Gate of Slumber

With nothing left to talk about, the group each found an empty room to rest in. Lu Li lay on the bed, thinking over everything that had happened in the game instance. From falling into the water at the beginning, to the Mermaid Princess's request, the village where they went to find the Witch, the task the Witch had given them, and the Ghoul Cave there, then the Mermaid Princess's various reactions after they returned—Lu Li felt as if he had forgotten something.

"What is it?" Just as he was about to fall asleep, Lu Li quickly ran through his memories. Suddenly, he froze. He finally remembered what had felt wrong: it had something to do with the Dream of Delusion.

In the first game instance, Lu Li had come into contact with the Dream of Delusion. Later, he had even found faint traces of it in the real world. Before entering this instance, he had planned to test how large its Dream of Delusion was, but he had only just remembered.

"Something blocked my memories and kept me from thinking of it." Lu Li wasn't a forgetful person, yet even during his several breaks, the Dream of Delusion had never crossed his mind. Still, a sense that something was wrong had slowly built up, until he finally remembered.

"So that's what happened..." Lu Li's thoughts drifted back to when he first entered the instance and fell into the water. As he gazed into the abyss below, something had indeed flowed into his body. It seemed that this was what had sealed away his memories of the Dream of Delusion.

"Then why seal away my memories of the Dream of Delusion?" Lu Li wondered with interest. Normally, even if players had visited the Dream of Delusion, they would only think it was a strange feature of that world. Unless the instance helped them, they couldn't make contact with it. But Lu Li had relied on his instincts to catch a fleeting sensation when the Dream of Delusion opened, and had gained the beginnings of an ability to enter it on his own.

There was no point in thinking too much. Lu Li lay down, cleared his mind, and soon his consciousness began to blur as he drifted toward sleep. That fleeting sensation appeared once more. Lu Li seized it, and with a shift of his consciousness, he arrived in a strange place.

Darkness surrounded him. The only light came from a door not far ahead. Two enormous dog-headed statues stood beside it. They looked about seventy percent like the Ghouls Lu Li had encountered before, though in terms of their presence and appearance, these monsters seemed more like genuine Ghouls. The ones he had met earlier were merely crude imitations, made quickly with the help of an oddity. Perhaps after consuming Meat Ganoderma for several years, those imitations might reach this level.

Judging by how it felt, this did not seem to be the Dream of Delusion. It would be more accurate to call it a gap between dream and reality. Lu Li slowly approached the great door. Strange patterns covered its surface. They seemed meaningless, yet somehow held every meaning, like the babbling of a dream—utterly chaotic and impossible to understand. This was the Gate of Slumber, which connected dreams and reality. Vast amounts of seemingly meaningless information poured into Lu Li's mind.

Humans with unusual spiritual gifts might find their way here. Most of them went mad the moment they saw the door, overwhelmed by the torrent of meaningless information, and were forced to leave. Once back in the real world, their madness remained hidden beneath the surface. They would gradually lose their minds, grow incomprehensible, and eventually sink into complete chaos before dying as if destroying themselves.

A small number endured the chaos of information brought by the door and even managed to glean something useful from it. They used what they learned to transform themselves, gaining the ability to do things ordinary people could not. In truth, this was where the world's earliest wizards came from: the Gate of Slumber, inherited from the dream.

The few who tried to approach the door were killed by the Ghouls guarding it and became their food. Throughout history, only a handful of exceptional people had passed the Ghouls' test and entered the door to meet the Lord of Dreams.

"So the Dream of Delusion in this world has already been claimed by some entity?" Lu Li set down the stone tablet. He had found it a short distance ahead after recovering from the information that had poured into him. It described the great door before him and invited anyone who saw the tablet to join them, claiming that such people were talented and possessed special qualities. Their contact information was written below.

Lu Li silently assessed his strength and realized that approaching the door now would be suicide. The Ghouls guarding it were nothing like the ones he had killed. Those two had lived for who knew how long, and usually turned into stone statues to stand guard on either side of the door, waiting for challengers. Each one was powerful enough to kill Lu Li instantly.

With that in mind, Lu Li chose to let his consciousness fade. Just before he fell into true sleep, he glanced at the door once more. He felt that one day, he would return. At that moment, an eye opened on the door and met his gaze. It seemed as though a voice sounded in Lu Li's mind, yet it also seemed as though nothing had happened.

Lu Li suddenly sat up and saw Hu Wenxu pushing open the door. Hu Wenxu's face was expressionless as he said flatly, "It's about time. The Mermaid Princess is about to set out. We need to intercept the Prince before he reaches the city, so we should leave early and find a good spot."

"Got it." Lu Li patted his head. His memories of the gap between dreams and reality were perfectly clear, but most of the seemingly useless information the door had given him was gone. Only a little remained. Now, the information in his mind came together, and Lu Li strangely understood what it meant. It was a spell—or perhaps a ritual.

The spell changed the nature of water, infusing it with a strange "Worm." Drinking the altered water could quickly heal most physical injuries. However, the "Worm" in the water would also enter the drinker's body and slowly mutate it, hollowing it out into a "Worm" nest. If a person drank too much, the "Worm" could even eat away their entire personality. At that point, they would turn into a monster.

This spell could get someone killed, but it worked remarkably well. In a pinch, it could save a life. Using it a few times might cause physical mutations, but that wasn't a serious problem.

That was what Lu Li had learned from the spell. He would have to test it to see how well it worked. Meanwhile, the Mermaid Princess and the others were ready to set out under cover of night. They planned to find a concealed spot outside the harbor city and intercept William, the Prince...