Chapter 1 The Intruder

The intruder's mental response vanished, not because they had been eliminated, but because they had somehow managed to escape the "structure" formed by the twisted dreamscape.

Heidi frowned, sensing the intelligence constantly relayed by her released personality fragments, while her gaze swept across the "hospital room" before her.

As the intruder's mental response disappeared, the room was rapidly reverting to its original state. The terrifying, deformed scenery caused by the pollution gradually faded away. The walls, which had resembled withered flesh, returned to the clean, white walls of a medical facility. The cracked, rotten wasteland also transformed back into a normal floor. Outside the room, the eerie and terrifying atmosphere that permeated the entire facility was also rapidly dissipating.

Heidi didn't relax her brow in the slightest; instead, she became even more vigilant about the strange changes occurring. This wasn't normal. The eroded and twisted dreamscape was a closed structure. The intruder's consciousness was the attacking force in this place, but it was also a part influenced by the dreamscape. To forcibly leave the dream, there would inevitably be a great "commotion." Of course, a sufficiently powerful "dream expert" could suppress this commotion to a very small degree, but that intruder… wasn't that strong.

Heidi knew her own capabilities. As an outstanding student who had studied at the Academy of Truth and had received meticulous guidance from her father since childhood, she had always been confident in the field of dreams. She didn't believe that the "intruder" could leave this twisted nightmare without her noticing. The other party must have hidden somehow, or concealed themselves in some cognitive void.

She hesitated for a moment and slowly walked toward the hospital bed in the middle of the room. The strange elven girl was still lying peacefully on the bed, her brow furrowed, showing no signs of waking.

In theory, this girl was the core of this dream. Her captivity had led to the appearance of this twisted "medical facility" in her dream. But under normal circumstances, she should have woken up by now. Whether she ran away or stayed, the pollution on her had obviously subsided. It was reasonable for the captive to wake up immediately in the dream after the pollution subsided, because in most cases, people can do countless strange things in their own dreams, but they can't do one thing: continue sleeping in a dream. Even in layered dreams within dreams, a person's consciousness must be active in the last layer of the dream.

Heidi went forward to check the elven girl's condition. After a moment of hesitation, she reached out and helped her sit up. Then, she forcefully pushed her back onto the bed, but to no effect. Her "patient" was still asleep. The falling reaction was ineffective…

Heidi's expression was serious and thoughtful as she muttered to herself, "Could it be that this isn't her last layer of dream? An intermediate layer of a dream within a dream? That's not right either... Even in the intermediate layers, the 'falling reaction' can wake someone up."

She muttered, then suddenly stopped, as if she had suddenly thought of something. She turned and ran out of the room. Her hurried footsteps echoed in the medical facility. Heidi ran quickly down the deep, long corridor. Along the way, she saw the personality fragments she had released earlier. The "Heidis" holding golden cones were still wandering and searching throughout the facility, either inspecting the corridors, checking the stairs, or examining the empty rooms with a strange atmosphere behind partially closed doors, looking busy.

Heidi ran past these personality fragments. Each time she passed one, the fragment would turn and chase after her, quickly returning to her body. The personality fragments scattered in other parts of the facility also received instructions and appeared from nearby intersections, returning to the main body one by one. The medical facility was no longer the structure she was familiar with. The displaced projection of the dream had led to the appearance of a large number of messy corridors, dead ends, and forks in the road within the building. Some stairs were even inverted and twisted, connecting rooms and halls that were structurally unreasonable, like an absurd abstract painting, looking extremely strange.

However, such a chaotic space was nothing to Heidi, who often dealt with dreams. She easily distinguished the correct path, avoided dead ends that would lead to endless loops, and finally successfully reached the end of the road. A door stood quietly in front of her, with the word "Exit" written on it.

Heidi stopped. The last personality fragment ran up from behind and quickly merged into her body. She took a light breath and slowly walked toward the door. It was the exit of the medical facility, and theoretically, it was also the boundary of this twisted dream. She put her hand on the doorknob, slowly calming her heartbeat. The boundaries of dreams are dangerous. They represent the dreamer's "cognitive limits."

As a "visitor," rashly crossing the dreamer's cognitive limits meant that her consciousness would fall into a huge "undefined" area. In this chaotic zone, which was no longer controlled by the dreamer and was dominated by the subconscious, unwelcome intruders would encounter all kinds of dangers, even… encounter those terrible things that lurked on the edge of mortal reason, lurking in the gaps.

Heidi hesitated for a moment and continued forward, but it didn't comply with medical regulations. The amethyst pendant hanging on her chest was no longer heating up. This inferior product, which was essentially just a cheap piece of glass, was now ice-cold.

Feeling the coolness from the pendant, Heidi made up her mind. This magical pendant had never had any problems until now. She decided to trust its reaction. "This step would deduct at least fifteen points in a professional course," the psychiatric physician muttered, forcefully pushing the door open. The expected vast darkness and chaotic shadows did not appear, nor did she see any terrifying abyssal valleys or spirit world creatures.

Heidi stood at the boundary of this dream, staring in astonishment at the scene before her. A lush forest appeared in her view. Everywhere she looked, there were towering giant trees she had never seen before. The dense, leafy canopies overlapped and intertwined high in the sky, blocking out the sun. Countless flowers, grasses, and shrubs covered the earth. In between, she could also see many small bushes of varying heights and vibrant vines. Unidentified birdsong occasionally echoed between the giant trees, sounding novel and unfamiliar.

The sunlight shone on this dense forest, bringing a vitality that Heidi, who had lived in city-states since she was a child, had never seen before. She couldn't even understand it all. She couldn't imagine why so many huge trees would grow together, why the precious land would be covered with strange plants, but there was no sign of people. Why couldn't she hear the sound of waves in her ears, and her nose could only smell the scent of plants and soil.

She fell into chaos, a double chaos from sensation to cognition. Even as a top student at the Academy of Truth, who was pursuing a doctorate with a full scholarship, she was momentarily dazed to the point of almost forgetting where she was and what she was supposed to do.

Fortunately, the professional qualities she had cultivated over the years, coupled with her strong mental self-control skills, allowed her to quickly regain consciousness after a few short seconds of confusion. She took a deep breath and forced herself to return to a state where she could think calmly. Then, she looked back in the direction she had come from. The "medical facility" was behind her, surrounded by a large number of giant trees and countless intertwined vines. The walls were covered with unknown plants. The man-made building appeared abruptly in the forest, looking out of place.

But Heidi quickly made some judgments from this incongruous scene. The scope of the dream should indeed be limited to the interior of this medical facility. This strange place outside the door was not the structure a dream should have. This mutated fringe area of consciousness did not show any elements related to the Pland city-state. It was all unfamiliar vegetation. Was it a scene located in the subconscious of this elf? But even elven city-states like Breeze Harbor or Mokona didn't have this scale of vegetation…

Or… this outside is the real final layer of the dream, then this scale is too large, and with so many details, her brain should have burned out already, Heidi muttered to herself in confusion. Then, she felt around her and took out a brightly colored yarn ball. She hooked her finger on the end of the yarn ball and threw the yarn ball far away. The brightly colored ball of yarn rolled on the ground, jumping and scattering between the wet stones, soil, and vines.

Heidi carefully stared at every moment the yarn ball rolled, confirming whether there were any blurry or abnormal places in the lines that fell on the ground. If there were, it would prove that there were hidden "cognitive voids" in this seemingly "detail-rich" place. She had to carefully avoid those voids to prevent herself from falling into a nightmare.

The yarn ball rolled smoothly to a very far place, without any abnormalities in the middle. Heidi breathed a slight sigh of relief. Following the approximate path that the yarn ball had rolled, she finally took the first step toward this "strange place" full of plants.

She had temporarily put away her revolver and only held the "golden cone" for self-defense tightly in her left hand. In this "fringe area" where the situation was unclear, it was best not to use those things that made a lot of noise. Although the lush plants here looked pleasing to the eye, the silence of the surrounding environment might hide something. She had to be careful not to awaken those beings sleeping on the boundaries of mortal consciousness.

As she cautiously moved forward, a question couldn't help but gradually emerge in Heidi's mind. Did that cultist also use a similar method to escape the dream? Not "wake up," but directly run to this strange place outside the dream? Could there be any traps ahead? Heidi's mind was filled with various thoughts.

But suddenly, her heart skipped a beat. The next second, she suddenly looked up in a direction her intuition pointed to.

Between eight unknown trees, in a small clearing in the forest, stood a figure quietly, with their back to her.

It was a stranger wearing a light-colored southern-style coat, with messy blond hair, and a slightly hunched back. Although their back was to her, the two pointed, long ears peeking out from the edge of their hair immediately caught Heidi's eye. An elf?