“Her.”
Elias raised his hand, calling out to the young man who had just entered.
Then, without hesitation, he pointed to Dr. Hall beside him.
Theolan Vesper walked toward them.
The hem of his black-and-silver robe swept through the aisle, never touching any of the bedframes.
His gaze first fell on Dr. Hall before turning to Elias.
Their eyes met briefly.
Theolan’s expression faltered for a fraction of a second.
He had clearly sensed the spirituality emanating from Elias.
Even though the blond man before him was of unknown origin, his spiritual aura undeniably belonged to the Moon Lord pathway.
Theolan didn’t ask any questions or try to expose anything; he simply gave a slight nod.
Then, he stopped in front of Dr. Hall.
“And this is?”
“A freelance investigator,” Dr. Hall said succinctly. “He took my commission.”
“John Constantine,” Elias added proactively.
Theolan turned to him.
“Greetings, brother.”
His tone remained cold.
There was no hint of warmth in it.
However, the term “brother” wasn't just a pleasantry. Among transcendents of the Moon Lord pathway, it was a standard way to address one another within the Ascetic Society.
Though, coming from Theolan’s mouth, it sounded somewhat like he was reading an obituary.
“Greetings,” Elias said, observing him. “Brother Theolan.”
“I have been commissioned by the Seventh Agency,” Theolan said, skipping the small talk. “Therefore, I will be taking full responsibility for this investigation.”
“The Seventh Agency currently cannot spare any personnel. They have an important operation underway.”
Having said that, he fell silent.
Elias waited for a moment.
Dr. Hall waited as well.
The three of them stood in the center of the aisle, none of them speaking.
Elias finally couldn't help himself. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Theolan replied.
His tone was as calm as if he were confirming a count of medicine bottles.
Elias suddenly felt a surge of curiosity. “So, how exactly do you manage to work under Bishop Sage?”
Theolan’s mostly expressionless face finally showed a slight change.
“You know Lord Sage?”
“We’ve met once.”
Elias recalled the bishop who wore a monocle and had an abnormal obsession with humor.
Back then, Elias had only made a casual joke.
Bishop Sage had reacted as if he had discovered a long-lost soulmate, practically wanting to have a deep discussion on the art of humor right then and there.
That kind of reaction was hard not to remember.
“So I’m curious,” Elias said, eyeing this master of awkward silences. “How does he describe you?”
Theolan fell silent.
This silence lasted longer than the previous one.
Elias didn’t rush him.
The answer to a question that made someone like this hesitate was usually quite valuable.
After a moment, Theolan spoke: “He said that in the future, I could preside over the funeral of a joke.”
“...”
Elias felt a sudden wave of respect.
Precise.
Vicious.
Should he expect anything less from Bishop Sage? A single evaluation that simultaneously covered character, profession, and future prospects.
Theolan was clearly not prepared to continue this topic.
“So, where is the 【Dream-soothing Paper】?”
The transition was incredibly blunt.
But effective.
“Here.”
Dr. Hall handed over the evidence bag from the table.
Theolan didn’t open it immediately. He first checked the seal on the bag, then glanced at the issuance number, and only then did he take out one of the sheets of 【Dream-soothing Paper】.
Dr. Hall stood to the side and said in a low voice, “To be honest, this matter should have been handled by your people from the start.”
“We Life Scholars are good at dealing with physical trauma, disease, and life-force pollution. Matters concerning the mind, memory, and dreams are really not our forte.”
As she spoke, she quietly moved closer to the two men.
“It’s quite fortunate that both of you are Moon Lord believers. I’m quite lucky today.”
Elias turned his head to look at her.
“Let me be clear. Even though the dream investigator is here, the payment remains the same. I get paid for what I’ve uncovered. You can’t just wipe the slate clean just because a professional arrived.”
Dr. Hall nodded. “No problem. You already found the pattern in the dream drawings and identified the commonality in the memory loss. Those count as effective investigative results.”
“Good.” Elias felt relieved.
Theolan held the 【Dream-soothing Paper】 between two fingers, his thumb pressing down on the silver moon pattern in the center of the paper.
Spirituality surged silently.
The originally solid silver circle trembled slightly.
Then, a tiny crack appeared at the top of the circle. The crack spread rapidly downward.
A complete moon phase was split into countless fine arcs.
Those arcs did not dissipate; instead, they slowly rose from the paper.
Part of the silver light threads wrapped around the user's name. The other part bypassed the name, extending toward the handwriting and spiritual traces left behind during the writing process.
Every single one was connected to a different dream anchor.
Dr. Hall held her breath.
Elias also carefully observed the changes in the spirituality.
Previously, he could only rely on the normal mechanism of the 【Dream-soothing Paper】 to speculate that Robert had been dragged into the dream by the spiritual traces left behind during the proxy writing. Now, these silver threads laid that speculation bare before his eyes.
The ritual on the paper had indeed been modified.
And the modification was not crude. The other party hadn't destroyed the original moon phase circuit; they had simply used it to connect countless additional lines beyond the normal anchors.
“【Mourning Dream Resonance】,” Theolan said.
“What?” Dr. Hall looked at him.
“The ritual attached to this paper.” Theolan raised his hand slightly.
The silver threads unfurled between the three of them.
“Within the Ascetic Society, there is a profession called a Dream Mourner. They are responsible for helping people who cannot accept the death of a loved one to say their goodbyes.”
Dr. Hall frowned. “How do they do that?”
“By temporarily borrowing the survivor's memories related to the deceased. The Dream Mourner uses these memories as material to shape a projection of the deceased in a shallow dream. The survivor can meet the projection in the dream and have one last conversation.”
Theolan spoke very calmly, as if describing a common ritual.
Yet several wounded people nearby who overheard this couldn't help but look over.
For people who had just experienced a sea beast invasion, seeing the deceased one more time—even if only in a dream—held an irresistible temptation.
“Is that a spiritual body?” Dr. Hall asked.
“No,” Theolan corrected seriously. “It is merely a dream shadow formed from memories. The soul of the deceased is not summoned back, nor is it tethered to reality because of this. The dream shadow only knows what the living remember. It cannot say anything the living do not already know, nor can it generate genuine new memories.”
Elias nodded. As he had suspected.
The old man’s wife only talked about fish soup. The child only held up the wooden boat. The younger brother could only sing that nursery rhyme.
Those figures weren't the dead returning. They were merely parts of the dead that had remained in the minds of the living, extracted and molded into familiar shapes.
“Basically, it's just a projection that looks like the deceased. In short, not a spiritual body,” Elias said, bringing the topic back. “So this matter is likely related to a Dream Mourner?”
“Yes.” Theolan observed the threads on the paper. “At least the additional circuit originates from a Mourning Dream Ritual.”
“A normal Mourning Dream Ritual only borrows a small amount of memory from a single survivor. Only when several relatives wish to say goodbye together is 【Mourning Dream Resonance】 used, and the participants usually cannot exceed three people.”
“After the ritual ends, the relevant memories must be returned. The dream shadows must also be destroyed before dawn.”
“Why must they be destroyed?” Dr. Hall asked.
“The longer a dream shadow exists, the easier it is for it to mistake itself for the actual deceased. The survivors will also gradually lose the ability to distinguish between memory and reality,” Theolan said. “Therefore, the Mourning Dream Ritual can only be used for goodbyes, not for holding on.”
Elias looked at the more than one hundred drawings on the long table.
A normal ritual only borrowed a small amount of memory from one person. The ritual before them, however, had connected the dreams of one hundred and thirty-six people.
The dream shadows hadn't vanished before dawn. Instead, there were more and more of them. Memories related to the dead were also continuously leaking from the brains of the living.
This was no longer a regulatory violation. This was taking every safety requirement, tearing them off one by one, and stuffing them under the ritual to use as kindling.
Theolan continued, “The other party used these 【Dream-soothing Paper】 sheets to establish a large number of shallow dream anchors. Then, through 【Mourning Dream Resonance】, they connected the dreams of the survivors. It is continuously transferring their memories of the deceased into the dream.”
The silver light threads were still extending in the air. Some connected to names, some to the proxy writers. Even more threads overlapped with one another, finally converging toward a single invisible direction.
That was precisely the location where the Lightless Lighthouse stood in all the dreams.
Dr. Hall looked at the drawings on the table. “Is the other party using the memories of these dead people to piece something together?”
Theolan didn't answer immediately. He seemed to still be analyzing the ritual circuit.
Elias, however, suddenly furrowed his brows.
Piecing together?
One hundred and thirty-six people looking toward the lighthouse from different positions. A waterway that didn't exist in reality. And those figures composed of the memories of the deceased, standing under the lighthouse waiting.
A judgment he had previously taken as a premise suddenly shifted at this moment.
Those drawings did indeed move closer to the lighthouse in sequence. But what if the one hundred and thirty-six people weren't seeing one hundred and thirty-six independent positions?
What if their vision was attached to the same thing the entire time, and that thing was moving along this non-existent waterway?
“No,” Elias said quietly.
Dr. Hall and Theolan looked at him simultaneously.
Elias stared solemnly at the waterway that did not exist in reality.
“This isn't surveying.”
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