Chapter 631 Deep Fall
And so, the dreaming doll drifted through its own dreams, moving from one jumbled, fragmented memory to another.
No longer pondering who she was or where she came from, "Eileen" and "Omen" became two insignificant symbols, merging into a single, undifferentiated perspective. Occasionally, this perspective would "flow" into other dreams—where she would see towering spiderweb towers, the sanctuary and calculation center built by priests and scholars, towering mountains, and the endless lights of the city at their foot, as well as the girls dancing before the temple, offering them sweet water and egg yolk cakes…
She saw herself again, setting off from the Alice Dolls' Assembly Hall, carrying her first mission since her birth. She saw herself full of confidence, undaunted even knowing she might face a descending alien god. She saw herself climbing the tower, bravely charging towards the out-of-control alien deity in the distorted spacetime at its summit—she saw herself leaping high, just as the "Fallen Star Lady" had taught her, striking with courage and determination… striking…
But I can't hit the head, I can't even jump, the enemy is so high, so very high...
Eileen's perspective shifted between different memories and viewpoints. For a moment, she even felt as if she was about to wake up from this hazy dream, but suddenly, she sank into the next layer of the dream—the battle was over, and the dust seemed to have settled. She saw the enormous spider god lying in the temple courtyard, her own body lying beside it. In the battle, the puppet and the other god had made a deal; they had sealed this out-of-control calamity in a forgotten alternate dimension with their deaths…
But that's all in the past now.
Eileen thought to herself—the "Boundary Bridge" had already been devoured by Yu Sheng, she had witnessed it with her own eyes. Even this temple ruin had been taken by Yu Sheng and was now floating on Rapunzel's tower. Recently, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White had even been planning to turn that place into a haunted house...
The little doll floated between memories and illusions, hovering above the ruins of the Omen Temple atop the Boundary Bridge. She pondered things idly, and time passed in this way—time seemed to stand still in the dream. When she finally awoke, she found that the temple and the mountain in front of her had vanished without her noticing.
A pitch-black tower floats in a chaotic space.
"Ah, it's the boundary bridge..."
Eileen muttered to herself as she lightly landed on the tower. She looked around and saw only a chaotic mist emitting a faint light in all directions. The boundary bridge behind her was broken and seemed to have been swallowed up by something invisible. The tower structure in front of her stretched infinitely into the mist, seemingly leading to some place.
She rubbed her eyes and suddenly noticed that her blonde hair had turned completely black.
"That's weird... I was using my original character when I came in this dream... Who changed my skin...?"
She muttered to herself as she started walking, unconsciously moving forward along the outer wall of the black tower.
Behind Eileen, the rest of the black tower was swallowed by the thick fog after she passed by, as if it had fallen into nothingness.
After walking for an unknown amount of time, Eileen had almost forgotten that she was dreaming when the boundless mist suddenly dissipated.
As if she had crossed some kind of barrier, she entered a hidden space-time—one end of the boundary bridge was connected to this space-time—Eileen saw the land below floating in the center of chaos, with crowded yet distinct city-states and villages scattered across the land, broken city walls standing at the edge of the land, giants and majestic beasts guarding those high walls and castles, and dragons circling above the distant collapsed ruins.
Eileen also saw huge obsidian pillars rising between the city-states, as if they were some kind of stabilizing device, firmly "nailed" to this precarious floating continent.
Eileen didn't stop and continued walking down the boundary bridge. As she got closer to the floating continent, she saw the scene at the bottom of the tower. The part connected to the "tower" was a separate area in the center of the floating continent, where there was a terrifying void. In the center of the void, there seemed to be a small island floating there, which was specifically designed to connect with the tower. The edges of the island were broken, and the unstable crack structure and energy flow were constantly regenerating.
Eileen rubbed her eyes.
"...Hey, isn't this the place where I started climbing the tower...I've ended up going all the way back here..."
She suddenly stopped and looked back at what was behind her—the dark tower stretched endlessly into the sky, its end hidden in a huge spacetime rift, at the end of which a black star hung high.
But the spider goddess was nowhere to be seen.
Eileen blinked, looked down, and saw a huge spider's body clinging to the black tower.
No wonder I was so steady climbing down the tower headfirst; it turns out I was hanging on the wall with all eight legs.
The next second, the doll (?) broke out in a cold sweat: "...Holy crap, does this mean I'm going to have to climb up from below carrying a frying pan?! That's how it is in games... Seriously, what kind of weird dream is this, why am I still not awake..."
But it turned out that Eileen was just scaring herself. She hung on the tower for a long time, but no other blonde doll carrying a frying pan appeared on the broken floating island below.
It was only then that she finally remembered to pay attention to the scenery in the distance.
She climbed back a little further, reaching a higher place, and looked around at the city-states, ruins, flags, villages, and the giant dragons that seemed to be playing out some kind of looped memory fragments in the sky.
The little doll's brain isn't very sharp.
But then a sudden thought struck her: the knowledge she had previously learned from Baili Qing and Yu Sheng matched the scene before her.
"...I'm shocked! This is the border area?! This is what the border area used to look like?!"
With a startled cry, the doll (ominous sign) lost its grip on the wall, and the world spun around it. Eileen cried out "Mommy!" and fell from the tower.
The entire borderland began to churn and distort in her vision. She saw the obsidian pillars collapse silently, the dragon plummet towards the city-state, and the distant, shattered city walls disappearing first into a purple mist. Then, the entire continent began to collapse and reform inward. Creatures that had once walked on the land vanished one after another like soap bubbles. She also heard sounds echoing in this "suspected borderland"—
"...Simulation stopped, current...compatibility insufficient, switch to the next template...activate the council..."
But the rest of the conversation was inaudible. Eileen was still rolling and falling, waving her eight long legs in vain, only to find that leg length seemed to be of little use at this point—she landed solidly on the broken island at the bottom of the tower, and then something unbelievable happened.
She stumbled upon this place.
Like a clipping, she only felt herself touch the ground for a moment, but then she passed through the scene marked "ground". She found herself still falling, and the "boundary bridge" that originally seemed to be just connecting the boundary land... actually had an extension structure below!
Eileen watched as the distorted light and shadow on the ground receded further and further into the distance, and as the black tower pierced through the surface structure of the boundary and continued to extend downwards into the darkness. She continued to fall along the direction of the boundary bridge, passing through countless layers of bizarre and fantastical light and shadow—it felt like an eternity before she suddenly felt herself slowing down.
But she only had time to slow down for a moment before she fell heavily to the ground.
Fortunately, she landed on a soft cushion—a patch of tall, unnamed weeds.
Eileen lay on her back in the tall grass, feeling like her back was about to break—because her upper body was normally connected to her spider exoskeleton at a 90-degree angle. This structure meant that if her body was lying on the ground, her upper body would either be buried in the soil or she would have to bend her back at a 90-degree angle.
She didn't know which of the two situations was worse, but the second one would obviously cause her back pain.
The Ominous Doll, who wasn't quite familiar with her spider form, summarized another little-known fact about being a spider goddess: don't sleep lying flat unless absolutely necessary.
Then Eileen began to grimace as she tried to get up—a rather challenging task for a spider goddess (and one who was unfamiliar with her own body). She swayed left and right for a long time before finally finding a suitable angle to exert force with her arms. After several more attempts, she finally managed to get up from her lying position and then support her almost broken back.
She even remarked that it was fortunate she was leaning forward; if she had leaned backward when she was about to fall, she definitely would have broken.
She has always been an optimistic doll.
After moving her body a little to make sure her joints weren't broken, Eileen raised her head and curiously observed the area.
An endless wasteland, a gray and chaotic sky, and a black tower (the boundary bridge) that has torn a large hole in the sky and is slightly tilted to connect to the earth—it looks as if it has smashed a hole in this world.
I landed right next to the tower.
Eileen blinked, and with a strong sense of déjà vu, she realized that this place seemed to be a small hill in the wasteland.
The hills are covered with tall grass, and the wind blows from the direction of the open field, making it feel lonely and cold.
To be fair, there's not much scenery on this little hill—especially since the boundary bridge that fell from the sky crushed nearly half of the hill.
The collapsed mountain structure was piled up with the black base of the boundary bridge. Large amounts of debris that had fallen from the tower, soil and rocks that had collapsed from the hill, and some strange, shredded vine-like things slid down the broken slope and extended all the way to the plain at the foot of the mountain, creating a scene of horrific impact.
The spot where Eileen is standing is the other half of the hill that is still intact.
"...This place looks familiar."
The doll muttered to itself.
(End of this chapter)
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