Whispering Poems

Chapter 3897 Dream Beneath the Tower
Shad and Daniste believed from the beginning that the chances of finding clues were greater at night, so they had only been resting during the day these past few days.

Daniste also understood:

"You mean, we're going to look for clues in our dreams?"

"Dreams are the gap between reality and illusion. Falling asleep in such a special place, if there really is something unusual about this place, perhaps the dream will allow us to see a different world."

Shad became increasingly convinced of the correctness of his ideas as he spoke, and Daniste nodded slightly:
"Alright, let's do nothing tonight and rest after nightfall. How about we move the camp to the tower?"

Shad thought for a moment:
"Then we'll stay on the thirteenth floor of the tower."

On Friday, the two strolled around the nearby mountains again during the day, but after lunch, they somehow ended up embracing each other again. It wasn't until evening that Xia De suggested washing up in the quiet lake in the mountains. The caretaker then felt that taking Xia De out for "off-campus practice" every now and then wasn't so bad.

Since they planned to rest all night, they didn't do anything unnecessary. In the evening, they moved their campsite to the top floor of the tower, ate dinner, and then snuggled together to read for a while in the night breeze.

As Mia wandered into the tent to rest, Shad and Danist also prepared to rest. Meanwhile, outside the tower, the moonlight was almost invisible; dark clouds obscured the night sky, and then rain and snow began to fall.

However, this has nothing to do with them.

To prevent only one of them from entering the dream, Danist used magic to link their dreams together. A red string connected their clasped hands, and as she lay on the pillow and turned to look at Shad, the sorceress inexplicably smiled slightly.

"why are you laughing?"

Shad asked her, and Denise hugged his arm, snuggling close to him under the covers:
"I never thought I'd be in this situation. Would you like me to tell you a bedtime story? Or you can tell me one yourself."

"Bedtime stories? You have that kind of hobby?"

"They say that sometimes you can come up with interesting stories that no one has ever heard before. Lacia mentioned that when you first met her in Coldwater Harbor, you told her the story of a poor boy who angered the sea by drawing a rich girl's nude body, resulting in the entire ship being wiped out."

The night was still long, and there was no rush even if he dreamed. So Shad held Danist in his arms, and the sorceress had already turned into an eighteen-year-old.

"So the story can be interpreted that way? Okay, then I'll tell you a story too. How about the story of the magic academy?"

"Then tell me. If I fall asleep, you can hold me while I sleep and don't push me away."

“Alright, alright. Our story begins on a peaceful night when an old man with a white beard, dressed in a strange robe, walked into the streets of a residential area. With a soft clang, a strange silver device in his hand drew all the light from the streetlights.”

Denise had never heard this story before, but it was certainly fresh and interesting. So she closed her eyes, leaned against Shad, and listened to the story as she drifted off to sleep.

Dreams are the shadows of the mind reflected from the depths of darkness when consciousness teeters on the edge of chaos. Daniste and the other girls had privately recounted how they always slept well with Shad and rarely had nightmares, and she herself found the same to be true.

That night, as she fell asleep in Shad's arms, the same warmth returned. It felt as if she were lying directly beneath the moon, as if she were feeling the gentlest night breeze on the longest night. And so, in the night breeze, Daniste "awoke."

"Is this...a dream?"

She opened her rose-red eyes from the snow-covered forest floor, and saw only a solitary, silvery moon hanging in the starry sky:

"Success?!"

The sorceress was startled. She got up and looked around, then became quite certain that she was in the woods not far from the summit of Mount Karas.

Looking up to the left, beyond the treetops, the upper half of the moonlit tower was clearly visible; the moon tower in her dream was obviously intact as well. Danist immediately headed towards the tower, following a path that led her out of the woods in no time, where she saw the true destination of her journey.

The forest extends to the edge of the cliff at the highest point of the mountain and then disappears. Above that, a huge silver moon hangs in the air, and below, the tower that has stood there since the time of mythology seems to be gazing at the moon from the edge of the cliff.

Shad stood alone at the foot of the tower, looking up into the dream world. Danist would not fail to recognize Shad's strange and great soul.

She walked quickly towards him, also looking up at the tall tower:

"Is this the place you visited in the spring of 1853?"

Although the moon, starry sky, cliffs, and towers looked exactly like the real world, both Shad and Denise clearly felt that the scenery in their dream was so ancient and solemn, and carried an indescribable sense of antiquity and holiness.

"Although I suggested dreaming, I don't actually understand the underlying principle."

Shad said softly:

"All I know is that this is definitely not some kind of spatial trick."

When Danista saw Shad standing beneath the tower earlier, she felt a strange sense of awe towards him. But hearing his words now, that feeling vanished completely. The sorceress chuckled:
"This is indeed not a spatial anomaly; it is the power of dreams. Guess, Shad, which ancient god possesses the power of dreams?"

The power of the thirteen ancient gods encompassed the entire world; even concepts that arose after their departure belonged to them. And when Shad thought of "dreams," his first thought was either "the moon" or "chaos."
"Also a Sage of the Moon?"

"The sage and the witch jointly control the power of dreams. The so-called 'dreamscape' is said to have been created by them using the dreams they had when they came to the material world in their saintly forms. The scene we see now is so similar to the dreamscape."

Yes, that's a clever method. I think certain conditions must be met, and one must sleep under the tower at night to find this place.

The sorceress looked up and continued to gaze at the tower:

"The astrologers of a hundred years ago, the teachers of decades ago, must have all found this place in a dream. But I'm curious, how did you get here in the spring of 1853? You should have been an ordinary person back then, and you must have become a ring astrologer in the summer of 1853."

"Perhaps the answers to all questions lie within this tower."

Xia De's expression was serious:

“Let’s not stay here too long. This world gives me a strange feeling. It’s too quiet, not just in terms of sound. So let’s go. I admit I’m nervous right now.”

Denise took his hand and said with a smile:

"Me too, let's go."

The two walked together toward the tower's doors, but just as they were getting close to the base, they suddenly turned back.

The ground rumbled and trembled, disturbing the quiet night. In the distance, in the forest below the cliff, a colossal creature was slowly approaching the mountaintop.

That thing was much taller than the tallest trees in the forest. Although this was a dream, when Shad saw the hundred-meter-tall tree under the moon, its foot-like roots striding across the forest like a giant, he was still stunned for a moment before asking Daniste:
"Is this an attempt to prevent us from entering the tower? But why is this tree walking?"

The sorceress, of course, didn't understand either, and then Shad asked again:

"Moreover, the Cursed Tree needs to absorb the curse of time to grow. Can this tree also absorb the curse of time here? I originally thought that what we would see was just a sapling."

The red-haired sorceress stared at the tree, tears streaming down her face. She bit her lip, sensing that the person she was searching for was clearly within that tree.

"Why are you saying all this now? The Cursed Tree has appeared, and this is what I've been looking for. Help me subdue it, and then I'll perform the ritual to obtain the seed."

"Yes, teacher."

Shad then spoke seriously, and seeing that he rarely used such a form of address towards her, Daniste closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and suppressed her inner emotions:

"Come on, Shad, let's show Teacher Carter how much progress you and I have made since she left."

Shad flung Daniste into the air, and after the sorceress landed, she landed right on Shad's shoulder, now that he was a giant.

The giant straightened up under the moonlight, his height already matching that of the tower behind him. With his back to the tower, the giant lunged at the slowly approaching giant tree, but before he could even fully approach the enemy as he entered the forest, a terrifying curse attempted to twist time and slow Shad's speed.

However, the [Staff of Yggdrasil], which had been prepared beforehand, was forcibly driven into the forest ground by Shad. With the use of the [Ancient Elf Stability Principle], the phantom of the lush giant tree restored the order of spacetime, and Shad continued forward.

The tree's gray-green canopy rustled, but unlike any other "cursed tree" before, there was no corpse hanging beneath the canopy, which made Shad even more puzzled about the source of the tree's curse.

The curse transformed into countless black light projectiles that flew towards them, but the red moon barrier flashed by and blocked them; then, countless vines that swam out from the tree canopy surged toward the limbs of the giant Shad, but Shad, fearing that he might harm Lady Carter's soul, did not summon the most effective fire.

Four chains of great sin flew out from his sleeves with a whooshing sound. After coming into contact with the "brand of great sin," the chains' power was greatly enhanced. With the nine original sin runes, the chains easily bypassed the vines and tentacles and directly bound the tree itself.

Then Shad's silver moonlight and Danist's red moonlight bombarded the giant tree together. Although the tree's ability to walk was very strange, it was still the Cursed Tree and retained its original characteristics.

Therefore, after getting close enough—

"Lagray's Leap!"

(End of this chapter)