Chapter 711: Beltira in the Dream

Beltira Augustus stepped into the hall.

But she was nothing like the image Bard had stored in his memory.

In Bard’s recollection, the female archpriest always wore a robe stripped of all religious symbols, her face cold and distant, her eyes perpetually shadowed by a layer of darkness. From the waist down, her form was a tangled mass of roots and vines, and the unsettling rustling sound of her footsteps was her signature.

Yet this “Beltira” who entered now was completely different—she wore a druidic gown of green and white, adorned with the emblem of the Holy Spirit Druid order on her chest. Her face looked younger, devoid of any cold or dark aura. She walked calmly into the hall, and beneath her gown, a pair of normal legs clad in boots were visible.

Same face, but the difference was striking.

Only Gawain, who had inherited the original body’s memories, felt a strange sense of familiarity upon seeing this version of Beltira.

Beltira herself noticed the unexpected guests in the hall—though a figure within a dream, she somehow perceived Gawain and Bard, who theoretically had already detached from the dream’s structure.

She lifted her head, her expression hazy and unfocused. She glanced at Bard briefly, as if seeing a stranger, then fixed her gaze on Gawain. After a long, careful look, she spoke hesitantly and with curiosity: “Gawain… brother?”

Gawain frowned.

Seven centuries ago, before she fell into darkness and while still beloved by the Eastern Expeditionary Army as “Her Highness the Princess,” Beltira had addressed Gawain Cecil that way.

They weren’t siblings, but they were close. Even after Gawain was ordered to stay in the southern border and couldn’t move freely, they exchanged many letters. In fact, in the memories Gawain inherited, the news of Beltira’s journey to the Ancestral Peak came through a letter from her—that was the last letter she ever sent.

After that, the Cult of the End of All Things was born.

Was this seemingly harmless Beltira the form she took after falling into the dream? Or… was this some kind of deception?

Noticing Gawain’s silence, Beltira spoke again, this time with a hint of nervousness and worry: “Brother Gawain? Where is this place? And… why do you suddenly look so much older?”

Seven centuries ago, when Beltira fell into darkness, Gawain Cecil was still under thirty. In the years that followed, Beltira never reappeared. Clearly, this dream-Beltira retained her earlier memories, and in her mind, Gawain was still the young, valiant brother.

Beltira stood in the hall, looking around at the robed figures with obvious caution and confusion. She then looked back at Gawain, helpless and harmless, evoking an instinct to lower one’s guard—especially if a familiar face stood there, emotions would almost certainly cloud judgment.

But unfortunately, Gawain was no longer Gawain Cecil.

He sensed that the key to this dream lay with “Beltira.”

Besides, a dream was just a dream. That innocent little Typhon princess… had long since vanished with the wind.

Gawain raised his hand, unleashing a massive data shockwave. Suddenly, countless fragments of light and shadow flooded the dreamscape, an overwhelming torrent of information that shattered the already fragile false world in the blink of an eye. The archpriests holding their meeting dissolved into illusions, and the entire hall trembled and collapsed rapidly.

Bard felt his head spin. The boundary between reality and dream had never been clearer. He sensed himself waking up quickly. Before fully leaving the dream, he heard Gawain’s steady command: “Once awake, stay put. Don’t do anything except stay alert. Wait for our extraction.”

The council chamber crumbled, stones and debris dissolving into faint particles of light and lines, vanishing into the void. Beltira, standing in the center, watched in confusion. Suddenly, a flicker of clarity appeared in her eyes, and her expression brightened instantly.

It was as if she was waking from a deep sleep—or only half awake. With a half-dream, half-conscious look, she gazed at Gawain’s fading figure and parted her lips slightly.

On the surface, Gawain slowly opened his eyes. His senses returned swiftly to his body, and the mental connection gradually calmed. As expected, Amber’s large face was right in front of him. He pushed her away gently, but she was unfazed, waving her arms to keep balance as she backed off, loudly chattering, “You’re awake!”

Gawain hummed softly and shook his head to clear the last bit of discomfort. The final echoes of the dream blurred and faded with his movement.

“…Brother, I’ve caused trouble…”

His brow furrowed oddly for a moment, then his expression returned to normal. Amber, just pushed aside, hurried over, fussing, “Hey, what’s wrong? Your face got serious all of a sudden…”

Gawain had to push her away again.

Why was this usually scatterbrained one suddenly so perceptive when it wasn’t even necessary?

“Nothing, just a bit dizzy. It’s gone now,” he said casually, ignoring Pittman’s recommendation of a special medicine for dizziness in the elderly. He began issuing orders for the next step. “The team, come up. Bard’s exploration below has met the objectives—we’re going down to extract.”

“You’re going down yourself?” The female knight Margarita was surprised. She had been amazed just seeing Gawain approach the giant tree’s root entrance, never expecting the “Emperor” to go down personally. She immediately felt uneasy. “It’s probably very dangerous down there, you…”

“I’ve been down once already. The risks of spiritual roaming aren’t any less than physical exploration,” Gawain smiled, waving off her concerns. “I’ve already dismantled the dream ‘trap’ below with a special technique. If it was cast by someone, that caster is surely dead. If it was a magical device, it’s completely broken and won’t pose any danger. As for any real, physical threats beyond the dream trap… haven’t we all seen the images Bard sent back?”

Margarita seemed about to say more, but Gawain interrupted again: “By the way, your personality really reminds me of Philip—both so serious.”

Margarita straightened her posture and said solemnly, “Seriousness and caution are essential qualities of a knight…”

“Exactly, that’s what I mean.”

Margarita was left speechless.

Before she could catch up with Gawain’s train of thought, the Emperor strode past her toward the nearby entrance.

Amber sidled up to Margarita, who was just recovering from her daze, and started babbling: “Hey, honestly, I’ve always thought you and Philip would make a great match… Want me to help? I know a lot of people!”

Margarita’s face stiffened, about to firmly reject this blatant disregard for knightly codes, but Amber had already bounced after Gawain, running into the entrance, shouting back, “Hey! Wait for me! You can’t go into such a dark place without an Shadow Master! I’m Chosen, you know? I’ve been Chosen for decades…”

…

Bard opened his eyes and finally saw his surroundings clearly.

He hadn’t entered any council chamber at all—he had walked into a magical secret chamber he’d never seen before.

The room was covered in runes—complex magical symbols densely etched on the ceiling, walls, and floor. Apart from two black stone pillars standing upright, also inscribed with runes, the room was empty.

At this moment, all the runes were extinguished.

Bard didn’t know when this room had appeared. He was sure it wasn’t there when he left the base camp—or perhaps his clearance level was insufficient, so he was unaware of this secret chamber.

He guessed that a collapse underground had shifted some rooms and corridors, and the tangled roots had distorted his spatial sense, causing him to stray here by mistake and be affected by the magical devices.

But no matter what, with the dream ending, the devices had ceased functioning.

He remembered Gawain’s orders. Though the runes made him uneasy, wandering around at this depth was riskier than staying put. So he obediently found a spot with a clear view near a corner and waited quietly for the extraction team.

He waited a long time.

The passage of time would build pressure for ordinary people, and the dim, eerie environment was unsettling. But Bard, having faced far worse challenges, was as steady as steel. Compared to the indescribable horrors he had witnessed, the darkness here was almost gentle. He stood quietly in the corner, keeping his mind and body at peak condition, counting the beats of his artificial heart to estimate time—until flickering lights appeared outside the room.

Gawain followed the trail of markers Bard had left, arriving deep within the lair.

The scale of this underground palace was astonishing. Its architecture didn’t match any human kingdom’s style, stirring confusion and speculation. Though the palace was heavily damaged by collapse and altered by the cultists of the End of All Things over centuries of renovations and expansions, Gawain could still tell from the sturdy walls and ancient runes embedded in the floor and ceiling that this palace was not built by the Ansu people.

Nor by the Númenóreans.

But now was not the time to delve into the palace’s origins. He saw Bard waiting inside, and the dense runes and two stone-like magical pillars.

Having devoured the knowledge and memories of the Sleeper, able to roam freely in the Sleeper’s mental network, and having personally helped build the Sleeper’s security systems, network experiments, and mental network vulnerabilities, Gawain was intimately familiar with these things.

“This is Sleeper technology,” Gawain said, examining the two now-dormant rune pillars. “They’re auxiliary devices to project the user’s spirit outward. Don’t worry, they’re completely broken—core runes melted down, beyond repair.”

Only then did Bard finally relax and instinctively ask, “You… understand Sleeper technology?”

Gawain smiled. “A little, a little.”

Bard was momentarily stunned, quickly composing himself and lowering his presence cautiously.

He had just touched on one of the Emperor’s little secrets again.

But Gawain didn’t care about any of that. Now that Daniel had fully mastered the security architecture of the Sleeper’s neural network, and with all the hidden traps, backdoors, and springboards he’d planted there gradually expanding into a vast, intricate “shadow network,” Gawain no longer worried that the Sleepers would detect their intrusion.

He had countless ways to reconnect to the network, countless ways to disguise both himself and Daniel, and even countless ways to fabricate illusions—illusions of network security, illusions that the intrusion had been repelled, illusions that no intrusion had ever occurred at all…

He had even set “Gawain Cecil,” “Extradimensional Wanderer,” and “Ansu Pioneer” as hidden keywords. Whenever anyone anywhere in the neural network mentioned these terms, he would instantly know—and before the information could spread, he could determine whether he’d been exposed and take further action.

Of course, if possible, Gawain still hoped the Sleepers would never realize they’d been breached. But based on the little “secret” Bard had stumbled upon, they couldn’t yet connect Gawain to the Sleeper’s network. Besides… even if Bard managed to get out alive today, he would be under strict surveillance for a long time to come.

With the Sleeper cultists in the southern territories all but wiped out, the secrets locked away in people’s hearts would remain just that—secrets.

Gawain turned his gaze toward the room’s exit.

“Now, let’s continue the search.”

The Sleeper’s device could amplify and project a person’s dreams, but the device itself did not dream.

In this dark, unfathomable place, there were those who could dream… people.

Judging from what Bard had seen in his dream, these dreamers were likely in a terrible state—most probably having lost control over their own minds and bodies.

That made things easier to handle.

(End of chapter)