Chapter 127: Chapter 131: Breaking Free from the Dreamscape
Duncan looked at the nervous A-Dog and revealed the most affable smile he could muster—he felt there might have been some misunderstanding between them, and it was best to clear it up sooner rather than later.
But just as he was about to speak, he suddenly saw a flash of blood in A-Dog’s eyes—even though it was hard to read any emotional change from a bony skull, he felt a moment of intense turmoil in the Abyssal Hound.
The next second, he heard A-Dog’s faltering voice: “Are… Are you the ‘Mr. Duncan’ we have been dealing with these past few days?”
Duncan was startled, and then glanced at Sherry beside him.
He hadn’t seen any interaction between A-Dog and Sherry, but evidently, these two beings, chained together, had a convenient means of sharing information.
“It is I,” Duncan said with a slight smile, his tone gentle, “Is there anything else I need to explain? Or is there something you would like to know?”
“No!” A-Dog almost yelled out, his entire body retreating, “We do not need to know any ‘knowledge’ or ‘truth’. We have no intention of prying into your mysteries!”
“I still feel like there might be some misunderstanding between us, but it seems more and more unclear,” Duncan sighed, shaking his head somewhat helplessly, “Let’s leave it to time to slowly help us build trust. As for now, I have some things I’d like to understand.”
A-Dog hung his head: “Please… Speak.”
Duncan furrowed his brow; he was actually quite curious why he, a notorious ghost ship captain in the real world, also had such a significant impact among the Profound Demons, since the Mysterious Deep Sea was a “place” especially close to the Subspace. The demons dwelling in the depths of the sea should have been closer to those “basic shadows” compared to the mortals of the real world, and accordingly, they should not be so fearful and repulsive towards the Homeloss returning from the Subspace.
However, it seemed that these beings, considered “dangerous existences” to humans, were just as afraid of the Homeloss, which puzzled him.
But before figuring out this problem, he was primarily concerned with the present “nightmare”—this one from the depths of Sherry’s memory, likely revisiting the truth of eleven years ago.
“I want to know about this Dreamscape,” he spoke while his gaze shifted to Sherry, “I know this is a painful memory for you, and you can refuse if you don’t want to talk about it.”
“There’s nothing I don’t want to talk about,” Sherry responded, merely shaking her head lightly, “I should thank you, really. You interrupted this nightmare, letting me suffer less… As you’ve seen, that was what I went through back then.”
“Great fire…” Duncan nodded lightly, then looked back at A-Dog, “What I saw, was it how you first ‘met’ Sherry?”
A-Dog turned his face away: “I was just a Profound Demon back then.”
“How did you suddenly get a ‘heart’?” Duncan asked curiously, “From what I just saw, you had almost killed Sherry.”
“I don’t know,” A-Dog fell silent for a few seconds, his ugly head shaking slightly, “When I first gained self-consciousness, the scene I saw was Sherry barely breathing on the ground.”
Duncan looked deep into the Abyssal Hound’s eyes, then his gaze followed the chain on its neck and saw Sherry’s black, contorted body that was fused and symbiotic with the chain.
“Did you then… merge together?”
“Sort of,” Sherry said softly, her head bowed, hiding her eyes and expression in the shadow of her hair, “I don’t really remember clearly, I was only six then, and for a long time afterward, things were quite muddled… If you’re really curious about how I slowly developed this relationship with a Profound Demon who almost killed me, maybe you could bring a psychiatrist over to hypnotize me, perhaps…”
“No need.”
Sherry’s words were suddenly interrupted, and then she was startled to feel a large, warm hand resting on the top of her head.
“I’m sorry, I’m not trying to rip open your wounds, I just want to know the details of what happened eleven years ago,” Duncan gently touched the girl’s hair, understanding that his questions were not very pleasant for Sherry, who had just escaped from a nightmare. “You should know that the incident eleven years ago wasn’t just about the appearance of the Sun Shard, there were countless heretics active, and the Abyssal Hound… theoretically, it should have been a summoned creature of the Obliteration Sect.”
Sherry lifted her head in a daze as she heard Duncan continue, “A demon-like creature from the Mysterious Deep Sea suddenly acquiring human characteristics is itself a ‘mutation’. Have you ever considered that this mutation might also have been influenced by some catalyst back then?”
Sherry blinked and said somewhat slowly, “The Sun Shard?”
“I’m not sure… no one knows exactly what form the Sun Shard takes, or what its power is, merely in the doctrines preached by the Sun Cultists, the ‘True Sun God’ does not have the authority to ‘bestow humanity’ or anything similar,” Duncan shook his head, “so whatever gave Argo humanity might have been something other than the Sun Shard… something else.”
“Are you saying that there might have been more than just the Sun Shard in Plunder City-State eleven years ago?!” Sherry finally snapped to attention, her eyes wide.
“Just a suspicion,” Duncan gently patted Sherry’s shoulder before withdrawing his hand, “because I’ve always felt there’s a significant inconsistency: the Sun Shard is a ‘Sacred Relic’ directed towards Sun Cultists, and according to those heretics, its power is quite simple, only really pertaining to the ‘True Sun God’ in mysticism. Yet, in the chaos eleven years ago, the heretics captured included members of the Obliteration Sect and Doomsday Preachers, who certainly have nothing to do with the ‘True Sun God’… what were they doing there?
“Of course, it could be explained that the power of the Sun Shard is so great that even those who don’t believe in the Sun God were affected, causing them to go mad on the same day, but that doesn’t explain why an inherently frenzied demon like Argo suddenly gained reason—what’s that about?
“There are even more suspicious aspects if we delve further, including but not limited to the canopy over the ‘fire’, the lingering memories in your mind and Nina’s, the bizarre phenomena in the sixth district… all these inconsistencies have been attributed to the Sun Shard, but now that I think about it carefully, is it really all the power of the ‘Sun Domain’? The so-called True Sun God would be incredibly omnipotent then.”
Duncan voiced his doubts, some of which had arisen even before today, but had grown firmer after seeing Argo’s mutation from eleven years earlier.
Perhaps the fire eleven years ago was indeed triggered by the Sun Shard, but there was definitely something else at play in the whole event!
Sherry was still a bit dazed. She wasn’t very good at dealing with these complex issues, and while zoned out, she heard Argo’s voice hastening in her mind: “Sherry, are you alright? Did him touching your head just now release a curse? Are you still lucid? You…”
“I’m fine,” Sherry replied somewhat amusedly in her mind, “Argo, you worry too much.”
“No kidding, shouldn’t I be worried! You’ve just had direct contact with a pollutant powerful enough to drive a normal person insane instantly!” Argo’s voice was frantic, “What do you feel?”
Sherry thought for a moment, unsurely touching the top of her head.
The last time someone had stroked her hair like that, comforting her softly like a child, had been many years ago.
“…Warm and cozy.”
She said absentmindedly in a light voice.
Argo was immediately alarmed: “Sherry, did your mind really get messed up?”
“…Shut up!”
But Duncan didn’t know what Argo and Sherry had exchanged in that brief moment, he just looked thoughtfully at the window suffused with a dim red light and suddenly asked, “What’s outside?”
Sherry blinked, “Huh?”
Duncan raised his hand, pointing towards the window: “Outside the room, what’s there?”
“I… don’t know,” Sherry blinked, suddenly realizing that in this recurring nightmare that constantly troubled her, a choice that shouldn’t have been possible had suddenly appeared, “I never considered this question. Every time I dream, I am trapped in this room…”
“But now you’ve broken free,” Duncan walked to the door of the cabin, turned back, and said softly, his words like a lure in the darkness, presenting an unprecedented choice to Sherry and Argo, “Why not try, while lucid… to see what the edge of your own dreamscape looks like?”