, and murmured:

"Let's find an excuse to break off our engagement. I can accept your other actions, but I won't allow my fiancé to leave me alone to follow Louis Berry toward the black tomb under those circumstances.

"Don't worry—I won't tell anyone about your secrets, and those people you met in the dream won't speak either."

Robert spun around sharply, staring at the staircase, just as he saw Amandina descending step by step, her spiritual glow swallowed by deep darkness.

Amandina left the Tewanako house and stepped onto the street.

She glanced at the gray, low sky, noticed the scattered lights on either side, and smelled air thick with dust.

Covering her nose with her hand, Amandina walked toward the Palm Estate.

Her steps grew lighter and quicker.

…………

Tizamotown, Police Headquarters, third floor.

Just as Camus felt Colobo's trembling had lessened, as if he'd recovered, he heard agonized curses coming from the next room.

He stirred, lit a candle, stepped out, and pushed open the slightly warped wooden door next door, seeing the Fascanian Loban lying on the floor, clutching his knee and crying out in pain.

This member of the Tizamotown patrol had awoken during the earthquake-like tremors, tried to roll off his bed and find cover, but one leg had inexplicably lost strength, accompanied by intense pain, causing him to fall straight onto the floor.

Before Camus could form words, Ria's voice sounded beside him:

"Don't worry—it's the mass hysteria mentioned in the investigations. A proper mass will cure it."

Loban, who had assisted Camus in gathering reports on Tizamotown's anomalies, instantly understood Ria's words.

He cursed, struggled to his feet, pulled a military flask from under his pillow, and gulped down several swallows of strong liquor.

His face flushed slightly after drinking, and Loban sighed:

"I feel my knee's improved a bit—sometimes alcohol works better than a mass!"

Camus also exhaled in relief, turned his head toward Ria, and noticed her expression had grown colder.

After what had just happened, her dream projection had vanished completely—had those emotions and desires returned to her body? Was that special dream still active? Would there be another "Dream Festival" next year? Camus instantly conjured many associations.

At that moment, Ria said to him:

"Let's go outside and see if we can save anyone. The injured aren't just those who died in the 'Dream Festival.'"

Camus paused, then said:

"Alright."

A flicker of joy rose in his heart—he felt Ria hadn't fundamentally changed despite the return of those emotions and desires.

…………

Following the innkeeper's directions, Lu Mi climbed to the fourth floor and opened the wooden door of the corresponding room.

The near-total darkness rapidly receded under the glow of a blazing white fireball, revealing everything within:

Some items had fallen to the floor from the earlier shaking, chairs and tables had shifted slightly, a light dusting of debris had rained from the ceiling, the windows were closed but the glass had shattered—nothing else stood out, and no humans were present.

Lu Mi glanced around but found no trace of the man and woman.

He frowned slightly and muttered silently:

"According to the original pattern of the 'Dream Festival,' death in the dream doesn't mean immediate death—did that man and woman wake up and leave Tizamotown immediately?"

"I was planning to collect their corpses and inherit their supernatural traits…"

Lu Mi didn't assume the man and woman couldn't escape the sealed room just because the door was shut and windows closed—after all, they were both mid-rank supernatural beings, one even an "Evil," likely possessing special abilities to overcome such obstacles.

As he pondered whether to track them down and eliminate the dead on behalf of the "Dream Festival," he casually examined the room's details.

Suddenly, his pupils dilated, his gaze froze for a second.

He saw a single feather lying quietly beneath the window-side armchair.

A white feather, caked in pale yellow grease!

Lu Mi's scalp prickled instantly; he silently stepped back two paces and returned to the corridor.

Had that man and woman died like Lei Yasa—and undergone transformation?

Then where were their bodies?

Gone?

Do humans who "Feather into Divinity" after leaving the "Dream Festival" behave differently?

With a blazing white fireball hovering behind his head, Lu Mi re-examined the room, suspecting the man and woman's corpses might still be here—just invisible to him.

He stepped cautiously into the room, approached the armchair, felt no abnormal sensation, and detected no trace of invisible entities.

Lu Mi took the "Secret-Seeing Glasses" and "True Eyes" from "The Traveler's Satchel" and put them on in sequence.

He still saw no sign of the man and woman—his vision filled with chaotic darkness, lightless rivers, greasy feathers, and imprisoned profundities.

"After returning to reality, they completed 'Feathering' immediately and left?" Lu Mi weighed this for several seconds, then activated the black sigil on his right shoulder.

He "teleported" to a spot in the jungle, at the edge of the special dream.

As a "Hunter," after being taken by Amandina to the black tomb, Lu Mi had memorized the correct route and environmental features; after nearly fifteen minutes, he reached the area where tree roots protruded from the ground like a tangle of knotted veins.

Yet, where the black stone-like ancient tomb should have stood, there was nothing but emptiness.

"That black tomb exists only in dreams, unreachable in reality?" Lu Mi seriously speculated, "So the Pale Empress and other angels cannot descend in person, and can only send emissaries to participate in the Dream Festival?"

As his thoughts raced, Lu Mi's gaze moved back and forth over the land where the black tomb had been.

It was indeed slightly different from the surroundings—no gnarled tree roots protruded from the ground, no stones lay scattered.

Lu Mi moved closer thoughtfully, drew his straight sword, and used it like a spade to dig into the soil.

As soon as he dug a small pit, his eyelid twitched.

Buried beneath the dark brown soil were two white feathers, stained with pale yellow grease!

Lu Mi took a slow breath and dug a little deeper.

Soon, a palm-sized patch of pale, deep black, slightly damp and sticky strange soil came into view.

(End of Chapter)