"With the power of a Rule
Dream power had always been one of the forces Leylin was most interested in. The Chip even still held experimental data and research progress he had stored from years ago. He had never abandoned his research in this field.
A seventh-grade Rule Wizard who wished to advance to the eighth grade had to master several sufficiently powerful laws, and an eighth-grade Wizard who wanted to reach the peak of the eighth grade had to discover their own path, using a particular power as a foundation to refine and merge their own laws.
Leylin harboured ambitions of eternity, so he had naturally thought through what lay ahead.
If it were possible, he would have preferred to use the World Force of the Wizard World — or even the
And apart from the Wizard and Gods' Worlds, the Dream World was the most powerful world there was — even surpassing large worlds like Purgatory and the Frozen Lands. Were it not for the regrettable fact that Dream Power underwent periods of decline, the ancient era might well have been a triumphant age of three great worlds!
Therefore, Dream Power at its peak was the most potent force available outside of the World Forces of the Gods and the Wizards!
Only a path of laws refined through Dream Power could bear the weight of Leylin's ambition!
However, fully analysing Dream Power and researching a way to circumvent its decay was an enormously arduous task for Leylin in his current state. Even with the Chip's assistance, by his estimation it would take at least ten thousand years.
Now, though, a broad highway lay directly before him: once he obtained this Nightmare Wizard's inheritance, the bottleneck of Dream Power would be resolved in an instant!
Such a powerful draw meant that no amount of danger lurking in the forest could halt Leylin's advance.
"Boss! Through interrogating the prisoners, we've figured it out — Miss Isabelle was driven into this stretch of jungle by them. And every time the full moon rises, something terrible happens in the forest. No one who goes in ever comes out alive!"
"I'm going in."
Leylin said suddenly.
"Boss!" "My lord, let me go!" Robin and Ronald immediately tried to dissuade him. In their eyes, one Isabelle had already been lost here. If Leylin also went missing, they could start preparing for the Faolan family's wrath.
"Relax! I know what I'm doing. And pass the word down to the pirates — none of them are to approach the forest or the dark-red mist. They should pull back to the coastline as soon as possible…"
Leylin waved his hand, his tone brooking no argument. His prestige among these veteran Scarlet Tiger pirates was, at this point, even more fearsome than Isabelle's. The order was carried out without hesitation.
"The contamination formed by the anomalous power of dreams, fused with the rules of the divine world?"
Leylin changed into his wizard's robe, donning the dragon leather armor directly over it, and took up the Roaring Red Dragon Staff. A faint roar from the dragon soul drifted from the crystal held in the dragon claw's grip.
Since he had previously refused Robinhood and the others' request to accompany him, being alone now meant he could use his full power without any restraint.
In truth, those pirates entering the dream pollution zone would have only been dead weight.
"Chip! Begin conversion!" Standing at the forest's edge, Leylin issued the command directly.
"Ding! Dream Wizardry template invoked. Arcane data fusion in progress. Beginning to load Dream Arcane template!" The Chip faithfully executed Leylin's command.
"Dream Arcane — Inextinguishable Bright Flame!"
Leylin thrust forward with his right index finger, and a speck of milky-white flame shot forth from his fingertip. It swelled in the wind, instantly reaching the size of a pumpkin.
Beneath the sacred white flames, the dark-red mist retreated in all directions, revealing the original forest landscape beneath.
"Chip! Begin detecting fluctuations!"
Leylin flipped his palm open, and the crescent rune that had shattered during the previous warning materialized once more. After the Chip scanned it and provided a general direction, Leylin vanished into the thick fog in an instant.
Any dark-red mist that approached his body was directly devoured by the Inextinguishable Bright Flame, forming a peculiar zone of isolation around him.
Leylin had decided to come exploring, so naturally he was not without some measure of confidence—these Dream Arcane arts were his trump card!
His research in the Wizard World had already allowed him to accumulate a vast number of Dream Wizardry templates. Subsequently, he had obtained the legacy of the
With all of that, combined with the Chip's formidable analytical and computational power, converting the original Dream Wizardry into Dream Arcane was a simple matter.
"To deal with creatures corrupted by the power of dreams, Dream Wizardry is by far the most fitting approach!"
Leylin sighed, launching a dark-red fireball that incinerated a strange treant before him into ash in an instant.
Unlike on Isabelle's side, the monsters killed by his Dream Arcane arts continuously decomposed, with no possibility of revival.
"It's close! Over there!"
Suddenly, Leylin's brow twitched. A pair of massive feathered wings unfurled behind him, launching him skyward in a single bound!
At this very moment, on the other side, Isabelle had also reached the most dangerous point.
"Get lost!" An angry roar, laced with terrifying flames, violently shoved a massive centipede several steps back.
"Heh heh… Still too weak… too weak…" On the carapace of that centipede monster, there were unmistakably grotesque human faces protruding from the surface — among them even the features of pirates who had once served under Isabelle. At this moment, one of those faces opened its mouth, red light gleaming from its eyes, and let out a cold, cackling laugh.
The dragonfire that had burned onto the centipede monster's carapace left not the slightest mark, as though these faces and their shell possessed an almost indestructible defense.
"Become a part of me!" Another face suddenly gaped open, and a torrent of green corrosive pus rained down like a downpour.
Hiss! Hiss! Even Isabelle's dragon-scale defense let off plumes of white steam upon contact with the pus, and the searing pain of the corrosion made her furrow her brow tightly.
"Run!"
"I can't believe it's come to this — just the two of us left. I never should have pressed forward so recklessly!"
Regret was plain on Isabelle's face.
"Now is not the time to dwell on that, Big Sis Isabelle. I've been looking at our surroundings, and those dark-red fog walls seem to be thinning. If we can hold on just a little longer, we'll be able to get out!"
Karen tried to rally Isabelle's spirits.
"Get out… heh…" Isabelle's appearance at this moment was thoroughly wretched, but the greater toll had been on her mind.
She had never imagined that the bizarre, shocking things she had witnessed today outnumbered everything she had experienced in her entire life before this.
Ever since she and her subordinates had retreated into the forest, once night fell, all manner of strange and freakish events began to surface. At first they were merely grotesque pranks, but before long, they demanded a price paid in blood.
Trees that walked. Flowers and grass that sang. Stones possessed of battle qi. Even the dead rising from their graves — along with a multitude of clown-like figures, and countless other things she could not even name. Scene after scene assaulted them in succession, a dizzying phantasmagoria that nearly made Isabelle suspect she had long since lost her mind.
And her subordinates had fallen one after another, devoured by illusions or by real creatures of darkness, until now only she and Karen remained.
"That centipede humanoid is powerful — at least at the Legendary tier. I suppose we can only avoid it… Hmm? What's wrong, Karen?"
Isabelle looked at Karen beside her. The other girl had her back turned, her shoulders trembling ever so slightly.
"Are you hurt?"
The moment her hand brushed against the other's shoulder, Isabelle's expression twisted violently. "No warmth at all! You're not Karen!"
"Hehe… Cute Captain! If I'm not Karen, then who else could I be?"
Karen turned around, letting half her face catch the light — and Isabelle's pupils contracted violently.
The other's beautiful face was splitting open down the middle, revealing rows of cold, white, razor-sharp teeth, as if the entire face had transformed into a single gaping maw.
"Damn it — what the hell are you…?"
Isabelle roared. Terrifying flames coalesced into a ring of fire several meters wide, blasting the 'Karen' opposite her backward.
"Hehe… What am I, you ask?"
BOOM — the earth split open. The centipede with the human-faced shell burrowed up from below. With a cold smile, Karen thrust her hand into the creature's interior, and the two fused instantly.
By the end, the monster that had been masquerading as Karen was gone, and a pale face now adorned the centipede's body.
"Ssss…!" The enormous centipede let out an earth-shaking roar, spewing vast plumes of frigid air from its mandibles. The surrounding soil and trees were coated in a layer of ice.
"Clones, ice abilities, and this kind of undying trait — Gods above… Could this be some kind of divine monstrosity?"
It was the only explanation Isabelle could come up with.
The terrifying cold began to freeze her body, growing so intense that even the dragon blood within her started to fall dormant.
"No! I will not die here!"
Isabelle's eyes blazed with determination. The red scales covering her body detonated outward.
"Blood Burst!"
A crimson mist of blood knocked the ice away, finally giving Isabelle a sliver of a chance to escape.