He was supposed to be dead.
But several writhing worms crawled out of his ears again. He seemed to notice them, picking them out and stuffing them into his mouth to chew and swallow before continuing his walk.
New worms constantly crawled out from his body, and he kept crushing and eating them. He peeled back his own flesh, feeling the bone beneath, and reached into his empty eye sockets. But the worms were endless.
He didn’t know how long he had been walking, but he was finally exhausted. A profound weariness surged into his heart. His surroundings were dim, and he had no idea how he had made it this far.
Whether it was good luck or bad, he hadn’t encountered a single rift or any eerie entities. At this moment, however, he no longer wanted to struggle.
He staggered and lay down, pulling one last worm from his body.
He stuffed it into his mouth.
“Hehehe...”
Just as he closed his eyes, a voice drifted in from the distance.
“Captain, there’s a rotting corpse here, and it’s still moving. Looks like a child. Contaminated, damn it.”
Then, the image shattered.
Lake stood once again on the rock platform within the grey mist.
His expression was grim to the extreme.
That was the image he was least willing to face—the reason he had stepped onto the transcendent path and the beginning of all his tragedies.
The other child hadn't survived. She had lost herself in the worm tide and turned completely into an eerie entity.
Lake had returned there later with the Nightwatchers. He saw many people who had been eaten until only their shells remained, wandering the ground as bait to lure in other eerie entities.
Those were all people Lake knew. They had been turned into the most enticing lures by the Swarming Worms, walking back and forth on the open ground, circling in the darkness to attract things from the shadows.
As for what happened after, Lake had killed them with his own hands, tearing every shell apart before burning them to ash.
The Man on the Wall’s purpose in showing him this memory was clear—He was searching for a crack in Lake’s faith. What was the most primitive, deepest wish in the heart of that child who had been hollowed out by worms?
“Save them.”
That was the last syllable Lake had squeezed out of his hollowed throat before losing consciousness as a child. He couldn't make a sound, but his mind was filled with that phrase.
The Man on the Wall was trying to turn this phrase into a new breakthrough. “Save them” could be misinterpreted, exploited, and twisted into any shape The Man on the Wall desired.
But Lake’s faith had since been forged into something else.
The man wearing the faded uniform—Lake later learned he was Klaus’s elder.
A Nightwatcher on the verge of retirement, in the most remote corner of the Empire, had fought to the very last second to protect the people of the town.
Lake had chosen the same path to ensure that such a thing would never happen again.
The Man on the Wall fell silent. He clearly realized that within the rules, He was powerless against the human before Him.
The silhouette of the head in the grey mist slowly receded, and the massive greyish-white eyeball shifted from a stare to a deeper form of scrutiny. He searched through Lake’s will, but found not a single crack.
“Are you going to break your word?”
Lake’s voice carried far into the grey mist.
He took a step toward the edge of the rock platform. Beneath his feet was the bottomless greyish-white void.
He was well aware of his situation. He had no transcendent power and no means of resistance. If The Man on the Wall chose to use force, he had nowhere to run.
But Lake did not want to be contaminated.
Death had never been frightening. From the moment he joined the Nightwatchers, his head had been placed before the blade. Some danced with the sword, but most of his comrades had fallen along the way.
Therefore, being contaminated was absolutely unacceptable. Absolutely not!
The Man on the Wall seemed to sense Lake’s resolve to leap into the void at any moment.
After a brief silence, the silhouette of the head faded back into the depths of the grey mist. The mist closed in, obscuring the eyeball.
Lake stood on the rock platform, motionless.
The Man on the Wall had retreated, but Lake was still trapped here.
All that remained was the rock platform, the void, and the grey mist. There was nothing else.
Lake frowned, beginning to feel a sense of urgency.
His concern was for Lu Yuan. Lu Yuan was still in the pipe network. If Lake didn't wake up, what would Lu Yuan do alone in that environment? Klaus’s body hadn't fully recovered yet, and Lake was currently the only Nightwatcher capable of standing on the front lines.
Furthermore, he had no idea if the flow of time in this space was synchronized with the world outside.
If it wasn't, a long time might have already passed out there.
Lake clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms.
But just then, a voice suddenly came from above.
It didn't have the overlapping, thunderous quality of The Man on the Wall’s voice.
It was a human voice, drifting down from above the grey mist. It was distant, but clear.
“Lake, where are you?”
Lake snapped his head up.
It was Lu Yuan.
Ten minutes ago.
Lu Yuan was carrying Lake, quickly retreating toward the outer edge of the pipe network.
The body composed of worms was unexpectedly heavy. The touch on his shoulder was ice-cold, and the writhing on the surface had completely stopped, though a faint breath remained.
Lake’s short brown hair was plastered against a stiff face, and his dark red pupils were out of focus.
After leaving the area dense with inscriptions, the pressure blocked by the silver plates completely dissipated, and the surrounding eerie inscriptions returned to a static state. The concentration of the residual grey-gold aura in the air grew lower and lower, and the light from the march lamp returned to its normal range.
Lu Yuan placed Lake in a relatively clean section of the pipe network, leaning him against the wall.
He knelt to check on him.
Grey-white text surfaced at the edge of his vision.
【Target detected: Lake (Eerie Transcendent) (Mental Abnormality)】
【The target's consciousness is suspected to have been drawn elsewhere by an external force...】
It was exactly the same as before. Leaving the area of the copper wall had not caused Lake to recover.
Lu Yuan crouched in front of Lake, staring at the grey-white text for a few seconds.
“Consciousness drawn elsewhere by an external force”—his consciousness had been directly siphoned away.
He began to analyze the situation.
When Bolen had walked to the copper wall last time and triggered an inscription reaction, he had suffered mental erosion, consciousness trauma, retching, and obsession. It was severe, but he was still there; his consciousness hadn't been siphoned.
This time, Lake’s situation was completely different. His consciousness had been taken somewhere else entirely.
The most crucial point was that Lu Yuan had been walking in the lead, closer to the copper wall than Lake. If the entity behind the wall wanted to act, Lu Yuan should have been the first to suffer!
Whatever had acted on Lake most likely had nothing to do with the entity behind the copper wall; it was something else.
But regardless of what it was, the risk of forcibly waking Lake was too great.
If the connection at the Sanity level was snapped, it could lead to mental trauma at best or immediate loss of control at worst. Lake was a rank 4 eerie transcendent; if he lost control within the confines of the pipe network, even with Timekeeper active, Lu Yuan might not be able to escape.
More importantly, the sealed area of the copper wall could not be damaged. If Lake’s out-of-control Swarming Worms affected that area, the consequences would be unpredictable.
Lu Yuan looked at the stiff Lake before him, unable to think of a solution for a moment.
What he could do was very limited. Wait? For how long? Lake’s physical state was slowly declining; the temperature of his worm-composed body was dropping, and his breathing was becoming shallower.
Just as his anxiety was peaking, a movement came from the symbiotic link deep in his left eye.
The Knowledge Worm seemed to sense Lu Yuan’s emotions and flew out on its own.
It circled Lake’s head several times, its antennae constantly tapping Lake’s temples and forehead as if sensing something.
The tri-colored shimmer on the insect's body pulsed bright and dim, the frequency much faster than usual.
Then, it landed on top of Lake’s head and poked its antennae downward.
“Chirp, chirp.”
The symbiotic link transmitted a set of blurred mental images.
It was like a bridge spanning from here to there. The insect was standing on the bridge, and it could cross over.
Watching the Knowledge Worm perched on Lake’s head, Lu Yuan felt a spark of inspiration.
Lake’s Swarming Worms could read memories, directly siphoning images from the mind of a rank 3 Grey Covenant member.
His Knowledge Worm, with its natural affinity for Sanity and knowledge, might be able to do something similar.
But he immediately asked the Knowledge Worm a question.
Could it pull him back out?
If the entity on the other side truly was at the level of Him, Lu Yuan would just be delivering a second victim.
The Knowledge Worm swam back into the depths of his left eye, circled the Key, and tapped the Key’s surface. A sense of stability and reassurance flowed through the symbiotic link.
The meaning was clear: as long as the Key was there, he could get out.
Lu Yuan’s gaze fell below the Key. The second, newly contracted little Knowledge Worm was currently curled up at the base of the Key. Its luster was significantly brighter than when it was first contracted, as if it were absorbing something.
Its curled posture was very relaxed, completely out of step with the tense atmosphere outside.
Seeing this, Lu Yuan made a decisive choice: he would go in.
He crouched beside Lake, pressed one hand against Lake’s forehead, and closed his eyes.
The Knowledge Worm flew out from his left eye and landed on the point of contact between Lu Yuan and Lake.
A pulling sensation came through the symbiotic link. Tri-colored light diffused from the Knowledge Worm, spreading down Lu Yuan’s arm and simultaneously seeping into Lake’s temples.
A razor-thin line of light formed between the two of them, the micro-light pulsing in sync with Lu Yuan’s consciousness.
Lu Yuan felt his consciousness being gently tugged out of his body, floating upward very slowly, bit by bit.
He suddenly looked back.
It was only then that Lu Yuan discovered his body was still crouching there, one hand pressed against Lake’s forehead, his posture unchanged. It was like an out-of-body experience.
The Knowledge Worm hovered above the point of contact, the tri-colored light forming a tiny bridge connecting Lu Yuan’s body and Lake’s head.
In the next instant, his vision shifted abruptly.
A grey sky appeared. Beneath his feet was a platform only one person wide, suspended in a greyish-white void. Fragmented rock platforms floated at various heights, and grey mist filled every gap.
Lu Yuan stood on a small platform high up. Looking down, he could faintly see the outlines of lower rock platforms within the grey mist.
Lu Yuan didn't know where this was, but one thing was certain: Lake was very likely nearby.
“Lake, where are you?”
His voice carried out into the grey mist, but most of it seemed to be swallowed by something, leaving not even an echo.
However, somewhere below, something moved.
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