Chapter 818: The Falling City

These butterfly wings were perhaps the most dazzling splash of color in the Dream Realm. Spreading wide, nothing in the Deep Dream Layer could impede them. This was the Dream Wing.

"No!" Chen Mo shouted as a brilliant splash of color bloomed across the ashen city, but he was already too late to stop it.

Nine fox tails swept aside the cobwebs. The butterfly wings fluttered, smashing open the gate wrapped in black chains.

The Dream Wing Gu could break out of the Deep Dream Layer, but every use drained its energy. It would need to slumber for a long time before it could be used a second time.

If I used the power of the Dream Wing Gu to escape the Deep Dream Layer now, it would mean completely abandoning everything here. The dazzling butterfly wings stretched wide and swiftly carried me to the roof, where I saw the building in its entirety for the first time.

The entire building had been painted into an enormous formation, with its central hub right here on the roof. Staring at an altar as complex as an astrolabe, I unleashed the Blood Fox's endless killing intent. Eyes glowing red, I glared at Black Robe and the Butcher standing in the center of the altar. "Stop! Chen Mo is a puppet of Destiny! He's a sleeper agent Destiny planted in the Live Show! All your plans are playing right into Destiny's hands!"

The Dream Wing Gu grew restless. I could feel its sheer terror from within my Liver Aperture. Its wings trembled slightly, urging me to leave.

"You saved my life once, and I never wanted to clash with you. That was why I sought you out to propose a partnership." Black Robe stood with his back to me. He stopped chanting. "But now I realize you truly have changed. They were right. You have already failed. You've become Destiny's pawn."

"I'm Destiny's pawn? What are you talking about?" I pointed down at the cobwebs in the stairwell, which were entangled with the threads of fate. "Open your eyes and look! The one manipulating fate is Chen Mo! He's Destiny's puppet!"

"I don't know what happened to you, but you really have forgotten too much. The old you never would have bothered to argue, nor would you have done anything so meaningless." The Black-Robed Anchor pressed his hand against the Butcher's head, pinning him to the exact center of the building. Slender black chains surged out from beneath his robes to tightly bind the Butcher's body.

He pulled a fractured segment of bone from his robes. Its surface was carved with scriptures.

In length and thickness, this bone looked nearly identical to the half I had given Chu Men. It seemed they were originally two halves of a single whole.

"Don't be so surprised. If anything, I should be thanking you. Without your cooperation in reality, my plan would never have gone so smoothly." The Black-Robed Anchor's voice was ice-cold, utterly devoid of emotion. He raised his right hand high. Before I could even react, he plunged the fractured bone straight through the Butcher's neck, nailing his head to the center of the altar!

"Aaaagh!"

Amidst his screams, the Butcher's body shriveled at a speed visible to the naked eye. Once the half-bone had absorbed enough energy, the carved scriptures began to radiate a bloody light. It felt as though every single character imprisoned a different emotion.

With the fractured bone staked into the center of the altar, the intricate patterns across the floor gradually began to glow, illuminating this pale, ashen district like a blazing torch.

"What exactly are you trying to do?" The ominous premonition in my heart grew stronger, and the Dream Wing Gu continually urged me to leave.

"Don't rush. You'll find out soon enough." The voice came from behind me. I turned my head and saw an absurdly massive spider crawling up the side of the building. It raised its abdomen, revealing Chen Mo's mutated face.

Staring at this half-man, half-spider monstrosity, a chill ran down my spine. I had no idea how he had earned Black Robe's trust, nor did I know how Destiny had managed to help Chen Mo conceal his identity, but none of that mattered anymore.

The entire altar acted like a lighthouse erected in the depths of the ocean. It wasn't long before a pinprick of starlight suddenly pierced through the pitch-black void on the other side of the tear in the sky!

"Found it!" Black Robe didn't even glance down at the Butcher, who was rapidly being drained dry at his feet. He raised his hands, and countless black chains surged from every corner of the Dream Realm, shooting straight toward the distant shores of the sky.

This scheme had been years in the making. One by one, the black chains pierced through the sky, seemingly crossing over into another world entirely!

That single speck of starlight within the breach slowly grew brighter. It resonated with the fractured bone on the altar, the distance between them shrinking by the second.

My heart pounded wildly in my chest. My pupils contracted to pinpricks as I pushed the Judging Eye to its absolute limits.

"That's..."

The starlight magnified in my eyes. Slowly, I bore witness to the most shocking scene of my life.

An endlessly sprawling city was plunging down at high speed, dragged by the black chains!

That wasn't a speck of starlight at all. It was the glow of tens of thousands of city lights.

Neon lights flickered, and the city's silhouette could not have been any clearer. This city about to plummet right into the Deep Dream Layer was none other than the sleepless demonic metropolis of over ten million people—Jinghai!

"The other side of the Dream Realm is reality. Is Black Robe actually trying to drag that entire city into the Deep Dream Layer? Does he want to turn Jinghai into the gateway between reality and dreams?" The sheer scale of this scheme was beyond my imagination. Looking at the countless black chains rising from every corner of the Deep Dream Layer, I finally understood. To make this moment a reality, the Traitors and the Black-Robed Anchor had sacrificed just as much and spent just as much time as I had.

"The Deep Dream Layer is the only sanctuary beyond Destiny's control. Forcibly tearing open a gateway between reality and dreams might change how a large portion of the populace views fate, but it will also invite Destiny right into the Deep Dream Layer! When that happens, this forsaken land will likely become Destiny's new chessboard!" I desperately wanted to stop Black Robe, but I had no idea how.

The city was drawing closer and closer. I could see it all with terrifying clarity, right down to every single person living within it. They were simply going about their daily lives as usual, completely oblivious to the impending danger.

As the city was dragged by the black chains into the breach of the Deep Dream Layer, Black Robe finished chanting his incantation and pulled out something else—a shattered jade disk. It was carved with exquisite patterns, and it perfectly matched the fractured piece of jade I had given to Chu Men.

"The will of the people is with me! Even the will of heaven cannot stop this!" Clutching the shattered jade in one hand, Black Robe drew out the Dream Immortal Chant Mother Talisman with the other and inscribed his final command.

I watched the talisman in his hand, a sudden pang of regret washing over me regarding my previous arrangements. Straining my eyes into the distance, I finally managed to spot Chu Men's figure within the city suspended overhead.

He was wearing my Good and Evil Asura Mask. At this exact moment, he was carefully digesting the message transmitted through the Dream Immortal Chant Child Talisman. A dozen seconds later, he placed the piece of shattered jade—which had converged the entirety of Jinghai's will of the people—right in the dead center of a concrete pillar. Then, raising the half-bone in his hand, he viciously stabbed it downward!

The piece of jade shattered on impact, and all the will of the people it carried was absorbed by the fractured bone. The carved scriptures flashed brilliantly. Without losing any momentum, the bone pierced straight into the concrete pillar.

A resounding dragon's roar echoed out from deep beneath Jinghai, carrying the anguished wail of the dragon vein. Everyone within the Deep Dream Layer snapped their heads toward Chu Men's location.

Right in front of him, bright red blood actually began to pour out of that perfectly ordinary, load-bearing concrete pillar.