Succubus cannot be a saint

........................

The next evening.

After returning to the lord's mansion yesterday, Du Mudan mustered up the courage to ask Sally for her storage ring, took out various medicines and ritual utensils from it, and finally set up an elaborate dream-entering ritual in Sally's bedroom.

As for the dream potion prepared by Coresa, she told Velie through the communication mirror on the way here and asked the little black cat to send someone to deliver it over.

But even so, she was still trembling with fear, treading on thin ice. The reason was simple: this little girl's sister, the Succubus Knight, was staring at her at the door with eyes as sharp as knives.

Now that they were in the lair of the succubus, Durenna didn't bother pretending to be human. She showed her succubus posture openly, with her slender and straight figure leaning against the door, holding a long sword in her hand, and a murderous look on her pretty face. Her originally beautiful and handsome face had a hint of devilishness and evil under the influence of the succubus.

Her slender, upturned red eyes stared at the poisonous peony in the room without blinking, as if to say: If anything happens to Sally, you, a cultist, will never die a quick death.

On the bed in the center of the room lay a little girl who looked almost identical to her. She was about thirteen or fourteen years old, with the same sheep-like horns on her head. Compared to her sister, her features were less sharp and heroic, more childish and innocent. However, due to her succubus transformation, she also had a certain alluring and evil quality.

However, the girl's eyes were closed and she lay motionless on the bed. There was no life on her pale face. Only her steady and long breathing proved that she was just asleep.

"How are the preparations going?" Sharlelei walked into the room accompanied by a soft and sweet female voice. Durenna immediately bowed and saluted, "Lady Saint."

"It's all ready." Du Mudan bowed slightly with a stiff expression.

"Okay, let's get started." Sharlelei came to Sally's side, gently brushed away her messy hair, and looked at the girl's pale face lovingly. "But I've changed my mind. It's not you who goes in, but you who sends me into that 'dream catcher'."

Volume 3: The Faith Revolution of the Succubus Saint: Chapter 220: Dream Catcher

"Send you... send you in?" Du Mudan was startled, and Durenna's face suddenly changed. She asked repeatedly: "Saint Lady, is this a bit inappropriate? You... um, your injury..."

"I've almost recovered from the mental shock I suffered, so I'm fine." Shalelei waved her hand. "Besides, even if I'm willing to wait, Sally can't wait that long."

As early as yesterday, Poison Peony explained to Shalelei and Durenna what exactly the "Dream Catcher" is -

It was a dream web constructed by the Nightmare Cult, using countless dormant "dream servants" as spiritual nodes. The mental energy of countless people was harnessed to create a virtual dream world indistinguishable from the real world.

However, the "Dream Catcher" project is still in the experimental stage. It is a mental network created by roughly using the powerful mental power of the Nightmare Pope and a group of Nightmare Bishops to forcibly unify the minds of those "dream servants". Its structure is not stable.

"It's extremely difficult to connect and synchronize the minds of different people," said Poison Peony. "Everyone's mental fluctuations are different, like countless differently shaped teeth. Trying to mesh them together is as difficult as climbing to the sky."

——Therefore, in order to prevent the entire cult from being affected in the event of an incident, the Nightmare Cult isolated the "Dream Catcher" from the dreams of most of its members, and only had the Nightmare Bishops patrol and guard it.

According to Du Mudan, there are two types of dream servants used to set up dream catchers. One type is the "shallow dream servants" who only access the Internet when they are dreaming and whose daily lives are not affected. There are a huge number of them, probably tens of thousands.

Often after the Nightmare Cult infiltrates a town, all the residents may unknowingly become shallow dream servants. Derek and the members of the Volo family belonged to this category.

Shallow dream servants will only have their excess mental energy extracted to supply the dream catcher. They themselves are completely unaware of this and cannot even remember what they dreamed about.

When she heard that there were so many shallow dream servants, affecting more than a dozen or even dozens of noble territories in the three human kingdoms, Sharlelei couldn't help but gasp and felt a chill down her spine.

She knew that the Nightmare Cult was an old cult organization that had existed for hundreds of years, but she had never expected it to be so deeply rooted in the human kingdom!

What's even more terrifying is that it is difficult to distinguish between ordinary people and shallow dream servants using ordinary methods. Even Sharlelei has no idea how to distinguish between ordinary people and shallow dream servants in the Western Territory.

Fortunately, as far as Poison Peony knows, the Nightmare Cult is currently working on stabilizing the dream catcher and has no plans to use the dream catcher to reversely influence dream servants and thus achieve large-scale mind manipulation.

After all, if they could do that, it wouldn't just be the noble coalition that would be besieging Field...

But even so, the thought that there might be countless nightmare cultists in reserve throughout the Western Territory was enough to make Sharlelei shudder with fear.

In addition to the "shallow dream servants" who are only connected to the dream catcher during sleep, the Nightmare Cult also raises hundreds of "deep dream servants". All of their mental power has been taken away, and they are like vegetative people, with their consciousness completely immersed in the dream catcher.

Since the dream catcher itself is not very stable, almost every month one or two "deep dream servants" have their brains burned out and have to be sent for "scrap".

The state of the Deep Dream Servant is exactly the same as Sally's current situation!

Although Kressa only wanted to turn Sally into a shallow dream servant, Sally was too weak. In order to save her life, Sharlele turned her into a succubus. Although she saved her life by accident, she fell into a deep sleep and accidentally became a "deep dream servant".

Only after listening to Poison Peony's detailed explanation did Shalelei and Durenna realize the extent of the danger Sally had been in. With her Dream Servant's wear and tear so frequent, she was able to survive unharmed until now; it was truly a blessing from the gods.

Because of this, Shalelei could not leave the sisters Sally and Durenna alone no matter what.

Moreover, after communicating with the Deer Horned Goddess, Sharlelei became more and more convinced that in order to completely eliminate the violent beast spirit in the white deer and have a good conversation with Him in dreams, she had to start with the power of dreams.

The Nightmare Cult, a group of cultists, was perhaps the most profound in their study of dreams on the continent of Ioterra. Therefore, whether she needed to solve the dream servant problem in the West or remove the wolf spirit from the Antlered Goddess, she had to go to this "Dream Catcher."

"Send me in."

Standing beside Sally's bed, Shalelei nodded to Du Mudan and drank the dream potion in one gulp.

..............................

In a familiar state of half-sleep and half-wakefulness, Sharlene opened her eyes.

She had experienced this feeling countless times. It had been like this when she was possessed by Poison Peony's dream spell, it had been like this when she entered Granny's dream, and if she thought about it carefully, it seemed to be the same when she used the "divine ritual" to enter the kingdom of the Goddess of Light.

"I'm almost becoming a professional dreamer..."

She sighed, touched her neck, and felt relieved to see that the "Sleeping Swan" was still there safely.

It must be said that the holy relic given by Archbishop Raymond and Archpriest Whitham was a timely help. Without its spiritual defense, she might have been torn to pieces by the Antler Goddess's violent wolf spirits.

Sighing with lingering fear, she looked around and saw a gray, chaotic world all around her. She called out softly, "Poison Peony? Poison Peony, can you hear me?"

"...I can hear you." After a moment, a dry voice sounded, "What's the situation now?"

Shalelei described the situation to Du Mudan. Before entering the "Dream Catcher," she and Du Mudan had agreed that she would enter this dangerous dream network, while Du Mudan would use dream magic to connect the two of them. Not only could they communicate at any time, but she could also immediately pull Shalelei out at a critical moment.

The only problem is that if Sharlene suffers a mental shock in the dreamcatcher, then the Poison Peony in the real world will also be implicated to a certain extent.

Originally, Sallelei was certain that this cultist would never so easily agree to use such a method that would hurt both sides, and she was ready to use the succubus's hypnotic mark to force her to submit.

But unexpectedly, after a moment of silence, Du Mudan looked at Sally's pale little face and agreed so calmly.

"The Dreamcatcher is a collective dream created by forcibly connecting the mental powers of dream servants." Poison Peony's hoarse voice echoed in Sharlelei's mind. "Because of its instability, even if we enter through Sally's dream, there's no guarantee that we'll appear in her dream."

After a pause, she continued, "And... I once heard the bishop say that it is divided into many small 'areas', like a beehive, and each dream servant has its own small room."

"So I need to find the one that belongs to Sally in these small rooms?" Sharlelei couldn't help but interrupt.

"…I'm afraid so."

Upon hearing this, Sharlelei couldn't help but gasp and chuckle, "So, I'm going to browse through the brains of tens of thousands of people?"

But when she thought of this, she frowned.

Deep dream servants are all like Sally, whose consciousness sinks into dreams, and they are "Sleeping Beauties" who are no different from vegetative people. Sally still needs many people to take turns to look after her day and night, so how does the Nightmare Cult maintain the lives of these hundreds of vegetative people?

You can’t hire hundreds of caregivers to take turns looking after the patient, right?

Or... do they have any other options?

Volume 3: The Faith Revolution of the Succubus Saint: Chapter 221: Virtual Dress-up

In a flash, the scenery around Sharlele changed from a gray and chaotic world to a magnificent banquet hall, where countless elegantly dressed nobles were toasting each other on the dance floor.

These upper-class people gathered around a middle-aged man who was dressed in gold and silver and looked very noble. He laughed like a king and was very proud of himself listening to the flattery of the crowd.

Salares looked at him for a while with empty eyes, then crouched down and hid in an inconspicuous corner of the banquet hall.

——This is definitely not Sally’s dream.

"How do I leave here?" After describing the scene in front of her to Du Mudan, Sha Lelei asked.

"Remember the theory I told you about?" Poison Peony asked, "Our cult divides the human mind into three parts, metaphorically represented by the sky, islands, and ocean. The 'Dream Catcher' connects the dreams of all the dream servants, which are the islands. Therefore... the fastest way to travel through the 'Dream Catcher' is to travel through the sea of ​​subconsciousness and between different dreams..."

Hiding in a corner of the banquet hall, Shalelei listened to Du Mudan's voice and watched one noblewoman after another pass by her. But the features of these noblewomen were vague and unreal, as if they were poorly drawn by AI.

It seems that the owner of this dream has not seen many beautiful women... Sallelei complained, and suddenly her heart moved. She concentrated for a moment, stretched out her hand and waved it in front of her. The nun's uniform on her body suddenly turned into a cheongsam, and the white silk stockings on her legs turned into black silk stockings.

"Wow, I can really change clothes!" Her eyes lit up, "Try being a magical girl again!" Before she finished speaking, her clothes changed again, turning into a sparkling pink magical girl costume, and there was a star wand in her hand.

Sharlelei was greatly surprised, and a thought suddenly popped up in her mind: If she could pull her little tailors into her dreams, wouldn't she be able to show them the collection of beautiful fashion pictures in her mind that she had accumulated after more than ten years of immersion in dress-up games?

Conquering the fashion world of another world is just around the corner!

Then she suddenly recalled that in the kingdom of the Goddess of Light, the cross-dressing Pope seemed to have changed his clothes in the same way.

"Uh, why do I have to think of that crossdresser..."

"What are you doing? Cross-dressing?" Poison Peony's voice rang out unhappily. Sha Lelei was caught red-handed and stuck out her tongue. "I was just trying to change clothes in my dream... I'm going to get down to business now!"

Changing clothes? Changing clothes in a dream? Du Mudan was stunned for a moment, feeling both amused and confused. She didn't know what to say for a moment. She only felt that this succubus was sometimes bold and daring, even able to face the gods without fear, but sometimes she was like a little girl with a hole in her head.

"If I tell this cultist that the Pope of the Church of Light is a young man dressed as a woman, I wonder how she'll react..."

At this moment, a funny and bizarre idea suddenly occurred to this "little girl with a hole in her head". But she hesitated for a moment and suppressed the urge to do something.

"Forget it, it's more important to do the business."

At the same time, thousands of miles away in the Holy Flame Castle, the busy Pope of Light, Zephyr III, suddenly sneezed for no reason.

..............................

In the dream of some unknown deep dream servant, the dry voice of Du Mudan slowly sounded.

"All you need to do is focus your mind and imagine yourself sinking into the deep ocean. However, diving into the sea of ​​the subconscious is extremely dangerous. Not only will you be buffeted by chaotic thoughts, you might also encounter dream bishops patrolling the dreamcatcher..."

"The Nightmare Cult has twelve Dream Bishops, each of whom is proficient in dream magic..." Poison Peony paused, her voice sinking. "In terms of divine attainments alone, even Archbishop Field is not as good as them. You must be extremely careful."

"Archbishop Raymond?" Salarei didn't expect Du Mudan to mention him at this time.

"Although this man is obsessed with power and wants to climb up the social ladder, he is still a high-level priest after all. Otherwise, he would not be able to sit on the position of Archbishop of Field City." Poison Peony snorted coldly.

"Oh? Are you worried about me?" Charlotte's eyes rolled around and she smiled sweetly.

The two were in the dreamcatcher, but Poison Peony suddenly mentioned Archbishop Raymond who was far away in Field. It seemed that she knew that she was going to take action against Field City next, so she reminded her in advance.

"Worried about you? You should worry more about yourself." After a moment, Poison Peony sneered, "If you are caught by the Dream Bishop, I will also be implicated. By then, maybe the brains of you, me, and that little succubus will be burned in one go."

She spoke so seriously that Shailelei couldn't help but put away her smile, nodded, and prepared to sink into the deep sea of ​​her subconscious.

But at that moment, a small commotion suddenly broke out in the Dreamland Banquet Hall, as if some uninvited guests had arrived. Sharlelei looked over and saw a man and a woman in purple robes appear at the entrance.

The man was about forty years old and there was nothing special about him. The woman was wearing a veil and a headscarf, so her face could not be seen clearly. All that could be seen was a pink "?79" on her head that was glowing slightly.

"It's the Dream Bishop!"

Sallelei's face changed. The two people were completely different from the gentlemen and ladies in the dream. Their expressions were lively and their movements were natural. In addition, the number of desire above the woman's head clearly meant that the two were living people, not images in a dream.

The living person who can appear in the dream catcher is undoubtedly the dream bishop.

She had just gathered her mind and was about to escape into the deep sea of ​​her subconscious when Poison Peony's voice came quickly, "Wait, don't move!"

"What's going on?" Shailele asked anxiously. The two men were getting closer and closer, striding towards the center of the banquet hall. She was hiding behind the shadows of a group of noble ladies. As long as the two men came closer, they would discover her presence in a moment.

"The mental fluctuations when diving into the sea of ​​subconsciousness are huge, they will definitely find out... You, you stay there and don't move, pretend that you are an illusion in a dream, and think of a way to hide!" Poison Peony said anxiously.

Shailele looked around, and was surrounded by those phantoms with blank faces and vacant eyes. Even if she could make her clothes look exactly like the phantoms, her appearance and expression could not be hidden, and she would be easily discovered by the two men.

In a panic, her eyes suddenly fell on the tables and chairs around her and she narrowed her eyes.

..............................

"Go away!"

The two bishops in the dream strode into the banquet hall. A gentleman illusion came forward with a glass of wine in a pretentious manner to urge them to drink, but the female bishop gave him a light scold and waved her sleeves, turning him into nothingness.

"Be careful." The male bishop glanced at her with a hint of reproach. "Why are you so angry with these illusions in your dreams? Be careful not to trigger the dreamcatcher and cause more trouble."

The veiled woman frowned, but remained silent. The man sighed again, "I know what you're thinking about. You're thinking about that Saint of Light from the Western Territory, right?"

Volume 3: The Faith Revolution of the Succubus Saint: Chapter 222: Magical Girl

Hearing this, the veiled woman glanced at him coldly. Seeing that his companion remained silent, the man spoke again, but this time he spoke like a torrent of water, like a chattering old woman.

"If it weren't for that 'God's Chosen Saint' who appeared out of nowhere, we would have taken Field City long ago... But don't worry, our secret agents in Field have all used drugs to numb their sense of pain. Even if they were caught, they would definitely not leak the news. The Church of Light is not the Black Ark. They don't use such dirty and despicable methods as torture. At most, they will be publicly burned to death..."

"Let me remind you, we also torture souls." The veiled woman sneered. The man touched his nose awkwardly, "That's different. The people of the Black Ark are always more despicable than us..."

Then he shook his head again, smiled bitterly, and said, "Although our years of preparations in the western part of the Stag Kingdom were destroyed, those rotten bastards of the Dark Mother of Fertility haven't fared much better either. Not only did they lose a large number of men, but even a high-ranking priest was defeated. Even after summoning the 'Black Goat Tentacles', they still couldn't capture Field... I'm afraid they're ready to skin that Saint alive and will definitely be waiting for an opportunity for revenge. Then perhaps we can take advantage of the opportunity..."

"Black goat tentacles?" The veiled woman's tone finally showed some fluctuation as she asked in surprise.

"It's said they summoned Black Goat Tentacles at the gates of Field City, but the Saint of Light destroyed them with a single blow of divine light..." the man said gravely. "If the news is true, and they were able to destroy the Black Goat Tentacles with a single blow, then this saint's strength is probably beyond that of a high-ranking priest, ranking at the 'Saint' level, not far from becoming a legend."

"A saint from the Western Territory, a 'saint'-level priest..." The veiled woman snorted coldly, as if pondering silently, "So what does the Pope say?" She was naturally referring to the Dream Pope of the Nightmare Cult.

"The Pope's attention is currently focused on the Falcon Kingdom. There has been no decree yet," the man replied. "But I believe He will convene a bishops' conference to discuss this matter soon."

"Falcon Kingdom? Oh..." the veiled woman asked, "How is the progress of the cult's plan in the Storm Church?"

"It's going very smoothly. The Dreamcatcher's evolution to the next stage is just around the corner." The man smiled smugly and shook his finger. "By the way, speaking of the bishops' meeting, have you noticed something strange about Bishop Garland since he returned from the north a few months ago?"

"Bishop Garland?" the veiled woman snorted contemptuously. "Forget him. From a worldly perspective, each of the twelve of us is a weirdo. Do we really have to compare who's weirder?"