So much for everything going smoothly.
Because anyone who knows how these things work knows that this is exactly when something is bound to go wrong.
"I'm Lina! I'm not supposed to be here!"
Lina's eyes filled with struggle. She tried to raise her hand and stared at her arm, covered in pearly scales and tiny tentacles, her expression filled with disbelief and horror.
Seeing this, the corners of Ian's mouth curled upward.
It worked! Her true self-awareness was being forcibly pulled back!
"As expected of me!"
However, just as Ian was about to strike while the iron was hot, reinforce the awakening, and directly brand the Raven mark onto her recovering sense of self, something went horribly wrong.
It was as if fate itself had decided to stop his signature Dragon King smirk. Then again, maybe that kind of smirk only worked in urban fantasy settings. In dreams and magical worlds, it apparently couldn't intimidate Cthulhu.
Either way, something unexpected happened right when nothing was supposed to go wrong.
"Ahhhhh~"
A roar beyond any human language erupted from the deepest part of the temple, from the darkness where endless streams of data poured forth. It carried ancient rage, the irritation of a sleeping giant disturbed, and boundless madness.
It wasn't really a sound at all. It was a roar that directly rattled the very rules of the dream world, a primordial shockwave of pure will.
The dream couldn't bear it.
The entire solidified dreamscape cracked like glass struck by a sledgehammer, countless distorted fractures spreading across it in an instant.
"Ahhhhhhh!"
"The Master is angry!"
The tentacle-shaped nebula in the sky began spinning and expanding wildly, its light breaking into countless fragments.
The mutated residents on the streets let out shrill, inhuman howls. Their bodies melted and twisted like wax figures, transforming into even more indescribable masses of warped flesh.
The temple shook violently. Gems embedded in the walls exploded one after another, while the dark-purple energy that had once flowed peacefully now writhed like a swarm of enraged serpents, expanding and radiating an aura of destruction.
Then an immense will descended, vast beyond words, so cold it could freeze the soul, and filled with primitive chaos and malice, like an ancient beast awakening from its slumber. It arrived through its connection to the dream.
This wasn't Cthulhu's complete consciousness; an existence of that scale couldn't be awakened so easily. Instead, it was like a tiny current from the vast ocean of unconscious will it emitted while sleeping, a current drawn out and enraged by the alien stimulus of Ian attempting to awaken Lina using the power of Raven.
It was simply the dream's master instinctively tossing and turning after being disturbed.
Yet even this tiny current was a catastrophe for a world built from dream fragments, and for Ian and Lina, whose awakening had barely begun.
"Damn Cthulhu! You're ruining my medical treatment!"
For the first time, a grave look crossed Ian's cold eyes. He hadn't expected the awakening process to trigger such a violent backlash. At this depth, confronting that will head-on was foolish; it would completely shatter Lina's fragile soul.
His gaze swept across the collapsing dream world and the torrent of malicious will surging from the darkness to devour everything. Finally, his eyes landed on Lina atop the platform. She was clutching her head and groaning in pain, her consciousness struggling violently between her true self and her role as a divine envoy.
"We can't stay here!" Ian made his decision instantly.
Flashing like a ghost through the collapsing temple, he appeared on the platform and grabbed Lina's wrist. Her arm was covered in scales, cold and trembling.
"What are you doing?!" Lina instinctively tried to pull away.
"If you don't want to go completely insane or melt into this place, come with me!" Ian's voice was calm, but his tone left no room for argument.
His thoughts flowed directly into her chaotic mind.
"What do you mean, insane? Melt?"
Lina's head felt like it was splitting open. Countless memory fragments, adventures, her companions, the terror of R'lyeh, deep-sea whispers, the glory of being a divine envoy, spun and collided like pieces of a broken mirror.
Driven by a subconscious urge to survive, Ian's cold, steady grip and the strange authority in his words felt like a lifeline thrown into the abyss. Overwhelmed by survival instinct, she tightened her grip around Ian's hand and nodded desperately, pain and helplessness filling her eyes.
"Save me," she whispered.
"Hold on tight!" Ian commanded.
With his free hand, he rapidly traced a complex symbol in the air, dark-silver light forming the faint outline of Raven wings around it. He wasn't attacking. He was going to…
"Rise."
Since this was the deep dream born from Lina's corruption, they simply had to head upward, back toward the shallow layers where the dream was less solid and far less dangerous. From there, they could return to reality.
The dark-silver symbol flared brightly, enveloping them both.
The scenery around them faded, twisted, and stretched backward like a movie playing in reverse. The collapsing temple, the roaring energy, the terrifying will descending upon them, everything blurred and distanced itself, as if separated by a thick wall of water.
The power of Raven could fly anywhere, even where there was no sky. With it, Ian forcibly dragged the two of them out of the dream's depths.
But the enraged current of Cthulhu's will had no intention of letting the insects who disturbed its sleep escape so easily.
An even denser, heavier force surged after them from the collapsing depths, like countless tentacles wrapping around the dark-silver light to drag them back.
Ian relied on Raven's conceptual flight. The dark-silver light shot like a flying fish swimming upstream, struggling through a passage choked with maddened wills and crumbling scenery. Yet the sticky, malicious tentacles behind them pursued relentlessly, radiating a soul-freezing chill.
"Where am I?!"
Lina felt trapped in an endless nightmare, falling endlessly while being forcibly dragged upward. Countless chaotic screams and whispers filled her ears. The world shattered into fragments of light and shadow, her body feeling stretched and crushed all at once.
The only thing she could rely on was the cold, steady hand around her wrist and the strange order of the dark-silver light enveloping them. It was her only anchor in a world of chaos.
"Up! Don't look back!" Ian's concise command echoed in her mind.
"Okay!"
Lina gritted her teeth, summoning every last scrap of willpower. Guided by the force pulling her, she struggled upward toward a faint glimmer of light.
Time lost all meaning. It could have been an instant or a century.
'Pop!'
A faint sound echoed, like breaking through a thin membrane.
The maddened tentacles of will chasing them and the collapsing scenery suddenly vanished, replaced by a relatively peaceful chaos.
Success.
They had returned to a shallow layer of Lina's soul, the layer Ian had first entered. It was a chaotic sea of information filled with shattered colors, bizarre images, mad whispers, and fragmented knowledge.
While still dangerous and saturated with corruption, it no longer held the solidified dream world, her fake society, or her identity as a divine envoy. Nor was that terrifying current of Cthulhu's will directly descending upon them.
The dark-silver light dimmed slightly. Ian released Lina's wrist, though he maintained the protective barrier around them. Lina staggered, breathing heavily as she regained her balance.
"I..."
She looked down at her hands. The pearly scales and tiny tentacles were gone, replaced by normal human skin, save for a few faded, birthmark-like markings. Her bizarre robes had reverted into the adventurer's gear she wore when entering R'lyeh. Torn and battered as they were, their return proved her consciousness was reclaiming itself.
Lina touched her face. The skin beneath her fingers was warm, not cold scales or a slimy membrane.
"I... I'm back?"
Her voice was hoarse, but much clearer. Dazed relief washed over her, the shock of someone who had narrowly escaped death.
The memories and perceptions of the divine envoy receded like a tide, leaving a cold, nauseating aftertaste. But Lina Fengyu's own memories rapidly reclaimed dominance, her adventures with Saruman and Kag, her thirst for knowledge, the terror of entering the Ruins, and the agony of corruption.
"We went somewhere we never should have gone, and then I was corrupted..."
As her memories returned, Lina raised her head to scan the fragmented space. It was still bizarre, but it lacked the oppressive reality of the previous dream.
Then she looked at the young man beside her, dressed in black robes, cold and handsome.
He had saved her.
"Saruman... Kag..." She suddenly remembered her companions, panic flushing her face. "Where are they? Are we... are we still in R'lyeh? I..."
She hesitated. "I think I just had a very long, terrifying dream..."
Lina was essentially back. Scars from the corruption and fragments of the dream remained buried deep in her soul, but her sense of self was restored.
"Take it easy." Ian studied her condition and gave a slight nod.
The awakening was essentially a success. Her soul core was stable, the corruption temporarily suppressed and isolated. They could proceed to the next step: the transformation. But first, they had to exit this unstable shallow dream and return to reality.
Best not to take any more chances.
"They're still outside. The situation... isn't great," Ian answered succinctly. "This is a dream region created by the corruption in your soul. We need to leave."
"Leave? How?" Lina asked anxiously.
"Keep going up." Ian pointed to an area above them where the energy was thin. "Break through the boundary of this layer and return to waking consciousness. Hold on to me."
Lina grabbed his outstretched arm without hesitation. After the nightmare of the deep dream and that terrifying pursuit, she had developed an instinctive trust in this mysterious young man.
Ian activated his power once more.
The dark-silver silhouette of Raven solidified around them. Like a precisely aimed arrow, the light shot forward, tearing through the fragile barrier of the shallow dream and carrying them toward the surface layer near reality.
As long as they broke through this boundary, they could escape the dream.
However... if this situation was enough to leave Saruman so desperate, how could things end that easily?
Sure enough…
The moment the dark-silver light touched the boundary, another change occurred.
Instead of piercing through easily as Ian expected, the boundary rippled violently like disturbed water, dark-purple waves spreading outward in distorted circles. A powerful, sticky resistance surged up.
It was as if countless invisible, slimy tentacles were reaching out from beyond the boundary, wrapping tightly around the dark-silver light.
Their momentum ground to a halt.
Then something even more disturbing happened.
The background scenery of the shallow dream began to alter. Twisted patches of color, blasphemous fragments of knowledge, and incomprehensible phantoms began to solidify, reassemble, and materialize at a speed that defied logic.
Where color had once drifted uselessly, walls rapidly grew from green slime and writhing flesh. Floating fragments of knowledge condensed into crisscrossing bands of light covered in malicious runes, sealing every escape route. The phantoms morphed into tangible, horrifying beasts, as if deep-sea nightmares had been projected straight into the dream.
They shrieked silently as they closed in from every direction.
"What's happening?!" Lina recoiled in horror.
In an instant, the passive information sea transformed into a hostile structure with a mind of its own, a maze.
Or rather, a killing formation.
"We've been locked down," Ian said, his cold eyes sweeping over the shifting surroundings. "The underlying rules of this dream have been rewritten."
He understood instantly. The pursuing current of Cthulhu's will wasn't just chasing them from behind, it was directly manipulating the dream region's operating rules.
Though this was Lina's soul, it was also deeply intertwined with Cthulhu. It was like 'The Matrix', where Agent Smith could alter code at will to reshape the environment around his target. That was exactly what Cthulhu's will was doing now.
It was temporarily solidifying and weaponizing the dream, turning it into a trap meant specifically for them.
"The path ahead is blocked, and there's nowhere to run behind us..." Lina felt the suffocating malice closing in. Panic gripped her newly awakened mind, turning her face pale.
Ian, however, remained completely calm.
His strategy of avoiding direct conflict hadn't changed; if anything, he was even more committed to it. Fighting the local rules would only waste his energy while giving that will more leverage to reinforce the trap.
His gaze scanned the forming maze like a precision tool, spotting weak points in the flesh walls, gaps between the runic energy nodes, and blind spots in the monsters' attack patterns. None of it was beyond analysis.
"This way!" Ian barked.
Before Lina could react, the dark-silver light veered off course. Abandoning the attempt to force through the reinforced boundary, Ian shot straight toward a flesh wall on their left.
Having just formed, its structure was still unstable despite the tiny eyeballs and tentacles squirming across its surface.
As the saying went, fortune favored the bold. The most dangerous place was often the safest.
That might not always hold true in reality.
But this... was a dream.
(End Of This Chapter)
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