Chapter 382: The Old Man's Lullaby

"A lullaby? Hah. Sounds like something ritualistic. Could it be meant to lull some being into slumber—say, the one who resets this whole domain? He must be the presence occupying this void."

The moment Wang Yu realized the tune was a lullaby, he quickly strung together a conjecture. Yet without proof, it was all rather meaningless.

"If we want to leave, we have to find a way to break through the peculiar nature of this place. Otherwise, at our current level of strength, there's no way we can make it out. And as for the Professor and the others... their situation is still impossible to confirm."

Avia's brows knitted in thought. In the end, they would have to escape. They couldn't remain forever in this land, scoured daily by a ravaging apocalypse. Who could say when a single misstep would leave them dead beyond redemption?"

Wang Yu sighed. "It's a pity we left the Crimson Mark with the Lady of the Night. Otherwise, tracking the Professor down wouldn't have been difficult. The one advantage is that the Church of Nightfall should be able to sense where we are.

"But counting on the Church of Nightfall to pull us out isn't practical. The Dragon God threw us down here knowing full well It could keep us from ever escaping alive. Honestly, if not for our special abilities, we'd already be done for the first day that tide showed up."

Wang Yu shook his head regretfully. The curios he currently possessed were the Endless Pages, the Banner of Triumph, and the Hammer of Fusion. Though they were all exceptional in one way or another, none seemed of particular use here.

"Wang Yu," Avia said quietly, "since you're sure you can hear the lullaby even while adrift in the void—and since it's louder there, in fact—could it be that the song's origin lies within the void itself?"

She pointed toward the city square. That was where the lullaby always sounded loudest to Wang Yu. Despite performing an exhaustive search there, they had found nothing.

"It's not just a possibility. I'm almost certain you're right—unless this place is so strange there's a third realm hidden beyond the void and the material."

He grinned, oddly relieved. The answer had come faster than he'd hoped. He didn't yet know what finding the lullaby's source might achieve, but any information was better than groping around blindly.

Together, they headed for the square. Their search had already taken half a day; the sun now blazed at its zenith. The city was steeped in lazy languor. Most folk drifted aimlessly about, some even slumped against a wall in a daze, as if lost to thought.

Wang Yu and Avia found seats by the square. Wang Yu spotted a familiar face right away: the middle-aged man he had tripped with the Chariot's power on their first day here. He sat beneath a tree, clutching a photograph, staring into it as if spellbound.

"These people live far too idly, don't you think? Look at the scale of this city and its lacking technology. Can its citizens really afford to do nothing all day long?"

With the tide of destruction not yet upon them, Wang Yu and Avia had time to look around. Wang Yu narrowed his eyes.

"No... something's wrong with their behavior. Look at them."

The more he examined the city's residents, the wronger everything felt. The guards were still in formation, but their spines sagged. Shopkeepers went through the motions, yet no one ever haggled or argued over prices.

And the crowd of aimless wanderers had initially seemed lively, but that now appeared to be no more than an illusion.

"Tch. It's almost like... they've given up. They keep up their daily routines, but their hearts aren't in it anymore."

He drifted close to one citizen and studied the man's face before turning to Avia, who was gazing down from the square's dais at the milling people below.

"You're right," she said softly. "It's not mere idleness. It's more like they've accepted something—then found release in that acceptance."

Through the Perfect Fractal lens, Avia magnified every face before her. Their emotions were varied, yet three dominated: nostalgia, regret, release. Deeper still, she sensed only one constant: an unwavering, resolute determination.

"Remember the Earth films you told me about?" she added. "These people look like that—they know what's coming, and they've chosen to accept it."

Wang Yu met her eyes.

What was coming was no mystery. These citizens already knew that the tide of destruction would return.

"Seems like it," Wang Yu muttered. He crouched before the middle-aged man beneath the tree, noting the crest on his chest—the same sigil etched into the building that looked like a lord's hall. "He's no ordinary man. Probably the city's lord. If even he's brooding here..."

With a finger charged with the power of the Chariot, Wang Yu tapped the man's insignia. The fellow blinked, bewildered, glancing left and right as though trying to fathom what had touched him.

The mystery deepened, but their course was clear: wait for the tide to approach and slip through the void as its constraints loosened.

And so, like a couple basking in each other's company, Wang Yu and Avia leaned back to back upon the square, discussing their next steps and waiting for the tide.

𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

As daylight dimmed, the horizon began to collapse once more. A tide of destruction surged across the land.

The citizens around them began to panic once more. Some instinctively started to run, but others stopped after just a few steps. Even though they knew that this calamity was coming, it was difficult to overcome their primal instincts to flee.

The void unlocked. Avia reached out with her will and parted it easily. Wang Yu seized the tear, wrenched it wider, and leapt through without hesitation. Their cooperation was seamless, without the slightest misstep.

Behind them trailed the fine filaments spun from Wang Yu's starsteel blade. Together, they began their steady plunge downward. The moment Wang Yu entered the void, he had glimpsed their target.

Not far below, a figure drifted into view. As they descended, the lullaby in Wang Yu's ears swelled louder and heavier.

"It's a nice enough tune," he muttered, "but it's getting way too loud."

He motioned for Avia to wrap her arms around his neck and secure herself to his back. His grip tightened on the starsteel filaments, which would arrest their descent until the tide of destruction passed. They couldn't plunge down recklessly, not before they knew whether the figure below was friend or foe.

Moments later, the tide of annihilation receded. Wang Yu released his hold, letting them drop. The power of the Chariot unfurled from him, stretching toward the singer of the lullaby. The instant his force brushed against the being, he froze for half a heartbeat—then daringly seized the figure and drew both himself and Avia close.

"This is... a god, I think," Wang Yu murmured, suspended before the being. "But His state is like that old God of Eternal Night, after His mind was stripped away. His strength is still there, and His vessel, but his soul is gone."

The Chariot's perception confirmed what he felt. This revelation startled him more than he cared to admit. How could there be a soulless god adrift in the void?

This god looked like an aged man with a wrinkled face, white beard and long, flowing hair. He gave off the kindly air of a grandfather. Yet he didn't seem aware of his surroundings, or even of their presence.

As Wang Yu had said, he had no soul. Only his lips moved, ceaselessly shaping his lullaby, an endless song in the void.

The scene was uncanny. A benevolent elder, suspended in the void, mouth working without pause, singing without end... This was no mere phantom, but a god whose soul had fled.

"...A god?" Avia's eyes narrowed as she came to a conclusion of her own. "Judging by what He does now—and by the absence of any of His records in the continent's chronicles—He may be the God of Dreams. A minor domain, yes, but one that touches nearly every living being."

Dreams were fragile and common to all sentient minds. In theory, they were the perfect channel for divine influence; within them, thoughts and actions could be bent with ease.

Yet nowhere in history had there been mention of gods shaping dreams. Succubi, void-beasts, yes. But never a god. That very absence now served as indirect proof.

"Makes sense," Wang Yu said. "But it looks like I've lucked into a loophole. If His soul's gone wandering, then this body's strength is ripe for the taking. With the Chariot, I can take it over—at least partly."

He studied the grandfatherly old man for a moment, then cast his power over the hollow shell. Just as he had once manipulated the soulless body of the orc Emmon, so too did he now harness fragments of the god's strength.

Only fragments—divinity was still far too vast, too powerful, for someone like him to grasp. Still, the moment he gained control of the god's shell, information surged back to him. The god's power veiled the void itself, cloaking something from sight.

"Avia," he said, and she nodded. With a tug of will, he pulled the shroud away.What was revealed nearly made him choke.

"Dreams, the deep sea, a giant octopus... Every damned element lined up. If I didn't know better, I'd call you Cthulhu himself."

As the shroud tore away, the backdrop of the void unraveled like a curtain. What lay hidden was now revealed: a colossal octopus, green as oxidized copper, so vast it filled the void entire. Its monstrous tentacles sprawled outward like the Root Network itself, coiling endlessly until they wrapped the cosmos in their grip.

Only now did Wang Yu and Avia realize the truth: the moment they had entered this void, they had been caught in the embrace of this leviathan. By fortune alone, its eyes—if those immense, unseen orbs could be called eyes—remained shut.

The creature slumbered, sunk in a dream deeper than the void itself.