Chapter 817: To the High-Level Narrator…

News came from the lower connection zone: the “contamination” within the containment area had finally been quelled.

Some had died in the labyrinthine corridors, others were temporarily driven back and locked in more secure rooms, some were rescued, and a few remained steadfast at critical junctions deep below.

Archbishop Semler listened to the latest reports, his brow relaxing slightly before he let out a heavy sigh.

“The good news is that the chaos throughout the catacombs has been brought under control. All key passages are back in our hands, and the status of all missing personnel has been accounted for. In theory, there should be no more unseen contaminants operating within the catacombs,” he said, turning to Magnum beside him. “The bad news is that many are injured, and among those who fought, varying degrees of mental contamination have appeared. Though these shallow mental afflictions haven’t yet brainwashed anyone into becoming devotees of the High-Level Narrator, we can’t predict when they might suddenly worsen.”

“Separate the contaminated from the uncontaminated,” Magnum said, a trace of weariness in his voice. “The contaminated are resting in rooms marked with ‘Deep Sea Runes.’ Those runes have been tested and can be relied upon. We no longer have the resources to isolate and guard each contaminated individual separately. This is the best we can do. Hold out until dawn… everything will get better.”

“Some of the recovered members of the psychic choir can help soothe those whose minds have been damaged,” Wendy approached, “I’m almost fully recovered myself.”

“Archbishop Wendy, others can, but you should rest a bit more,” Yuri shook his head. “You lost a lot of blood and fought your way out from the containment zone. You’re not in a condition to comfort others right now.”

Wendy smiled wryly. “There will be plenty of time to rest later, but if we don’t give it our all tonight… there won’t be a ‘later.’”

Magnum looked to Archbishop Semler. “What about the surface?”

“No incidents on the surface—that’s the only good news,” Semler rubbed his temples. “Only two squads assigned to dream control encountered contaminants, but they were swiftly dealt with. The rest continue patrolling and locking down the Orlandell region. The dream blockade there will hold until sunrise.”

Yuri turned his head. “And the dream control inside the catacombs?”

“Do you think anyone will sleep tonight in this situation?” Semler scanned the tense hall, his expression resigned.

But then he nodded and added, “Don’t worry. I’ve arranged surveillance and patrols to ensure no priest or knight in the catacombs falls asleep. The High-Level Narrator is a ‘god’ who operates through dreams. As long as we maintain absolute control over the dreamscape, even if we can’t fully bind it, we can at least make its arrival difficult…”

“Let’s hope our efforts make a difference,” Yuri muttered to himself. “Hopefully the Outer Wanderer and Archbishop Selina can take down that ‘god’ soon…”

“Let’s hope everything goes smoothly…” Magnum murmured, taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling as he gazed up at the soaring dome of the hall, trying to calm the unrest within.

Between the pillars hanging from the ceiling, enormous transparent spider limbs swept diagonally across, as if weaving something—or climbing an invisible web.

Magnum’s eyes suddenly widened.

…

In the dark, desolate void, Gawain and Selina stood beside the shattered remnants of the High-Level Narrator.

The fragments were rapidly dissipating, as if they were nothing but a fleeting illusion—a dream awakening.

Yet, beyond this god of woven dreams called “Death,” the darkness around Selina and Gawain remained, the strange state of Sandbox One persisted, and the power of the High-Level Narrator… endured.

“The divine aspect of the High-Level Narrator is likely still carrying out its plan,” Gawain said quickly to Selina. “This is just another battlefield it has woven.”

The lantern in Selina’s hand glowed brighter than before, illuminating the fading spider limbs of the god and the dark grasslands stretching into the distance. Yet no matter how far the light reached, the distant chaotic darkness remained unchanged, showing no sign of any exit.

“Can you tear through this ‘veil’?” she asked Gawain, urgency in her voice. “Like you did with Nim Sandro’s veil before.”

Before she finished, Gawain was already sensing the boundaries of this dark space and the points where information could be accessed. He frowned, his tone grave. “I’ve started trying, but it’s probably too late. Breaking down the veil the High-Level Narrator has woven takes a long time to prepare. When I dealt with Nim Sandro, I spent nearly an entire day preparing…”

Selina instinctively tightened her grip on the lantern, then furrowed her brow. “Do you… hear something?”

“What sound?” Gawain paused, then began to listen carefully.

In the barren darkness, faint, almost hallucinatory sounds emerged—layers of murmurs, like countless people whispering the same thing in their sleep. After half a minute, he finally made out hundreds, maybe thousands, of voices whispering in unison—

“To the High-Level Narrator, to our omniscient and omnipotent lord…”

“It’s prayer,” Gawain said quietly. “A massive amount of prayer… but from where?”

“Prayer?” Selina was stunned. “The inhabitants of this world should be gone. Who’s still praying to the High-Level Narrator?”

…

“I see it again!” Magnum’s sudden shout drew half the hall’s attention. “Transparent spider limbs just flew across the ceiling!”

“Everyone, activate mental defenses! Nightmare tutors and archbishops, guard the tech priests!” Archbishop Semler ordered, looking up at the ceiling. But, as before, he saw nothing.

No one dared dismiss Magnum’s warning, yet no one could explain the strange phenomenon.

“We can’t see it,” Yuri scanned the hall swiftly, then turned sharply to Magnum. “Can you still see it? Where is it?”

“It just swept through the air again—nearly invisible limbs of a huge spider, spinning an unseen web here,” Magnum looked up at the empty dome, his eyes darting as if chasing an invisible prey. “Damn it… I’m one hundred percent sure it’s real!”

“It’s the High-Level Narrator. It’s influencing the real world, trying to break through the ‘box,’” Semler spoke rapidly. “There’s a breach here… Magnum, what else can you sense?”

Magnum tracked the transparent spider’s movements, but beyond seeing its increasingly solid limbs, as a mere mortal, he couldn’t lock onto a god’s power. His brow furrowed tightly, hands clenched—this was clearly beyond a mere psychic storm.

“Semler, are you sure no one’s dreaming here? No one praying to the High-Level Narrator in their dreams?” Magnum suddenly turned, his red hair almost standing on end, eyes sharp and serious.

“I’m sure. Every corner has been checked—every priest, every knight, even every servant and attendant, and every village and town on the surface,” Semler replied quickly. “And—”

“Archbishop!” A shout came from the control station. A tech priest suddenly snapped awake from a linked state, shouting urgently, “Time iteration in Sandbox One has been shut down from the inside! The sandbox’s time flow is synchronizing with the real world!”

Semler’s eyes widened. “What?!”

“It’s the High-Level Narrator,” Yuri reacted swiftly. “It wants to enter the real world… so it must synchronize the sandbox’s time with reality. Time iteration was once a tool for its rapid growth, but now it’s a hindrance, so it’s been shut down!”

“It’s seizing control…” “Song of Spirits” Wendy’s face paled further. At the same time, she felt something breaking through the suppression in her own mind, growing active again. “The contamination is fighting back…”

Yuri frowned deeply, desperately searching for possible breaches. Suddenly, his gaze froze.

He had realized a critical point everyone else had overlooked.

“Archbishop Semler, our dream control may have a huge loophole…” The refined middle-aged man looked pale as he met Semler’s eyes. “Have you checked the computing node hall…?”

“You mean those—” Semler finally caught on. “Impossible. They have no dreams left, and someone is guarding them. We confirmed this just an hour ago…”

“Archbishop Semler,” Wendy interrupted, her face unusually grim, speaking slowly and clearly, “those… are people too.”

“Damn it! Damn it! How could we make such a rookie mistake!” Magnum cursed loudly, then sprinted toward the heavy gate at the other end of the hall. Yuri, Semler, and Wendy followed after a brief moment of shock.

They reached the special isolation door. Semler pulled the call rope on the door; a bell rang from the other side, but no guard responded.

The archbishops’ hearts sank instantly.

“Force the door open,” Magnum ordered, placing his hand on a crystalline device beside the gate. “Yuri, Semler, activate the other three runes.”

No hesitation. Three hands pressed the emergency unlocking rune crystals. As magic flowed into them, the normally sealed isolation door creaked and groaned as its mechanisms engaged, then slowly slid open.

Inside the connected chamber sat several spirit knights and an archbishop assigned to guard the door, seemingly asleep.

The noise of the door opening must have disturbed them, because suddenly a helmet fell to the floor, revealing a hollow suit of armor filled with disgusting flesh mixed with gray-white ash.

Magnum recognized their cause of death at a glance. “Their brains were burned out…”

Seconds later, they opened the second gate leading to the inner hall.

The dimly lit inner hall contained hundreds, maybe thousands, of platforms arranged neatly. Nerve cords and life-support tubes extended from the edges, converging on various pillar nodes. On one platform after another lay figures in deep sleep, responsible for providing computing power to Sandbox One.

These withered brain servants lay motionless. From the observation windows outside, nothing seemed amiss, but their lips moved slightly, opening and closing in tiny motions.

Hundreds, thousands of faint whispers gathered in the hall, merging into a single voice—

“To the Higher Narrator, to our omniscient and omnipotent Lord…”

Standing at the doorway, Semler felt a chill run through his body.

He muttered to himself, “In theory, they shouldn’t even be able to dream anymore…”

Wendy shook her head. “No, they still dream… The entire sandbox world is their dream.”

Magnum strode into the “Computational Node Hall” where the brain servants were housed, raising his hands high—only to let them fall limply the next moment.

He couldn’t unleash a psychic storm, nor could he kill a single brain servant… The Higher Narrator had already taken shape, had already found its coordinates in the real world. Physical destruction would only delay its arrival. And if the brain servants died and the sandbox vanished, that god would likely break free from this place’s constraints and descend anywhere in this world. Then, all hope of turning the tide would be truly lost.

What’s more, the Outer Wanderer and Archbishop Selina were still “inside.”

The Outer Wanderer might not die from this, but that was the most terrifying part. It meant that those who survived would face not only the Higher Narrator desperate to escape but also the wrath of another godlike being.

Everyone understood this. Everyone had thought of it.

Magnum’s gaze swept over the brain servants lying on the platforms. Some were shriveled and clearly had been here for years; others looked like ordinary people, recent “new members” from the past few years. Some platforms were empty—those were losses not yet replenished. Others were worn and faded, as if long in use…

Magnum suddenly took a deep breath and slowly approached one of the empty platforms.

Wendy called out from behind, “Archbishop Magnum, what are you doing?”

Magnum didn’t turn around, just shrugged. “Maybe it’s time for one of us to lie down here.”

Yuri’s eyes widened in alarm as he quickly stepped forward to block him. “Think carefully! This is deep neural parasitism—it’s irreversible!”

Magnum glanced at Yuri, then pushed him aside with a carefree smile. “I looked that ‘god’ in the eye, Yuri. That’s irreversible too.

“Those runes didn’t heal my mind. I can still see those transparent limbs. You and I both know—I can’t turn back now.”

He passed the speechless Yuri, leaving Wendy and Semler behind, and approached an empty platform, slowly lying down.

The neural tendrils and biochemical tissues immediately began to writhe on their own, creeping along the platform’s edge toward Magnum.

Looking around, Magnum gave a self-mocking smile. “Maybe we never should have taken this path in the first place…”

Amid the writhing tendrils, Semler came to the platform’s side. His eyes were complicated as he looked at Magnum lying there, but in the end, he said nothing to stop him. Instead, he calmly asked, “Any last words?”

“…No last words. But if you see His Holiness the Pope again, give him a good brag for me.”

“Will do.”

The tendrils spread over the back of Magnum’s head, and the chilling sound of flesh and mind fusing echoed faintly in the dim light.

Yuri came to the platform as well, looking at his longtime friend. “Anything you want to say to me?”

Magnum looked at Yuri, slowly cracked a smile, and raised his right hand—slowly, deliberately—flipping him the middle finger.

“I think doing this is already…”

His hand slowly dropped.

After a brief pause, the murmurs of all the brain servants’ dreams in the hall fell silent.

(End of chapter)