With an ear-splitting howl, a pack of monsters emerged from the hillside.
They possessed triangular wolf snouts set atop human bodies. Their heads were covered in ghastly black fur, yet their torsos consisted of smooth human skin. Veins like earthworms pulsed beneath thin, translucent flesh, and muscles slid with a hard, metallic tension as if they were about to burst through the surface.
Polished steel fangs jutted from the monsters’ lips. Their bizarre, orange-like eyes bulged from their faces, rapidly scanning the riverbank.
Alice was so terrified by these grotesque werewolves that her limbs went weak. Her lips trembled as she asked, “Little Candle… what do we do?”
At that moment, a shield composed of razor-sharp blades appeared out of thin air, snapping onto her arm.
“What is this?” Alice asked curiously.
“A Blade-Reflect Shield! Any attack that could harm you will be parried and reflected!” Little Candle explained with a quick glance.
This was Wang Yue’s best option. For a young girl with zero combat experience, giving her a powerful weapon would be useless—much like a novice holding a gun who couldn’t hit a target just a few meters away.
However, as soon as the Blade-Reflect Shield appeared, it was instantly distorted by the power of the dream. The blades turned into paper, becoming soft, flimsy, and utterly useless.
The wolf pack charged down the slope at high speed, reaching them in an instant!
In the moment of crisis, the Little Teapot suddenly shattered. It expanded into a massive rocky carapace—resembling the shells of the Snail-men—and clamped down over the group.
The chaotic sound of footsteps and heavy, raspy breathing echoed outside.
The sound of teeth scraping against the shell followed. The Bite-Bites were trying to gnaw through the armor to drag out the tender young girl inside and devour her.
Knowing she was separated from those man-eating monsters by only a single wall, Alice curled into a ball, her heart pounding violently.
Fortunately, the Little Teapot was sturdy enough to keep the Bite-Bites at bay. After a while, the sound of their footsteps faded into the distance.
“Thank you, Little Teapot,” Alice said, climbing to her feet and pressing her hands together in gratitude.
“Aztod, what exactly is the situation? Did you change voluntarily, or were you distorted by the dream?” Little Candle asked in a flurry.
“It was a wish, Wright. A powerful wish to protect you all welled up in my heart, and my form changed automatically. This is irreversible; I cannot change back,” the Lord of Eternal Extinction replied in a muffled, booming voice.
“I see… it’s ‘wishes.’ The Snail-men wished for self-protection, so they gained shells. The Bite-Bites wished to tear things apart, so they grew wolf snouts,” Little Candle mused.
“This change seems impossible to undo. My body is too heavy and difficult to move now. Leave me here; you must keep moving.”
A small door cracked open in the carapace. Alice scrambled out on all fours.
“Goodbye, Little Teapot. We’ll come back for you.”
The young black-haired girl waved at the overturned great teapot and continued forward, clutching the Gaze Worm.
The terrain ahead grew increasingly steep. Almost every step was an uphill climb, and she struggled significantly.
The pitch-black river water resembled a flowing ink wash painting, surging with one turbulent vortex after another.
A long town built along the river appeared ahead. Alice finally stepped onto solid ground, and her pace quickened.
Shortly after, she was surprised to find that all the buildings in the town were solid blocks of giant stone, looking like unpainted 3D models.
The roofs, window frames, and doorways were merely shallow reliefs. The entire area emanated a dim, lead-grey light. It didn’t look like a place for the living, but rather a collection of tombstones for the dead.
Massive, eerily shaped megaliths were scattered throughout the town, resembling hieroglyphic animals—cats, dogs, parrots, lizards—varying in height.
Geometric rings were carved into the ground around these megaliths, looking like descriptions of scientific principles or perhaps religious sacrificial patterns.
Despite entering the town, the sense of desolation and sorrow continued to permeate Alice’s heart.
The deep crimson light surging from the horizon rendered everything in shades of despair, as if an Evernight was approaching—the final twilight of the world.
Walking past the rising animal-headed monoliths and the weathered, desolate buildings, the young girl felt increasingly isolated, a lone soul in a vast void.
An omnipresent sense of loneliness eroded her inner peace.
Looking back, the light of the world split everything into red, black, and white fragments. Her legs cast thin, spindly shadows that locked into the wedge keys formed by the twilight hitting the lead-grey buildings. It felt as if she were walking through a Kandinsky painting—disorienting yet breathtaking.
Suddenly, Alice felt a strange sensation on top of her head. She reached up to touch it, and her fingertips brushed against a gap!
She screamed in terror. Not only was the top of her head splitting, but black fissures were appearing along her sides as well. Her body felt like it was about to divide in two!
“Don’t let your mind wander! Your imagined desires will reflect into reality and change it!” Little Candle warned.
Alice realized with a start—it was her inner loneliness that was causing her to split into two people, so she wouldn’t be lonely anymore.
She fought to clear her mind, thinking of nothing at all. It was like navigating a ship through dangerous waters, steering carefully to avoid the reefs.
After walking for a while, humans began to appear ahead.
They looked bizarre. Some crawled on the ground with short, thick limbs and bodies flattened like amphibians. Some were stout with their throats wide open, revealing stomachs lined with multicolored gemstones—looking like pirate treasure caves. Some had tall crowns on their heads, stacked like towers, with a majestic vertical eye on every tier…
Their movements were clumsy and slow. Although they were strange, they weren’t harmful, crawling and walking through the streets and alleys, drifting in and out of sight.
Alice walked faster and faster. She didn’t know what was happening; she only wanted to end this bizarre, absurd dream as quickly as possible and return to her normal life.
Passing through the streets haunted by the strange folk, she reached a pool. Water diverted from the Black River poured into a circular, radiating shallow pit. Countless snow-white bodies were submerged in the black water, twitching and writhing as if electrified—an inexplicably macabre sight.
Further ahead, the town finally reached its end. The buildings grew sparse, and the streets were swallowed by wild grass.
In front of her, a massive Human Pillar stood by the roadside, about two or three stories high. It looked like snow-white “roots” and “tubers” crawling and spreading across the buildings, a sight that defied logic and reason.
This human pillar announced an end, yet heralded a beginning.
Alice looked toward the mountains. In her memory, they had never been so close; they surged and rolled right before her eyes, appearing almost within reach.
The source of the Black River was a gurgling stream winding out from between the peaks.
“This is far enough, Alice.”
Little Candle’s voice came from beside her, but it was clearer and more melodic than before.
Alice suddenly realized that Little Candle had regained his original form—the “Gemstone Baron” he had seen through the glass casing!
“Mr. Little Candle?”
Lord Aurora’s form was still distorted by the dream, appearing as a delicate flower made of crystal and machinery, blooming within the ethereal nightmare.
Luminous liquid was stored within the glass casing. Lord Cold Swan had become his cloak, with a crow-shaped button at the collar.
He placed a long, transparent finger on the young girl’s head and said gently:
“You stay here, Alice.”
“But… didn’t you say… I’m the Savior?” the black-haired girl asked, turning to look at him in surprise.
“A Savior is a vast and grand concept. Anyone can be a Savior. As long as you are willing to save someone—even if it’s just one person—you are their Savior. A faint light in a grey life can illuminate the path forward. It is even better if someone can carry the lamp for others, but that requires carrying a greater responsibility… You have done well enough, Alice. We will take it from here.”
Lord Aurora held the Gaze Worm and spoke to Wang Yue through this Special Grade Relic:
“Tell them the situation here.”
