Chapter 1507: Rising Up

Bathed in the flickering firelight that sustained her ethereal form, Benadette gazed steadily at Nash Nart standing before her—the last ruler of the Violet Kingdom, the final “lingering soul” after the dream had ended. This mighty archmage king stood quietly beneath the night sky, distant starlight piercing his somewhat translucent figure, casting a faint, hazy glow around his body.

That glow was the blessing of the Lord of Night—the ancient, merciful god who had allowed the last dream-dweller to remain willfully defiant, permitting a citizen who should have returned home to linger at the dream’s edge. For such a powerful deity, this was no great expenditure, yet Benadette couldn’t shake the feeling that Nash had a place he ought to be. It wasn’t wise for him to cling to the waking world like this.

“Everyone else has awakened from the dream, and the Lord of Night is gradually returning. Isn’t it better to go back to the nightfall?” Benadette pressed when Nash remained silent. “The nightfall is your true home. In the Lady’s realm, there is a warm and eternal long night. For shadow-dwellers who have awakened and remembered their true nature, life ‘over there’ should be far more comfortable…”

“Maybe,” Nash finally exhaled, a smile curling on his lips. “I suppose I’ll return someday, but the time hasn’t come yet. You know how it is… it’s easy to go back, but coming back again isn’t so simple.” He chuckled softly. “Besides, don’t you think it’s nice that I’m here? At least someone’s around to play along with your little ‘haunted castle’ antics.”

Benadette sighed, her voice tinged with weariness. “You don’t really think a ‘tower spirit’ can feel loneliness or boredom, do you? I’ve been running in this tower for countless years, and there were times I was even put into standby mode. If you’re staying just because you’re bored, then forget it—better to go back early and save the Lord of Night some trouble. Everyone else has gone home; if you’re the only one lingering here too long, He might start scolding you.”

Listening to Benadette’s nagging, Nash only smiled, arms crossed. When she ran out of words, he leisurely replied, “You don’t need to worry about that. With the heart of an ancient god, the Lady wouldn’t fuss over such trivial matters. Me lingering here for centuries is but a speck of dust to Her. Yet that speck of dust is enough for a mortal to choose a bold and interesting life no one else ever dared to live. Besides…”

He looked at Benadette with a half-smile, half-smirk. “You don’t have to act so magnanimous either. When news of the Lady’s return came, the entire city was shrouded in mist, and over half the magical mechanisms in Thousand Towers City malfunctioned for more than three hours. No one could figure out why, but I was monitoring this tower the whole time—and it was clearly you who crashed.”

Benadette’s eyes widened. “Didn’t we agree not to bring that up again?”

“Alright, alright, I won’t mention it…” Nash raised his hands in surrender, then shook his head. “So be it. The Violet Kingdom’s proudest creation and its last ruler, we’ll stay here together—maybe for decades, maybe centuries, maybe longer. At least when someone visits, we can tell them that a mortal kingdom once existed here…”

Benadette considered this, a pleased expression spreading across her face. “Oh—A lost ancient kingdom, a forgotten castle shrouded in shadows, hollow armor and attendant robes wandering the empty city’s corridors and terraces, an ancient tower spirit still running, and a ghostly king trapped in the tower, rambling on. Naive adventurers stumble in, hear forgotten histories from the spirit and the king, then return laden with treasure and glory… That’s a good story. I like your idea.”

“That’s not my idea!” Nash’s eyes snapped open. “And when did I become a ghostly king trapped in a tower? The Lady’s blessing just ensures I can remain stable in the real world. I can still go out… at least wandering around the dim palace shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

Benadette just smiled, watching Nash’s flustered expression. After a few seconds, she said softly, “The ‘Prince Nash’ of old wouldn’t have spoken like this…”

“And the old Benadette wouldn’t have jumped out of a fire or commanded unattended armor in the warehouse to patrol the halls and terraces,” Nash shook his head. “I guess our old lives were just too boring.”

“Actually, it’s still boring now—I’ve never seen this city so quiet,” Benadette said casually. Her translucent form drifted to the edge of the platform, stopping by the iron railing that once guarded the Night’s Eye. She peered out over the city sprawling endlessly in the darkness. “Looking at this city, I’m reminded of some human scholars who liked to speculate wildly… Some hypothesized that every dream is a real world, and that these dream worlds are filled with accidental visitors. They wondered, after all the visitors leave, does the dream world keep running? And what would it become? Look—what we see before us is the answer.”

“As a tower spirit, your imagination is sometimes a bit too vivid,” Nash sighed, shaking his head. “You can’t compare a god’s dream to mortal fancy. Besides, Thousand Towers City isn’t just the Lady’s dream—it’s a convergence of the divine realm’s border and the real world. In fact, if it weren’t for the contamination that appeared tens of thousands of years ago, this city wouldn’t have any residents at all, nor would there be a Violet Kingdom in the dream…”

“Right, no Violet Kingdom, and no ‘Violet’s proudest creation’ like me,” Benadette said casually. “So in a way, I should thank that ‘uninvited guest’ who caused the contamination—though you and the others seemed pretty angry when you suddenly realized how long you’d been polluted and deceived…”

Nash shrugged, ignoring Benadette’s last jab. He turned to stand side by side with the Violet Kingdom’s proud creation at the edge of the Night’s Eye platform, standing silently in the night breeze.

“Do you think… more people will come to visit this city shrouded in night someday?” Benadette suddenly asked. “I don’t mean the explorers who’ve been invited, but ordinary people… Are there really adventurers brave enough to cross the shadowy forests covering the entire island, to come to this gloomy, lonely city and seek the memories of an ancient kingdom?”

“How would I know? For now, crossing the endless long night of the forest to reach the heart of Violet Island isn’t easy for ordinary people. Not everyone has the courage and passion of that ‘great adventurer’ to explore a lost kingdom like this… Why do you ask? Starting to feel lonely already?”

“How could a tower spirit have such feelings? I’m just wondering if you can handle centuries of solitude. Don’t forget, you boasted earlier that you’d keep me company in this empty city for many, many years…”

Under the brilliant starry sky, a night wind swept across the upper platform of the dim palace. The railings and pillars that once embraced the Night’s Eye moaned softly in the breeze. As the campfire flickered, the last two beings of this ancient kingdom began a new round of debate—arguing over who would feel lonely first, who would regret that impulsive choice made upon waking from the dream, and whether, after centuries pass, this dream-born kingdom born of a mistake would still be remembered, still leave some legend in the mortal world…

Meanwhile, far from the mortal realm, in the shadowy divine kingdom, a vast gray-white desert suddenly echoed with a sigh. The sound reverberated through the heavens and earth, silencing the sea of sand for a moment before the chaotic winds stirred again, swirling dust like mist around a towering throne standing alone in the vastness.

Atop a stone pillar before the throne, a heavy black leather tome creaked open slightly. From within, the voice of Wilde sounded: “Lady, why did you sigh so suddenly?”

“It’s nothing serious,” the Lady of Night’s voice descended from the sky, amber eyes gazing down through the hazy shadows at the desert below. “I just realized that in the ‘kingdom’ I accidentally created with the dream… there’s someone with a very strange fetish. Turns out that’s why he refuses to ‘return.’”

Hearing the Lady’s usual lazy tone, Wilde was stunned. He double-checked several times to make sure he hadn’t misheard, then couldn’t help but ask, “Lady, what did you say… what fetish?”

“Section 6, Chapter 4, Article 12,” the Lady replied casually.

Wilde: “…Huh?”

The great adventurer was filled with question marks (even though he no longer had a head), utterly clueless about what this awe-inspiring ancient god was talking about. Since last time he’d looked through her pages, the Lady had been acting strangely—occasionally spouting bizarre words or asking odd questions. He had no idea how to respond!

This was different from when she asked for stories—at least then it related somewhat to his expertise, and he could improvise, even without a brain. The Lady didn’t care much about logic or details. But now, with her strange vocabulary and weird questions popping up, he was completely lost. Some of those words sounded like unspeakable whispers from another world; sometimes he didn’t even know how those words were forced into phrases…

Yet the Lady seemed unfazed by Wilde’s confusion. She leaned back on her throne, pondering a moment longer, then suddenly asked out of nowhere, “Great Adventurer, you are a mage, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Lady,” Wilde answered quickly, relieved she was finally asking something normal. “Before becoming an adventurer, I was a fairly powerful mage. Regarding the field of magic…”

“Do mages ever fall in love with magical constructs they create? Like tower spirits or magical puppets,” the Lady’s voice drifted down, “or with illusions of the opposite sex in magic mirrors or on parchment?”

Wilde immediately regretted his earlier relief—her strange symptoms were only getting worse.

The great adventurer hesitated, struggling to find the right words after a long pause. “Well… I’m not sure how you view the group known as ‘mages.’ True, many of us are so deeply absorbed in magical research that others see us as eccentric, and some do suffer mental issues from the side effects of spell experiments. But overall, our inclinations toward the opposite sex are normal. At least, I don’t find myself having inappropriate thoughts about illusions on parchment or magic mirrors…”

Wilde finished awkwardly, unsure if his answer satisfied Lady Ye. Several seconds passed before her voice drifted down from above: “It seems your purity still isn’t quite there, Mr. Great Adventurer.”

Wilde blinked in confusion. “Purity…? Madam, I’m not sure I understand…”

“Section 5, Chapter 3, Clause 4.”

Wilde: “…Huh?”

“No, it’s nothing,” the voice from the throne hesitated slightly. “I just suddenly realized something—I may have underestimated the impact of the information flowing back from ‘that side’ after establishing the ‘anchor point.’ But it’s no big deal; it’s always been part of me, just now returning. Enough of that… it seems we should get down to business.”

With those final words, the towering figure seated on the throne slowly lifted her head. Lady Ye rose, grasping the black-and-white scepter that had been resting beside the throne. With her other hand, she pointed toward the distant dust storms.

In an instant, a grand tempest swept across the desert. Countless gray-white sands swirled into a massive vortex in the sky. The vortex then tilted and reshaped itself into a colossal, vertical rift hovering above the desert—like a gateway.

Wilde was about to ask Lady Ye more about this “return flow” she mentioned, but the sudden spectacle startled him. Recovering quickly, he kept his eyes on the swirling vortex and asked, “You’re finally… beginning?”

“The anchor point generator took some time to reset its mode. Fortunately, the artifacts left by the Voyagers aren’t so easily damaged,” Lady Ye said casually. Below the throne, the shadowy sand rift gradually took shape, revealing a distant land through flickering, blurred images—fertile fields, clear rivers, and gardens sheltered beneath a vast dome. “We also owe thanks to some little ones’ activities at the Celestial Station, and to mortals’ efforts to ‘loosen’ the mental steel seals in the mortal realm. This preparation has gone smoother than expected.”

As she spoke, Lady Ye lifted the scepter and slowly stepped down from the throne, moving toward the shimmering rift in the distance. Behind her, countless intricate, arcane patterns etched into the throne’s surface began to glow, rapidly connecting into a unified whole.

This was the totemic pattern engraved on the surface of the “Anchor Point Generator” deep within the Celestial Station.

(End of chapter)