Chapter 857 - 856: The Spreading Angel’s Dream Realm

Chapter 857: Chapter 856: The Spreading Angel’s Dream Realm

In fact, almost at the moment Baili Qing’s words fell, Yu Sheng and the others had already noticed the changes happening in the forest.

They looked around from the flying carpet and suddenly saw a visible... "ripple" spreading through the Forest Sea. The twisted giant trees that were originally growing quietly now swayed their crowns as if about to awaken on the edge of a dream, and all the plants in the forest were restless. Among those swaying giant trees were countless abnormal spaces flickering in and out like illusions.

Some were huge factories and pipe structures with steam civilization characteristics, others were mining pits and cliffs suddenly appearing in the forest, and there were also roughly styled stone towers and giant temples like some sort of ancient ruins. Yu Sheng even saw a giant ship suddenly appearing above the forest, its tattered ancient sails causing layers of waves as it slowly sailed across the Forest Sea, before disappearing into a magnificent high wall.

The forest seemed to have turned into a chaotic and turbulent dream realm, with the boundaries between reality and illusion completely blurred. Various elements possibly from the Old World Plande, the Dark Moon Royal Court, the Dragon Kingdom, or even from the Tree Angel’s own memories were reassembled in this dream, haphazardly forming bizarre landscapes within the forest.

"Puppet Progenitor... It looks like the old tree is completely screwed!" Erin exclaimed, clutching the edge of the flying carpet. "Could it really have been blown up by Apiao’s Holy Light Shock?"

"Perhaps the situation isn’t as bad," Yu Sheng quickly said after observing the surroundings, "this looks like the hidden corruption has been exposed... In any case, let’s return to the ’hallway’ first."

Saying that, he reached into the air, intending to open the door to the temporary command center. But before he could open the door, Hu Li tugged at his sleeve: "Savior, what about her?"

Yu Sheng looked in the direction pointed by Hu Li’s other hand and saw the small bats still smoking and crawling around on the flying carpet.

The bats that had been flying chaotically around the air had now settled on the flying carpet, forming a large pile.

Yu Sheng’s eyes twitched, and at the edge of his vision, he saw Freyia drooping her head and trying hard to use her wings to cover her face—apparently, even this single-threaded being knew how to be embarrassed.

Among the pile of small bats on the flying carpet, a few raised their heads and made small noises: "I shouldn’t have come with you... I can barely hold myself together right now, let alone move..."

Yu Sheng sighed, turned to Hu Li, and said, "Find a bag to hold them. Do you have a bigger pouch in your tail?"

"Oh yes, I do!"

Then Red watched as Hu Li pulled something out of her tail and was startled: "...Wait, what are you planning to do?! I, I am the Queen of Dark Moon! You can’t do this—"

Then came a bunch of incoherent words like "My noble bloodline won’t allow a discounted supermarket bag," "At least use a handbag," "Non-woven fabric would work..."—anyway, Hu Li didn’t listen.

Then Yu Sheng opened a door directly to the temporary command center, stepped through, and saw Baili Qing directing the operations in the camp.

At this moment, Baili Qing was surrounded by a scene of tension and activity. People constantly came with data terminals to report the latest situation, recently returned action teams were reporting to her, and some action personnel were possibly triggered by the emergency teleportation mechanism of accompanying puppets. They were now walking and vomiting at the edge of the clearing, some even inside their power armor masks...

Even in such chaos, Baili Qing welcomed the appearance of the Teleportation Gate immediately.

She first glanced up and down at Yu Sheng and his group, then began to look around: "...Where is Red?"

Yu Sheng pointed to the two plastic bags Hu Li was holding: "These two bags are Red."

Baili Qing leaned over and took a look at the bats in the plastic bags, all huddled together, trying hard to cover their heads with their wings.

Yu Sheng was sure he saw Baili Qing smile... even if just for a moment.

Then Baili Qing turned around, maintaining a neutral expression: "How did it end up like this?"

Yu Sheng sighed and, with a hint of embarrassment, pointed at Freyia floating nearby: "The Holy Light did it."

Baili Qing looked up at the sky, seeming to search for any lingering traces of Holy Light Shock. In reality, she was probably trying to strengthen her facial muscles. After a few seconds, she reached out to take the two bags of bats and turned towards the barracks nearby: "Anyway, come with me first. The situation now... may be a bit complicated."

Half an hour later, in the temporary command center barracks, Yu Sheng recounted the events at the mirror rift to Baili Qing in full detail—including Red’s failed attempt to build a passage, and his and Erin’s plan to have Freyia directly enter the rift.

"Now it seems like this impact might have stimulated this forest," Yu Sheng concluded, "or to be precise, it stimulated the Tree Angel that was in a dormant state."

Baili Qing’s gaze was serious, and she didn’t speak for a moment. Beside her, a high-precision holographic display showed the current state of the entire forest area in real-time.

In the depths of the vast Forest Sea, the gigantic mirror rift flickered slowly. Countless red dots shimmered unpredictably within the forest, centered around the mirror rift. Data fluctuation histograms were shown above some regions with gathered red dots. Patrol drones flew over the forest, continuously transmitting real-time images of certain areas to the holographic display above.

"So it can be considered," Baili Qing finally broke the silence, "that the Tree Angel has always been in a dormant state, and although this mirror rift has appeared in the real world, it might be directly connected to its dream realm beneath. Your attempt to enter the rift stimulated the Tree Angel’s dream realm, and now this dream realm is leaking into the real world... These abnormal spaces appearing throughout the forest are the overflow of the Angel’s Dream."

"I think that makes sense," Yu Sheng nodded, carefully choosing his words before continuing, "and I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing."

Baili Qing: "Oh?"

"If it can wake up, it can be saved. Whether it was woken up by noise or by fright, being able to react to the outside world means there’s still mental activity," Yu Sheng said seriously. "What I feared most before was this forest sleeping forever and getting completely poisoned by the ’Time Shadow’ seeping down from the Fault. But now that it’s starting to wake up, we at least have a starting point."

"...Aren’t you being too optimistic?" Baili Qing spoke cautiously. "What we might face next could either be the awakening of the Tree Angel, or a complete madness and loss of control—from the current energy readings throughout the forest and the state of the abnormal spaces, the latter seems even more likely."

Yu Sheng was silent for a few seconds and sighed softly, "If that’s the case, I, this ’Angel Hunter,’ can only resort to traditional skills... But if we can save it, I still want to save it, after all, it’s Erin’s old friend."

"...I understand," Baili Qing looked at Yu Sheng for a moment and nodded lightly. "Next, I will withdraw all action teams from the forest, leaving only autonomous equipment and drones to coordinate with your actions. At the same time, I will notify the director’s side to heavily guard the other side of the gate—until this event is resolved, anything that crawls through the gate will be considered an angel intrusion."

Yu Sheng nodded, "Alright."

He stood up after saying that, and Baili Qing, seeing this, asked curiously, "What are you going to do now?"

Yu Sheng waved his hand, "Go home to sleep."

Baili Qing was momentarily stunned, "...Sleep?"

"Nonsense, it’s been a long day," Yu Sheng yawned, "This place doesn’t even have day and night cycles. If I didn’t look at the clock, I wouldn’t know it’s already eleven thirty at night—oh, by the way, it seems like the forest won’t completely collapse anytime soon. I need to move my house over first since it looks like I’ll be busy here for a while..."

As Yu Sheng spoke, he beckoned to Hu Li and the others, said goodbye to Baili Qing, and truly walked out of the barracks.

The room became quiet, Baili Qing stared at the door for two or three seconds, then looked away, focusing again on the two plastic bags beside the table.

After a moment of hesitation, she coughed lightly, "Are you okay?"

A muffled voice came from the plastic bag, "...I might as well be dead."

"You’re not doing too well. Yu Sheng has performed a Blood Transfer on you, he’ll make you live again."

"...Don’t tell the director about what happened today."

"Of course, I don’t have the hobby of spreading other people’s embarrassing past."

The plastic bag squirmed twice and after a sigh, it returned to silence.

At the same time, Yu Sheng, leaving the barracks, arrived at the edge of the temporary command post.

This was the junction of the "hallway" and the forest, with a simple wall separating the camp from the vast dense woods outside. There were a few sentinel laser turrets on the nodes of the wall, and the area near the wall was spacious, making it a great place for setting up a new base.

However, even if there was no empty space, it was not really a problem—No. 66 Wutong Road would find its own place to settle.

Yu Sheng reached his hand into the air, squinting slightly.

The next second, he grabbed the handle of the door of No. 66 Wutong Road.

The handle turned gently, but he did not hurry to push the door open. Instead, he reset the coordinates of the door.

The next second, the space at the edge of the camp suddenly expanded!

A spot on the inner side of the wall was forcibly cleared to make way for a large mansion, which descended invisibly in front of Yu Sheng. No. 66 Wutong Road stood before him, and not far away was the familiar parcel collection point...

Zheng Zhi and Li Lin sat on the empty lot in front of the parcel collection point, with a small table in front of them, topped with skewers, beer, peanuts, and edamame.

After two seconds of daze, Zheng Zhi turned his head, "...Brother Yu? Moving again?"

"It shouldn’t be!" Yu Sheng finally reacted, looking bewildered, "I’ve calculated the range this time, how did you still get here?!"

"I don’t know!" Zheng Zhi looked at a loss, but seemingly accustomed to it and not too panicked, "I just heard some commotion from the direction of No. 66 Wutong Road, looked up, and found myself here."

Yu Sheng: "..."

Li Lin looked up at Zheng Zhi, then at Yu Sheng, and raised the skewer in his hand, "Given the situation... want some?"