Chapter 65: Disease

That the Divine Envoy of the Dream Sanctum was connected to this eerie version of Kolun County did not come as a surprise to Luo Wei.

But… why Clecia?

Or rather, why had Clecia been able to step into this eerie Kolun County since she was a child?

Furthermore, besides Clecia, were there others who had been dragged into this strange place?

The first thing Luo Wei thought of, naturally, were the streets that had been included within the ritual’s range. The problem was that Claudia was also a resident of those streets, yet she had no memory whatsoever involving the eerie Kolun County.

“…Clecia was born after the event occurred. Could it be because of that?”

For now, it was all speculation.

Beside her, Hathaway listened patiently to the entire description before speaking.

“Clecia… Miss… may I ask… have you… ever left… this… Sanatorium?”

“Sister, do you mean… in my dreams?”

The look Clecia gave Hathaway suddenly became much more timid. It wasn’t because they were unfamiliar, but because the sisters she had encountered before were almost all from the Church of Storms.

…The sisters of the Church of Storms went without saying.

One couldn’t deny there were a few kind souls among them, but the vast majority colluded with the other priests.

As for Luo Wei, although Clecia was puzzled as to why this strangely beautiful older girl knew her, she could feel a familiar, gentle aura coming from Luo Wei. It made her feel much more at ease.

“Correct. Actually… no need… for such… formality. Call me… Hathaway… or… Sister… either is fine.”

Hathaway spoke gently, reaching out to pat Clecia’s withered, yellowish hair.

Even though she was a soul, she possessed a somewhat ethereal body within this world.

It seemed that because of her status as a sister in Kolun County, Hathaway had encountered many similar situations.

“No,” Clecia shook her head. “I… can’t move.”

She looked toward the Sanatorium window, a hint of longing flickering in her eyes.

“Only when I wake up can I go out for a little walk with my sister…”

Hathaway remained silent for a while, then said, “Do you… want… to go out… and see?”

“Of course.” Clecia nodded.

“Would doing that be harmful to her body?” Luo Wei frowned slightly. Although Clecia had been able to stay in the eerie Kolun County before, it was a fact that her body had been steadily weakening during that process.

“I… speculate… it won’t,” Hathaway said seriously. “Because… of her… ‘Dream’… Path… talent.”

“Hmm?” Luo Wei was momentarily stunned.

“The essence… of Transcendental… Sequences…” Hathaway continued, “…is essentially… disease.”

This…

Luo Wei was somewhat confused.

All of her Transcendental knowledge had been obtained through the Dream Sanctum; in fact, most of it had been compiled by Hume. It would be more accurate to call her knowledge “unorthodox.”

Although Hume was a veteran old scholar with profound insights into the field of Transcendental knowledge, before that identity, he was a fanatical follower of the Lord of Somniloquy.

Therefore, his explanations of Transcendental power were usually descriptions like “Our Lord’s Blessing.”

“Could you tell me a bit more about that,” Luo Wei said seriously, “if there is enough time.”

Hathaway looked deeply at Luo Wei. After a moment of silence, she slowly began to explain.

This was the essence of Transcedence summarized by generation after generation of Transcendental professors at the Truth Academy through observation, experimentation, and rational thought.

Its ultimate origin could no longer be traced, but after verification, it had been confirmed as one of the fundamental tenets of Transcedence.

Namely: Transcendental power is essentially a form of disease. The advancement of Sequence abilities is, in reality, the worsening of the “condition.”

From Sequence 9 to 7, a Transcendental’s disease manifests in the form of ordinary illnesses, varying by Path.

For example, in Hathaway’s “Silence” Path, the affliction is Aphasia. Her inability to speak more than one word at a time was not a self-imposed restriction, but a result of the disease’s progression.

The priests of the Dream Sanctum similarly suffered from severe somnambulism. They drifted between dreams and reality, often unable to distinguish between the two.

Because of this, they tried their best to maintain mental focus, treating all dreams as reality and distinguishing them through specific “anchors” or mental hints.

Everyone’s anchor was different, similar to whether a top in Inception would stop spinning.

In the materials compiled by Hume, the explanation was that this was a “Trial from Our Lord”—to the point that Luo Wei had simply regarded somnambulism as a side effect of taking the Dream Path. In reality, somnambulism was the essence of those powers.

Only by possessing the disease could one possess the power.

It was not that one caught the disease after obtaining the power.

“Following that logic, wouldn’t the deities who master the Authorities of the Paths all be terminally ill?” Luo Wei remarked offhandedly. But she quickly realized Hathaway was a follower of the Gray Goddess and hastily added, “Of course, I was referring to the Lord of Somniloquy.”

Hathaway did not speak. Her gaze flickered slightly as she continued, “This… is the… dangerous… doctrine… of the Ancestor… of Incantations… Lilith.”

Luo Wei: “?”

How does this even tie back to Lilith?

And if you’ve already researched and found that the essence of Transcendental Sequences is disease, why would you classify that statement as a “dangerous doctrine”?

“This… involves… the second… part. Sequences… 6… to… 4,” Hathaway continued.

Sequences 7 through 9 were still within the realm of mortals; the diseases they suffered from were similar to ordinary illnesses.

Without relying on rituals to sacrifice a price and draw a deity’s gaze, what they could actually achieve was extremely limited.

They could enhance their constitution, perception, and intuition, and possessed some Path-related abilities, but the influence they could exert was relatively small.

Setting aside the Dream Sanctum priests who were not specialized in direct combat, even Etheline of the Crimson Troupe could only flee when encountering a fully armed squad of Enforcement Guards.

Unless a ritual was prepared in advance to call upon a deity’s gaze at a massive price, they could not contend with Enforcement Guards wielding incantation weapons.

The lethality of incantation weapons didn’t come solely from the engravings; the power of the firearms themselves was not low, rivaling the power of Sequences 7 through 9.

Sequence 7 to Sequence 6 was a dividing line. It represented the metamorphosis of the disease and was the threshold where a Transcendental truly possessed “Supernatural” power.

Hathaway used her own situation as an example. If she were to advance to Sequence 6, her Aphasia would manifest “alienated” characteristics.

At that point, the words Hathaway spoke and the characters she wrote would be distorted into unspeakable whispers and utterly malicious cursed scripts, causing her to lose almost all ability to communicate with others.

As for sign language… that was also a form of “language” and would similarly fail.

At that stage, Aphasia would sever the very “ability to communicate.”

In exchange, however, Hathaway would gain much stronger Transcendental abilities, reaching the realm of the truly “Supernatural.”

The basic ability of the “Silence” Authority could prohibit others from using Transcendental means. Even incantations and rituals would fail within the range of that Authority.

Of course, this wasn’t unconditional; they at least couldn’t be significantly stronger than herself.

To silence a deity, it would take another deity.

Hathaway only gave a brief introduction and did not delve deeper, nor did she discuss Sequences 3 through 1.

Luo Wei wanted to press further, but Hathaway simply shook her head and stopped explaining.

“Sequences 6 to 4 are Transcendentals… Sequences 3 to 1 should be… Deities?”

Luo Wei thought carefully. If it were that section, Hathaway, as a follower of a deity, indeed couldn’t speak of it lightly.

However, even with the simple explanation, the conversation took quite a while due to Hathaway’s Aphasia.

Clecia understood none of it, looking at the two older sisters before her with a mix of ignorance and distress.

“So, my illness… is actually something very impressive?”

“Yes.”

Luo Wei nodded, sighing with emotion. “The realm that others have to use countless magic potions and rituals to reach is, for you, just a layer of paper that hasn’t been poked through yet.”

Thinking about it now, the so-called “Advancement Potions” should more accurately be called “poisons.” They were essentially designed to make one contract a specific disease.

The reason they needed to be combined with an advancement ritual was because only through the guidance of a ritual could one follow the Path Authorities held by a deity and step into the Transcendental Sequence.

Without the potion, there was no disease, and thus no source of power for the Sequence.

Without the ritual, there would be no Path guidance, and the disease would be just a disease.

Both were indispensable.

Yet Clecia’s symptoms were at a level that should only appear at Sequence 7.

Her soul and body could inadvertently wander into dreams; after specific strengthening from the Dream Sanctum, she could even stay in dreams for long periods. This was by no means something an ordinary person could achieve.

Clecia only needed an advancement ritual to complete her metamorphosis.

But that couldn’t be done.

For some reason, Clecia’s soul was incredibly fragile, even unable to withstand the guidance of a ritual itself.

Reasonably speaking, since she possessed talent for the Dream Path, her soul should be far stronger than an average person’s; it shouldn’t be this fragile.

After thinking for a moment, Luo Wei said, “We’ll set the matter of Clecia going outside aside for now. Miss Hathaway, under these circumstances… there are things I need to discuss with you. Let’s talk outside.”

Hathaway hesitated slightly, glanced at Clecia, and then nodded.

Clecia obediently turned her little head away. She knew that this sister wanted to say something that had to be kept from her.

She was very clever and knew she shouldn’t be curious about things she wasn’t supposed to know.

After leaving the room and walking to a spot where Clecia definitely couldn’t hear them, Luo Wei’s expression immediately became solemn.

“The Divine Envoy of the Dream Sanctum likely intends to use Clecia to perform some kind of ritual—from the current situation, it’s very possible it’s a ritual to advance to Sequence 6.”

“Hmm?” Hathaway’s eyes widened slightly. “What… Divine Envoy?”

Luo Wei: “?”

The number of question marks appearing over her head lately was becoming excessive.

After spending some time explaining, Luo Wei finally realized that the Kolun County authorities didn’t actually know much about the Dream Sanctum…

This was actually due to the nature of the Dream Sanctum itself. They drifted between dreams and reality, which was a disease in itself—one that was uncontrollable and quite obvious.

Simply put, one could tell if someone was a Dream Priest at a glance.

Wanting to be a mole? Not a chance.

Thus, the Dream Sanctum priests had almost zero ability to infiltrate Kolun County; they even had to be cautious about showing their faces in reality.

Correspondingly, Kolun County had no way to infiltrate the Dream Sanctum.

Although the two sides had coexisted in the same city for decades, they oddly knew very little about each other…

“…Simply put, the Dream Sanctum has a leader referred to as the Divine Envoy. He’s the weirdo Clecia just described,” Luo Wei explained.

“I see… so… that’s… how it is.” Hathaway nodded, her expression growing more anxious. “Since… that is… the case… we cannot… delay… any longer.

“Kolun County… in danger!”

“I know Kolun County is in danger, which is why I asked you to come out and talk.” Luo Wei sighed. “The reason we couldn’t talk about this in front of Clecia is because… her sister is actually a priest of the Dream Sanctum.”

“Hmm?”

Hathaway’s pupils constricted slightly, but she quickly relaxed.

Based on the previous descriptions, she had been able to speculate a bit.

From the fragments of their conversation, Hathaway could tell that Clecia cared deeply for her only sister; every time she was mentioned, there was a sparkle in the girl’s eyes.

Hathaway’s expression became more complex. She shook her head and continued, “Regardless… we must… let… Clecia… out.”

She held the necklace in her hand and spoke seriously. “This… Ash… can be… used… for her.”

“Why?” Luo Wei was puzzled. “Even if you need to verify something, is it necessary to go to this extent?”

They would even have to use the final charge of this Holy Artifact…

“I… must… find… the path… back… to Kolun County.” Hathaway said in a heavy voice, her expression grim. “I must… tell… Eliana… about… this matter.

“Otherwise… Kolun County… is in danger!”

“…Oh, you want to notify that Inquisitor, right?” Hearing this, Luo Wei finally understood. “Actually, if that’s all, it doesn’t need to be that much trouble.”

“What… do you… mean?”

Hathaway looked at Luo Wei in confusion.

“If you want to notify the Inquisitor, just leave it to me,” Luo Wei said. “I can enter and leave this eerie Kolun County as I please. I’ll just go over and tell her myself.”

“Ah?”

Hathaway was stunned. It took her a long time to recover before she pointed at Luo Wei and said,

“You… you… you… aren’t you… trapped… here… too?”

“I never said I was trapped,” Luo Wei blinked. “The only one trapped here is you, Miss Hathaway.”