Chapter 1055: Act 227 – The Dream Insect
Brendel also saw the door and carefully approached it, holding the Blade of Flames. He pushed the door open and immediately spotted Myad in the disheveled office.
To be precise, this was the seventh-ranked existence among the twelve high priests of the Shepherds, currently split in two, lying in the center of the room.
The wound extended from his left shoulder near his neck all the way to his right waist, slicing through his ribs and lung lobes, completely tearing apart the spine. Dark red blood and black viscera fragments splattered on the ground, while nameless insects crawled in and out of the corpse as if treating the empty chest cavity as a new nest.
Brendel had seen many corpses but still felt a wave of nausea. He used his hand to stop Medisa, saying with some effort, “You’d better not come over.”
In theory, Medisa had a much higher mental resilience than he did. On the battlefields a millennium ago, both the scale of engagement and the brutality of the scenes were a hundred times greater than what they faced now. As a commander of an army, the Elf Princess had long been accustomed to various inappropriate scenes.
However, regardless of the circumstances, Brendel still preferred to see her as a young girl of fourteen or fifteen who needed protection.
Medisa bit her lip, voluntarily stopping in place, seemingly not minding Lord Brendel’s care. “Is Myad dead?” she asked softly.
Brendel nodded. Like Medisa, he had guessed this to some extent; the bizarre behavior patterns of the swarm hinted at such news, though it was too hard to believe.
Historically, Myad had died around the time of the Stars’ Prophecy, having been defeated by players, resulting in a legendary battle that made many guilds famous.
Instead, this was a quiet death in some corner of the Imperial City of Rustra, nearly unnoticed.
The two remained silent, and Himelam looked extremely unsettled in the current environment, saying nothing as silence enveloped the three of them.
Brendel frowned. The current situation was growing increasingly mysterious and complex; Andisha seemed to have undergone a second corruption and had suddenly appeared near the battlefield at Cold Dew Manor, while the Silver Queen was acting unpredictably, seemingly abandoning control of the Imperial City—“Could it be that our presence is truly so important that it drives her to this extent?”
Myad’s corpse served as a silent warning. Ancient maxims were the most severe warnings, and now it was the same; this maxim seemed etched on the corpse and spreading across the carpet with the blood.
It formed words.
It warned him to quickly distance himself from this growing vortex.
Brendel sensed that something was slipping away from everyone—his and the Silver Queen’s control was charging towards some unpredictable direction.
“Is there any sign of the second corruption on Myad?” Medisa suddenly asked again.
Brendel looked at the twisted corpse and immediately found relevant signs. Just as he was about to nod, an uncontrollable idea flashed through his mind.
“If Myad died here, then was his swarm eliminated by someone?”
Medisa, standing on the other side of the door, noticed his expression and seemed to guess what he was thinking. Her expression changed slightly, and she replied urgently, “The plague mist hasn’t dispersed, so the swarm should still be present.”
But where had they gone?
“Where is the mother insect?” Medisa suddenly asked. “Its corpse shouldn’t be too far from Myad.”
“Not good.” An alarm went off in Brendel’s mind, and he instinctively withdrew. Just as he left his original position, a silent crack appeared in the carpet below, splintering the walnut floorboards beneath it as if struck by an invisible blade.
A peculiar creature lightly landed on the carpet.
It resembled a humanoid mantis, roughly human-sized, standing on two legs, covered entirely in a glossy black exoskeleton. It had a pair of compound eyes, reflecting light like mirrors. Its head was shaped like an inverted triangle, and its two long arms ended in scythe-like pincers.
Medisa took a step in front of Brendel, raising her right hand, and a silver spear appeared in her grip, but upon seeing the creature, she couldn’t help but pause.
“What is this? This isn’t the plague insect?”
Yet Brendel recognized what it was.
He focused on the dark red rings surrounding the two compound eyes and the similarly colored dot in the center, recognizing the creature’s origin.
“Don’t move.”
He warned Medisa in a low voice, also alerting Himelam, who hadn’t entered yet.
This was a Dream Insect.
He had received a set of mage cards from the two mage constructs—Enya and the Pendulum Man—in the company of the traveling mage, Hoshiman. One of the core creatures in that set, the “Adverse Paradise,” was the Dream Furnace creature.
This construct was originally a Dozeran Dream Insect, born from the Dusk of the Serpent Abyss.
Odin had mentioned this creature more than once. The Dream Clan was one of the three great clans of dusk, with the main enemies of the Earth Legion being the Crystal Mass, while the Giants primarily fought the Fenrir’s Sons and the Energy Clan within the elemental borders. The Dream Clan rarely appeared in historical records; it was said that they were the main force of chaos in the Second Dusk War, dubbed the “Nightmare of Doom,” which was the origin of their name.
However, after the first two Dusk Wars, this terrifying creature vanished, as if it had never appeared in this world. The Hazenians had modeled their Dream Furnace creatures after them, fighting for the civilized side during the Azure War. Since then, the Dream Clan had become the stuff of legend, as if sealed beneath the sands of history.
Yet today, they had reappeared before Brendel.
If it weren’t for its distinctive rainbow rings and pupils, Brendel might not have dared to identify it as the infamous Dream Insect of legend.
The Dream Furnace was merely the lowest tier of the swarm, while the one before him was an elite guardian, born with powers nearly transcending the sage realm.
Cold sweat broke out on Brendel’s forehead as he pieced together the origin of this Dream Insect. Myad must have considered this creature the matriarch of the plague swarm. As the king of insects, commanding the plague swarm would be a simple task for it. Yet for some unknown reason, it seemed to have suffered a backlash.
“Truly a case of dying by one’s own actions,” Brendel thought, unable to suppress a cynical remark, but this guy had put both himself and Medisa in danger: “But where did Myad find such a thing?” he wondered.
The Dream Insect had keen dynamic vision, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t sense Brendel and Medisa standing still. The mantis tilted its head, observing the two by the door, its mouthparts intersecting, with reflections of Brendel and Medisa visible in its compound eyes, as if contemplating how to deal with the two intruders.
“Himelam, retreat, run outside.” Brendel silently conveyed his thoughts to the priestess maiden at the door. Yet he knew this was of little use, as the Dream Insect’s greatest strength was its mental abilities.
They were psionic beings.
Indeed, just as Himelam started to step back, the Dream Insect suddenly lifted its head as if provoked, and an invisible wave collided with Brendel and Medisa at the door.
With almost no time to react, Brendel felt a buzzing in his head, and the scenery before him distorted. Fortunately, his extraordinarily high willpower blocked most of the mental impact, but Medisa was not so lucky; the Silver Elf Princess screamed sharply and fainted.
Brendel barely had time to catch Medisa as he saw the Dream Insect pouncing toward him. Its speed was astonishing, but Brendel knew that, in fact, its speed was faster than he “saw.” This was a dusk creature with powers equivalent to the sage realm. Although it lacked the power of laws, its basic attributes were enough to look down on the competition. The only reason he could see its movements was that the laws of time were at play.
He didn’t dare fully trust his visual judgment and preemptively scooped up the unconscious Medisa, rolling backward. His typical caution undoubtedly saved his life as a flash of white light struck the door, slicing it and the wall in half with a crack.
Brendel had no doubt that if he hadn’t moved or had been even a moment late, his fate would have been the same as Myad’s.
He glanced toward Himelam, who reacted swiftly and was already making her way down the stairs.
Now he needed to buy time, but Brendel felt a bitter taste in his mouth; it wasn’t as simple as it seemed. The plague mist had a range of one to two miles, and waiting for Himelam to escape wouldn’t be easy.
Left or right?
He knew the Dream Insect’s attack would soon follow. His current equipment and abilities offered him no help; he knew he had to rely on his rich combat experience from the past.
But this time, Brendel misjudged.
The Dream Insect did not move.
Instead, it suddenly turned around as a flash of black light pierced through the window glass of the Imperial City Earl’s office. Before this monster—this creature with equal strength to the sage realm—could react, it was accurately struck.
Brendel heard the creature emit a shrill screech as it was knocked backward, crashing heavily into the ceiling before falling down.
Yet its first reaction upon landing was not to immediately seek out its attacker outside the window; it didn’t even glance at Brendel on the ground but decisively smashed a hole in the wall of the corridor on the other side, fleeing without looking back.
“What’s going on?”
For a moment, Brendel was dumbfounded.
He instinctively turned to look at the office direction, just in time to see the window there shatter violently. The entire outer wall of the fortress collapsed under the force, and wind rushed in, dispersing some of the mist that filled the room.
Then Brendel saw the silhouette hovering in mid-air outside.
At that moment, he felt his blood freeze from head to toe. For a brief instant, he even wished the damned Dream Insect would return; anything was better than facing the person before him.
Because he saw Queen Gwendolyn.
The cold, black dragon-like pupils were looking down at him with a frosty gaze.
…
Alca was aimlessly scanning the surroundings among the crowd, searching for his beloved girl, but to his disappointment, he found nothing. The fervor in the square felt overwhelming to him; he was born in the countryside near Rustra, but he had once studied under a monk and received a decent education—at least as far as the son of a farmer could be concerned.
His humble origins and mismatched knowledge contributed to his sensitive nature. Such a person was innately distrustful of others; in his eyes, be they the nobles of the Empire or the lurking cultists of the secret society, they were all equally suspect.
However, he knew very well what these people were scheming. In his mind, the cultists’ so-called summoning of the angel Euphemia was nothing but a ruse; they were clearly inciting a rebellion, just as the heretics had repeatedly played out over the past few decades. This rebellion would undoubtedly fail, but the nobles would still feel profound pain—this was probably their only chance to take revenge on that arrogant queen.
The ceremony in the square was reaching its climax, but he felt utterly out of place among the surrounding devout citizens. He observed coldly, as if watching everything unfold through a window, his mind preoccupied only with concern for Cetty, whom he had seen being taken away by a cultist and had yet to return.
He felt a slight unease, and at that moment, low murmurs of conversation suddenly reached his ears from behind.
Alca instinctively turned to look, seeing two high-ranking cultists standing behind the crowd. He recognized them; they were the personal guards of the “Your Excellency the Bishop.”
“Lady Andisha ordered us… Why would the bishop care so much about a young girl?”
“That’s another lord’s instruction. Be careful.”
“But those Erluin people…”
“That lady’s arrival here was already planned. Be quiet.”
The word “Erluin” struck Alca’s mind like a nail, and a series of images began to form in his thoughts. He seemed to see the old Kent’s tavern shrouded in dusk, and he instantly became alert.
He strained to listen, carefully directing his attention in that direction.
At the same time, the high-ranking cultists’ gazes were scanning the crowd. The young man cautiously lowered his head, avoiding their gaze. After a moment of inspection, they withdrew their gaze and continued speaking:
“It’s not just us paying attention to her; even that queen is watching. Do you really think that madwoman would be interested in a bumpkin noble?”
“The Silver Queen?”
“Of course. So you best not get involved in the matters of the adults.”
“Understood, but how can the bishop trust such an important task to a country girl?”
“I’m not sure about that, but I believe the lord has his reasons. Besides, that foolish woman is particularly driven by revenge—”
Upon hearing the last sentence, Alca felt his heart momentarily stop.
That last remark struck his heart like a sharp blade, causing him to instinctively rise from the kneeling crowd. He hadn’t yet figured out what to do next when the high-ranking cultist standing behind him immediately noticed the anomaly.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
“Damn it, he’s eavesdropping on us!”
The cultists shrieked sharply, and the young man instantly snapped back to reality amid their piercing cries, watching the cultists parting the crowd as they lunged toward him. His first instinct was to turn and run.
