Chapter 101: Time to Get Nasty
How beautiful were Flora’s collarbones? When she was alive, many yearned for a glimpse. However, as a Saint of the Church, her attire was strictly regulated. Regardless of the season, she was always adorned in elaborate gowns that concealed her figure, leaving little to the imagination. The only ones who regularly saw her were her personal maids, but they were strictly forbidden from discussing the Saint’s physical attributes.
Now, Abyss, gazing directly at Flora, was arguably the luckiest man alive. If her former admirers knew, they would drown him in their collective spit.
Although Flora belonged to the Northern human race, the predominant race in the Western Empire, lacking any elven ancestry, her skin was as smooth and delicate as the highest-ranking Gray Elf’s, fair and translucent, the faint blue lines of her veins adding a touch of allure.
Her collarbones were delicately sculpted, her perfectly maintained physique, a result of the Church’s meticulous care, making her slender yet healthy. Even Abyss, who harbored no untoward thoughts towards women, couldn’t help but admire her perfection.
But Flora’s hands didn’t stop. She slowly unfastened her undergarments, her face flushed, revealing…
A fist-sized hole in her flat abdomen, exposing her pink intestines.
“Abyss, my body is rotting… Can you help me?” she pleaded, her voice filled with anguish.
Abyss stared at her, his expression unreadable.
“My body is rotting, Abyss. Can you fix it? I don’t want to be like this… It’s so ugly… Abyss… Abyss…”
Leona, beside her, rolled up her pant leg, revealing a skeletal leg. “ABC, help me, I’m rotting too…”
“Tsk…”
A surge of anger welled up within Abyss.
This wasn’t the real world! It was a seamless, meticulously crafted nightmare! He had to admit, he had been fooled for a moment!
Being tricked was one thing. Abyss wasn’t a sore loser. He could accept defeat and seek revenge later. But this nightmare dared to mock his beloved, kind, and trustworthy followers, and that truly angered him.
The last time he had felt this angry was when he encountered that arrogant fool of a necromancer who was being manipulated yet remained oblivious.
Abyss stood up, ignoring the pleas for help from the fake Flora and Leona behind him, and walked out of the tent.
As expected, the location was the same as in the other soldiers’ dreams, their campsite.
The voices followed him, the fake Flora and Leona emerging from the tent.
If he started running, the unseen observer, monitoring the dream, could easily pinpoint his location based on his movements and those of the others. The wider his range of movement, the more accurate their tracking would be.
But Abyss didn’t run. He turned to face the approaching figures, their expressions vacant and mournful.
The fake Flora’s face twisted into a grotesque snarl, and she lunged at him, her hand reaching for his face.
Abyss swatted her hand away, but a searing pain shot through his palm. He looked down to see a burn mark on his skin. Fortunately, this was just a dream. His real body was unharmed.
“Abyss… Why won’t you help me… Why are you abandoning me? Didn’t you trust me the most? Didn’t you say you would entrust yourself to me? Why…”
“How long are you going to pretend to be my Flora and Leona?” Abyss asked, sighing in exasperation.
He dodged the fake Leona’s clumsy lunge and started jogging away, maintaining a slow pace. The dream figures were slow, he didn’t need to sprint. His mind raced, searching for a way to escape this dream, to trace it back to its source.
“Hmm… This dream is based on my memories, a manifestation of my fears… Not much to work with there…” he muttered, glancing back at the shambling figures, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “The observer… How are they observing… Hmm… Wait, I might have an idea… Since you’ve angered me, let’s get nasty…”
He stopped abruptly, his lips moving as he chanted a series of arcane words.
Magic swirled around him, coalescing into glowing runes that flowed across his body.
Then, the runes detached from his body, forming a rotating ring around him.
The runes were large, as if intentionally designed to be legible…
…
“Aah!”
A wrinkled old woman with a large growth on her nose sat up in bed, screaming, in a sparsely furnished basement. There were several chairs beside the bed.
Her sudden outburst startled the people sitting on the chairs.
“How dare you, Otia! You dare scream in the presence of His Majesty, King Kevin?!” a pale, beardless eunuch shrieked.
“Patience, Appos,” a burly man with a golden crown on his head and expensive leather armor said, smiling faintly at the old woman, who was still gasping for breath, her eyes wide with terror. “Otia, tell me what you saw in your nightmares. Report the location of the Restoration Army.”
The old woman stared at the crowned man, speechless.
“Otia, His Majesty is speaking to you!” the eunuch scolded.
The old woman, Otia, seemed to snap out of her daze. She looked at King Kevin with vacant eyes, her lips moving silently before she finally managed to speak.
“I saw runes… Runes that said… Vampire intestines! Vampire intestines!”
She suddenly screamed, her voice laced with madness.
“Vampire intestines! Vampire intestines! Hahaha! I am vampire intestines! You are all vampire intestines!”
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