The interior of the temple was vast and gloomy, lit only by strange gemstones embedded in the walls and pillars.
The air was cold, damp, and heavy, carrying a suffocating sense of mental oppression. Countless dark-purple waves of pure, insane thought surged out of the darkness deep within the temple. They twisted and flowed through the halls like living things, eventually converging toward a raised platform at the very center.
Seated atop that platform was a vague figure, resting upon a throne made from a gigantic shell and twisted coral.
She vaguely resembled Lina, but taller and indistinct, as if hidden behind a constantly shifting veil woven from the light and shadow of the deep sea.
Her body was draped in an ornate, bizarre robe woven from pearls, scales, and living tentacles. On her head rested a diadem resembling a miniature green nebula.
"Hmm?"
Ian narrowed his eyes as he observed her.
Lina's face was hidden in shadow, impossible to make out clearly, but where her eyes should have been, two cold, eerie lights flickered, lights that seemed capable of seeing straight through to the essence of a soul.
She sat there silently like the core of this twisted city, a hub connected to the darkness, through which countless streams of insane data poured forth.
Some of the power swirling through the temple disappeared into the darkness behind her. The rest seemed to be absorbed and processed by her before subtly influencing the operation of the entire dream world in a more orderly manner.
She was the god's representative within this layer of the dream, a projection formed when Cthulhu's vast, chaotic mass of madness and information was given a personality and physical form. At the same time, she was the manifestation of Lina's own consciousness after being corrupted, twisted, and appointed to this role.
Ian stood quietly in an inconspicuous corner of the temple, watching Lina on the platform.
'Found you.'
He was certain of it.
To transform Lina into RavenSeer, he had to do it here, at the very core of what she believed to be the source of her identity and power. He needed to shatter this illusion, awaken the part of her that had sunk into it, and then use the mark of the Raven to overwrite and replace everything.
But attacking her directly?
"Not a good idea."
Ian glanced at the seemingly endless streams of dark-purple energy pouring from the depths of the temple, then at the obscure fluctuations radiating from Lina on the platform, which were tightly intertwined with the entire dream world.
He knew what would happen. A forced attack could trigger a violent backlash from the dream itself. It might even alert the deeper Existence connected to it, causing Lina's soul structure to collapse instantly.
"I'll have to use a cleverer method."
A thoughtful glint flashed through Ian's cold eyes.
First, he needed to awaken the part of Lina's consciousness that had lost itself here. Even a single moment of clarity would be enough. He needed her to realize that this place was a dream and that the identity she had been given was false.
As long as he could create even the smallest crack in her perception, he could slip through and plant the seed of the Raven.
But how to wake her?
Ian's gaze swept across the streams of data swirling through the temple, the faintly glowing gemstones embedded in the walls, and finally the hazy figure of Lina on the platform.
A plan quickly took shape in his mind.
Without making a sound, he moved through the temple like a shadow, planting a few little things throughout the enormous, blasphemous structure.
They weren't magic formations; they were closer to information disturbances and cognitive suggestions.
The inspiration, of course, came from one of Ian's favorite movies: 'Inception'.
Wasn't he doing something similar right now?
"Let's give it a try."
Ian took the cold, orderly fragments of information representing the concept of the Raven within his consciousness and, like a farmer scattering seeds, secretly embedded them into tiny gaps and nodes within the streams of chaotic data flowing through the temple.
These seeds wouldn't activate immediately. They would lie dormant like viruses, gradually and imperceptibly corrupting the underlying information structure of this dream world.
All they needed to do was introduce a single discordant note: the cold order and rhythm of time belonging to the Raven.
At the same time, Ian searched for an opportunity to approach the platform and get closer to the fallen Lina.
He had no intention of immediately attacking the core of her consciousness. Like a patient hunter, or perhaps a calm sociological observer, he continued to linger and watch within this solidified, insane deep dream.
"The seeds have been planted."
Not wanting to alert anyone, Ian walked out of the temple and blended back into the strange city.
This time, he was no longer merely a passerby. He began carefully observing how this world under Cthulhu's influence actually functioned.
"Has the corruption not gone far enough?"
Ian discovered that although the inhabitants had become physically distorted, they still retained a certain degree of social structure and emotion. They fought over resources, and on what they called "holy days," they gathered outside the temple to perform twisted rituals filled with slippery, writhing movements and strange chants.
The rituals were supposedly prayers to the Sleeping God for blessings.
Yet the fact that these people still possessed emotions made Ian feel this might be a reflection of Lina's mind before it had completely fallen silent.
"If that's the case, this should make things a little easier."
Ian moved silently among the dream residents. Their language was obscure, but his powerful mental perception allowed him to roughly understand what they were saying.
How should he put it? There wasn't much meaningful conversation.
Their discussions revolved around everyday survival, but even more often around subjects such as evolution, listening to divine revelations, waiting for the stars to return to their proper positions, and the dream of the deep sea.
They seemed to regard the mutations of their bodies as a form of blessing and evolution. The more severely mutated someone was, the higher their status tended to be, and the closer they were considered to being one with the gods.
There were even Existences in the city who resembled scholars. They studied the blasphemous runes naturally forming across the walls and interpreted the nebulae, the changes in Cthulhu's projection of the dream. All in the name of understanding the will of the Supreme Lord.
They were all completely insane.
There were even artists here who used slime, phosphorescent materials, and living matter to create horrifying yet strangely beautiful works of art.
Everything proceeded in an orderly fashion according to a twisted kind of logic. Madness had been institutionalized here; blasphemy had become common sense.
Ian even witnessed a dispute mediation firsthand.
Two residents had gotten into an argument over the right to use a cave supposedly rich in spiritual energy. Instead of seeking a law enforcer, the two went together to the outskirts of the temple and presented their case to a clergy member whose mutations were particularly pronounced, making him look like a hybrid of an octopus and a human.
"I believe..."
The clergyman closed his eyes and listened for a moment before delivering his verdict.
The losing party was clearly unhappy, but they didn't dare disobey, merely muttering under their breath about how the position of the stars was unfavorable.
A self-consistent miniature society built entirely on the logic of Cthulhu's corruption. That was Ian's assessment.
Lina's subconscious had unconsciously borrowed certain frameworks from human society when constructing this dream, but it had completely replaced their core with Cthulhu's rules.
The part of her consciousness that had fallen into this place was acting as the architect at the top of this twisted society, as well as the messenger of divine will. That only made her identify more deeply with this false identity and this false world.
Ian continued to wait, constantly scattering those cold Raven information seeds.
Like fine dust, the seeds quietly attached themselves to more and more parts of the dream as it continued to operate: a single syllable briefly going off-key in a resident's unconscious muttering, a faint gemstone on the wall dimming almost imperceptibly, a tiny stutter in one of the data streams inside the temple.
The changes were accumulating.
At last, after observing long enough, Ian gained a much deeper understanding of the dream world's operating rules and how Lina's consciousness core was connected to it.
He decided the time was right.
Ian returned to the enormous temple. This time, he didn't hide in a corner.
He simply blended into the crowd gathered around the temple, disguising himself as an ordinary resident with a few scales and webbed features on his body. He was completely unremarkable.
The residents around him knelt on the ground, chanting twisted hymns in a bubbling, gurgling language. Their eyes were filled with fanaticism as they gazed toward the hazy figure on the platform.
Dark-purple data streams swirled above their heads as though responding to their prayers, radiating waves that made the mind tremble.
The Lina on the platform seemed to sense the devotion of her followers. She slowly raised one hand, its surface covered in fine scales that shimmered like pearls.
At her gesture, the streams of data pouring from the depths of the temple became more active. Several thinner branches split away, winding downward like living creatures before gently brushing across several of the most heavily mutated worshippers in the front row.
The worshippers trembled violently as the streams passed over them, letting out moans that mixed pain with ecstasy. The mutations covering their bodies seemed to become even more pronounced, even more beautiful.
The surrounding followers let out envious murmurs.
At the moment when the collective consciousness was most concentrated, when the dream world's rules and connections were at their most active and clearly defined, Ian moved.
He didn't cast any earth-shattering magic.
He simply stood among the crowd and slowly raised his head. His cold, calm eyes were completely out of place among the fanatic worshippers around him.
He looked straight at the hazy Lina on the platform.
Then his lips moved.
No sound came out, but he sent a piece of information directly toward her soul's perception, infused with the cold, orderly nature of the Raven.
It was like the sharpest needle, precisely piercing the fallen core of consciousness on the platform.
"Look around you."
"All of this..."
"It's a dream."
Simple. Direct. No unnecessary flourish.
Yet combined with the Raven information seeds he had secretly scattered throughout the dream world, which were now faintly resonating within its underlying structure, and his absolutely calm sense of self, so completely different from the madness surrounding him, the words were like a stone dropped into a distorted lake.
On the platform, the hazy figure that resembled an emissary of a god seemed to tremble ever so slightly.
The veil of light and shadow covering her face distorted briefly.
"Who is calling me?"
For the first time, those eyes that seemed to be condensed from eerie light appeared to actually focus.
They pierced through the darkness of the temple, crossed the crowd, and settled upon the black-robed boy standing in an inconspicuous spot, who somehow seemed completely separate from the entire world.
A trace of pure confusion and bewilderment belonging to the real Lina surfaced deep within her, like a tiny, uncorrupted bubble rising from the bottom of the deep sea.
Within the depths of her consciousness, which had been filled with madness and divinity, the opportunity to awaken had finally appeared.
"Lina Fengyu."
"Look around you."
"All of this..."
"It's a dream."
The cold, clear words carried an undeniable force of order. Like a diamond thrown into thick tar, they instantly pierced through the temple's fanatical whispers and the hum of the maddening data streams, striking directly into the deepest part of the hazy figure's consciousness.
"What dream?"
The veil of light and shadow before Lina's face violently rippled and twisted, as though a calm surface had suddenly been disturbed.
Those eyes, originally nothing more than cold, eerie lights, suddenly seemed to come alive. Her pupils contracted sharply.
For the briefest moment, pure confusion belonging to an ordinary human girl flashed deep within them.
Had she... heard her own name?
A name she hadn't remembered for a very, very long time. A name that had almost been forgotten.
"My name is Lina. Yes, my name is Lina."
"But... How long have I been here?" Lina whispered.
The distorted yet harmonious prayers around her, the cold and clammy touch of the air, the dark-purple energy surging from the darkness and connecting itself so intimately with her, for a single instant, everything seemed to be covered by a thin veil of unreality.
"A dream...?"
A faint thought, almost impossible to detect, struggled to emerge from a corner of her mind overwhelmed by divinity and madness.
Ian caught the change.
'Now!'
Without hesitation, he focused his mind and activated the Raven information seeds he had quietly planted throughout the underlying structure of the dream world.
It was like pressing an invisible switch.
The blasphemous gemstones embedded in the temple walls suddenly dimmed. Then tiny, extremely faint points of dark-silver light began flickering across them, cold and orderly.
The mad energy swirling through the air suddenly developed tiny stutters and noise at several crucial data-flow nodes, moments so brief that the native inhabitants of the dream could barely notice them.
The noise carried the rhythm of time. And the cry of the Raven.
Even along the edges of certain mutations on the worshippers kneeling beneath the platform, fleeting geometric patterns of cold light seemed to flash across them, patterns completely alien to the aesthetic rules of this dream.
Each change was insignificant on its own, but guided by Ian's core awakening phrase, they erupted simultaneously. Like countless fine needles, they pierced the crack that had just appeared in Lina's perception.
"Yes. I also took some inspiration from 'The Matrix'."
Ian knew the effect was outstanding. After all, whenever he borrowed ideas from famous classics, they had never once let him down.
And sure enough,
"No... that's not right..."
The figure on the platform finally spoke. Her voice was no longer the hollow, echoing tone of a divine oracle. Instead, it carried the dry, trembling rasp of a young girl.
"I... I'm Lina... I'm in... R'lyeh... Kag... Sāru-Man..."
The girl was almost awake.
Everything seemed to be going perfectly.
(End Of This Chapter)
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