Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 818 - 817: To the Supreme Narrator...

News came from the lower communication zone that the "pollution" within the containment area has finally subsided.

Some died in those deep and winding corridors, some were temporarily driven away or detained in relatively secure rooms, some were rescued, and some continued to stand guard at critical intersections in the lower layers.

Listening to the latest news, Archbishop Semyr slightly relaxed his brows, but immediately sighed heavily.

"The good news is that the chaos throughout the underground ruins has subsided, all critical passages are back in our hands, and the status of all missing personnel has been clarified. Theoretically, there will be no more pollutants operating beyond our sight in the underground ruins," Semyr turned to Magnan and said, "The bad news is that many people are injured, and those involved in the fight have also suffered varying degrees of mental pollution. Although these superficial mental pollutions haven’t reached the level of being brainwashed into believers of Supreme Narrators, there’s no telling when they might suddenly worsen."

"Separate the polluted from the unpolluted. Polluters should rest in rooms inscribed with ’Deep Sea Runes.’ Those runes have been tested and are reliable," Magnan said, with a hint of fatigue, "It’s no longer feasible to contain each polluter separately and assign people to watch over them. We can only do this. Hold on until dawn...everything will be better."

"Some members of the restored Psychic Choir can help soothe those mentally impaired compatriots," Wendy also approached, "I’ve almost recovered too."

"Archbishop Wendy, others can, but you should rest a bit longer," Yuri shook his head, "You lost a lot of blood and broke through all the way from the containment zone. You’re not in a position to be soothing others now."

Wendy shook her head with a bitter smile, "There will be time to rest in the future, but if we don’t give it our all tonight...then there will be no ’future’."

Magnan looked at Archbishop Semyr: "How is the situation on the surface?"

"The surface is without incident, which is the only good news," Semyr rubbed his brow, "Only two squads that were executing dream control encountered pollutants, but they were swiftly dealt with. The remaining personnel continue to patrol and blockade the Orlandeau Region. The dream blockade in Orlandeau will persist until sunrise."

Yuri turned his head: "What about dream control in the underground ruins?"

"Given the current situation..." Semyr surveyed the hall filled with tension, looking resigned, "who would sleep tonight?"

But he quickly nodded and added, "Rest assured, I’ve arranged for monitoring and patrol personnel to ensure that not a single priest or knight in the underground ruins will fall asleep. The Supreme Narrator operates as a ’God’ in dreams, and as long as we exert absolute control over dreams, even if we can’t fully bind Him, we can at least cause significant trouble for His arrival..."

"Let’s hope our efforts are not in vain," Yuri muttered to himself, "and hope that the Wanderers from Outer Realm and Archbishop Selena can quickly resolve that ’God’..."

"May everything go well for them..." Magnan mumbled, then took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, gazing at the high ceiling of the hall, calming his unsettled nerves.

In his vision, between the pillars hanging from the hall’s ceiling, massive, transparent spider limbs slashed past, as if weaving something, or perhaps climbing on an invisible web.

Magnan’s eyes widened for a moment

...

In the desolate space shrouded in darkness, Gawain and Selena arrived by the fragmented remains of the Supreme Narrator.

This carcass rapidly disintegrates as if it were just an illusory apparition of a dream waking up here.

However, even after this dream-weaving God’s "death," the darkness around Selena and Gawain remained, the eerie status of Sandbox One persisted, and the power of the Supreme Narrator... remained!

"The divine part of the Supreme Narrator might still be executing His plan," Gawain quickly said to Selena, "This is just another battlefield he crafted."

In Selena’s hand, the portable lamp emitted a brighter light than before, illuminating the eternally dissipating limbs of the spider God, shining on the grasslands spreading into the darkness. However far it extended, the distant Dark Chaos maintained the same distance and state, with no trace of any passage leading to the outside world!

"Can you break this ’veil’?" she asked Gawain, with a hint of urgency in her voice, "like you broke Nim Sandro’s veil before."

Before Selena spoke, Gawain was already sensing the boundary of this dark space and the entry point of information. He frowned, his tone serious, "I’ve already begun trying, but I fear it won’t be in time. Sweeping away the veil woven by the Supreme Narrator requires considerable preparation time. When Nim Sandro acted, I almost prepared for an entire day..."

Subconsciously, Selena’s grip on the portable lamp tightened slightly, then she suddenly furrowed her brow, "Did you... hear something?"

"What sound?" Gawain paused, then likewise began listening intently.

In the dark, desolate space, a faint, seemingly illusory sound seemed to echo—

Gawain listened carefully, distinguishing the sound, layering on itself like a murmured dream, as if countless people whispered the same thing in their sleep, until half a minute later, he finally discerned it was the simultaneous whispering of hundreds or thousands of people—

"To the Supreme Narrator, to our omniscient and omnipotent Lord..."

"It’s the sound of prayer," Gawain said in a deep voice, "A large amount of prayer...but it’s unclear where it’s coming from..."

"Prayer?" Selena exclaimed in amazement, "The residents of this world should have already disappeared. Who is still praying to the Supreme Narrator?"

...

"I saw it again!" Magnan’s sudden loud exclamation caught half of the hall’s attention, "I see transparent spider limbs flying past the ceiling!"

"Everyone activate mental protection, Nightmare Mentors and the bishops, protect the technical priests!" Archbishop Semyr immediately called out, then looked up at the ceiling, yet as before, he saw nothing.

But no one dared to belittle Magnan’s warning, even though none could comprehend this bizarre situation.

"We can’t see it," Yuri quickly surveyed the entire hall and then suddenly turned to Magnan, "Can you still see it? Where is it?"

"It just slashed through the air again, it’s nearly transparent limbs, a very large spider, weaving webs here, invisible ones," Magnan looked up at the empty hall ceiling, his eyes darting about, as though chasing a prey no one else could see, "Damn...I’m one hundred percent sure it truly exists!"

"It’s the Supreme Narrator. It’s exerting influence on the real world, it’s breaking through the ’box,’" Semyr quickly said, "There’s a breach here...Magnan, can you sense anything else?"

Magnan pursued the transparent, ethereal spider’s trajectory, but beyond seeing the increasingly solid limbs, as a mortal, he had no chance of locking onto a God’s power. His brows furrowed tightly, his hands clenched involuntarily—but this situation evidently wasn’t something a mental storm could resolve.

"Semyr, are you sure no one is sleeping here? No one is praying to the Supreme Narrator in their dreams?" He suddenly turned, his red short hair almost standing up, his expression frighteningly severe.

"I’m certain, every corner has been checked, every priest, every knight, even every servant and attendant, as well as every village and town on the surface," Semyr quickly replied, "and..."

"Archbishop!" The call from the control desk interrupted Semyr, as a technical priest suddenly woke from a connection state, yelling loudly, "The time iteration of Sandbox One has been turned off from the inside, and the time flow within the sandbox is synchronizing with the real world!"

Semyr’s eyes widened: "What?!"

"It’s the Supreme Narrator," Yuri quickly came to realization, "He wants to enter the real world...so He must synchronize the time of the Sandbox World with the real world—time iteration was once the ’tool’ for his rapid growth, but now it has become his hindrance, so He turned it off!"

"He’s seizing control..." "Spirit Singer" Wendy’s face turned even paler, and at the same time, she felt something in her mental world was breaking free from its suppression, becoming active again, "The pollution is retaliating..."

Yuri frowned, straining to find any possible breach, and suddenly, his gaze froze.

He finally realized a crucial point that might have been overlooked by everyone.

"Archbishop Semyr, there might be a huge oversight in our dream control..." The refined middle-aged man looked pale as he turned to Semyr, "Have you checked the Computing Power Node Hall..."

"Are you talking about those..." Semyr finally reacted, "Impossible, they no longer have dreams, and someone is guarding there; it was confirmed just an hour ago..."

"Archbishop Semyr," Wendy interrupted Semyr, the performer’s face remarkably grim, speaking each word with emphasis, "those... are also people."

"Damn it! Damn it! We actually made such a low-level mistake!"

Magnan suddenly cursed loudly, bolting toward the heavy gate on the other side of the hall, and after a brief moment of shock, Yuri, Semyr, and Wendy quickly followed.

They arrived at the special isolation door, where Semyr pulled the call rope, and the sound of a bell came from the opposite side, yet the guardians’ response was nowhere to be heard.

The hearts of several Archbishops instantly sank.

"Force open the door," Magnan immediately stated, placing his hand on a crystal device beside the gate, "Yuri, Semyr, go activate the other three magic symbols."

Nobody hesitated. Three hands pressed down on the magic symbol crystals used for emergency unlocking. With magic power injected into them, the sound of magical devices operating buzzed from within the isolation door, usually not permitted to open, and finally, the heavy door retreated to both sides.

Several Spirit Knight guardians and a bishop in charge of overseeing the area inside the door sat quietly in the connecting chamber, appearing as if they had fallen asleep.

Perhaps the door’s motion disturbed the connection chamber, as a Spirit Knight’s helmet suddenly fell to the ground, exposing the empty armor inside, filled only with nauseating flesh mixed with gray-white ash.

Magnan immediately recognized their cause of death with just one glance: "Their brains were burned out..."

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

In the dimly lit inner hall, hundreds of platforms were neatly arranged, with neural cords and life-support tubes extending from the edges, converging at each node pillar. And on each platform lay figures in deep hibernation, responsible for providing computational power to Sandbox One.

The Brain Servants, who had already begun to shrink, lay motionless. Seen through the observation window of the outer hall, nothing seemed amiss. However, their lips moved slightly, opening and closing with minimal movement.

Hundreds of whispers converged in the hall to form a single voice—

"To the Supreme Narrator, to our omniscient master..."

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

He muttered to himself, "They theoretically shouldn’t still have the ability to dream..."

Wendy shook her head, "No, they do dream... the entire Sandbox World is their dream..."

Magnan stepped into the "Computing Power Node Hall" where the Brain Servants were located, raising his hands high but dropping them the next moment in defeat.

They couldn’t use the mental Storm, nor could they kill any Brain Servants... The Supreme Narrator had already taken shape, found the coordinates of the real world. Physical destruction could only delay Its arrival; if the Brain Servants died and the Sandbox disappeared, that god might immediately break free of constraints and descend anywhere in this world. At that point, truly all hope of turning the tables would be lost.

Moreover, the Wanderers from Outer Realm and Archbishop Selena were still "inside."

The Wanderers from Outer Realm might not die from this, but that is the most terrifying part; it means those who survive... not only have to face the liberated Supreme Narrator but also the wrath of another quasi-divine entity.

Everyone understood this, everyone thought of this.

Magnan’s gaze moved among the Brain Servants lying on the platforms; some had already shriveled up, indicating they had been there for years, while others were still like normal humans, clearly "new members" from recent years. Some platforms were empty, where Brain Servants consumed had yet to be replenished, and others were worn and old, as if used for a long time...

Suddenly, Magnan took a deep breath and slowly walked toward one of the empty platforms.

Wendy called out from behind; "Archbishop Magnan, what are you doing?"

Without turning back, Magnan shrugged, "Perhaps it’s time for someone from us to lie down..."

Yuri was startled and quickly stepped in front of Magnan, "Think this through! It’s a deep neural parasitism; it’s irreversible!"

Magnan looked at Yuri, pushed him aside with a careless grin on his face, "I stared at that ’God,’ Yuri, that’s irreversible too.

"Those magic symbols didn’t heal my spirit, I can still see those transparent limbs; you and I both know, there’s no turning back for me."

He walked past the speechless Yuri, leaving Wendy and Semyr behind, reaching an empty platform and slowly lying down.

The automatic sensing neural cords and biochemical tissues immediately started wriggling, moving along the edge of the platform, approaching Magnan.

Magnan looked around, suddenly letting out a self-deprecating laugh, "Perhaps we should never have chosen this path in the beginning..."

With the sound of squirming neural cords, Semyr approached the platform, looking at Magnan lying there with a complicated expression, ultimately not saying any words of dissuasion, only asking calmly, "Any last words?"

"... No last words, but if you see His Holiness the Pope, brag about me a little."

"Alright."

The neural cords extended to the back of Magnan’s brain, the sound of nerve and flesh merging resonating in the dimness.

Yuri also approached the platform, looking at his long-time friend, "Got anything to say to me?"

Magnan looked at Yuri, slowly grinned, raised his right hand little by little, and with firm determination, flipped him the finger.

"I wanted to do this for a long time..."

Magnan’s hand slowly dropped down.

After a brief delay, the dreams of all Brain Servants in the entire hall also ceased simultaneously.