Chapter 183: The Sleeper’s Technology

Climbing up the cellar stairs and emerging from the ground, it was only after leaving the North Tower that Gawain and Amber truly saw how much the castle had changed.

Just as Gawain had suspected, the entire castle had been shrouded in a long-lasting illusion. Everything it appeared to be was shaped by the dreamweaver Lilith Kant within her dream—but it wasn’t a simple dream. The boundary between reality and illusion here was blurred to the extreme; they overlapped and influenced each other. Events in the real world could disrupt the dream, and things from the dream could reflect back into reality.

Only when the dream completely faded could one see the castle’s true, ravaged state.

In the areas where the dream’s influence was most severe, the towering North Tower had already lost half its structure. It had fractured, and the entire upper half had collapsed and crumbled long ago—how many years ago, no one knew. The remaining massive stones jutted out like broken bones, jagged and uneven, silhouetted against the dawn’s pale light, giving off a grim, menacing aura. Around the tower’s base, the ground was littered with bricks and rubble, half-buried beneath yellowed earth and creeping vines.

Opposite the North Tower, the main body of the castle remained relatively intact. This was the “more real” part of the castle, where the servants who lived there had genuinely maintained the ancient fortress. Though there were few signs of collapse, unsettling cracks marred the outer walls, and wild vines and moss grew unchecked, some even climbing all the way up to the tall spires of the main building as the dream’s power waned.

On their way toward the main castle, Gawain and Amber encountered Sir Philip hurrying toward them.

The young knight had not seen battle, but single-handedly destroying a massive magical core had clearly exhausted him. He looked weary, and deeper psychological fatigue lingered in his eyes. Yet upon seeing Gawain, he immediately straightened up and saluted crisply. “My lord! I’m glad to see you safe and sound!”

Gawain gave a slight nod, reading the tension in Philip’s expression. “Looks like you saw something that weighed heavily on your mind.”

“Yes, my lord, just as you suspected,” Philip sighed. “The place where Steward Carter disappeared is the ‘inner boundary’ of the dream. There’s a… profane and wicked ritual site there. I can hardly describe what I saw.”

Gawain nodded. “Take me there. You didn’t tear the whole place apart, did you?”

“Of course not, my lord. Those are the cultists’ crimes,” Philip replied. “But those people… I’m afraid they’re beyond saving.”

“…I figured as much,” Gawain sighed. “Lead the way. Amber, you should head into the castle first. I imagine everyone inside has already woken up and is in a panic. Find the castle’s advisors, the treasurer, the chief knight, and the priest. Calm them down and have them gather the stewards and knights from the lands. I’ll be at the great hall soon to take charge.”

Amber blinked. “You really think they’ll listen to me?”

“You’re at least a duke’s guard now. Do you think you have no authority over ordinary minor nobles’ servants?” Gawain glanced at her. “Besides, with the dream over, the true memories of the past thirty years are flooding back into everyone’s minds. This kind of mind-shattering shock will throw everyone into panic—people will be more willing to follow guidance.”

The second half of Gawain’s sentence seemed to fly right over the half-elf’s head. Amber was already drifting off, her mind racing through at least sixty schemes to make money and eighty scams to pull off—all revolving around the idea of “using my position to intimidate others.” Unfortunately, she had barely floated for a few seconds before Gawain saw right through her and shot her a sharp glare. “If you dare use my name to scam or cheat, I’ll pin you to the wall!”

Amber rolled her eyes. “Can’t you threaten me some other way?”

“Then I’ll pin you to the floor,” Gawain waved dismissively and turned away. “Anyway, if you lie, it’s the wall. If you steal, it’s the floor…”

But the straightforward Sir Philip, catching up to Gawain’s pace, asked worriedly, “What if she steals something and then lies to you about it?”

Gawain stopped and gave Philip a silent look. “…Have you considered getting a perm?”

“Huh?”

Gawain sighed inwardly. Indeed, the hardest part about being stranded in another world was the inability to share local jokes—even with someone who was supposed to be the straight man.

The two of them arrived at the underground hall Philip had discovered.

The oppressive magical energy that had once filled the hall had dissipated, and the suffocating, maddening aura was gone. Yet the place remained eerie and grim. To Gawain’s eyes, the platforms arranged neatly around the stone pillars looked like bloodstained dissection tables—and on these tables, the “lambs to the slaughter” were still alive.

Gawain noticed tubular structures connecting the victims’ heads to the pillars—organic-looking conduits of blood vessels and nerves, but clearly not mutated or grown from human brains. One end was anchored at the base of the pillars, where swollen, twisted flesh clung tightly to the runes carved into the stone, almost like independent organisms. The other end connected to the victims, likely through parasitic or surgical means.

Because Sir Philip had destroyed the runes on the pillars, these “biological tissues” attached to the stone were now visibly withering and dying. They shriveled and cracked, oozing pale red fluid from the fissures. Most of the victims connected to them were already dead.

Even those still alive were beyond saving—their individual consciousnesses had long since been erased, their brain tissue irreversibly damaged. Their remaining neurons were merely providing computational power for this massive “human brain array computer.” With the magic fading, they would soon perish.

The only mercy was that they no longer felt pain.

“I can’t identify what these things are,” Philip said, fighting back disgust as he crouched beside one of the pillars with Gawain. He pointed with his sword sheath at the twitching, shrinking tissues. “Even in the most insane tomes of black magic, or the delirious ramblings of heretics, I’ve never heard of such… creatures. The Sleepers aren’t druids—they don’t have the power to alter species or summon life. These tissues must have been found or bred somewhere else, specifically to extract souls. But… where did they get them?”

“Maybe these really were cultivated by the End of All Things,” Gawain frowned. “They do have connections.”

Philip was surprised. “Are the cultists really collaborating that closely?”

“If their corruption is what I suspect, their cooperation is probably tighter than most people can imagine,” Gawain sighed. “More than that, I’m more concerned about the ‘technology’ the Sleepers are using.”

Philip, being a warrior, was a bit slow on the uptake. “Technology?”

“In the letters left by Viscount Victor, it’s mentioned that this place is a ‘computing node’ built by the Sleepers,” Gawain said, gesturing to the victims linked by the nerve-like cords. “They seem to be trying to create a ‘real dream’ that can replace the real world, using the power of dreams to achieve something. This requires terrifying computational power—you can think of it simply as brainpower. No single archmage’s mind could accomplish this, so they came up with this insane idea: connecting brains together to create a ‘human brain array computer.’ Do you understand what that means?”

“That they’ll kill more people?”

“That’s just the surface. The deeper meaning is this: these cultists aren’t just insane—they’ve mastered insane technology!” Gawain said gravely. “Even while shunned by mainstream society and living in seclusion, they kept advancing, developing new techniques far beyond contemporary magic. Remember, crazed cultists alone aren’t so frightening. What’s terrifying is that these cultists have real research capabilities—and they’re not weak ones!”

As he spoke, he stood and surveyed the entire underground hall.

“The most dangerous thing is that if this mad technology is applied in the right place, their rate of progress will become even more terrifying…”

After collecting some rune rubbings and debris samples, Gawain and Sir Philip left the place.

With the dream’s power gone, the castle’s great hall was one of the least changed areas. Aside from the sudden appearance of thirty years’ worth of aging on the outer walls, pillars, and ceiling, the hall remained brightly lit, clean, and well-kept—the daily cleaning by the living servants was real, and the dream-reality overlap had ensured their efforts weren’t limited to the dream alone.

In fact, with the dream’s end, the faint, lingering sense of dread that had always hung over the hall vanished as well. The great hall now felt warmer and more peaceful than usual.

Yet this warmth and peace could not calm the people gathered there.

Fear gripped every heart—even that of the loyal chief knight who had guarded the place for thirty years.

When the dream ended, the castle’s inhabitants suddenly awoke. Their suppressed consciousness and memories surged back, and the moment they regained free thought, the past three decades became a bizarre nightmare: sleepwalking through a decaying ancient castle, tending to a phantom who had been dead for decades, a ghostly lady wandering among the ruins of the North Tower. It was all deeply unsettling.

For the older servants, knights, advisors, and stewards, it was even worse. They clearly remembered when the bodies of the old lord and young master were secretly returned to the castle, and how thirty years ago the lady of the house had gone mad and used magic to control everyone’s minds. Every day since, every change in the castle, flooded back into their minds.

The stewards summoned from nearby lands were also gripped by fear. Anyone who had frequented the castle had been affected by the dream, though their terror was somewhat less than those who had never left the castle in thirty years.

But no matter what, once people realized what they had endured, none could remain calm.

Amber stood at the far end of the great hall’s dais, anxiously pulling at her hair.

That spot was usually reserved for the lord alone, yet no one dared to challenge the “little girl” standing there now. Everyone knew she was a member of the duke’s personal guard, and in this emergency, she was there as his spokesperson. So instead of questioning her, all eyes turned to her with hopeful anticipation.

But Amber wished she could disappear into the shadows immediately—being a big shot wasn’t nearly as great as she had imagined!

“Everyone, please don’t panic, don’t… don’t be nervous! The duke has gone to cleanse the last nest; he’ll be back any moment now—so please, stay calm! He’s coming right this way!”

Amber stood on the platform, trying in vain to soothe the crowd. Just as she felt she was about to lose control of the situation, Gawain finally appeared, riding alongside Sir Philip.

(End of chapter)