After Cuhlun gathered the corpses of the flies into one place, he fired several bolts from his crossbow far into the distance. He had probably broken a few threads, and thanks to that, the spider would think he was moving away…
Well—hopefully it would think so, because that wasn't Cuhlun's intention at all.
No matter how disgusting it smelled or looked, Cuhlun dove into the sea of corpses he had piled up. He tried to fall asleep deep within the massive mound of bodies. It was hard to sleep in such a horrid stench, but somehow he managed. He hadn't gotten proper rest in a long while, and the last few days had been exhausting.
When Cuhlun opened his eyes, he was standing atop a massive castle. On the castle walls stood dozens of soldiers and archers straight out of the medieval era.
And… wait—what were those battle sounds?
Cuhlun shot up to his feet and looked out from the castle ramparts toward the sea.
What he saw could very well be the worst misfortune he had encountered in the past several days.
Every creature in the sea had been taken over by threads, gathered into a single force, and were now trying to topple the castle.
This army also included a colossal leviathan spewing fog across the battlefield.
Cuhlun cursed internally and wondered how he was going to survive this…
Calling the holy dragon Meldora might have been the only solution—but that thing might kill him too, so… no.
…
Actually, there was another solution.
At least, in theory, it was pretty logical.
Still, that only worked on a mind eater. Cuhlun himself had come here, while the mind eater in this place was just a copy. It would stop being a copy once it finished its task, but that didn't matter much.
The plan was simple:
How does the memory realm work? It works according to a person's wishes—according to what they think they can or cannot do.
Since every person has a sense of what's possible and what's not, no one can just toss the entire chessboard aside and shout, "I win!"Only a madman could do something like that.And well… a madman could do it.
Yes, that was the solution: if he drove the mind eater insane, then its madness would override logic, and the dream realm would obey whatever it said. The flimsy "logic" that kept the dream realm intact would crumble. And for that to work, Cuhlun couldn't be the anchor holding the realm together—so once the mind eater went mad, he'd have to escape.
Whether the real mind eater would go insane when the memories returned to its true body… he had no idea. Also, driving this copy insane wouldn't be easy.
But he could use the fake world to his advantage.
Cuhlun yelled at the marksman to his right, "You! Come here, you useless brat!"
The marksman ran over. "Where did I go wrong, my lord? Forgive me—I didn't notice you."
Cuhlun stared at him with a strange, unsettling expression. "I have a simple request. Make a potion that drives the drinker insane. Anyone who drinks it becomes covered in tattoos that represent the madness, and they completely lose their mind. That's it. For a master alchemist like you, this should be easy. There should be a workshop behind that door. Go prepare it quickly—it won't take long, right?Especially for you, my apprentice."
The marksman looked at Cuhlun. The moment Cuhlun blinked, the man's clothes instantly changed into those of an alchemist. The man sprinted toward the door Cuhlun indicated and shouted, "Leave it to me, master!"
In the memory realm, intelligence was stronger than brute force. Creativity too—and on those fronts, no one could match Cuhlun.
The part about covering the drinker with tattoos was a unique and clever detail. If the tattoos didn't appear, the person might forget they had drunk the potion and return to normal. After all, this was the dream realm—time, place, past, future… everything was blurry and unstable.
And since the potion wouldn't actually contain real madness—just dreamed-up madness—the real body of the mind eater wouldn't go insane once the memories returned to the real world.
If he drank it, would the same effect apply?… He didn't know. Either way, driving himself insane was something he'd only do if he had no other option. Who would willingly go mad? Cuhlun certainly wouldn't.
While he was lost in thought, he realized quite a lot of time had passed… and of course, damn it—the dream realm had forgotten the boy again! After Cuhlun forcefully imagined the boy and what he was doing, the door finally opened and the alchemist kid burst out, shouting, "Master, I'm coming!"
The potion was covered in labels, patterns, and marks practically screaming "I MAKE YOU GO INSANE."
Cuhlun snatched the potion from his hands. He almost put it in his pocket out of habit, but stopped himself and kept it at eye level instead as he walked to the nearest door. He thought about the mind eater being behind it—and opened it!
It didn't work…
After opening and closing it several more times, he finally got the right one.
Better than nothing.
The mind eater simply waved at Cuhlun and closed its eyes—probably controlling soldiers or something inside its mind, but that didn't matter. Cuhlun's plan was not to defeat the enemy honorably.
Not after everything the mind eater had done to him.
With the mind eater's eyes shut, Cuhlun grabbed its head, forced its jaw open, and poured the potion down its throat.
As the mind eater screamed and red tattoos spread across its body, Cuhlun said:
"Good luck. I hope you survive.Consider this payback for what you did to me."
Then he canceled the Avenor ability.