The dark silver light shone like a fish swimming in water.
With a difference of only a fraction of a second.
They passed right through that brief "hole"! The instant they passed through, the wall of flesh immediately returned to its original state, even becoming thicker and more menacing!
But it was too late.
Behind them, the torrent of pursuing will roared silently. Wherever it passed, the flesh walls automatically parted, the runic light bands extinguished, and the monster phantoms retreated. However, its pursuit speed was slowed by half a beat because of Ian's unconventional escape method of accurately finding and instantly exploiting the "system loophole"!
After passing through the wall of flesh, the scene before them changed once again.
They seemed to have entered a winding passage formed by the constantly opening and closing inner walls of a giant seashell. The inner walls of the passage were riddled with holes from which a slime flowed.
It intermittently spews out highly corrosive and mentally disruptive acid mists, while the floor beneath your feet is slippery, fleshy, resembling the lining of some kind of creature's esophagus.
It kept wriggling, trying to devour people.
"Stay close, don't step on the glowing spots!" Ian's voice was short and clear. He pulled Lina along, and their figures rapidly changed direction, glided, and even occasionally "attached" to the top of the passage in a way that almost defied the laws of physics, precisely avoiding every hole that spewed acid mist.
"Trivial tricks cannot implicate me!"
With each step he took, his movements were fluid and precise, tracing the brief, stable troughs of the fleshy ground. His actions were as if rehearsed countless times, demonstrating an unparalleled understanding and exploitation of his environment. This wasn't just about speed; it was about an extreme insight into and exploitation of the loopholes in the "dream rules"! Like dream architects in Inception using their mastery of the physical rules of dreams to construct incredible scenes and paths, Ian was now using the opposite—exploiting the imperfections and contradictions inherent in the hastily constructed "trap rules" of his pursuers—to find a way out! "Is that the monster we've awakened? What's chasing us?!"
Lina was being pulled along by Ian.
She felt like she was on a crazy roller coaster without seatbelts, the scenery rushing past her, her stomach churning, but she gritted her teeth, forcing herself to trust Ian's every instruction and Hard Work to keep up with his unbelievable pace. She could feel the cold malice clinging to her like Maggot of Bone getting closer and closer behind her.
It felt like I was about to be caught up and devoured at any moment!
After narrowly avoiding acid mist and bone spikes suddenly erupting from the ground several times, three paths appeared ahead. Each path shimmered with a chilling light.
It exudes a different kind of dangerous aura.
"This way!" Ian didn't hesitate for a moment, nor did he spend time carefully sensing the path. He abruptly stopped at the fork in the road. The dark silver light suddenly contracted, and then... he did something that made Lina's heart stop! Instead of choosing either path, Ian pulled Lina back a small step each in the direction the pursuers had come from, then turned sideways and slammed his shoulder hard into the wall at the fork in the road, which was made up of countless tiny bones!
A muffled thud.
It wasn't the sound of a wall shattering. Rather, at the instant of impact, Ian thrust a highly compressed Power of the Raven, possessing characteristics of "cognitive interference" and "information overload," like a cone, into a highly concealed "common node" within the wall—the connection between the three branching energy supply paths.
In an instant, the dangerous lights flashing within the three forks in the road flickered violently, became chaotic, and even interfered with each other! The dream structure around the forks experienced a brief period of "snow" and distortion, like a faulty signal!
Now!
Ian, pulling a dumbfounded Lina along, didn't rush towards any of the side paths, but instead... "merged" into the wall of the side path itself, which had temporarily become unstable and developed logical cracks due to node overload!
Like Neo in the Matrix, who at a crucial moment saw through the virtual nature of the Matrix code, thus enabling him to do things that defied the laws of physics, Ian was forcibly "deceiving" and "overloading" the local "logical operations" of this temporarily solidified dream region. He created a brief "system error" window, and then used this error window to perform a theoretically impossible "wall-walking." The scene before them instantly became abstract and distorted, like viewing the world through a broken prism. Lina felt as if her body was being stretched, disintegrated, and then reassembled in the next moment. When they "reappeared," they were no longer in that passage, but in an... even more bizarre place.
It belongs to the next level of the dream.
Cthulhu wants to trap Ian and the others.
It created multiple dreamscapes.
This place looks like a huge, empty "plaza," but the ground is made up of countless slowly pulsating, translucent, cortical-like substances, and clouds hanging in the sky resemble rotting viscous entrails, constantly dripping with viscous black liquid. In the center of the plaza stands a stone monument composed of countless reliefs of screaming human faces.
At the top of the stone tablet, a dark purple ball of light, constantly changing shape, was slowly rotating, emitting a rich aura that shared the same origin as the will to pursue. This seemed to be a "control node" or "energy center" of this temporary dream trap!
Almost simultaneously with their appearance, the space around the plaza rippled, and the turbulent current of pursuing will instantly broke through the barrier, manifesting behind them and transforming into a more solidified, terrifying shadow composed of boiling darkness and countless tiny tentacles, blocking their retreat! The dark purple light cluster on the stone tablet in the center of the plaza also suddenly lit up, casting a beam of light like a cage!
What should we do?
With nodes blocking her way ahead and pursuers closing in from behind, it seemed there was... no way to escape! Lina's heart sank to the bottom as she looked at her desperate predicament.
However, as Ian gazed at the central stone tablet and the orb of light, a faint, almost triumphant glint flashed in his cold eyes. "Finally... a decent 'backdoor' interface has been found."
He muttered to himself, his voice so soft that only he could hear it.
From the very beginning, his goal wasn't simply to escape. Realizing the other party could Dream Control, he knew that simply running away would only lead to being worn down and killed by the ever-changing traps. He needed to find a place where he could either "counter" or "exploit" this temporary dream system. A heavily guarded, seemingly core location often also contains "interfaces" with higher privileges, or... is more prone to "vulnerabilities" due to its excessive complexity!
The stone tablet and the ball of light before them exuded a strong aura of Cthulhu's will, clearly a crucial support for this temporary dream. Attack it? No, that would provoke an even stronger backlash. But... what if they merely "borrowed" its power to create a small "logical contradiction"?
Just as the shadowy pursuer was about to pounce, and the cage of light was about to close in, at the critical moment...
Ian moved!
He didn't attack the shadow, nor did he try to break through the pillar of light. He suddenly raised his right hand, fingers spread, aiming at the twisted stone tablet in the center of the square! In his palm, the cold, orderly " Raven " information flow that had been used to awaken Lina and sow the "information seed" once again frantically converged and compressed!
This time, however, he compressed not only the Power of the Raven. He also incorporated the fragmented "rule codes" and "energy frequencies" that he had secretly collected during his escape from the shallow dream realm—into the temporary dream trap itself! Then, he hurled this highly complex ball of light, filled with contradictory information, like a specially made "logic bomb," fiercely "smashing" it at the dark purple control ball of light atop the stone tablet!
"Receive this... System error message!"
The dark silver and dark purple light collided!
There was no earth-shattering explosion.
There was only an extremely eerie sense of stagnation, as if the entire world had frozen! The dark purple light on the stone tablet suddenly stopped, then flickered and twisted violently, as if countless contradictory data were clashing wildly within it! The cage of light it projected instantly became flickering and fragmented!
The pursuing shadow, seemingly affected by this brief disruption of its "control center," exhibited a marked slowness and sluggishness, its solid form even beginning to disintegrate!
The entire dream structure of the square began to fluctuate violently and become unstable due to the "logical conflict" at the core node, resulting in large areas of distortion and blurring!
Now! The only, fleeting opportunity! This thought flashed through Ian's mind like lightning, simultaneously striking both Ian's and the struggling elderly Saruman's minds.
In the dream, Ian seized upon the brief chaos created by the logical conflict at the core node, preparing to launch a final breakout.
Outside the dream, the elderly Saruman also sensed this opportunity. His deep silver eyes suddenly gleamed with a sharp light on his pale, weary face.
"Right now... In history, Your Majesty was misled by this brief 'opportunity,' thinking you had found a way out, and tried your best to break through, but instead fell into a more hidden trap of Cthulhu's will—behind that 'rift,' lies a deeper 'dream corridor,' which will drag people into a more desperate and time-consuming cycle..." The fused fragments of memory and the inferences drawn from a thousand years of research gave him a clear understanding of the possible "historical trajectory" that might follow.
Cthulhu, even if it's just a ripple of its unconsciousness, possesses a cunning and control over dreams that Superman imagination. It excels at exploiting its prey's survival instincts, weaving progressively deeper labyrinths of death. Therefore, a direct assault is not an option! A change of strategy is needed! A hint needs to be given to the ruler inside...! But he cannot enter that deep dream battlefield. His power can only barely maintain his anchor in reality, isolating him from external pressure.
what to do?
The old Saruman's gaze suddenly fell on the fragile force field he had maintained, flowing with dark silver and clock runes!
More precisely, it landed on the part that subtly resonated with Ian's " Raven " power!
A bold, almost insane idea emerged.
He cannot transmit complex information, nor can he transfer power. But he can... use this faint resonance to convey the briefest "concept"! A directional "hint"!
It's like sending a specific code on a battlefield with severe radio interference—one that can't be fully deciphered but still conveys your intentions! Thinking about this...
Without hesitation, Saruman used the faint bridge of resonance to recklessly aim at Ian's approximate location and "send" him in!
This action was extremely risky, almost causing the already crumbling force field to dim even more instantly, but he held on tightly, his eyes filled with a resolute determination to gamble everything.
In the dream, Ian was preparing to activate " Raven Returns to the Nest," forcibly breaking through the dream's top, which had developed cracks due to logical inconsistencies. Just as his power was about to erupt...
A line of words appeared out of nowhere, suddenly, in the void before his eyes.
It's not a product of the dream itself, but of those twisted, blasphemous runes or insane whispers.
The text was composed of extremely fine, yet remarkably stable and clear, dark silver specks arranged in familiar English, with a simple structure and a quality... similar to his " Raven " power, yet more ancient and profound, mixed with a trace of an unfamiliar aura of time that clearly did not belong to this dream, or even to Lina's soul?
" Saruman?" A hint of surprise flashed in Ian's eyes. He immediately recognized that the source of this information was the silver-robed Wizard from the outside world. That guy with the strange soul state who had previously displayed bizarre knowledge and power that did not match his actual strength when he withstood the pressure of Cthulhu's will. How could he actually transmit information to this deep dream battlefield at this time in this way? Although the method was crude and the consumption was huge, it was already remarkable in itself.
That Saruman.
The secrets he carries are probably more numerous than he imagines.
However, now is not the time to explore this.
"Let's go outside first!"
Ian's eyes quickly swept over the line of text.
[Dreams are a byproduct of imagination, Your Majesty. As the pinnacle of Wizard, shouldn't you have an abundance of imagination?]
Imagination?
Ian was slightly taken aback.
Then, a realization dawned on his cold face.
It was as if an invisible layer of thin ice, formed by an obsession with "breaking loopholes in the rules" and "technical escape," was gently shattered by this sentence!
yes!
I was blinded by a leaf! I almost got sidetracked by this realistic dream chase and rule-breaking confrontation!
What is this place? It's a dream! A non-realistic space of consciousness built upon Lina's soul and Cthulhu Pollution information! While its "rules" are certainly influenced and reinforced by Cthulhu's will, ultimately, its "essence" is a dream that can be distorted and defined by a more powerful "cognition" and "will"!
He had always acted like a top hacker, frantically searching for system vulnerabilities and code backdoors, trying to escape with minimal cost. But he forgot that as Wizard, especially one with such powerful Mental Power and a unique "status," one of his most powerful weapons had never been any skill! Rather, it was... his boundless imagination, capable of even distorting reality—his imagination!
Especially on someone else's home turf, trying to Great Old Ones by playing by the rules, by being more cunning? Isn't that using your weaknesses against their strengths? If you're going to compete, compete on who's more unreasonable! Compare whose "imagination" is more outrageous, more powerful, and more capable of impacting the very structure of this dream! "This guy... is right!" Ian's eyes lit up, a gleam of eager anticipation, like discovering a new toy. He even couldn't resist slapping Lina on the forehead.
"Compete in imagination? I've never been afraid of anyone!!"
Ian instantly abandoned his original plan of " Raven Returns to the Nest " and a technical breakthrough. The dark silver light no longer tried to break through upwards, but instead suddenly receded back around him.
Strong self-confidence.
It was almost overflowing.