Chapter 478: An Unfamiliar City
Adele and Hermione enjoyed the night breeze, drove around the city, and ate street food at a stall that was still open at three or four in the morning. They had one last intimate moment in the car before parting at dawn, sealed with a dewy kiss. By this time, both were decisive, because they had confidence in each other. They had promised to see each other on Saturday, and they wouldn’t go back on their word.
Adele returned to her dormitory. First Snow and Xiao Ai were still asleep. The two little ones had already developed the ability to sleep independently, which Adele found very gratifying. It was definitely not because she had been staying out all night or coming home late recently…
Seraph, the angel who didn’t need sleep, came out to greet her, and habitually embraced Adele. Even though the girl was covered in the scent and taste of another woman… Seraph didn’t mind. Even though she also had her own selfish desires, and because of her fallen state, she always wanted to do indescribable things with Adele. She kept all of this in her silent mouth and heart, giving Adele everything she needed: a warm embrace, a good morning kiss at dawn…
“Welcome back, Adele. I think everything went perfectly, right?” Seraph congratulated her with a smile.
Adele blushed. Of course, she knew that the scent on her body couldn’t escape Seraph’s nose. Moreover, with her ability, if Seraph wanted, she could probably observe everything that happened between her and Hermione tonight. She nodded.
“Yes, now I’m more confident… than ever before.”
“And not just confidence, but also trust in you. I mean, it was already very high, and now it’s even higher!”
“Next… I might go to sleep late.”
“Could you please prepare breakfast for First Snow and Xiao Ai, Seraph?”
Seraph looked at Adele’s determined eyes and nodded gently. “Of course, Adele.”
“And… good luck.” Knowing Adele as she did, she couldn’t be unaware… that Adele was about to do something very important. The girl always acted relaxed, and then chose to face those difficult situations alone.
Adele smiled slightly. “Hehe, I will.”
“Also, since my room is probably occupied by First Snow and Xiao Ai,”
“I’ll go sleep in your room~”
Seraph nodded. “No problem.”
“You’re not allowed to do strange things secretly while I’m sleeping~”
Seraph looked away shyly, embarrassed. “…N-No.” The girl’s hesitant tone clearly showed her guilty conscience.
Adele continued, “And you’re not allowed not to do strange things secretly while I’m sleeping~”
“Eh…” Seraph froze, and what Adele wanted to see was precisely the girl’s cute, bewildered expression after being teased.
Adele playfully stuck out her tongue, then lightened her steps and walked towards the upstairs room, leaving Seraph, who gradually realized something, with a faint blush on her cheeks.
“Adele… you little rascal,” she muttered to herself, her tone overflowing with affection for the little rascal.
Adele pushed open the door to Seraph’s room. The furnishings inside were still simple and unadorned, without even a computer. Seraph didn’t have much need for the online world, and for a long time, she didn’t have much need for the real world either. As an angel, she seemed to be something that shouldn’t exist in this era.
Before the return of the Lord of Heaven, for thousands of years, Seraph couldn’t find the meaning of her existence, until she met Adele and finally had an anchor that could stabilize her in this era and this world, making her fall in love with this world.
It was rare to fall in love with a world because of a person, but it did exist.
Adele took a deep breath of the air filled with Seraph’s fragrance, then did something like a “stage dive” at a concert, which was to turn her back to the bed and fall backwards without hesitation.
It must be said that the bed was very good, warm and comfortable, always there waiting for you. Adele kicked off her round-toed shoes, then tucked her little feet clad in white stockings into the blanket, along with herself. The girl closed her eyes and let the drowsiness that had long been looming wash over her, letting it take her into dreamland.
It was a hazy feeling like being swept into an underwater vortex, or perhaps falling from the ground into the sky, falling into a deep sea of stars.
………………
When Adele woke up again and opened her eyes, the world she faced had changed. It was a dream, but the girl keenly noticed… this was different from all the dream worlds she had experienced before.
Human science still had its merits, even in this mysterious world filled with abilities and magic. For example, human research showed that dreams might actually be a fictional world simulated by the brain based on everything experienced in memory, such as the environment, events, interactions with people, etc. The human mind could freely roam in it—but most of the time unconsciously.
In other words, humans wouldn’t dream of something they had never heard of or seen before for no reason, just like how people couldn’t imagine things they hadn’t seen.
But what Adele could confirm was that she had never heard of or seen the dream world she was currently in, let alone had any special experiences in it. Unless Adele’s memory was once incomplete, this was an undeniable fact.
She came to a vast and mysterious ancient city. Although it was an architectural style she had never seen before, with painted patterns she had never seen before, and a desolate environment with no one around, it made Adele feel somewhat familiar.
But after thinking about it carefully, she couldn’t tell where this familiarity came from. But if… this scene came from the original “Adele”‘s memory, it seemed to make sense.
Adele’s plan was to enter the dream world, find the original owner, and ask her what she was thinking. Otherwise, Adele wouldn’t be able to sleep or eat! How could she tolerate someone else sleeping soundly under her bed!
Whether it was called turning the tables or usurping the nest, Adele wasn’t that kind-hearted. On the contrary, she was a very selfish girl. So if you wanted her to give up everything she currently had, the bonds and beautiful memories she had gained in this world…
Adele’s answer was only those three words. Impossible! Absolutely impossible!
Therefore, the girl wandered through this vast and mysterious city, shouting at the top of her lungs, “Adele, I know you’re here!”
“Stop playing hide-and-seek, it’s not fun at all!”
“Adele, come out.”
“I want to talk to you!”
Even without a response, Adele didn’t give up. After all, she had failed many times. Even if she failed again, the girl wouldn’t be discouraged. In the dream, there was no physical exhaustion, no wear and tear on the throat. There was only a test of the mind.
Adele walked alone in the vast city, searching for “Adele”‘s traces while observing everything around her. She couldn’t describe the architectural style here, and finally thought of the word “all-encompassing.”
She saw nests made of wooden branches on towering giant trees. The houses on both sides of the road were huge, with doors about three people tall, made of pure stone, magnificent and extraordinary. On the other side were low-rise buildings. Adele only needed to stand on tiptoe to remove the tiles from the roofs.
It was as if one side was a giant’s country, while the other side was a dwarf’s country. Could such two races live side by side in peace?
While carefully observing, Adele vaguely felt an invisible gaze directed at her. This made her feel greatly encouraged, guessing that it must be “Adele” who couldn’t hold back.
What was she worried about? Or rather, was there finally something that even she couldn’t help but care about? Adele couldn’t guess what that thing was that made “Adele” care. But her intuition told her that perhaps she should go to the deepest part of this city. Adele was still on the outskirts of the city, far from reaching the center where the solemn palace stood.
The girl made up her mind and began to act. It’s just that the roads in the city were intricate, and she had to spend some effort to find the correct direction. In the process, the feeling of being watched became stronger and stronger.
This greatly encouraged Adele. And it was worth mentioning that although the girl had never seen, let alone been to this city in her memory, she didn’t seem unfamiliar with it… Being in it was like returning to a place of peace of mind.
But the excessively desolate and empty environment made the girl’s mood complicated.
“It shouldn’t be so deserted here…” Adele muttered to herself unconsciously. She reached out and touched the statue on the stone wall beside her. It wasn’t carved with the usual statues of gods or some important totem of faith. Instead, it was carved with ordinary scenes, like banquets, hunting, burning bonfires.
But with a little thought, these scenes carved on the stone wall would give people a huge sense of dissonance, because every scene carved on this stone wall, without exception, needed… human participation! Or even if it wasn’t humans, but Foreign Races, animals… In short, it would be normal for those lives to appear on it!
Otherwise, just imagine, if the delicious food and sweet fruits prepared for the banquet were not tasted by anyone, would there be any meaning? Who was hunting, and there should be people gathered around the bonfire, chatting or dancing.
But now, these had all disappeared from the content of the murals. The existence of all life had been erased from this city. After realizing this, Adele felt a chill run down her spine.
Chapter 479: You Should Go Back
Although it seemed like the beginning of a horror nightmare, if you simply wanted to make the girl back down with this sense of dissonance… you were thinking too simply. Whether or not this was “Adele’s” doing, the only thing that was certain was that Adele would definitely not be timid and run away!
Silently making up her mind, Adele continued to advance towards the center of the city in the distance, towards that solemn palace. In the unknown shadows, someone’s gaze fell, vaguely revealing a dim color.
The time in the dream was undoubtedly limited. According to Adele’s calculations, the flow rate here should be half of that of the outside world. However, Adele thought that she could deliberately sleep longer.
It could be said that if Adele didn’t see “Adele” today, she would turn this city upside down! She could sleep, she could sleep! Even if it left the impression of a “piggy mom” in Xiao Ai’s mind, Adele had to sleep today!
The girl really had unusual perseverance in unexpected places… But sometimes, just because one was willing to persevere, it didn’t mean they would get results.
After wandering around in this city for more than an hour, Adele stopped with a solemn expression, because the girl found that no matter how she moved forward, the distance between the palace and herself was still so far away, neither increasing nor decreasing, not shortening at all.
Was it a ghost wall…? It was really a classic. Adele had expected that she would encounter some obstacles and couldn’t achieve her goal so easily.
But like a “ghost wall,” because she had seen it too much in various works, she had underestimated it and never thought about it. As a result, it had become the first obstacle in her way.
But thinking about it carefully, it made sense for “Adele” to make such a choice, because in fact, it was precisely because of the existence of “ghost walls” that gave people the greatest psychological pressure, caused panic, and was not easy to break, that made it one of the most common traps.
But in fact, as long as you knew the principle of “ghost walls,” you were basically not far from breaking them.
The so-called “ghost wall,” if you put aside unnatural mysterious factors, was actually a so-called phenomenon of motion illusion. It only happened easily when a person couldn’t distinguish directions, their self-perception was blurred, and they didn’t know where to go.
The specific manifestation was that they were always circling within a certain range, unable to get out. At this time, it was necessary to abandon conventional thinking and pay more attention to the markers on the ground to be able to find the mystery.
Adele tried to find a way out using a scientific method. As a result, she quickly discovered… wasn’t she in a dream! And it was a dream she couldn’t control, most likely controlled by “Adele.”
Therefore, from the beginning, this belonged to the category of unnatural mysterious factors. It was simply impossible to break the curse of the “ghost wall” with normal scientific methods.
Ordinary methods wouldn’t work, so Adele simply started trying to break the curse of this ghost wall using her own method. The girl took a deep breath, and even in the dream, this feeling was still incredibly real.
Since it was the wall that was blocking her, she would destroy the wall. This, should be very reasonable, right? Adele slowly raised her hand, summoning endless elemental power to condense in her palm.
In an instant, the world changed color, the sun and moon lost their light, the stars reversed, and the world turned upside down—all from Adele’s imagination.
Actually, except for a small elemental bead the size of a marble barely condensing in Adele’s palm, nothing special happened. Adele, not believing in evil, used all her strength to throw the elemental bead out.
There was only a “bang” sound. The expected wall shattering didn’t happen. It couldn’t even break a layer of the wall’s skin!
“…Because, this is not my dream.”
“Not my home field?” Adele muttered to herself, summarizing the experience of her failure.
“If that’s the case…” The girl’s eyes became deep and sharp, full of majesty. It turned out that unknowingly, Adele had also grown into a girl whose eyes seemed to contain a lion.
—”Then let my dream descend… upon this world!”
With Adele’s declaration, space and time seemed to freeze at this moment. After freezing, it was like the shattering of creation!
Time continued to move forward, but cracks appeared in the sky out of thin air. Something was descending from the outside world… Or rather, it was forcefully squeezing into this space, this ancient city.
It was the entire modern Eastern Capital! It was as if the city in the sky was falling into this ancient world!
The collision of modern and ancient, new and old, erupted at this moment like never before.
“If I don’t show some real strength, I’ll really be underestimated,” Adele thought with a hint of pleasure.
She could feel that with the arrival of the dreamy city in the sky, modeled after the “Eastern Capital,” her power was surging back. It was no longer powerless, but it gradually felt like she could do anything because the girl’s dream was overlapping with this special space.
Perhaps “Adele” was the master here, and even Adele could only obey the rules she set.
Then… wouldn’t it be fine as long as Adele also became the master of this dream world?
The collision between rules, who would be stronger? You wouldn’t know without trying.
Adele raised her hand again. However, this time, what condensed in her palm was no longer a pitiful, tiny elemental bead, but a whole radiant sun, formed by countless elements from reality, shining brightly!
It could be seen that Adele had to spend a lot of effort to condense her magic power to this extent, because from the smug look on the girl’s face, it could also be seen that she was faintly tired. But as long as she could break the current “ghost wall” situation, even a little tiredness was nothing.
So, when the girl’s spell was fully prepared, she finally launched her proud attack towards the city in front of her.
And this time, the girl who had been hiding in the dark all along, the “Adele” who also had the same appearance as Adele, finally couldn’t suppress her complex emotions and appeared from the void.
“…Enough,” she said faintly, reaching out her hand, preparing to catch Adele’s attack out of thin air.
Good heavens, she wasn’t afraid of death! But Adele’s eyebrows gradually furrowed because she realized that if she didn’t stop in time… then wouldn’t the injuries suffered by “Adele,” who chose to stand in front of the city wall to withstand this attack, in turn affect her own body??
Don’t forget, “Adele”‘s soul and Adele’s soul both resided in this body. No matter who was injured, it would affect and burden the body! Ah, what a miscalculation!!
But who would have thought that “Adele” would stand up for herself to protect that wall! Did this city… have some important meaning to her? So she had to build it as perfectly as possible in her dream world and make it her home.
Adele was able to directly enter her dream because of her strong desire to see “Adele.” Thinking of this, Adele had to grit her teeth and try her best to retract the power that was about to leave her control.
But it was… still a little too late! At least one-third of the elemental power blasted towards “Adele”‘s soul!
Just as Adele couldn’t help but have the panicked thought of “This is bad!” in her heart, she saw “Adele” calmly facing the elemental core fragments blasting towards her, seemingly chanting something.
Come on! It’s what era now, and you still use chanting to cast magic!? Adele complained in her heart, and she almost thought of the scene where “Adele” couldn’t withstand the aftermath of her magic, was knocked against the wall, and ended up in a sorry state.
After all, “Adele”‘s experience was different from hers. As a Sequence Five mixed-blood vampire, she should logically be very weak… She didn’t have the adventure of becoming a witch, nor did she have the subsequent surge in power from inheriting the True Ancestor’s legacy.
Coupled with the fact that her chanting speed was really too slow, countless mages died because of this. Adele’s feelings were complicated. On the one hand, she wanted to teach “Adele,” who only knew how to hide and wouldn’t face her bravely, a lesson. On the other hand, she was worried… worried that she would be implicated by her. Yes! That was it!
Finally, the magic ball formed by elemental magic hit “Adele” without any surprises. Adele even closed her eyes, not wanting to see that pitiful scene.
But just as the dust gradually dispersed, and Adele finally opened her eyes, wanting to check on “Adele,” an unexpected scene appeared before the girl.
“Adele” was still standing in her original posture, without a single trace of injury on her body in her school uniform. In the center of her open palm was the dissipating elemental smoke. The girl caught one-third of Adele’s full-strength attack with just one hand.
“…”
The shock this brought to Adele was obvious. When the girl finally came back to her senses, one corner of her lips curled up, and she let out a chuckle, “…You, you’re not weak.”
“If you’re still obsessed with being withdrawn and refuse to talk to me,”
“Then I won’t hold back.”
After her words fell, the city in the sky, based on the “Eastern Capital,” continued to fall, and the power Adele could use increased exponentially. The next attack would not be a simple magic bombardment.
“…” Faced with the threat from the girl who looked exactly like her, “Adele” remained silent as always. But after the silence, she unexpectedly said the first words to Adele, which was also the only communication between the two in such a long entanglement in the dream.
“Adele, it’s not time for you to come here yet.”
—”You should go back.”
