Chapter 13: Dreams of the Past and Dreams of the Present

The brief moment of unconsciousness had passed while the residual magic from the Warren still flowed within Salser, like cold streams on a frost-covered plain, the dark magic stinging his head and causing his face to contort. 

 

The gray-white ray greedily devoured all twisted souls in the corridor, leaving behind only foul-smelling toys stitched together with rotten flesh. On both sides of the corridor, candles went out one after another, as if an invisible ghost had passed by. The dark curtains, covered in fading bloody handprints, draped silently like shroud over the trembling stitched limbs, making the place seem like a moldy morgue with no end in sight.

Silence, heavy like a stone slab pressing on the chest, made one's mood oppressive. The dolls behind them let out pattering footsteps, but this monotonous echo did not make the house noisier; instead, it made the house seem even more deathly still.

Each step on the dolls produced a squelching sound like stepping on rotten meat. Following Salser's gaze, yellow maggots and rotten eyeballs fell out, rolling disorderly on the old floor. It must be said that the appetite of this Warren's master was indeed good, accepting the souls of any creature without discrimination.

Jeanne dragged him for several hundred meters, during which the Dark wizard again consumed some souls to repel the dolls pouring in from the side passages. Fortunately, the 'solid waste' piled on the ground blocked their clumsy short legs, allowing Salser to save a bit of effort. Because the corridor was narrow, it was only necessary to burn the souls of one or two dolls at the most obstructive points to block a whole row of dolls behind.

After applying the concealment spells to them, the Dark wizard's excess soul reserves were only half full. He signaled Jeanne to take a few more turns and run further before resting.

...

The dreams came again.

...

In the 1351st year of the Millennium, late autumn.

The frozen tundra formed a valley extending to the massive rock thousands of meters depth underground, the ancient and profound city of Cast almost occupying the entire horizon, the dark elf lord's Moon's Spawn floating like a black meteor above the city shrouded in mist... every detail was presented like a mural.

Thousands of giant crows swarmed out, like black clouds before a sudden rainstorm, blotting out the sky. Dozens of different Warren energies collided with each others, turning the entire world into a living nightmare, boulders falling from the cliffs like a torrential rain, the empire's summoned demon army howling as they perished along with the mountains flattened by the dark elf lord...

The Empire's hope of unifying the continent was ultimately shattered.

However, whether it was failure or success, it had little to do with him—Salser Bettrafio—an ordinary mage in the magic sequence of the Third Legion of Rome.

Yet, after witnessing the complete annihilation of his fellow mages in the same sequence, he couldn't help but feel a severe fear—the fear of death.

In the same year, Salser joined the Zavulon faction of dark wizards, began to contact Outer gods, and learned the art of reincarnation.

...

After a while, the Dark wizard awoke—but he awoke within a dream, and entered another dream.

It was an unfamiliar voice, an unfamiliar song, a ghostly ethereal song... a doll dressed in maiden clothing knelt in an unknown garden, praying among the blooming lilies, her lowered gaze fixed on several simple tombstones. The clean night breeze accompanied the song tirelessly, making the silvery moonlight surround her like an aura; stars floated in the night sky, like fireflies flying over a lake, falling one by one onto her hair. The Dark wizard stood there with his hazy consciousness. After a while, he saw the doll turn her head, revealing a strange, somewhat cold yet gentle smile under her smooth golden hair, "Oh, what an interesting dream, it reminds me of the Hunter."

...

What the hell... a specialty of this Warren?

Salser opened his eyes, straightening up from the corner of the dark winding corridor. He looked around; the candles in the corridor were still out, the air filled with the smell of moldy dust, and the silence here was somewhat oppressive. He patted his head, casting a spirit vision spell on his eyes, and thus—Jeanne, sleeping in the corner of the other wall, and the black cat dozing on his leg, both silhouette emerged in black and white colors.

"You... you're awake?" The black cat opened its eyes, its turquoise pupils looking at him, its voice still a bit shaky with fear.

The tinkling voice of the girl made him feel a bit more comfortable.

Salser felt that the Inquisitor wouldn't wake up anytime soon, so he sat cross-legged and started a conversation with the cat on his leg. The black cat's fur was very shiny, obviously well-groomed; its body was slender but not weak, looking very healthy and probably well-fed, quite different from the treatment of those moldy dolls.

"Hey, do you have a name?" The Dark wizard held the cat's front paw and slowly rubbed it, the feel of the paw pads was surprisingly good.

"V... Viola." It shrank its head, its forearm trembling.

Oh, was that name given to you by your Master?"  The Dark wizard asked it insensitively.

"No... it's the name my father... gave me."

The cat almost fainted from fear when expressing its objection.

"Hey—do I appear that terrifying?" Salser asked it.

"I... I'm still a maiden... wuwuwu..."

The black cat's eyes instantly filled with tears. Its legs trembled, its paw clenched in the Dark wizard's hand not daring to let go, as if its whole body was about to slide to the ground. Suddenly, it forced itself to calm down, as if giving up, and said:

"Mister D... Dark wizard... can you take Viola away from this place? I can sweep, I can wash clothes, I can even weave fishing nets... if mister D... Dark wizard wants me to... serve..."

"What are you doing?" Jeanne yawned lazily and sat up.

"I believed I was playing with a cat, yet it appears I was inadvertently behaving indecently towards a young girl," Salser told her, though he refrained from disclosing that he actually found the experience quite gratifying.

"Mister Dark wizard, sir Dark wizard, I can even bury... bury corpses, no matter how rotten the corpse is..."

The cat pleaded repeatedly with a sobbing, tear-interrupted voice.

"Has our reputation in these fishing villages deteriorated to such an extent?" He caressed the stubble on his chin with his other hand.

Jeanne sneered and interjected:

"Typically, you're the bogeyman in bedtime horror tales to spook kids, like—if you don't hit the hay, the dark wizard will swoop in and snatch you for experiments, if you're a brat, the dark wizard will feed you to freaky monsters from other worlds."

Salser looked at the Inquisitor, hinting at something, "You appear to possess considerable knowledge about children; have you ever served as a caretaker at an orphanage?"

"......"

She didn't speak, her expression turning extremely sour.

"Why don't you sing a song about the stars in the field to soothe this little one?" Salser taunted, feeling that the Holy Cross Church must have arranged many things for the Inquisitor that she deeply resented, for example...

"Allow me to commence on your behalf, Miss Nursery Care," he cleared his throat and then opened his mouth, "The stars in the field hang high above my father's hut, my mother's sorrowful hand..."

The black cat swallowed a sobbing noise, perhaps feeling that the nursery rhyme was somewhat familiar, and grabbed the Dark wizard's clothes with the paw that was not occupied. But the Inquisitor's voice scared her half to death.

"—Screw your singing! Are all you dark wizards complete fucking morons!?"

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