It was not just the words, but also the direction pointed out at the end. If she remembered correctly, that was the direction they were supposed to head next, toward another Cathedral City.
"A coincidence? No way... Is there something there connected to us?"
That direction matched her goal too perfectly. It was clearly intentional, not chance.
Fei'er Li realized the purpose of this journey. Whatever had happened, the next step was obvious. They had to go in that direction and see it for themselves.
Alba's awareness felt like it had fallen into the sea, sinking without end, and then was dragged into a trench, plunging toward an even deeper place without light. The feeling was a bit like dreaming, yet also different, and she vaguely sensed her closed eyelids twitch while a long stream of bubbles escaped her mouth. It was not pleasant at all, because something extremely heavy, maybe pressure, seemed to clamp her throat while countless invisible hands of gravity pulled her downward.
Then, dimly, Alba remembered something. She thought of the unbelievable thing she had seen in that cave, and everything that had happened afterward. Her face instantly went pale, pale enough to match her name, as she wondered if she had already been turned into something strange by a tentacle monster and had her personality rejected.
"Gah! No, don't! Being invaded by a tentacle monster and then my personality…" she shouted, then froze. Alba struggled as if in water, feeling the surroundings thick like glue that stuck to her, but suddenly her body began to fall at an astonishing speed.
She kept falling, falling, as if smashing through countless invisible barriers, until she dropped into a bottomless abyss where there was nowhere left to fall. Then she saw things that could not be described. A door, darkness, and shattered Shard.
Countless unbelievable things far beyond what ordinary life could understand flashed before her eyes, and then they were covered by another curtain of pitch-black darkness. It was very dark, so dark that she instinctively understood this was not a natural scene, but a completely different kind of existence. Endless wails and despair surged in like raging waves, and she knew that even touching a trace of it would be enough to crush most lives to nothing.
She almost started trembling, but unexpectedly felt calm instead. Countless eyes seemed to open at once, briefly waking from sleep, and three blood-red shapes like bottomless chasms stood out clearly in the darkness. No, those were not Rift, but some kind of being, strange eyes.
In an instant, Alba felt her entire being scanned through, and then she heard an extremely shrill scream. The violent disturbance stirred the already raging waves into even greater chaos, while countless unbelievable scenes exploded in her mind. A mountain-sized beast carrying the Mountain of Blades and Sea of Fire roared and despaired as it was drowned by darkness like a tide, while a black hole serpent with its head and tail joined was torn apart into Shard.
A living planet that rotted everything had a brilliant sun explode inside it, and then burned itself to nothing. "What are these scenes? Could it be that Evil God? Am I inside its memories or something?" She could not see complete fragments, only bits and vague concepts flooding into her mind, yet that was enough to glimpse how vast and terrifying those beings were.
Alba felt a faint fear, but it was not of the memories or images. It was because those eyes were looking at her. "No, don't, don't look at me! Big boss, I'm just a weak nobody, please let me go. Simulator… where is Simulator? Save me!"
As Alba panicked and twisted like a drowning fish, that being seemed to move again. A huge mouth like the Abyss opened with Rend, roaring with a sound like a level fifty typhoon and uttering meaningless murmurs. "You… know… they…"
A gigantic claw like a mountain lifted her tiny soul and placed it in its palm, then slowly closed while Alba wore a look of despair. A vast will descended into her mind, and she somehow understood fragments of it. "Seek… none… hiding… where… can call… me…"
"Ahhh!" Alba screamed as she clawed at her own head, kicked the blanket off the bed, and thrashed wildly like a crazed salted fish. Her head finally hit the corner of the bed, and the pain almost brought tears to her eyes, but she calmed down at last and looked around.
It was her room, not some cursed cult sacrifice altar. "Whew… scared me to death. So it was just a dream." She muttered that she had even dreamed of charging at Evil God with a hammer and nearly entering a defeat scene, wondering how she could dream something like that.
After confirming that the Simulator panel in the upper right corner was still there and intact, Alba finally relaxed. She then turned her head and caught a glimpse of something black on the cabinet beside her bed. "Huh?"
What was that thing, and why did it look so familiar. Alba rubbed her eyes, then closed them and reached out to touch it, feeling a slightly gritty texture and normal weight. "Haha, it must be a thoughtful little gift prepared by Elvin, right… yes, that has to be it…"
Fantasy time ended, and it was time to face reality. Alba opened her eyes in despair and looked closely, only to find it was none other than the book she had smashed with a hammer, with the dent still on the cover. It also gave off the same familiar aura from her dream, belonging to that being that had whispered at her, very likely Evil God.
The good news was that she was still alive. The bad news was that she was ten thousand percent being watched by Evil God, which almost felt worse than death. Her expression changed rapidly as she stared at the book, whose black cover was plain except for the hammer mark, with no decoration at all and no clear front or back.
She immediately began checking whether her mind was still normal, telling herself that water was cold, fire was hot, and clothes should be worn properly outside. "Forget it, what's the point of verifying this? If it really wanted to mess with me, would it need to be so roundabout, and would I even notice?"
After mocking herself, Alba forced herself to face reality. There was no better option anyway, aside from extreme choices that might not even work. She took a deep breath, stared seriously at the book, and instead of opening it, activated Simulator with a thought.
After confirming the simulation had started, she opened the book. Inside there were no strange blasphemous ritual Magic Array, no spells, and no mind-corrupting content. There was simply nothing at all, just blank pages.
She flipped through it again and again, unable to tell which side was which, because the entire book was white paper. With no clues, she closed Simulator, but the moment she returned to reality, she saw lines of text filling her vision, and cold sweat poured out instantly. It was over, because Simulator clearly could not interfere with beings of that level, and she could not use it to predict the result of seeing this book.
She was so frightened that she dared not look again. Alba could only helplessly close the book, feeling overwhelmed at having to face so much right after waking up. One was being targeted by something extremely bad, and the other was carrying a strange book with her, which felt completely unreasonable.
"Let me calm down first… Simulator, Evil God, what kind of relationship do you even have?" she muttered. It was obvious that a being like Evil God could still notice her tiny existence even if she hid inside Simulator. Theoretically, a descent ritual was supposed to begin in three days, yet she encountered it in a simulation, and the next moment it followed her straight into reality.
"Wait, Simulator actually has a notification?" Alba noticed something else. The simulator having prompts at all was rare, so she opened it to take a look. She found it was in the side quest section.
"Obtain one holy relic: 1/1 completed." "What, this counts as completed?" A holy relic? Alba looked at the book in her arms.
Seriously, anything belonging to a god counted, and the definition of a holy relic was really broad. But then her cold sweat got worse, because this book had been officially certified by Simulator as a holy relic, raising the question of what it really was. "Still, I should claim the reward first. Please let it be something useful."
After clicking the task, Alba found something on her finger, a small golden Ring that looked like it was woven from plants, a bit like a wheat ear. She could not feel any texture from it, and it did not reflect light. "Task reward: Ornament of First Sprout…?"
"It slightly increases Mental Power and gives a small boost to Holy Light usage?" It seemed to be equipment, and the reward looked decent enough, though it did not feel very helpful to her right now. No amount of support effects could change the fact that she was still weak and easily pushed around.