Whispering Verse

"Doctor, are you using hypnotic smoke?"

Shade asked curiously as he pushed the door open and walked into the bedroom. In fact, he was even more curious that the doctor who spit out the smoke was okay.

"No, this is my thaumaturgy [Mist of Sleeping Dragon], which is sometimes used by me to assist in the 'hypnosis' diagnosis and treatment of patients. Don't worry, he is just an ordinary person. Unless we make loud noises in his ears, he will Don’t even think about waking up this night.”

The doctor said confidently.

Although Dr. Schneider has had bad luck, his professionalism is trustworthy.

After entering this somewhat narrow bedroom, the two of them checked the rooms separately to prevent other dangers while falling asleep. During this period, Luther Kingweiss, who was lying on the bed, showed no sign of waking up. Even when the two people who checked the room put their hands on his head in the dark, the sleeping man still did not wake up.

He closed his eyes, and under the light of the silver moon, there was a ferocious expression on his face. Coupled with the terrible red and swollen burn marks on his face and the large shadow formed by his head on the pillow, this scene is indeed a bit scary.

Dr. Schneider believed that the other person was having a nightmare and that this was a good opportunity to fall asleep.

"The burn marks are really serious."

The doctor whispered, and he and Shade brought chairs and sat on both sides of the single bed.

Shade extinguished the light at his fingertips and drank the magic potion handed over by the doctor to help him fall asleep. The doctor then used a silver rune chain that looked like a lady's bracelet to tie Shade's right hand with his left hand. On the rune chain, the three runes [Sleep], [Sleep], and [Dream] repeat in cycles. This is an alchemy item.

There is no need for the doctor to go into a dream alone, but if he wants to take Shade into a dream together, he needs additional preparations.

After doing this, the people sitting on both sides of the bed in the dark room placed their free hands on Luther Kingweis's forehead.

"Doctor, why do you feel like we are performing some evil ritual?"

Shade said softly, and was worried that Luther King Weiss would suddenly open his eyes and be frightened to death by this scene.

"Detective, don't talk nonsense. Relax your mind now. I'm going to start dreaming. If there are no accidents, we will wake up in about ten to fifteen minutes realistically."

"What if there is an accident?"

Shade asked again. The doctor looked up at him. In the almost complete darkness with the curtains drawn, he seemed to see some silver light in Shade's eyes:

"Well...how worried are you about encountering an accident? But if something unfortunate does happen, it's hard to tell the exact time, but trust me, detective, I'm a professional. Now lie down on the bed Close your eyes and keep your body in a comfortable state, very good, one, two, three!”

His energy gradually became lax, and there was a vague sense of pulling that seemed to be trying to lead Shade to a certain place. Shade did not refuse this pull, so his consciousness became more and more blurred.

In a daze, he seemed to be standing on the field ridge under the silver moon again, looking up at the vast night sky and sea of ​​stars. But as the surrounding temperature rises, the huge silver moon disk above the head gradually disappears, and the fiery red light gradually erodes and replaces the tranquil scenery of the fields under the moon.

The crackling sound of burning and swaying flames gradually became clearer.

Shade shivered when he regained consciousness, and for a moment he seemed to have risen from the bottom of the water to the surface.

He took a deep breath and looked around. He was standing on a deserted street at night. In front of him was a burning house, as if it had been devoured by a fire demon. The three-story building was completely ignited. The heat wave and the terrifying crackling sound seemed to indicate that the place was about to collapse.

In the dark night, the light of the flames made it almost impossible to open my eyes.

Dr. Schneider was standing in front of Shade. He raised his palms to cover his eyes and squinted his eyes to look forward. Half of the doctor's face was reflected red by the firelight:

"It's really a nightmare, is it a fire scene? It's as expected."

Shade looked down at his hand, but did not see the golden cracks:

"I remember you said that as long as I am in my dream, I will..."

[Only in deep dreams will traces of the "divine afterglow" be exposed. This dream does not belong to you, and you can only intervene to a limited extent, so you cannot reveal the nature of your soul. 】

It seems that even in other people's dreams, she is still with him.

"Understood."

Thinking in his mind, he continued to look at the fire scene around him that seemed to burn everything. It was easy to tell that this was a dream. Such a huge fire did not alert the surrounding neighbors, and if you carefully observed the burning building, you could see that the flames did not continue to damage the damaged building at all, it was just burning there.

"Doctor, what should we do now?"

Shade asked softly. When he looked up to the higher part of the building, he actually saw a black figure flashing past the burning window:

"what is that?"

He thought in his mind, but the special environment of the dream greatly weakened the perception of outsiders, so the voice in his heart did not give an answer.

"I'm going to find the owner of the dream. Detective, please wait a moment."

The doctor stood still with his eyes closed, and Shade continued to observe the burning flames in front of him. Although this was his first time dreaming, this dream always gave him a strange feeling.

"Found it, it's upstairs... But this dream seems a bit strange. Why do I feel like there is something else besides us?"

The blue-eyed doctor said with some surprise. He did not lead Shade directly into the fire scene. Instead, he summoned the life ring, and the core spiritual rune [Dream] and the spiritual rune [False Reality] shimmered at the same time.

The use of thaumaturgy caused a strange halo to spread from the brass ring to the surroundings, and some black silk wadding actually appeared in the air that originally seemed distorted by the heat.

Those black things look extremely filthy and weird. They travel through matter and air like phantoms. Trying to touch them just makes the silk threads pass through your fingers.

"What's this?"

Shade asked again in her heart, but she still didn't give an answer because Shade didn't touch these things at all.

"Doctor, it looks like something is strange here. Should we go find the owner of the dream, or should we quit and give up now?"

Shade asked Dr. Schneider for his opinion. The doctor frowned and thought for a while, and even twitched his nose at the burning building in front of him, as if catching the smell:

"There is no need to quit. There are indeed different strange phenomena in different people's dreams, not to mention that the other person is a gifted person during the awakening period. Moreover, if I encounter an enemy in reality, I may worry about accidents, but this is the world of dreams, and I am professional."

The strong self-confidence he showed also infected Shade, and Shade actually didn't want to give up:

"So how do we break into a fire?"

Danger in dreams affects them as well.

"give it to me."

[Dream] The spiritual rune flashed again, and as the doctor recited a difficult-to-pronounce incantation, a layer of water film enveloped Shade. The heat was kept out, and he felt as if he was getting stronger.

"The thaumaturgy [Dream Fairy's Blessing], within one hour of the somatosensory time of the dream, the damage of the scene is greatly reduced, and the strength of the subject is enhanced at the same time. In addition, in order not to wake up the owner of the dream, outsiders like us in the dream, even if If there is a way to control dreams, it is best not to do so. We can use our own ring magician power, but do not try to use relics. Even if your spirit is enough to simulate relics, do not use them in dreams, otherwise the dream will be deflected to a more Weird direction."

The doctor explained the basic rules of dream exploration and walked forward up the steps of the house. He grabbed the burning door handle with his hand, turned it with a bang a few times, then turned to Shade and said:

"Detective, come and open the door. The lock in the dream is more difficult to open than the lock in reality. If you are not here, I'm afraid I have to look for clues around and understand the theme of the dream and the background of the story before I can unlock the first lock. .”

"Doctor, it sounds like every time I break into a dream, it's like playing a role-playing game with preset rules."

Shade said, walking up the steps and reaching for the door lock. He just felt warm heat, and after a slight resistance, the door lock turned and the door was opened. According to the dream theory that Shade learned, the lock in the dream is actually a "heart lock", which is also within the scope of the [Key to the Door].

The doctor smiled:

"Role-playing? This phrase is quite interesting. But it does seem like a very real game. The psychiatrist is actually a detective in dreams. But compared to the detectives like you who go to investigate in the past, the detectives who investigate in dreams are slightly safer."

Seeing that Shade successfully unlocked the door, the doctor took a deep breath and regained his serious expression:

"Now get ready to fight. Even if there are no intruders other than us in the dream, this nightmare will definitely spontaneously produce some strange things to resist us."

"What happens if you get hurt in a dream?"

Shade looked at the fire inside the door and walked in. The doctor followed him, the flames licking the two of them:

"Mental loss."

The foyer was blocked by a collapsed and burning shoe cabinet and clothes hanger. The doctor asked Shade, who was walking in front, to cut open the things blocking the way.

"What if you die in a dream? Will you die in reality too?"

After passing through the foyer is the living room, and the stairs leading up are on the other side of the living room. The crackling flames looked particularly terrifying. All around were bright lights, flames, and heat waves. The heat waves distorted the air, making everything extremely strange.

This was Shade's first time going deep into a fire scene. Even though it was a fire scene in his dream, it was really an eye-opener for him.

"No, no, detective, don't underestimate me. Death in a dream will force you to exit the dream, and then you will have a headache for several days. During this period, your mental resistance will be greatly weakened, and the risk of losing control will increase, but you will never die directly."

The doctor said, then pressed Shade's shoulders to tell him not to walk so fast:

"Look ahead."

Amidst the burning flames, something crawling like a burnt corpse was crawling on the ground. But if you look carefully, it's not crawling. Its body is facing upwards, and its hands and feet are bent downwards to touch the ground. When Shade looked at it, the monster slapped the ground with its hands and feet, carrying flames and rushed towards Shade and doctor.

"Monsters in dreams will show the fears and thoughts of the dream owner. It seems that Luther King Weiss saw these people burned to death in the fire that year."

The doctor asked Shade to step back, and he walked towards the burning mummy. When the two sides were about to collide in three steps, the skinny, charred corpse with folded arms and legs suddenly jumped up from the fire and threw itself at the doctor's face.

But the doctor calmly raised his left hand. When a transparent round shield appeared in his hand, he raised his left hand upward——

Bang!

The flying corpse was hit hard by the shield and flew away. After hitting the raised stone bricks in the collapsed corner of the living room, it scattered into a ball of black ashes and disappeared.

"So weak?"

"This is just a dream for a gifted person, not a dream for a magician."

The shield in the doctor's hand dispersed and he shrugged:

"But the closer you get to the owner of the dream, the stronger the counterattack you will encounter, so you can't really think that this place is absolutely safe."