At first, the sound was a small vibration, like a fingertip knocking on wood. It wasn't noticeable. But soon, it expanded to the extent of a stone hammer hitting the ground.
The dark church tower trembled slightly. That was the power of the explosion.
The moonlight shone through the small window on the wall, forming spots of light.
In the confinement room, Chloe was awakened by the explosion. She hugged her knees and tried to stop herself from vomiting. She shivered from time to time.
If this nightmare wanted to scare her, it had indeed achieved its goal.
When something impossible happened in front of her, she felt that her faith had suffered a huge blow. It was almost like a mental concussion.
She kept reminding herself that this was just her dream. She should be the one feeling ashamed and ashamed when she dreamt of such things.
But what was more frightening was that as she stayed in this place for longer and longer, she felt that she could no longer remember what reality was like.
"What am I thinking in my head?"
She clutched her hair tightly, trying to pull out the non-existent evil thoughts.
She didn't know how long she had been in the confinement room. It might have been a night, or it might have only been ten seconds. Suddenly, a soft voice came from outside the small window on the wall. "Hey, Miss Lemay, what's wrong?"
Chloe slowly raised her head and saw a man with golden hair outside the small window of the confinement room. He was holding a lantern and looking at her worriedly. Under the light of the lantern, his face was half-lit and half-dark.
It was Aldo.
"I'm sorry. Did I scare you, Miss Lemay?"
The man outside the window asked.
She heaved a sigh of relief and then suddenly felt disgusted. Not only because of the shock, but also because of the trauma that the incident had brought to her, especially in this convent. She said in melancholy and pain, "What are you doing here?"
"I promised Bach to protect you when he's not here. Aldo said, "I climbed over the wall to get in."
"Why didn't he come himself?"
"He had something to do."
"You don't have to worry about that. Stay away from me," she said irritably.
"That won't do. Someone is attacking us from outside."
Aldo sighed. "If you don't leave now, it might be very dangerous."
Chloe stood up, her face slowly turning pale. "Who's attacking us? It's you?! "
"Yes, and Muller Manse and his people. I'm very sorry, Miss Lemay, for your safety. We have to get you out of here. "
After saying that, he took out a metal saw and started sawing at the chains outside the door. Not long after, the door was pushed open by Aldo with a clatter of chains. She saw Aldo's sweaty face and his outstretched hand.
"Let's go and find Mr. Bach."
Yesterday's strange dream seemed insignificant under the impact of the real memories. She heard shouts from the guardhouse, and the sound of gunfire. Something terrible was coming. She felt it, but she could not stop it.
"No need."
She walked around his outstretched hand and walked out of the detention room. From her vantage point, she could see sparks of fire in the distance, the sound of cannons and gunshots, and groups of thugs with torches in their hands, crossing the streets and surging towards the monastery.
This was the last scene she saw before she was taken away from the monastery by Delfina. The next day, she saw in the newspaper that everyone in the monastery had been killed by a dark wizard.
"Let's go. It'll be too late if we don't leave now," Aldo reminded Chloe.
The two walked down the stairs and quickly walked out. Along the way, Chloe did not see Sister Sanessa and Father Reid. She only saw a few nuns running around in a panic. They could not even take care of themselves and did not care about Chloe and Aldo.
* Rumble! *
Suddenly, there was a violent explosion in the distance. The monastery building shook violently for a few times. Dust fell, followed by screams and curses.
Overwhelmed by his concern, Chloe ran towards the source of the sound.
"Don't go there!"
Aldo pulled her back. "These are all fake memories. Didn't you tell me that back then?"
The explosions and screams became more and more intense. The nuns formed by the subconscious fled frantically. Traces of blood spread from the cracks on the ground and flowed to Chloe's feet.
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," Aldo said.
"The more intense your emotions are, the more intense this nightmare environment will be."
"Easy for you to say. You were one of the people who participated in the massacre, weren't you?" Chloe looked at Aldo and gritted her teeth.
"If you want revenge, I don't mind."
Aldo was rather calm. "You have the right."
Suddenly, he coughed violently. Some silver fish mixed with sparkling liquid fell from his fingers and jumped on the ground.
Chloe looked at him. She instinctively wanted to care for him, but she suppressed her gentle side and put on a tough front. She turned and walked away.
She didn't walk far before she stopped again.
A tall figure walked toward her. He was wearing a black robe, had golden hair, and walked slowly. In his hand, he was also holding a body that was covered in blood. Her face was distorted, and her toothless mouth was constantly opening and closing. Her chest was covered with bloodstains. She was sobbing uncontrollably, and there was deep fear in her sobs.
It was Vivian, the nun who had brought her food not long ago. This tragic scene made Chloe's nose ache. She kept reminding herself that all this was fake, as if it would make her feel better. But she couldn't, because she knew that all this might have really happened.
The tall figure came closer.
His facial features gradually became clearer under the candlelight in the corridor. Aldo stopped coughing and cursed angrily when he saw who it was.
"Damn it!"
"Who are you?" The man who was dragging the body looked at Aldo in front of him, puzzled.
"I don't like to kill. To be honest, the people I killed in this monastery didn't die in pain," Aldo said to Chloe, but all he got in return was a look of hatred.
Nightmare Aldo threw away the body in his hand. "Wait, the girl behind you, is she Chloe Lemour?"
Normal Aldo stood in front of Chloe.
No one answered the question. Nightmare Aldo raised his wand and got into a fighting stance.
Normal Aldo sighed. "But I have to say, from a certain point of view, my past is really unbearable."
A transparent beam of light went straight for his face. He rolled on the ground to avoid the curse. Then, he jumped up and threw his other self to the ground. The two identical guys wrestled.
They looked the same, and their physical strength was similar. The only difference was that one could use magic, while the other couldn't. After Nightmare Aldo fell to the ground, he raised his wand and shot a red signal flare into the sky.
Normal Aldo had a bad feeling. He opened his mouth and bit Nightmare Aldo's wrist. He didn't look like him, but the effect was great. Nightmare Aldo let go of his wand in pain.
Normal Aldo snatched the wand, broke it in two, and retreated to Chloe's side. He pushed her shoulder. "Go, leave the monastery and find Bach."
Just as he finished speaking, a black shadow flashed. Nightmare Aldo pounced forward like a hunting black bear and pressed normal Aldo against the wall. "Who are you? Why did you use the compound soup to disguise yourself as me?!"
"You're nothing, not even a shadow," Aldo said sadly. "I won't answer your question."
Shing!
Nightmare Aldo pulled out a dagger and pointed it at his face.
"Don't tell me. After I kill you, I'll tear off your face and see who dares to impersonate me!"
As they wrestled with each other, the edge of the blade swayed dangerously. Seeing that he was about to be blinded by the sharp blade, the normal Aldo said with difficulty, "You … You … Shoulder … There's a … Worm …"
Nightmare Aldo's expression changed. He turned his head away as if he had been electrocuted. In this moment of distraction, the sharp blade was snatched away. Aldo turned around and pressed his Nightmare Aldo under his body, then slashed with the blade.
It was as if a leather bag full of blood had been cut open, and red blood flowed out. He fell to the ground with a thump and struggled with his muscles twitching.
Aldo looked at his other self with a complicated expression. He threw away the sharp blade in his hand and came to Chloe's side. "Does this make you feel better?"
"As expected, death is nothing to you," Chloe said numbly.
"At least, it's something you have to learn to get used to, Miss Lemay."
Aldo said. He looked at Chloe. His eyes were like deep pools filled with sorrow.
Chloe leaned against the wall and slid down bit by bit. Her eyes were red and her hair was messy. She sighed. "Fine. You're not the mastermind. The mastermind is the Manse. You're just following orders. What right do I have to keep venting my anger on you?"
.....
.....
After leaving the nun's side, Hoffa walked along the streets of Paris alone. Since he did not have any magic, his speed was no different from a normal Muggle.
Although he had lived here for more than half a year and was quite familiar with the environment, the world in the Dream World and the world in the real world were two completely different things. After a long time of walking, he deeply felt the strangeness of the Dream World's spatial structure.
After leaving Chloe's monastery, he headed north. After passing through the streets filled with people, horses, and cars, he arrived at the outskirts of the city.
After arriving here, he could no longer see a single person. For miles around, there were ugly industrial monoliths, as well as large amounts of cinders, slag, sand, and waste.
He felt that he could walk out of the Dream World, but good things did not last long. After passing through the outskirts of the city filled with farms, warehouses, and truck warehouses, he returned to the place where he first started, the busy city center.
As if the Dream World had read his intentions, it fixed the map at a range of about 20 kilometers. No matter if he went left, right, east, west, south, or north. He would go through the city, the factory, the suburbs, and finally return to the starting point.
"Is this all it's got?"
After confirming the range of the Dream World, he was not discouraged.
Instead, he sat cross-legged on the ground and began to meditate. But this time, he was not meditating to recover his magic power, but to improve his mental strength. When he opened his eyes again, his gaze had become indifferent and empty.
The Dream World seemed to have sensed something. It was like an overturned paint box, quickly stirring. Everything that was visible to the naked eye melted and combined together into a pool as deep as ink. His own shadow was reflected in the pool.
But the shadow was old and weathered.
"The past is not the past, and the future is not yet here," the shadow said. "Wizard, please stop here."
"The Wizard's Heart never stops."
After Hoffa finished speaking, he ignored the shadow at all. He stood up, crossed the pool, and plunged straight down.
Floating beauties spread their limbs and floated to him naked. They lay on top of him and licked his face, his chest, and his lower body. Hoffa ignored them, and they scattered like a swarm of snakes.
Further ahead, he saw a feast on a long table. The participants were monsters with huge mouths but no other facial features.
They lay on toppled chairs and messy tables, which were full of all kinds of indescribable delicacies from all over the world. In the center, there were even young boys and girls who were stabbed alive on metal rods for the enjoyment of others, but their faces shone with the glory of martyrs.
As he fell, countless beautiful, rare, terrifying, and weird things appeared around him. Some shone with noble divinity, and some were completely crazy.
But these things didn't stop him at all. He wasn't interested in them at all.
In the end, he stepped through the false dream.
He came to the lowest level of this unknown spiritual world.
Here, he didn't see any streets, factories, or warehouses. There was only a narrow beach and an endless sea, just like when he first woke up on the beach.
He looked at the sea and then looked behind him.
It was a cabinet that towered into the clouds. Countless exquisite glass jars were placed in the cabinet. The deserted island, the underground world, and the so-called Paris that he had experienced were like mini models placed in the glass cabinet of the sales department. It was abnormally unreal.
"Have I reached the limit?"
He stared at the sea in front of him and began to think.
He sorted out everything he had experienced from the beginning of the dream until now.
After sorting it out, he didn't walk back. Instead, he walked step by step from the beach to the sea. The sea gradually submerged his clothes, his chest, and his head.
The bottom of the sea suddenly broke. He stepped on air and fell straight down, soaking in the dark blue sea.
There were no fish, no coral, no seaweed, and no life. However, in the midst of the barren land, he saw a shocking scene.
A huge arm full of barbs was soaking in the sea, floating slowly with the waves. The arm went straight into the bottomless sea, and the end couldn't be seen.
Hoffa continued to fall, falling deeper and deeper. Finally, he saw the full view of the bottom of the "island." How was this an island? It was clearly an incomparably huge creature. At first glance, it looked like a human, but it had four arms. Where its legs should be, there were hooked tentacles that danced like a ghost. Just one look at it would make anyone want to scream.
What frightened him even more was its head. Every strand of hair on its head was a sea snake that was more than ten meters long. It was soaking in the seawater with its head down and was not breathing. At first glance, its face looked like that of a woman, but when combined with this body, it exuded a terrifying pressure that made people tremble with fear.
Compared to it, Hoffa, who was floating in the sea, was like an ant.
Was everything he had experienced a dream of this giant creature?
Hoffa reached out his trembling hand and pressed it on the creature's forehead. It felt like crocodile skin mixed with the rough texture of a whale.
The giant creature's eyes opened slightly.
Silver-white light flowed inside.
At this moment, countless images flashed before his eyes.
He saw a bald woman pulling a wrench with a smile in a hall that shone with golden light. He saw a white-haired old man praying for death in a dark cave. He saw the world filled with flames, and the end of the world where no one survived …
He quickly moved his palm away.
The huge amount of information caused a tearing pain in his brain. In the midst of the pain, he even developed a strange illusion of intimacy with the monster in front of him.
This intimacy was terrifying.
He barely suppressed the waves of empathy that were surging toward him. He used all his willpower to extinguish the terrifying urge to merge with it.
"It ends here."
He sighed in the sea, spat out countless bubbles, and swam upstream.
The creature seemed to have noticed something. It raised its mountain-like arm from the bottomless abyss, wanting to grab Hoffa.
With a rumble, Hoffa swam out of the sea. Ten minutes later, he stood on the shore again, his whole body trembling.
This nightmare was deeper than he had imagined. The monster's face was actually similar to Chloe's.
"Damn it, what secrets do you have?"
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
