Fantasy Clock～Dream Ruler～

Looking down on the town from above the clock, the view will be blocked by evil spirits wandering in the sky. Even the towns seen through the gaps were barren of grass. William sat on the edge of the clock, staring at the sporadic sparks from the cigarette he was holding in his mouth, sucking out the smoke in his mouth, and then exhaling it gently. In fact, he felt that looking at it from this height, the scene in front of him was a bit like the scene of the locust plague.

William turned his head back and took the scene of the clock into his eyes. The numbers "2" and "5" on the dial were dimmed, and the rest were desolate gray. He thought of the young man with always gloomy complexion, and the young man who was always wearing a clown costume following him, and couldn't help but sighed helplessly.

"Really...it's just some farce."

After discussing the general intentions with Arquette, all the rulers of the eighth clock have already left here. Elus took the advice of Jiangcheng and the others, and put a door to her dream world next to her number. Now, except for William, all the masters of Clock No. 2 gathered in the tavern in Elus's world that William had brought them to, which was the adventurer's guild that Elus belonged to.

The reason why William didn't sit with other people, but chose to stay here alone was because of Su Luoyang's question not long ago.

——At the dining table, the Dominators sat around and shared a meal. William originally thought that Su Luoyang would sit next to Xia Yinci, but he seemed to deliberately sit opposite William, with a surprisingly serious expression and confusion in his eyes. He hesitated to speak again and again, as if he wanted to ask him something important. In the end, it was William who broke the silence between them first.

"I heard from them that many aspects of your actions this time are due to you, Su Luoyang. Then I will simply thank you here first."

While cutting into the topic from this aspect, William raised his wine glass and approached Su Luoyang, but the wine glass in front of Su Luoyang was stopped by Lin Yu and snatched it away. The tea cat on his shoulder got off his shoulder for a while due to his violent movement, and stayed in the air for half a second before "clicking" back to his shoulder.

"Stop, students under the age of 18 are not allowed to drink alcohol."

"Only this is the only thing you are steadfast in. Why don't you think of your teacher's identity when you encourage students to fall in love?"

Su Ruoyang pouted helplessly, and complained to Lin Yu. Lin Yu, on the other hand, moved the wine glass to a position out of Su Ruoyang's reach without a doubt, then flicked his forehead aggressively, and raised his wine glass provocatively. William looked at the pair of teachers and students, and inexplicably remembered some scenes that made him sad. He finally couldn't hold his breath anymore, and while moving the dinner plate in front of him, he lightly opened his tight lips just now.

"Su Ruoyang, you hesitate to speak, do you want to ask me about Sato Kazuhiko?"

"Ah... this.. this?"

William showed that he had no intention of guessing this aspect, and elegantly cut the steak on the plate into a small piece, and stuffed it into his mouth, but his eyes deliberately cast a absent-minded glance at Su Luoyang. At this moment, Lin Yu also frowned suddenly, put down his wine glass, and his slack gaze re-focused on William's eyes.

"Actually... yes, I really want to ask about him... Mr. Sato encouraged me before, obviously he was so clear about the future direction at that time, so I don't believe Watanabe Kaede's words-I don't believe he will He is the one who chooses to give up. So, I want to know why Mr. Sato didn’t persist until we came to rescue him.”

William gently raised the tablecloth to wipe his mouth, squeezed out a business-like smile, and shrugged, "I'm not Sato himself, so it's really hard to answer this question."

"Is that so, I'm sorry....It's really too much to ask you, isn't it?"

"However, I think Kazuhiko Sato has worked hard to persevere..."

Regardless of the meaning of Su Ruoyang's words, William suddenly changed the subject. The light in Su Ruo's eyes also flickered, just like the confusion in his own heart.

"After persisting, he chose to give up, which shows that Sato is destined to be different from us sitting here. What he wants may be very simple, something that can be achieved in daily life... He doesn't need to control reality at all. strength or something to help him.”

"Why are you so sure about this?" Lin Yu maintained his usual skeptical attitude, grasping the strange question in William's language, "What exactly does he want, how do you know?"

"Of course, I don't know what it is. I say this because I think about it carefully later, and I found that Sato Kazuhiko had a satisfied smile on his face before he disappeared."

"But...how is this possible?" Lin Yu was a little hard to understand. He rubbed his forehead and focused his gaze on William again, "How could Sato smile even when he was being tortured??"

"Sato forcibly pulled away the consciousness that he had left in the dream. Maybe it was a protective mechanism of the brain, or maybe he couldn't bear it anymore and broke free from the shackles that imprisoned the arena... Anyway, Anyway, he came back to reality halfway.”

"So... Sato will give up in the end and be content with the status quo, is it because of what happened to him in reality?"

"How would I know what he experienced in reality? I only know that as soon as he returned to his dream, his spirit fell apart, and he disappeared in front of me talking to himself with that satisfied smile."

In the end, William didn't tell Su Luoyang that it was because Sato returned to reality that he couldn't support his spirit and gave up struggling to die; he also didn't tell Su Luoyang that no matter how hard he tried to encourage Sato to wake up, in the end Still powerless. William at least wanted to leave a good name for the dead. But William felt a little uncomfortable in his heart.

Obviously he used his way to guide Sato, so that Sato found his real reason for participating in the domination war, why did he give up this reason in the end. In the end, Sato couldn't bear the pain and chose to settle it; or was it only Sato who found the best answer and was redeemed... William really couldn't figure out the answer to this question.

Only Sato knows the correct answer, but Sato has disappeared on both sides of reality and dreams. The living can only find this answer by themselves, just as Kaede Watanabe once said, the death of the deceased only has the meaning of existence when the living people cheer up for it. So no matter what, Sato's death couldn't be in vain, William forced himself to find something out of it, so he came here alone to think.

But at this moment, he suddenly heard someone's familiar footsteps, and was pulled back from his thoughts to reality by this voice. William looked up instinctively, the numbers on the clock of Kazuhiko Sato and Kaede Watanabe were still gray that made his heart palpitate, and they would no longer emit light. The pace gradually stopped behind him, and William didn't even need to look back to know that the person standing behind was Chart.

"Hey, William Andres, let me ask you... just now, what did you want to use Elus for?"

The questioning tone made William stand up on the edge of the clock. He took a few steps forward, jumped up and sat on the second hand of the clock. Chalt hesitated for a few seconds, and the picture in front of him seemed to remind him of a certain memory, but in the end he still couldn't grasp the tail of the memory, so he had to follow and sit next to William.

"The King of Pirates of Dreams must be aware of your ability to control... Zach and Xu Xue, who defected to the camp of Dream Pirates, must have told him about it. So he must be on guard against you."

Watching the smoke blown out of William's mouth and the swirling scenery caused by the rotation of the pointer, Charte felt a little hazy. He recalled that there were indeed two people standing behind him at that time, and one of them swung a blade and slid it around his waist to threaten him, warning him not to act rashly. In fact, Chart also knew that they must have ulterior motives if they didn't stab him directly, but he couldn't figure out why.

William had to be asked to get answers to these questions. Even though Charte was not reconciled, he knew this fact very clearly in his heart.

"He ordered the invisible ruler to sneak behind you, but he was worried that there was not enough tacit understanding between him and the invisible man. In this way, what do you think he is most likely to do?"

Chart followed his reminder and thought about it. He remembered that there was a ruler—the executioner of the Thief of Dreams (in fact, Charter was not sure whether the executioner was a ruler of the Dream Thieves Alliance, or that he was actually the dreamer of the Thief of Dreams )——Always follow the King of Pirates of Dreams. The King of Pirates of Dreams also seems to use this torturer in particular. Therefore, what King Thief of Dreams would do should be to let the torturer act together with the invisible boy, in order to prevent any mistakes. This can also explain why there are two people appearing behind him. Chart couldn't help but frowned slightly, and glanced at William.

"It seems that you have already got the answer. In fact, the last time I fought here, I realized that the King of Pirates of Dreams actually relies on that torturer."

"Stop boasting about your inexplicable powers of observation at a time like this, William."

"Okay. Speaking of which, the King of Pirates of Dreams made the invisible man and the torturer invisible together. It is really a bit of a limit to one person's control ability. No matter how careful the two of them are, they will inevitably show their feet. Ordinary people really can't detect it. , but my "Absolute Observation" noticed the torturer's fingernails unintentionally protruding from the cloak. This brought the hidden information to the surface."

"I don't understand. Wouldn't it be enough to just kill me? Why did you use the method of warning me instead? Isn't this a long way to go?"

"Think about it, after killing you, you will be reborn four hours later, but what is the King of Pirates of Dreams thinking about, in other words, what does he want?"

"It should be.. "How to kill the opponent thoroughly".. This kind of thing that eradicates other rulers..."

"Yeah, so his purpose, of course, is to bring us all back to the arena of imprisonment, and torture them to death one by one—a complete death. As I said just now, the bandits who outnumber us The dreamer is at a disadvantage when the dominance ability fails, unlike our party with a small number of people, so your dominance ability is also a thorn in his side." William sighed lightly, glanced at Chart, and continued quietly "From this point of view, if the King of Pirates of Dreams can do it, he will definitely not let you be reborn after four hours, and run back to rescue those who survived four hours."

"You've said so much, but you still haven't answered what you were trying to use Elus for?"

William let some space between his lips, and the smoke was squeezed out gently. He reached out to take down the cigarette dangling from his mouth, and his tone suddenly rose a little.

"I'm just putting all my eggs in one basket. Although the attack range of that 'sugar-coated cannonball' is very wide, we can still find a way to dodge it with all our strength. However, the next one will definitely be endless, and it must be broken by your control ability The stalemate at that time. The problem is that if I ignore the absolute observation of the King of Pirates and instruct you to use the trump card, he will definitely be ruthless, instruct the torturer to attack you, and reluctantly "let you live". In this way, all Even if the explicit instructions don’t work, then I have to create something to prompt you to use it—and it’s beyond the range that Thief Dream King’s absolute observation can predict.”

"But—! What does this have to do with Elus!?"

Chart was very irritable, he shook his head vigorously and shouted at William. The volume of his speech was excessively amplified unconsciously, causing his own echo to reverberate in the vicinity. William was silent for a few seconds, and suddenly showed a mysterious smile, which made Charter feel his heart tighten.

"You like Elus, don't you?"

William's slightly squinted eyes made Charter's vision suddenly go dark, and his eyes wandered to the sporadic sparks at the end of the cigarette he was holding in his hand, and then drifted back to William in a daze.

"At the same time, you absolutely, absolutely don't trust me." William's tone was mixed with a hint of sadness and helplessness, he lowered his head, his voice was low and vicissitudes, "So I'm sure you will suspect that I have no countermeasures at all, I conclude that it is impossible for you to safely hand over the person you like to me. I conclude that in the face of fleeting danger, you will definitely use your dominance regardless of whether your situation is dangerous or not.”

William clearly remembered that day, because Elus was plotted and killed by Kaede Watanabe while walking with Su Royang, Chart stubbornly pointed the finger at Su Royang who failed to protect Elus. Although he stopped Chart, he also used this incident to affirm his guess - Chart's love for Elus, he would not even allow this kind of "death" that would be reborn four hours later happened to her.

"Because of such idle guesses and so-called conclusions... are you exposing Elus to danger!?"

Chalt's vision was blurred by a layer of mist, and the moment he saw the wry smile on William's face, he suddenly caught the memory that he couldn't recall just now, his eyes trembled—flying with the pointer Among all the turnovers, only William's figure is unusually clear. Sitting on the pointer and turning it, isn't it just like sitting on the merry-go-round with William in childhood?

But every place is different from when I was a child. The self in the amusement park in his memory was obviously laughing happily. He pointed to the distant scenery in his father's arms, his eyes gradually couldn't catch up with the speed of the circle, so he had to lie on his head in William's arms. Back to the present, only the "carousel" of William and Chartres lacked the laughter that should have existed. What replaces those laughter is questioning, suspicion and silence from time to time.

Because at this moment... there is another person who is traveling in the memory missing.

"William Andres, it doesn't matter whether everyone dies in your eyes—"

"Charter, what you did is even beyond the expectations of the King of Pirates!" William knew that Charles would definitely involve the matter with Baitu Mei again, so he had no choice but to raise the volume to interrupt before this happened. He, but his tone has not yet recovered from the pain of not being understood and being hated by his relatives, "It was your 'distrust' and serious doubts in me that saved everyone from that predicament."

"What do you mean by saying this suddenly? Do you want me to sympathize with you?!"

With tears in his eyes, Charte roared, he took off the deer hat on top of his head irritably, pulled half of his hair forcefully, his lips trembled uncontrollably.

"Damn... I shouldn't have cared about your safety! Why should I listen to Su Luoyang's instructions? Is it important to persist in attacking dream stealers?! Why save a guy like you...this hypocrite...just I'd rather die!"

William pulled a bitter smile, but forced himself to nod his head in satisfaction. He jumped off the pointer with ease, his back turned to Chart. The pressure in his chest made his shoulders tremble.

"Great job.. You treat me with this attitude, then continue to doubt me, continue to distrust me! Then one day, I will prove it to you—"

What kind of person is your father, is he as you think, a complete bastard who doesn't care about anyone's life or death... I will definitely prove these things to you, Chart.