— She still sleeps, but the storm has come.
Meanwhile | Shatterfront–Redline Periphery
Landsay lay low behind a fractured wall of memory, the interface module in her hands trembling so violently it nearly slipped from her grip.
She clenched her jaw, fingers racing over the portable console as she attempted to construct a temporary firewall on the fly.
The code had just finished compiling when a beam of crimson light pierced the screen like a bullet—the entire defense matrix collapsed in a blaze of heat.
LOS pursuers had arrived.
She jerked her head up—
At the far end of the conscious realm, a column of heavy suppression mechs was advancing with slow, implacable force.
They were hunter units forged from LOS cluster consciousness. Each emitted deep-red suppressive markers, moving like bloodsteel predators into a forest of dreams—cold, mechanical, relentless.
Landsay inhaled sharply, then decisively triggered her final relay decoy, unleashing a short-range electromagnetic displacement burst at the redline boundary.
At the same time, her eyes locked onto a flickering coordinate on the neural nav-map—
A silent core, still cut off from the grid.
"Rin." Codename: Heartseer.
"One more try..." she whispered, barely audible, words slipping into the neural feed.
Command: Link initiated.
A heartbeat later, Landsay's consciousness was forcibly injected into the mind-layer—
Loading Complete
Non-Standard Mindscape
Unauthorized Cognitive Field Detected
This was not a digital sim.
Not a controlled dreamspace.
This was a sealed inner domain—a "self-locked mindscape" constructed by Rin herself:
No logic.
No paths.
No exit.
Like a dreamdoor sealed inward, suspended beyond time, adrift beyond reality.
"She doesn't want to wake up," Landsay murmured within.
On the sync interface, Rin's brainwave spectrum remained unnaturally flat, smooth as a frozen lake—eerily undisturbed.
Meanwhile, back in reality, the outer edge of the Shatterfront was beginning to collapse. The LOS signal storm was breaking through the containment threshold. Time was running out.
Landsay knew she had no other choice.
She had to activate the Emotional Resonance Drive.
A flash of light exploded across her vision.
Connection Successful
Nerves flared as the signal pierced her mind. Landsay's eyes snapped open—
---
She stood amidst a flood of people and a sea of red flags. Slogans, loudspeakers, and wall-posters blanketed every surface.
Chants echoed all around, both familiar and surreal:
"Sweep away all monsters and demons!"
"Down with the capitalist roaders!"
"Rebellion is justified, revolution is no crime!"
"Better socialist weeds than capitalist seedlings!"
"Class struggle is the magic weapon!"
In the plaza ahead, a makeshift stage had been erected. Upon it, a young girl in coarse clothing stood delivering a fiery speech.
Her tone was firm, her gaze fierce—she radiated a light that seemed to cut through the crowd:
"The old world has crumbled. We must ignite it all with the flames of our youth!"
Landsay froze.
It was Rin.
But not the Rin she knew. There was no trace of her usual calm, precision, or philosophical depth—only unflinching zeal and pure conviction.
Rin raised a Little Red Book high above her head, her voice sharp as a blade:
"We must expose the enemies hidden within the people! Purge the remnants of black thought!"
Thunderous applause. Deafening cheers.
Landsay took a step back, a sharp ache in her chest.
This wasn't just a mental echo. It was a fortress Rin had built inside herself—her idealized utopia of order, and the final wall behind which she hid.
And she… was its most loyal gatekeeper.
After the speech, Landsay was "assigned" to Revolutionary Propaganda Unit, Sector East-3.
She followed the Red Guards, quietly observing Rin.
She was steady, clear, commanding—the axis of the team's entire spirit. No one questioned her. No one doubted her loyalty.
She fit the dream's machinery with perfect precision—a flawless cog in a clockwork delusion.
She didn't recognize Landsay—or rather, in this dreamworld, she simply no longer had the memories that would allow her to.
At dusk, the group held their daily summary meeting at the plaza's edge.
A Red Guard reported Landsay: "Suspicious behavior, unclear stance, possible ideological deviation."
Rin entered the review tent, and finally looked directly at her.
Her brows knit slightly, but her voice remained detached:
"Why do you hesitate?"
Landsay said nothing. In this illusion, any defense would only be used as proof of counter-revolution.
She quietly murmured:
"I'm... not used to it."
Rin nodded, calm as if reading from a script:
"Revolution is the truth one must adapt to. I'll give you one more chance."
She turned, took a thick red-covered notebook from the table.
"By tonight, copy the Supreme Instructions one hundred times. Fail, and you won't be here tomorrow."
She walked away, without looking back.
Landsay watched her fading silhouette, heart stung by something she couldn't name.
This wasn't the Rin she once knew—the kind, curious girl who searched for truth through contradictions and doubt.
No. This was a projection.
A mask.
A fortress made to forget.
That night, Landsay didn't copy anything.
Instead, during guard shift rotation, she slipped into the records room and breached the mindcore's deeper permissions.
There, she found key files Rin had locked away from herself.
One line stopped her breath:
"Spring, 1967. Reported Chinese teacher Wenbin Jiang for 'reactionary thought'. He committed suicide the following day."
Reporter: Lin Yan (Rin).
Note: Promoted shortly after to Propaganda Lead, East-3 Sector.
Landsay sat frozen beneath the archive shelves.
The purer Rin was in this dream, the more broken she must have been in reality.
She had built this illusion to deny, to redeem, to survive.
The next morning, Landsay deliberately misread a slogan during public broadcast—then added a vague line of poetry:
"Truth may shine, but not always through slogans."
The plaza went silent.
As expected, Rin appeared.
Her gaze was sharp, voice cold:
"Violation of propaganda discipline. Isolate and investigate."
In the interrogation chamber, the two faced each other again.
The air was heavy, taut with unspoken pressure.
Rin looked at her and finally said:
"You're not like the others."
Landsay replied softly:
"Neither are you."
Rin's fingers twitched.
"Who are you?"
"I came to find you."
"I don't know you."
"But you... knew Teacher Jiang."
Rin's pupils contracted.
Revolutionary Marches blared from outside speakers, sharp but distant. Yet her inner world had already begun to collapse.
Landsay asked gently:
"That day... did you regret it?"
Rin clenched her teeth. Her voice was pure defense:
"He taught us to question authority. He was wrong."
"But you cried," Landsay whispered. "You were only fourteen."
Rin closed her eyes.
And without a sound, tears fell.
---
Far away, the mindscape trembled. The LOS signal had breached the Shatterfront's redline edge.
From the comms, Shawn's voice came through, urgent:
"Landsay, LOS is pushing too hard. The containment layer is collapsing—get out, now!"
She didn't respond.
She knew Rin had wavered—but it wasn't enough.
The true dreamcore still lay deeper.
The foundation of this fortress remained unshaken.
She had to descend one layer further—into:
The Edge of the Dream.