In a lush, verdant forest, there stood an ancient tree with an enormous crown.

Nestled among its branches was a beautifully crafted treehouse.

Inside the treehouse, strings of wind chimes hung from every corner.

From the roof to the windowsills, even beneath the chairs, milky-white seashell chimes gently swayed.

The doors and windows of the room were all tightly shut, as if afraid that even the slightest breeze might disturb the slumbering chimes.

Ding—crack!

A slender thread suddenly snapped, and one of the milky-white seashell wind chimes plummeted from midair, shattering upon the floor.

The man lying in the hammock turned his head to glance at it. He then cast Mage Hand, lifting the broken pieces of the chime into his palm.

At that moment, a voice nearby mocked with schadenfreude, “Clark, one of your dreams just shattered.”

Clark, his tousled brown hair falling messily over his face, squinted as if still half-asleep. “Oh, Kismet. When did you get here?”

“When you were talking in your sleep.” Kismet toyed with the harp in his hands, though not a single note escaped its strings.

“Oh.” Clark responded lazily again and, as if snacking, tipped the shards of the wind chime into his mouth.

Yaaawn~~

Clark opened his mouth wide and let out a huge yawn.

As he yawned, several colorful butterflies flew out from his throat. But the moment he closed his mouth, they were pulled back in by some invisible force.

“No big deal.” This was his response to Kismet’s earlier words. “One dream breaks, I’ll just make another.”

Suddenly, Clark seemed to remember something. He scratched his wild hair and said to Kismet, “Once my Dream Bells fill the Borderland, you’ll have to keep your promise—become the tongue of my chimes.”

Kismet sneered, “Herbert and Pei’er aren’t even dead yet, and you’re already dreaming about becoming master of the Borderland?”

Clark lay back down again, lazily saying, “Soon. I’m just about to pull Pei’er completely into my dream. Next is Herbert.”

Kismet stretched the harp in his hand, morphing it into a silver bone. He slipped it beneath his collarbone like it belonged there.

“Then I wish you eternal bliss in your beautiful illusions.” Kismet made a few elegant loops with one hand over his chest, performing a graceful bow.

With that, Kismet vanished in a flash of blinding white light.

Clark looked at the chair Kismet had just vacated. With a flick of his index finger, the wooden chair scattered into a flurry of colorful butterflies, which drifted over and landed on another chair.

“No traps left behind. So what did he really come here for?”

Clark rested the back of his hand over his eyes, pondering the real reason for Kismet’s sudden visit.

And as he thought, he dozed off again.

…

When Saul stepped into the carriage, he suddenly felt the world spin. The next moment he opened his eyes, he found himself plunging into a vast sea.

Splash… splash…

Caught off guard, Saul sank beneath the waves.

Underwater was pitch-black. Only a faint light shone from high above.

Saul released a trail of bubbles, then adjusted his posture, using both hands and feet to swim upward toward the surface.

Gasp!

A few breaths later, Saul’s head broke the surface, and he drew in a deep breath.

“Where is this place? How did I suddenly fall into the sea?” Treading water, Saul kept his body upright and looked around.

The sea stretched endlessly in every direction, not a speck of land in sight. The water was as black as ink and barely let any light through.

It resembled the once-polluted waters of Blue Water Bay, but the sea here was even darker, and the waves more violent.

Though he had only been drifting for a short while, the waves had already crashed over him three times.

He tried casting Fly to lift himself into the air, but as soon as he gathered his magic, a crashing wave scattered it completely.

“The seawater here actually disrupts magic?” Saul tried calling out for Agu and the others, even Little Algae and Penny—but no one responded.

“What about my mental force?” Refusing to give up, Saul extended his mental energy outward.

This time it worked. But in the next instant, he was startled to find the sound of crashing waves had moved—inside his mind. When he shook his head, it felt like there was liquid sloshing inside.

As they say, water in the brain.

“This water’s definitely strange. But more importantly—how did I get here, and how do I get back?”

The crashing surf in his head grew louder, the throbbing pain making it hard to think.

Saul withdrew his mental energy and turned his focus inward to inspect his body.

“Something’s wrong!” Upon examination, he noticed immediately, “This isn’t my body—it’s my consciousness. Am I inside another illusion?”

Ever since diving into soul studies, Saul had repeatedly found himself tangled up with illusion-wielding wizards and eerie beings—as if they were all drawn to him from the start.

The pain in his head worsened. Even staying afloat became a struggle.

Splash…

Another wave crashed down, dragging Saul beneath the surface once more.

His limbs refused to cooperate under the growing headache.

Saul called out for the diary again—but this time, it didn’t appear either.

Panic began to set in. He tried to swim back up, but was instead pulled deeper by a hidden current.

“This won’t work. If I stay like this, I’ll always be at the mercy of this place. I need to take back control…”

“Control?”

The thought sparked something. Saul suddenly opened his eyes wide beneath the waves, then opened his mouth as well—letting the briny water flood in—tongue outstretched.

He reached up to touch his tongue and clearly felt the sorcery pattern etched into it.

“Mental Realm!”

In that moment, a circular stone platform appeared beneath him, inscribed with the same sorcery pattern as his tongue.

The platform began to rise, carrying Saul up through the water.

Dark seawater poured down the platform’s sides, but the raging sea could do nothing to stop its ascent.

Still, the ocean didn’t give up its pursuit. Its furious will manifested into towering waves, crashing down as if determined to shatter the stone platform entirely.

Yet, though the platform lacked any visible support, it continued to rise steadily.

But when it reached about ten meters above the surface, it stopped—hovering in midair.

The towering waves occasionally surged higher than the platform itself, slapping Saul’s face with full force.

To avoid being knocked off, Saul had to cling tightly to the center of the platform.

He was utterly bedraggled—but no longer powerless.

Wiping the water from his face, he muttered, “As I thought—this is my mental realm. That’s why the platform appeared beneath me. But what does this black seawater invading my mental realm represent? Is it Claude’s pollution—or a new enemy?”

The waves refused to give up on dragging Saul down. But their will seemed to realize that mere wave-crashing wasn’t enough.

So from the ocean depths, small shimmering shapes began to emerge.

These shadows were vague and hard to make out, but they were rising rapidly.

Saul, meanwhile, clung to the platform’s center to avoid getting knocked off—and didn’t notice the change in the water.

In fact, with the waves failing to dislodge him, he even found a moment to think between pulses of pain.

“I’ve got the platform… what about the diary?”

He managed to roll over—and there it was, floating just above him, the diary itself.

The pages were already open, though Saul couldn’t read them from this angle.

Even so, bedraggled as he was, Saul smiled. “That’s right. This is my mental space.”

He looked past the diary, gazing further into the sky. “Then… there should be stars too.”

The moment he thought it, the pitch-black sky suddenly filled with countless stars.

The stars twinkled like innumerable blinking eyes.

And just then, the shadows that had almost surfaced from the sea suddenly stopped—then sank even faster, retreating into the depths.

As if fleeing in terror!

(End of Chapter)

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