Chapter 1 A Glimpse

A swift white shadow darted through the dilapidated and filthy streets of the lower district, across the crisscrossing pipes and pressure relief structures above the factory complex, past the desolate station and deserted streets, and finally burrowed into a narrow alley.

A ghostly green flame suddenly bloomed, spreading wildly in the air like a doorway. The vortex in the doorway pulsed suddenly, and Duncan stepped out.

Following close behind was Shirley, still a little dazed.

Duncan turned to look at the girl behind him, scrutinized her from head to toe, and then said in a deep voice, "How do you feel? Any discomfort?"

"I... I'm alright," Shirley was still dizzy, but this dizziness was more of a disorientation caused by being suddenly whisked away by a big shot than any physical discomfort. She looked up at Aye, who had returned to its pigeon form and landed on Duncan's shoulder, and after a long while, she suddenly contacted Agou, who was in a hidden state within her soul, through mental communication: "Agou, can you beat this pigeon?"

"...Don't ask. The answer is no," Agou's voice sounded muffled. "Forget the big shot's bird, I can't even beat the fish the big shot stews..."

Shirley was taken aback. "Why mention fish all of a sudden?"

"Because I've realized there's probably nothing normal about this existence..."

Duncan didn't know that Shirley was whispering to Agou. He simply visually confirmed Shirley's condition again, and sensed the feedback from the mark he had left on her, before finally feeling relieved.

In fact, he was confident in Aye's ability to transport living beings, not only because he had tested it last time with his current mortal body, but also because he had Aye conduct a large number of "live experiments" outside using small animals like birds and beasts. All the tests were perfect, confirming that the pigeon could transport living targets without any damage. But even with so many tests, he still subconsciously checked Shirley's condition.

After all, Aye was shrouded in mysteries, and who knew how many special qualities it still had waiting for him to discover? It was always prudent to be extra cautious when using "Bone Pigeon Express."

After confirming Shirley's condition, he turned his attention to the surrounding environment.

Before him was a desolate and quiet alley. At the end of the alley, he could vaguely see the dilapidated street scene. Long-neglected piping facilities spanned the sky above the buildings on both sides, with subtle hissing leaks of steam at some of the pipe connections.

This was a common sight in many parts of the lower district.

But Shirley immediately recognized where they were.

"This is... Sixth Block?" she asked, widening her eyes in surprise. "Mr. Duncan, did you sense that mark appearing here?"

.

"That's right, Sixth Block. We're back here again, but..." Duncan took a breath, then frowned slightly. "But the sensation of the mark faded a minute ago."

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"...Faded? Did it go out?"

Shirley asked with a surprised expression, but Duncan didn't answer. He simply looked thoughtfully in a certain direction.

In Shirley's "dream," he had implanted a spark of fire into the fragments that remained after the attacker split apart. At the time, he had ordered the fragments to return to their "main body." Shortly after, he lost the sensation of that spark as Shirley's dream ended, until just now, when the mark suddenly reappeared in his perception, guiding him here.

To Sixth Block in the real world.

The spiritual fire that should have been spreading in the dream world had suddenly transmitted a signal in the real world. The edge of Shirley's own dream was connected to the scenery in Nina's dream. The umbrella monster that attacked Shirley in the nightmare had appeared at the scene of the museum fire in the real world...

Unknowingly, many contradictory but subtly connected clues linked together in Duncan's mind. He felt as if he was about to touch that invisible veil.

Or rather, although this grand veil shrouded the entire city, there was still a "gap" remaining. This gap was in Sixth Block—in some place that he and Shirley had overlooked last time.

He was looking at the direction from which the mark had last transmitted a signal.

The aura of the mark had only appeared for a short time, and had quickly faded a minute ago, but Duncan didn't think that the flame he had left behind had been extinguished. Although he couldn't pinpoint its location, he could still sense that the flame was still burning, and was even much larger than before.

Since the flame was still burning and growing, it meant that its "mission" was not yet over—it was still chasing, devouring, and assimilating the attacker. It might even have spread into a large fire. Its brief appearance in Sixth Block and rapid fading might be because the "veil" here was unstable, with a gap that was briefly opening and closing, causing the two dimensions to become connected.

He had to find that gap, the gap that seemed to connect dreams and reality.

After several days, Duncan once again led Shirley through the desolate and dilapidated streets of Sixth Block. This time, they didn't waste time asking the locals for information, but went straight to the deepest part of the district.

"The abandoned factory is in the other direction..." Shirley said halfway, raising her arm and pointing to a large building in the distance.

"We're not going to that factory," Duncan said quickly. "We're going this way."

Shirley responded and hurried to keep up with Duncan's pace with her short legs.

Withered yellow leaves fluttered in the wind, landing at Shirley's feet. She walked on the fallen leaves, hearing a slight cracking sound from under her feet, sounding as if she were stepping on charred pieces of wood, or the subtle crackling of flames.

She looked up at her surroundings, but all she saw was an ordinary street scene. Old houses lined the street, standing in the wind amidst the fallen leaves, indifferently facing the uninvited guests who had intruded here.

Shirley suddenly noticed that something was wrong.

She hadn't seen a single pedestrian for quite some time now.

Sixth Block was indeed deserted, with few pedestrians in most places, and the few residents there seemed listless, indifferent, and aloof, but it was definitely not deserted to the point where there was not a single person in sight!

An unsettling feeling spread from the bottom of her heart. This feeling faintly reminded her of the dream she had been trapped in. She subconsciously moved closer to Duncan, but didn't expect Duncan to suddenly stop, and with a thud, she bumped her head into his waist.

In the next second, Shirley drafted the full text of her last words and conceived three styles of tombstones, but she quickly realized that people crushed by the shadows of subspace probably wouldn't leave a corpse behind...

Duncan's calm voice interrupted the girl's momentary wild thoughts. "Looks like we're here."

"I'm so, so sorry, I really didn't mean to, please..." Shirley blurted out a string of apologies subconsciously, then realized that the big shot in front of her didn't seem to be angry. Then, she noticed that she was standing in front of a building that looked like it had been abandoned for who knew how long.

It was a church.

A community church that could be seen everywhere in the Principality of Pland stood at the end of this path.

It had the Deep Sea Church's iconic slender spire, but the black roof tiles and white stone walls were covered with drooping withered vines and decaying, filthy stains. The door, which was painted with complex and sacred runes, was slightly ajar. The stained glass windows on the side were also dilapidated, leaving almost only the curved and deformed ironwork outlines. From the cracks in the door and the holes in the windows, one could vaguely see a dim scene inside.

This had once been a sacred building, but now an aura of decay and neglect filled every crack in its bricks.

"...This is the 'church' that old man near the intersection mentioned last time?" Shirley recalled her experience of investigating Sixth Block last time. "I remember him saying that a nun lived here, but that nun was often not in the church..."

"Being this dilapidated can't be explained by 'often not here'," Duncan said casually as he walked towards the church door. "Instead of saying that the nun often goes out, it's more like this place has been forgotten for eleven years."

Shirley watched Duncan walk towards the church, instinctively feeling a sense of resistance and nervousness towards the building, but after a moment of hesitation, she followed in Duncan's footsteps.

The next moment, Duncan pushed open the half-closed church door, and the scene inside the small church was clearly presented before Shirley's eyes.

Warm and bright candlelight fell into Shirley's eyes. The clean and tidy little church was brightly lit, and at the end of the neatly arranged pews, the statue of the Storm Goddess Gomona stood quietly in the light.

A nun who was kneeling in front of the statue, praying devoutly, heard the sound of the door opening and stood up to turn around.

She saw the visitors standing at the door and smiled gently. "It's been a long time since anyone has visited this church."

"...Looks like this is it," Duncan said softly, looking calmly at the smiling nun in front of him. "The gap in the veil."

He blinked. In his eyes, the smiling nun maintained her living appearance for a moment, but in the next moment, she turned into a pile of humanoid writhing ash. Behind her, the church presented an extremely strange overlapping state—flames burned fiercely on the intact pews, and ash and sparks fell from the roof. The scene after the fire and the intact scene of the church overlapped at the same time, presenting a strange but fragmented scene.

*My Healing Game*

It was as if two completely different realities were forcibly fused together in this church.