Goddess Kaleidoscope

End of this chapter

A gentle holy light, like a volcanic eruption, rose from the runes on the magic circle, then quickly condensed into a golden, shimmering gate of light. Accompanied by a melodious wind chime, the gate slowly opened, and a radiant, long-haired beauty stepped out.

Having witnessed this incredible scene, the Baron and his siblings, along with the three knights, were all shocked, their mouths agape as they stared blankly at the somewhat ethereal "Heroic Spirit Sister" before them.

The person appeared to be around twenty years old, with long, jet-black hair that reached past her waist and down to her knees. She used a hairband to lift her bangs, revealing a delicate and pretty face. She wore an exquisitely crafted court robe and held a thick, hardcover book in her hands, making her look more like a scholar than a warrior.

However, what is most eye-catching is the part below her calves, which floats like a ghost, but without any trace of coldness or putridity.

At this moment, the heroic spirit looked around, her gaze finally landing on Ludwig, who had already stood up. She reached out her hand and spoke in a very sweet voice.

"Holy one of the mortal realms, I am Eliven, the heroic scribe under the goddess Evelina, summoned in response to your call. Speak your request?"

"Your Excellency, I would like to ask you for a favor: to use your power to enter a lady's dream."

In front of the Baron's family, Eliven, who appeared under the guise of a Heroic Spirit, performed a scene with Rudd, following the previously rehearsed script. Relying on her extraordinary memory, which she had been proud of in her previous life, she recited Rudd's pre-written lines word for word. Although there was a slight lack of emotion, it was enough to achieve the desired effect.

Therefore, the main purpose of the spirit communication ritual was to pave the way for Elijah's appearance and to conveniently package her, an outlier among the dead, into a high-class "heroic spirit."

It's worth mentioning that Rudd went to great lengths to achieve the desired stage effect and make Elijah appear more ethereal.

Normally, Holy Light is the bane of the undead, capable of inflicting massive damage on these undead creatures. Therefore, Rudd cannot directly use Holy Light to bless Eliven; he might just annihilate her.

But Kumirard told Lud a method: first, cast a non-holy divine magic defensive barrier around Eliven, and then cast a layer of holy light on top of that barrier. This way, Eliven, the undead, would appear to be surrounded by a rich holy aura.

In practice, this method was indeed feasible, causing no harm to Elijah and achieving the visual effect that Ludd desired.

Of course! The negative effects of contact with the undead still exist, but the corrosive effect, like poison, has a dosage threshold. Elaine, however, because of her good mental state, did not succumb to madness and become a vengeful spirit; her yin energy was much weaker than that of ordinary undead.

With one person and one ghost working in harmony, Lude explained the situation, and Elijah pretended to ponder for a moment before nodding.

Seeing this, Ados was thrilled and thought to himself that heroic spirits were indeed different from the dead!

"Let me make it clear beforehand that I can take you into this woman's dream, but dreams vary from person to person. Before we enter, even I cannot know what's inside the dream. We might see some very terrifying scenes, or we might glimpse someone's secrets that they don't want others to know..."

Before entering the dream, Elijah explained the precautions in detail to everyone present.

Luther summoned the Baron's family not only to have them as witnesses, but also because he planned to bring them along when he entered the dream. They were the old lady's closest family members, bound by blood and kinship, and sharing fond memories. They were far more suitable than Luther, an outsider, to heal the old lady's wounded heart.

In general, psychological trauma is often reflected in nightmares. What Lude needs to do is to bring the Baron and his siblings into the old lady's dream and turn the nightmare into a happy dream of family reunion, so that the old lady can cheer up.

It sounds simple, but dreams themselves are the biggest variable, because the dream world is often illusory and bizarre, a product of distorted thinking, so you may encounter things that make your sanity drop like crazy.

At Elizabeth's request, everyone sat in a circle around the old lady, and Rudd gave each person a sweet-smelling plum to put in their mouths. This plum, soaked in a potion, was meant to help them fall asleep faster.

After everyone took the medicinal plum into their mouths, Elijah floated in mid-air, flying around them while softly humming an old lullaby. Everyone felt their eyelids growing heavier and heavier, and soon they all drifted off to sleep. When they came to their senses again, they were standing at an unfamiliar three-way intersection.

"We are..."

"It happened in the old lady's dream."

Elijah answered everyone's questions; in the dream, her appearance was completely restored to what she looked like in life. For Elijah, this was a very memorable experience. Many spirits like to invade the dreams of the living, not necessarily to harm them, but sometimes simply to relive the feeling of being alive.

Lude looked around, and at first glance, the environment was no different from reality, which indicated that the old lady's dream was relatively "conservative".

At this moment, Miss Lisa suddenly exclaimed and pointed to a large tree not far away.

"I know where I am now, this is my hometown!"

Having lived in this place for over ten years, Lisa recognized it immediately. The thought that her mother had dreamt of this place moved the little girl deeply, and her nose tingled with emotion, for this was also a place filled with memories of her father and brothers.

With Lisa leading the way, the group walked along a path.

The little girl was eager to get home and walked quickly ahead, while Lud was observing her surroundings and soon noticed something unusual.

When they first entered the dream, the scenery around the crossroads was clearly that of a hot summer day, with lush vegetation along the roadside and blue skies and white clouds overhead—perfect weather for an outing.

But as they walked, the scenery on both sides of the road suddenly turned into the chilly late autumn, with dark clouds covering the sky and withered yellow leaves covering the ground.

The changes in the dream meant that the dreamer's emotions were also changing, and Rude also keenly sensed that something filthy and ominous seemed to be lurking directly in front of him.

Lud was startled to notice the anomaly, as he hadn't been able to detect anything outside using his divine magic. Whatever was ahead, one thing was certain: it was incredibly adept at hiding!

End of this chapter

Many people who can recall their dreams after waking up know that the transitions between dream scenes are very strange. Often, while walking or even standing still, the surroundings inexplicably switch to another place.

The situation that Lu De and the others encountered in the old lady's dream was similar. They were just on a country road, and in the blink of an eye, flames broke out everywhere, and they were "teleported" directly to the center of a burning village.

Lothar and Lisa were completely bewildered; this was not the hometown they remembered. However, Ados and the others were shocked.

"This place... is where we fought with our captain!"

"Here? That village in the Duchy of Norton?"

"Ah."

Ados nodded. This village was a place of sorrow he could never forget. His captain and seven brothers had died here, and the memory of them still haunted his nightmares from time to time. And what he saw before him was exactly the same as the scene in his memory.

But Lud discovered a problem. Logically speaking, the old lady had not participated in that battle, nor had she ever personally visited the village of the Duchy of Norton. If she only listened to other people's descriptions, it would be impossible to replicate the village exactly in a dream. This was no longer just a coincidence!

Just as Lud was about to ask Ados for more details about the battle, shouts of battle and the roars of wild beasts suddenly came from not far away.

Lude instructed Aina to keep a close eye on the siblings and not let them stray more than a meter away from her. This time, he led the group to follow the sound.

Soon, the group arrived at the edge of an open area and witnessed a scene that left them utterly astonished. Not far ahead, several human soldiers were engaged in a fierce battle with a terrifying-looking monster.

The enormous monster had the upper body of a human woman, but was many times larger than an ordinary person. It had long, thin arms and claw-like hands. Its lower body was a hybrid of a scorpion, centipede, and crab, estimated to be twenty or thirty meters long. It had hundreds of crab legs and three pairs of giant claws, and a scorpion stinger at the very end of its body.

Faced with such a terrifying monster, the human soldiers were clearly at a disadvantage. Ordinary swords and blades couldn't even penetrate its defenses. But these warriors did not retreat, because behind them, inside the ruined buildings, was a group of unarmed villagers, and the old lady was among them.

In the midst of the battle, one of the human soldiers was accidentally grabbed by the monster's upper body hand. Several huge pincers immediately clamped down on the soldier's hands and feet, tearing him to pieces in an extremely cruel and bloody manner, with blood and flesh splattering everywhere.

Seeing this, Lud quickly stepped in front of the siblings to prevent them from seeing the terrifying scene that could cause them psychological trauma.

"That's Neo..."

Looking at the scene before them, Ados and his two companions were excited. They recognized at a glance the soldier who had just been brutally torn apart by the monster, and the other warriors fighting the monster were the deceased Captain Kirk and his brothers, including themselves.

Witnessing their comrades' gruesome deaths once again, even though the enemy had changed from a large and powerful bandit group to a terrifying monster, deeply affected the veterans. Their most painful memories were stirred up. In Earth terms, this is called PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).

As the warriors fell one by one, leaving only the wounded Knight Cork clinging to life, the impatient Porthos clearly forgot he was in a dream. He couldn't bear to watch any longer, and even without any weapons at hand, he roared and charged forward.

Unfortunately, just as he charged out, the monster used its massive pincers to smash Kirk Knight into a bloody pulp. Then, everything around him vanished into thin air, and in the blink of an eye, everything looked different again. The village was still burning as before, but the monster, the soldiers, and the villagers had all disappeared.

Porthos, his face already streaked with tears, looked around blankly, howling in pain and helplessness like a wounded lone wolf. Ludwig quickly stepped forward and pulled him back.

As Elijah had previously stated, as dream infiltrators, if they do not actively interact with the things in the dream, they can remain undetected and watch from the sidelines, similar to a "spectator's perspective," and the things in the dream will not cause them any harm.

However, if they take the initiative to make contact first, then the moment of contact is equivalent to "the game starting," and they officially become a part of the dream.

The situation was still unclear, and Lu De was afraid that this straightforward and simple-minded man would "start acting strangely" too soon, so he wished he could tie him up with a rope.

Just then, cries and screams came from not far away again, and a large group of panicked villagers ran over. They were all familiar faces, and the old lady was among them. She was swept away by the crowd and fled into the dilapidated building they had been in before, like an ostrich burying its head in the sand, seeking a false sense of security.

Then came the familiar shouts of battle. The resurrected Kirk Knight led a squad of soldiers in a retreating battle, while their pursuers were hundreds of mountain bandits with glowing red eyes who did not look like normal humans.

The bandits' individual combat strength didn't seem high, but their numbers were dozens of times greater than the soldiers'. Moreover, like zombies, even if they were cleaved in two, their limbs could still move, crawling and merging together, eventually forming the terrifying monster from before.

The plot then became eerily familiar. Knight Kirk and his soldiers were no match for the monster, but in order to protect the villagers behind them, they chose to fight to the death. In the end, they were all killed one by one by the monster in a very cruel way in front of the old lady.

However, Lude noticed that the Kirk Knight seemed to have lasted a little longer this round, successfully dodging the fatal blow from the previous round, and was finally killed by the sweeping tail sting.

With his death, the dream was reset once again, like a movie that was put on a loop, playing over and over again.

"Master! What exactly is going on?"

After witnessing the tragic deaths of his deceased loved ones twice, Ados felt his mind was starting to sluggish, while Ludwig, on the other hand, seemed to grasp the underlying meaning. The old lady's dream was likely intentionally created, tormenting her repeatedly with the images of her husband and son's gruesome deaths, which ultimately led to her mental breakdown.

Only the dead possess this ability to create dreams!

“That’s interesting. This ghost is hiding very well. It’s probably been hiding in the old lady’s dreams all along, which is why we didn’t find anything when we used divine magic to examine her body in the real world. But now that we’ve found it, the problem is much easier to solve.”

End of this chapter

Ironically, the old lady, as the master of the dream, didn't have much initiative in her own "territory." Her consciousness was actually quite hazy at the moment. On the contrary, Lu De and the others, as intruders, had the ability to do whatever they wanted because they were fully conscious.

Lude's original plan was to take the siblings into the old lady's dream and create a warm and beautiful dream to heal her wounded heart.

But to their surprise, other evil spirits had sneaked in before them, creating this malicious nightmare that tormented the old lady's mind repeatedly.

Lude is currently unable to determine exactly how long this "thing" has been here, but it's highly likely that Main is involved.

While Kirk Knight behind him was engaged in his third battle with the monster, Rudd explained his new plan to everyone present. It wasn't too complicated: in front of the old lady, he would help the Kirk Knight in the dream defeat the terrifying monster—not just once, but many times in a row, ideally with creative and imaginative ways of tormenting it!

The siblings were still young and didn't need to participate in the battle for now. Lude told Aina and Shanis to stay on the sidelines and watch them fight the monsters. The rest of the people would join the battle and start fighting as soon as the fourth round began.

Upon learning that they would be helping the respected Captain Kirk in the dream, Ados and his two companions quickly rallied, each eager to get started.

Elijah told them that the dream world is different from reality. How strong they can be here depends on how strong they can imagine themselves to be. But this does not mean that they can become omnipotent gods in the dream world, because reason will set a "bottom line" for their imagination. When they themselves subconsciously feel that it is impossible, they cannot realize it.

After Elijah gave a rather cryptic explanation, the three knights listened with blank expressions, looking as if they understood but not quite. Seeing this, Rudd didn't expect these three warriors to fully understand in such a short time, so he patted them on the shoulder and said...

"Just remember one thing: we're in a dream right now, and anything can happen in a dream... Whether you understand or not, just get to work!"

"Oh!" x3

Soon, the fourth dream began, and the scene was familiar: a panicked crowd swept the old lady away. Those preparing to leave the scene immediately rushed forward, taking turns touching the old lady.

The dazed old lady only felt herself being pushed a few times. In the chaos, she didn't notice that several people had suddenly appeared around her. She then habitually followed the crowd and hid in the building. The people who had been given the right to intervene stayed in the open space, their eyes fixed on the direction from which they had fled.

"God said...we can go in now!"

When the Kirk Knights reappeared, the three knights charged forward first.

Following what Elijah had just taught them, they imagined themselves to be incredibly powerful, and with a thought, weapons and armor suddenly appeared on their bodies.

The three wore identical armor, but the plate armor shimmered with iridescent light, clearly imbued with powerful magical runes and divine blessings. In reality, such top-tier armor might not even number in the tens of thousands worldwide; it's typically a national treasure in the treasuries of first-rate powers, only brought out when the king personally leads an expedition.

Besides their armor, the weapons used by the three were also extraordinary.

Ados wielded a two-handed greatsword, also fully enchanted, making it shine like a glow stick. Porthos, on the other hand, carried a tower shield and a warhammer, both of which were unusually large! The tower shield, over two meters tall, was a full ten centimeters thick, and the warhammer was as big as a millstone.

That is, it's a dream world. In reality, even an ogre couldn't swing such a heavy thing, let alone dual-wield it.

As the ranged attacker and the most handsome of the three, Aramis was also the most flamboyant. His weapon was a beautifully designed elven longbow that didn't require extra arrows; simply drawing the bowstring would automatically generate a sharp arrow of light that shot out in rapid succession.

The arrival of these three instantly reversed the tide of battle, slaughtering the zombie bandits as easily as cutting vegetables. Even the Knight of the Dream was momentarily bewildered, seemingly wondering where these super soldiers had come from.