Chapter 62: Dreamless
So tired.
Truly… so tired.
A heavy exhaustion washed over her; she just wanted to rest.
But horrifying images flashed through her mind, the terrifying blue demon grinning, splattering flesh and white mycelia dancing in the air.
Was this a nightmare?
Worse than a nightmare… because it was real.
The horrors she had experienced were real.
After an unknown amount of time, Luo Ling slowly opened her eyes, and the memories resurfaced, nausea and terror overwhelming her. She retched, but nothing came out.
Because this wasn’t reality. The flickering candles around her indicated she was in her mindscape, just like before.
“Forget it, I have to forget…”
Luo Ling chanted silently, desperately trying to empty her mind, to banish the horrifying images.
She couldn’t bear it any longer.
She had only managed to withstand the mental pollution because of the Puppet Ballad’s influence. Now, in her mindscape, she was facing these horrors as an ordinary girl.
When her mind finally felt empty, Luo Ling weakly raised her head.
The surroundings were similar to last time. Except for the first door, all the others were still locked.
The unique silver door at the back, although the candle above it was still burning, was now closed.
The first door was wide open, and Luo Ling glanced inside, almost retching again.
…Beyond the first door was no longer her room, but the terrifying subterranean cavern of Baiyan Village, the scattered corpses and dismembered limbs all reproduced in perfect detail. The only difference was a crystal coffin placed in the center.
And the white-haired girl lying in the coffin had also changed. Small, delicate white reishi mushrooms bloomed around the coffin, resembling white flowers at a funeral.
The sight of the white reishi brought back unpleasant memories, and Luo Ling quickly chanted “forget” several times to dispel the nausea.
After regaining her composure, Luo Ling finally understood the situation.
“It seems that after ‘eating’ that white reishi, my Puppet Ballad has also ranked up…”
Luo Ling, fighting back her disgust, entered the first room and stood before the crystal coffin.
The girl inside was still asleep, her appearance seemingly unchanged, but the inhuman feeling was even stronger than before.
Looking at herself from this perspective… was quite strange.
At the same time, the card displaying the Puppet Ballad’s abilities appeared above the coffin.
[Silent Extinction: Puppet Ballad]
[Innate Ability: Spores — Can parasitize any being with “Spores.” The host and the “Spores” share senses and vision.]
[Skill 1: Proliferation — Spores begin to grow and can assimilate to a certain extent.]
[Skill 2: Read — Spores take root and can read the host’s “information.”]
[Skill 3: Locked (50%)]
The new ability was… Read?
Although the third ability was still locked, Luo Ling had a vague idea what it might be.
Probably Control…
At this rate, Luo Ling was no different from a host of the Puppet Ballad. She could now use her ability to create Grotesqueries like the villagers of Baiyan Village, though she couldn’t fully control them yet.
The monsters she created would likely only have the instinct to consume, like the final forms of the Baiyan Village villagers…
No, no, she would never do that.
Luo Ling steadied her mind. That was something a Grotesquery would do, and she wasn’t a Grotesquery, not its kindred spirit.
Besides this, there seemed to be other changes as well…
Luo Ling found some unfamiliar memories in her mind. After examining them, she realized they belonged to the madwoman.
In their final battle, the white reishi, to consume Luo Ling, had gathered all its power, but it hadn’t been able to fully digest the madwoman’s power, only able to control her body.
This had resulted in Luo Ling also consuming a part of the madwoman’s memories, though they were fragmented, mostly recent events.
“‘Performer’… and ‘Scientist’ and ‘Artist,’ are these the codenames of the Harbingers of Calamity members?”
“…Too bad there’s nothing about Elsa. I don’t know how she’s doing.”
“Wait, Officer Liu and the others are dead? No, they seem to be barely alive…”
“‘Egg’ and incubation barrier, so that’s what happened in Baiyan Village… Too bad we stumbled into it. Perhaps it’s because our strength wasn’t high enough to trigger the barrier’s defenses.”
The last memory fragment was the madwoman’s despair as she watched helplessly, her consciousness trapped within her body, unable to move.
Fortunately, this despair hadn’t lasted long. Luo Ling had quickly devoured the white reishi… in a way, she had saved her.
Too bad Performer could no longer express her gratitude.
“If the white reishi hadn’t tried to consume me in the end, perhaps I would have been the one who died in that battle.”
In that harrowing fight, the white reishi had wanted to consume Luo Ling, or rather, merge with her, crush her consciousness, and successfully hatch, becoming a new Puppet Ballad.
But Luo Ling’s Devour was more domineering and unreasonable. The Authority of the girl in the void had somehow plundered the Puppet Ballad’s power.
In reality, Luo Ling wasn’t an unhatched “egg,” because her power didn’t come from the Puppet Ballad’s true form. She had no connection to the Sequence Forty-Nine Grotesquery. From the beginning, the white reishi’s plan had been flawed.
That was why… Luo Ling had emerged victorious.
However, did Ji Ying really appear at the end…? Wait, it must have been a hallucination, like her sister and the others.
If that were the case, she must have eaten Performer’s head herself…
Ugh, she couldn’t think about it anymore.
Suppressing her thoughts, a wave of exhaustion washed over her, and Luo Ling leaned against the crystal coffin, feeling drowsy.
In her daze, she seemed to see the girl in the coffin open her eyes, and at the same time, she gained a strange, new perspective.
From this perspective, a blurry gray shadow floated above the crystal coffin, like a ghost.
“Mm…”
But before she could see it clearly, Luo Ling’s consciousness faded into darkness.
Finally, she could rest.
A dreamless slumber.
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