Chapter 572: Water Dream
In Moncala during the night, a rare white fog enveloped the main island, filling the bustling night market where tourists were typically enjoying themselves. They were surprised to find that the lively streets had been filled with thick fog in a short period, even startling the old sailor on duty at the port.
On the outskirts of Moncala’s urban area, on the white street covered in fog, a man known as Dry Wing was flying swiftly above, rushing forward at high speed. The dim halos of streetlights flashed by him on either side, and as he beheld the vast white fog ahead, his expression turned grave.
Dry Wing understood that this unusual fog was no natural phenomenon, but rather an embodiment of some powerful extraordinary force. A formidable extraordinary being, not less than a Red Tier level, was utilizing their abilities across the entire island. Dry Wing had no knowledge of why they were using their power in such a way, but a strong sense of unease was driving him to quickly retrieve what belonged to him and leave this place of trouble immediately.
“This widespread sea fog… This is the capability of a Red Tier Water Elementalist… Has the Lord of Moncala made a move? But what could his purpose be?”
As he flew, Dry Wing shared his speculations aloud. Encountering such a situation in Moncala made him immediately think of who could be using their abilities. Although he didn’t know their intent, he sensed something significant was occurring on the island and decided it was best to retreat promptly.
Thus, using some extraordinary ability, Dry Wing sped through the air above the street. At that moment, he sensed a slight disturbance in the surrounding air, and a feeling of vigilance rose within him. Almost instinctively, he abruptly halted his flight and swerved to the side, narrowly avoiding a large water arrow that shot out from the thick fog. The arrow brushed against the hem of his clothing and struck the ground below with a loud bang, creating a half-meter wide hole in the solid pavement.
He was being targeted!
Seeing this scene made Dry Wing’s internal alertness peak immediately, and his entire body fell into a heightened state of defense. He felt a strong sense of crisis approaching from all directions and dropped to the ground, beginning to dash around nimbly, evading countless high-pressure water arrows shooting from all directions within the fog. In a blur that ordinary people couldn’t perceive, large water arrows crashed into the ground and pierced through walls, leaving dense holes across the cold street.
Though there were many holes in the ground, not a single drop of bl**d was shed on them. Under the implication of Dry Wing’s high-speed movements, even the rain of water arrows that were nearly invisible amidst the fog failed to harm him. It was evident how elevated Dry Wing’s reflexes and speed were, especially considering how challenging it was to evade ranged attacks in such limited visibility, let alone with this density of arrows.
While evading the high-frequency barrage of water arrows, Dry Wing also did not simply remain passive throughout. Seizing an opportunity, he pulled out a sigil he’d carried with him and activated it. As the sigil burnt in the air, embodying the meanings of “Shadow” and “Stone,” a violent wind surged through the shattered road, sweeping the fog surrounding Dry Wing away momentarily and deflecting the incoming water arrows off course, giving him a clear view for a brief moment.
“Lord of Moncala! I am here only to handle some official business, with no malicious intent towards you or Moncala. If my presence displeases you, I will leave immediately. Please let me go!”
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Dry Wing shouted towards the surroundings, wanting to clarify why the Lord of Moncala had suddenly attacked.
Hearing Dry Wing’s response, the large water arrows that had been continuously attacking from the fog came to a brief stop. Then, a vague, aged voice echoed from within the swirling mist.
“Return what you have stolen… or d*e here…”
“Stolen? Lord of Moncala… I came to Moncala to conduct legitimate purchases, not to steal. There must be some misunderstanding between us.” Hearing the voice from the mist, Dry Wing quickly grasped the situation’s absurdity and voiced his intent to end this meaningless fight with Edward, although he knew it wouldn’t be easy.
“A misunderstanding? Very well… From now on, cease your resistance and come with me to Junhai Fortress. There, you will unconditionally cooperate with all my inspections. Once they’re done, we’ll see if there is a misunderstanding between us…”
In the fog, Edward’s ethereal voice spoke again. As soon as Dry Wing heard it, his expression darkened, and he seriously retorted.
“Let’s discuss some practical terms, Lord of Moncala… Your demands are too outrageous…” Dry Wing replied, knowing that one Red Tier asking another to comply without resistance was utterly impossible. No matter what, Dry Wing could never agree to Edward’s request to go deep into his lair and surrender his entire life and assets solely to prove his innocence.
For Edward, as long as Dry Wing refused to cooperate with the complete inspection, he could not let him go based solely on Dry Wing’s word. Since the Fountain of Eternal Youth had gone missing in Moncala, the other two Red Tier suspects had long disappeared from his reach, so he was stuck dealing with Dry Wing. Moreover, the disappearance of the fountain had traces of involvement from extraordinary beings with dream powers, making it impossible for Edward to overlook the suspicious expert from the Black Dream Hunter Group in front of him.
“If you are unwilling to cooperate, then I will have to take matters into my own hands…”
Edward continued, and immediately his offensive surged once more. The fog, which had just been blown away, began to close in on Dry Wing again, accompanied by an even denser rain of water arrows.
“d*mn pirate old dog…”
Faced with Edward, who was entirely unyielding in negotiations, Dry Wing cursed under his breath and resumed evading the incoming attacks. Amidst the fog, he turned into a swift shadow, dodging the countless water arrows aimed at him. Seeing this situation unfold, Edward began to change his strategy.
“Don’t think you can escape!”
In an instant, the water vapor in the dense fog gathered towards a single direction, and the area where Dry Wing had been moving became highly concentrated with moisture. The original fog transformed into liquid water due to the rapidly rising humidity in the air. In a flash, Dry Wing found himself trapped within a massive water sphere, floating uncontrollably and losing his ability to evade at high speed.
By converting the environment surrounding Dry Wing into water, Edward successfully neutralized his opponent’s troublesome high mobility while simultaneously trapping him in the watery prison. Seizing the opportunity, Edward condensed several water arrows, hoping to pierce Dry Wing and incapacitate him. However, before he could make a move, Dry Wing retaliated first.
“Moth… manifest from my being…”
Soaked in the water, a determined Dry Wing murmured, bubbles streaming from his mouth. An unusual light began to appear beside him, and a pair of translucent wings with numerous intricate patterns and colors, slightly tattered and thin, sprouted from his back. Simultaneously, a translucent energy body made of the same material as the wings materialized around Dry Wing, forming a spiritual outer garment that effectively isolated him from the confining water, enabling his escape from the watery prison.
“Scatter…”
Suddenly, the colorful translucent spiritual outer garment surrounding Dry Wing expanded dramatically and quickly deformed into thick, translucent tentacles that wildly whipped about, directly cutting through the massive water prison enclosing him, making it crumble to pieces. If Doro were present, she would notice that the tentacles Dry Wing manifested bore a striking resemblance to those of the Pseudo Moth she had confronted in Navaha.
With the many tentacles conjured by the spiritual garment, Dry Wing dismantled the water prison. Just then, a new barrage of water arrows from Edward rained down, and Dry Wing used his tentacles to fend off the incoming arrows. However, these incredibly powerful spiritual tentacles passed right through solid objects like the ground and power poles, confirming that they were indeed non-physical.
The elements manufactured or manipulated by an Elementalist differ significantly from the elements found in nature. The spirituality embedded within them is incredibly high, and it is precisely because of this high spirituality that an Elementalist can command the elements. Furthermore, that high spirituality allows the elementalist’s control over non-physical entities like ghosts in the dream realm, explaining why ordinary flames can’t harm spirits, but an Elementalist’s flames can.
However, the interaction between entities is reciprocal; while an Elementalist’s elements can interfere with non-physical entities, those previously incapable of interfering with material existence can also affect the elements controlled by Elementalists. For example, the Pseudo Moth’s dream realm material could interfere with Edward’s manipulated water.
Having called forth the Pseudo Moth’s body as his armor, Dry Wing retaliated furiously against Edward, who was unwilling to negotiate. He extended his numerous transparent tentacles outward, launching chaotic sweeps from his center. Soon, ten or so massive translucent tentacles began furiously flailing in the air, akin to a fan, disturbing the thick fog around Dry Wing, causing the mist under Edward’s control to drift away.
At this point, Dry Wing realized that Edward had managed to launch simultaneous attacks from all directions and speak from multiple places by elementalizing his body into water, scattering it into this thick fog. This concealment enabled Edward to strike from various angles while remaining nearly undetectable and less affected by most attacks. However, Dry Wing was not intimidated by this.
The tentacles of the Pseudo Moth, being dream realm entities, could directly affect the mental realm. They were immune to the elementalization trick. Therefore, as Dry Wing’s twenty-meter-long tentacles swept through the fog, any water vapor associated with Edward’s presence would suffer mental damage if caught by them. The more dispersed Edward’s body became, the easier it was for Dry Wing to hit him.
“Ugh!!”
Finally, accompanied by a muffled grunt of pain, Edward sensed intense mental agony as one of Dry Wing’s attacks struck a part of his physical form. Quickly, he adjusted his strategy, gathering his dispersed gaseous body while evading Dry Wing’s sweeping strikes. Almost instantly, a humanoid shape composed purely of water emerged near Dry Wing, revealing Edward’s visage.
Seeing Edward manifest an observable entity for himself, Dry Wing did not hesitate. He swung his countless tentacles toward Edward’s water body. In response, Edward conjured a water-shaped longsword in his hand. Once formed, the sword rapidly expanded to about ten meters long, and as the massive tentacles charged at him, Edward swung his elongated sword, cutting through the assault of the many dream realm tentacles. In that instant, Dry Wing lost seven or eight tentacles to the blade. Immediately after a tentacle was severed, Dry Wing used his spiritual ability to regenerate and attack again. Thus, they exchanged blows, momentarily locked in a stalemate.
Faced with this situation, Dry Wing frowned and concentrated, releasing a powerful wave of hypnotic energy outward. Any being caught in that wave would immediately fall into a deep sleep, spreading rapidly and indiscriminately from Dry Wing, rendering it nearly impossible to defend against.
As the hypnotic wave expanded, all nearby life forms within a two to three-kilometer radius fell into a deep slumber, even those previously walking about collapsed without a clue of what was happening. However, when this powerful wave reached Edward, it merely caused him to pause momentarily before he continued moving, cutting down approaching tentacles. This scene caused Dry Wing to furrow his brows tightly.
Aware he was dealing with an extraordinary being from the Black Dream Hunter Group, Edward had prepared extensively beforehand. Since sleep was fundamentally a process of one’s spirit entering the dream realm, he had linked his spirit to another inner realm through some extraordinary ritual, ensuring he wasn’t lured into the dream world. At this moment, Edward’s spirit was bound to an extraordinary item, which was then sent into the water realm to serve as an anchor. Now, Edward’s spirit was all but tethered to the water realm, making it difficult for the dream realm to entice him. As long as Edward’s spirit did not enter the dream world, he would never be forced into slumber.
With his resistance to hypnosis, as Edward severed another tentacle, he launched a counterattack, turning his gaze toward Dry Wing, whose armor was protected by the dream realm entities, seemingly preparing to strike.
Suddenly, Dry Wing felt an intense, sharp pain gnawing inside his chest. Shocked, he clutched his chest, his eyes widening as he spat out bl**d, staggering almost to the ground.
“What… when… how could this…”
Gazing at the bl**d pooling on the ground, Dry Wing mumbled in disbelief. He had clearly sensed that his physical condition had been attacked and his internal organs had suffered serious damage, but he had no idea how it came to be.
On the other side, Edward couldn’t help but wear a triumphant smile upon seeing Dry Wing spitting bl**d. The plans he had plotted from before the battle had finally come to fruition.
The nature of the situation stemmed from the extraordinary silver basin that Edward possessed. This basin had the unique effect of disseminating Edward’s spirituality across the entire island in an extremely diluted state, allowing the water vapor in the air to contain traces of Edward’s spirit. So diluted that it almost resembled the subtle spirituality inherent in nature; unless one possessed a strong “Lamp” or “Cup” spiritual perception, they wouldn’t notice the minute changes in the air’s spirituality.
Elementalists manipulate elements by adding spirituality to them. However, when that spirituality is so diluted and spread across such vast spaces, even a Red Tier Water Elementalist like Edward loses contact with that spirituality. The spirituality that became attached to ordinary water vapor acted as natural spirituality. Yet, this was Moncala, where Edward’s special arrangements allowed him to maintain a connection with the spirituality within those water molecules.
Though this connection was weak—so weak that Edward couldn’t control the thin spirituality dispersed via the silver basin—it still enabled him to perceive things. Especially when someone inhaled the air containing Edward’s spiritual traces, like how Dry Wing inhaled the air in Moncala without realizing it.
Dry Wing was equivalent to a Red Tier “Shadow” extraordinary being; externally forcing him to use extraordinary powers was incredibly challenging, but internally the situation was different.
When Dry Wing unwittingly inhaled the water vapor infused with Edward’s spirituality, it entered his body, circumventing his anti-extraordinary detection defenses. Edward could perceive Dry Wing’s existence through the spirituality present within him, understanding the type of extraordinary being he was. Additionally, as long as someone inhaled Edward’s spiritually-laden water vapor within Moncala, Edward would know where they were, whether they were extraordinary beings, and what type they were. This is how Edward located Dry Wing.
Moreover, while Edward couldn’t directly control the incredibly diluted spiritual essence in the air, those spiritual traces would be gradually attracted and retained by the human body during respiration, gradually accumulating within the human system. After enough inhalation, the density of Edward’s spirituality within a person would eventually become sufficient for Edward to manipulate.
Dry Wing had thought the ordinary mist was the only place with Edward’s spirituality, but he was unaware that the ordinary air contained it too, and he could sense none of it.
Now, Dry Wing found himself in such a predicament. Throughout the journey and combat, he had breathed in far too much of Moncala’s air, and the spirituality of Edward that accumulated in his body had reached a level that was manipulable by Edward. Recognizing the difficulty of attacking the dream entity defenses directly, Edward bided his time until the moment Dry Wing’s internal spirituality met the threshold before making his decisive move, controlling the water within Dry Wing’s body to damage his internal organs, while Dry Wing remained entirely unaware.
