Chapter 1011 The law of the dream world: the survival of the fittest!

Ares immediately stood up and knelt on one knee.

All the warriors noticed the appearance of the Pillar God. They immediately stopped their actions and knelt on the ground in unison facing the Lord of Scales and Feathers who had his back to them, not even daring to call out his name.

Originally, in the material world, the Lord of Scales and Feathers could contact Aiwass at any time, but he also needed high-level divine arts as a springboard. Moreover, at that time, only Aiwass could see His existence.

But once you enter the dream world, the situation is completely different!

The laws of the Sand Clock had little effect on the Pillar God in the Dream Realm—the Lord of Scales and Feathers could transform into countless forms at any moment, each one real and each one false. He could appear anywhere without seeming strange.

This is the home ground of the Pillar God!

The Lord of Scales and Feathers did not even respond to the piety and respect shown by the warriors of the Shadow Kingdom.

He simply waved his hand casually, and as if some kind of information had been implanted in the minds of the warriors, they rose, shook their heads, and returned to their respective positions, completely ignoring the Scale-Feathered Lord and continuing their conversation and eating as if nothing had happened. Even the excitement these warriors had felt upon seeing the Scale-Feathered Lord earlier calmed down instantly.

It was as if they had never seen the Lord of Scales and Feathers from the very beginning.

They didn't even continue looking over - their subconscious rejected the possibility of "going to see the Lord of Scales and Feathers".

——That is the real amnesia technique.

Seeing this miracle, Arsen was suddenly silent.

Silently and directly twisting everyone's will... Is this the power of the Pillar God?

Yassen couldn't help but feel awed.

"No, not that much."

The Lord of Scales and Feathers may have heard Yasen's inner voice, or perhaps because of a certain future possibility he saw, Yasen chose to speak frankly at this moment - He smiled at Yasen and said, "Because these souls have no bodies, they cannot resist the manipulation of the subconscious.

"It's actually quite difficult to dye the inside of a sugar cube purple. Even if the outside is soaked purple, the inside won't turn purple. But if you melt it in water first and then drip purple dye into it, it's much easier. Mind manipulation is similar... The physical body is actually a form of self-protection and self-correction. Once the body is gone, the soul will become much more fragile. Some ghosts go mad for a similar reason."

The Lord of Scales and Feathers spoke casually.

He was sitting right across from Aiwas at the round table.

The headless man picked at the food on the table and looked up and asked, "This is our first face-to-face conversation, Aiwass... Where do you think Sherlock is?"

Aiwass shook his head: "After excluding those five paths, there are only the path of love, the path of transcendence, the path of beauty and the path of wisdom.

"When he went up, the Fallen Angels hadn't come down yet. If he entered the Path of Transcendence, that means he'd probably see more demons than mosquitoes in the summer. The same goes for the Path of Love... If he entered the realms of these two paths, how could he possibly live so peacefully... There are no normal human Angels in the Path of Love."

"really."

Shadow Tiansi of the Path of Love agreed.

So the answer is actually just one of the two.

It's either the Path of Wisdom or the Path of Beauty. And it just so happens that the areas where these two paths are located have scenes similar to large library buildings.

“But there’s really no need to choose.”

Aiwass said, "Because I have some personal matters to attend to. I need to go to the Path of Wisdom. A friend of mine is also trapped at the Geometry Division... Since I have to go there no matter what, the most we can do is just go one way each."

"——Geometric Tiansi? Did he offend you?"

Ying Tiansi sneered, "That bronze corpse... is nothing. If you don't like him, come back and call me."

The Lord of Scales and Feathers also laughed heartily, and then said, "The private matter you are talking about should be the task entrusted to you by Hai Basha, right?"

"That's right."

Aiwass nodded.

The commission from Haibasha was to rescue her daughter's soul.

Because once she became a phantom demon, it meant that the girl would completely lose the chance of normal resurrection. That was not just deleting the file, but also overwriting it with a new file and saving it.

She had originally intended to make a special, powerful dream-inducing tincture for Aiwass, so that the souls of the living could also float into the dream world.

During her mortal years, Haibasha's daughter died before she reached adulthood due to a conflict on her path. However, Haibasha was already a very powerful wizard by then. She forcibly fished her daughter's soul out of the source river to prevent it from being shattered and used as material for the next generation's soul, thus completing her "reincarnation."

Fishing out souls from the source river was something that only the Celestial Masters or Pillar Gods could do. It was also their core skill and a necessary condition for creating Apostles.

It was truly remarkable that Haibasha could accomplish such a feat with a mortal body. But this also meant something else—while she was able to retrieve her daughter's soul, she had no extra power or authority to share with her, so she was just a mortal soul.

It's not impossible for mortal souls to appear in the Dream World. But just as the power of shadows gradually erodes the warriors of the Shadow Heaven Division, the longer one stays in the Dream World and the more one uses the power of the Path, the more their souls will be stained, becoming completely shaped by a particular Path.

The girl's soul was temporarily placed within a delicate ancient doll. To prevent her from driving herself mad from loneliness, Hypatia sealed her consciousness, memory, and sense of time. Thus, for the girl herself, it was a state of confusion, like "closing my eyes and opening them again, and thousands of years have passed."

The Church of Haibasha treated their daughter's soul in this way in order to preserve her "possibility of resurrection."

If the souls were shattered at the end of the source river, then resurrection would be impossible. And such a young child would be unlikely to become an apostle, nor would they be able to gain much power from death.

But if the soul is properly preserved and only the body is recreated... either the Path of Dusk or the Path of Devotion can do it.

This approach is quite similar to Yulia's pendant in the original worldline. However, Haibasha hesitated for a moment, intercepting the flow a little too late. As a result, she was unable to preserve the soul in the material world, and instead began to retrieve it after the soul entered the source river.

The result was that the little girl had been infected by the water of the source river. If her consciousness had not been frozen immediately, she could have been stimulated and turned into a phantom demon at any time.

Haibasha chose to reincarnate into the lower world, partly because she wanted to avoid the perfect combo of the Serpent Father's Tide of Transcendence and the Ring of Tail Ritual of the Ring of Heaven; another part of the reason was that she wanted to try and see if she could rescue her daughter directly if she was reincarnated as a living person.

Obviously, no.

It was only after her reincarnation that Hai Ba Xia discovered that although she had to regain the power of the Dao, her soul was still that of an apostle. If someone killed her, she would be able to return to Jihe Tiansi and continue to be an apostle.

Therefore, even if she dived into the dream world again, she would only "find her own big account".

——In other words, Haibasha cannot have any form of contact with his daughter!

"Which way do you plan to go first? The way of wisdom or the way of beauty?"

The Lord of Scales and Feathers looked like he was just going to watch the fun, not offering any suggestions or opinions. "Do you need me to follow?"

"The path of beauty."

Aiwass said casually: "There's no need to follow..."

"It's certainly possible that it's the Path of Beauty," Yassen pondered seriously, "since the Vendôme family's inherited profession is the 'Flute Player' of the Path of Beauty. But the Path of Wisdom is also possible, after all, there are so many books there..."

"Let's go to the Path of Beauty's territory first, right?"

Ying Tiansi said readily, "Okay, I'll help you find the Moon Deer and send you to the Twin Mirrors. Will you come back this time? If not, you might as well stay for another half an hour. The fairies are cooking the Shadow Hunter Beast... This is the prey you hunted yourself, it would be a shame if you don't try it."

“…Is that thing really edible?”

Aiwass frowned, showing some resistance.

That thing, which looked like a Thousand-Eyed Narcan, was almost like a deep-sea fish. It was so ugly that Aiwass didn't want to eat it...

“Absolutely delicious.”

Ying Tiansi tried his best to persuade him to stay: "Don't you think this wine tastes good? Trust me, brother, I won't cheat you!"

This giantess, whose personality was like that of a ship captain, addressed Aiwass in increasingly familiar, vulgar, and down-to-earth ways.

"Yeah," the Lord of Scales and Feathers came over to join in the conversation—or perhaps fanned the flames. "I was planning to get some good food, so I showed up."

"Nothing can help you understand the true nature of the dream world better than this."

Ares and Fergus also said so on the side: "It's good to eat something."

Just as Aiwass and Yasen hesitated, they could no longer escape.

——The food cooked with the Shadow Hunter Beast has been brought up by the witches.

The three shadow-hunting beasts seemed to have been dismembered into countless pieces.

Each piece looks like a giant moth - it has golden wings that are fried to a crisp, and its abdomen is not a worm abdomen, but an eyeball that is obviously cooked but is still rotating and shaking at a high frequency.

Seeing Ying Tiansi pick up an "eyeball moth" and put it into his mouth, Aiwass followed suit. If he didn't eat a few bites, it would be impolite to run away...

But after eating it, Aiwass was a little confused:

The taste was surprisingly good! It had a roasted pig eye mixed with roasted cicada monkey flavor, and it even burst in your mouth.

But what really surprised Aiwass was the prompt that suddenly popped up in front of him:

[Soul Crystal has been used, and free experience 14 has been obtained]

[Soul Crystal has been used, gaining 52 free experience]

…

Every time he took a bite, a line of experience-gaining tips popped up in front of him. It made eating feel awkward... like he was eating a human.

Soul Crystals—they're similar to experience books in the game Ouroboros. In later versions, low-level players can buy these from the reputation store to quickly level up.

And this means... every eyeball on this shadow-hunting beast is a piece of soul fragment that has not yet been absorbed!

"When it was slaughtered, I led my men to ritually return the soul fragments of the remaining victims. These cooked parts were all victims whose souls had been completely shattered by the source river before killing the shadow hunter. They were all food it once hunted."

Luke, the elf man, said softly, "It eats us, and we eat it. That's fair."

"Is this... the nature of the dream world?"

Aiwass murmured, "But these fragments...shouldn't they be from other victims?"

Does the host usually host these kind of banquets that give you experience points? Is it really that cool?

"Yes," Ying Tiansi nodded slowly, "The essence of the dream world is the survival of the fittest. After all, all phantom demons are composed of 'souls', so everyone can devour each other. Even if they are on different paths, this is still the case.

"As for the latter—I don't think it matters. It's like honey coming from a beehive, not pollen. Anyway, I didn't drive the Shadow Hunter to prey on other mortals and phantoms. We have already released the soul fragments of those who unconsciously strayed into the dream world and were then preyed upon by the Shadow Hunter.

"No one else can take these remaining things. They belong to you. You defeated the Shadow Hunter Beast, and this is your reward."

"This is called 'doing justice for the heavens.'"

The Lord of Scales and Feathers smiled and added, "And in the dream world, it is legal for anyone to eat anyone else."

Ying Tiansi continued, "Similarly, if you don't have a mount that can cross space, I don't recommend you wander around in the dream world in any way. Because you could become prey and food for others at any time...

"This place is completely different from your peaceful and tranquil material world... I'll lend you the Moon Deer for now. It can take you directly to any place you know the exact location. But try not to cross the borders between different celestial realms. That's the most dangerous and chaotic. Many people who have committed crimes or harmed others will hide on the other side... Even the Dream Monks don't dare to approach that side."

"Will the Path of Beauty also be like this?"

Yasen asked back in disbelief.

"Yes." "Of course."

Except for Aiwass and Yasen, almost everyone responded in unison.

This actually made Yasen a little curious. He himself was a Path of Beauty, so he had a good impression of the Path of Beauty.

——What could the phantom demon that attacks passersby on the Path of Beauty be?

However, Aiwass was not too worried about his own safety.

After all, he has a special form that is specifically used in the dream world!

That is Aiwass's Sin Beast form.

When you maintain the transformation into the form of the sin beast in the dream world, no mana will be consumed!

This is the home of Aiwass!

Update completed!

After thinking about it, I decided to post it now. Otherwise, it will be too late to correct the typos when I wake up at 6 o'clock. (

(End of this chapter)