When Rod finally stepped back onto the bright, spotless campus, it felt like he'd returned from another life.The shadowed alleys, the hellish sewers, those twisted abominations—plus the doomsday cultists who, for reasons beyond sanity, loved eating crap—had left him with a hearty case of psychological whiplash. What he needed most was to be healed by a warm, generous embrace.
Leaning hard on that excuse, Rod convinced the War Department staff to grant him a half-day leave—with credit.
First time he'd ever gotten a day off. Normally, even if Cassandra had to kick his door off the hinges, she wouldn't let him cut class.
Of course, ever since she got a copy of his door key, she hadn't bothered knocking at all.That gave Rod a lingering sense of dread. If she barged in while he was… doing unspeakable things… wasn't he dead on the spot?
Her dad was the High Adjudicator of Internal Judgment, for crying out loud. Even if Cassandra couldn't recognize the lightning sigil, one casual comment from her could unlock the High Adjudicator's suspicions.
That lightning mark was Rod's biggest liability. No one could see him forming it with his hands. Even if Internal Judgment didn't recognize that cult's ritual sigils, all off-standard prayers and rites were banned in the royal capital. If anyone saw him, he'd be pegged as a doomsday cultist at one hundred percent.
Besides, Rod had a vital lead. If his guess proved right, then he definitely wasn't the killer.
Hope was right there. This was the worst possible time to flip the cart.
Caution. Steady hands. Play it safe. Stay alive—everything else follows. That was his creed.
Back in his dorm, he didn't lie down. Even with the blanket over his hands, it wasn't safe.Sure, Cassandra was in class—but what if she came back?What if she suddenly felt like twisting his door handle?What if she got handsy and yanked off his blanket?
All perfectly plausible.
So—no bed. No entering the dream on the bed.
Safest spot: the washroom.
And to avoid the classic soap-opera scene of "accidentally meeting someone in the bathtub," he stripped his dirty clothes, draped them over the chair—loudly signaling occupied, showering.
Then into the washroom. Door shut. Lock clicked.
A white bird motif on the ceiling cast a soft glow over the pristine tiles. Rod turned the white jade knob thirty degrees left; warm, clean water hissed from the silver showerhead.
Nothing beats hot water when you're exhausted. Kingsworth Academy really was top-tier—advanced engineering and all.
Water thrummed against tile.
Now this was the cover he needed. Unless Cassandra had fried her last brain cell, she'd know he was showering.
Good.Rod allowed himself a sliver of satisfaction.Should be safe.
He dropped onto the toilet seat, laced both thumbs, pointed his left index west and his right index east, curled the other fingers, then rotated 180 degrees.
His vision blurred—as if cataracts had slid over his eyes. His soul lifted like a balloon into warm air.
When his feet "touched down," he opened his eyes.
Silence. Vastness. No edge in sight.Colorless, gray-white mist drifted quietly; pale ground stretched in every direction, fading into fog.
He was back in the strange world of dreams.
The teal obelisk stood at the center. The black altar was as he'd left it.A quick sweep—no change from yesterday.
Rod raised his hand: on the back of his right hand, a new mark—A perfect circle containing a simple, line-drawn heptadecagon, with a cross at the center like a doorway to somewhere unknown.
He'd tested it—no one else could see it.
It came from a doomsday rite. When Rod stepped into the lightning sigil at the ritual's core, he'd glimpsed something unusual—felt something hot spear into his body.
Then the mark appeared on his hand.
He'd had the same thing in Redstone Village, when the migrating caravan was wiped out—almost an exact repeat. The only difference: back then, the mark was a black, line-drawn eye.
That eye later became the black altar and granted him the Soul's Eye skill.
So… what was this one?
Rod took a slow breath, tamped down the nerves, and started walking the dreamscape.
—He remembered perfectly: last time, when he reached a certain spot, his hand had flared, and the mark tore free and turned into the altar.
If he was right, this one would act the same.
He'd braced for a long search, but after a few steps his hand suddenly burned. The heptadecagon burst into a thick, dark current and dropped before him.
The current cleared. A plain little building stood in its place.
It lifted the ground slightly, making the pale soil more distinct. About fifteen meters long, five meters high; pale marble exterior; almost no decoration. A double door in the side, a marble stair curling down—ending right at Rod's feet.
Joy exploded in his chest.
His guess was right!
The burning thing that had stabbed into him—these were it: buildings in the dream.Fragments of the dream, scattered into the material world in some special form.The doomsday cult used lightning-sigil rituals to find them.
But he was the dream's master.When he got close, the fragments called to him.Back at the ritual, the lightning at dead center had marked a fragment's location.When he stepped into it, the fragment flew back to him, appearing as a mark on his hand.Then, when he returned to the dream and reached the fragment's old "slot," it slotted home.
Exactly!
Rod nearly jumped for joy.Flawless deduction. I am superior to a grade-schooler.
Even better—one crucial detail.
When he stepped into the lightning sigil, he saw special "clips."They might be scenes near the fragment, or tied to the rite itself.Back at the Redstone massacre, when he stepped into the sigil, one clip showed a person with an eye on the back of their hand—they murdered the caravan.
And he had the same eye on his hand afterward.
That's why he'd long suspected he was the killer—or an accomplice. During questioning, he'd barely said anything for fear of talking himself into a noose.
Now that he understood the sequence, he knew he wasn't the killer.He only got the eye after stepping into the ritual.So the killer in the vision had to be someone else.
Most likely they'd succeeded and then killed the caravan to silence witnesses; but then something went sideways—say, sudden stroke, instant death—and the fragment returned…
…for Rod to pick up.
Thinking back, he must've felt the fragment calling, or the always-cautious Rod wouldn't have jumped into a spooky sigil out of nowhere.
Yes. That had to be it.
All the knots loosened. Logic laced every jammed gear in his head. The gloom in his chest blew away—sky high, cloud light, like wind singing through pines.
Only two mysteries remained: how the cultists who found that fragment succeeded and then failed, and how he ended up there.
But those were just stray clouds outside a completed tower.
What mattered: I'm not the killer.I'm not the killer.I'm not the killer!
Hahahaha!Hahahahahaha!
…
The timeless silence of the dream rang with prolonged, howling laughter.
Two boulders that had crushed his heart—gone, one and a half of them at least. The half left was the "intrusion" into the dream.
But Rod wasn't afraid anymore.
I'll go out every day and bag a few hundred—no, a thousand—souls. Light one or two more stars. Prep a couple sacks of thunderstones.Even if a god shows up, I'll drop him for you!
Hah!
I'm invincible now!
Forget your king—crown me. I'll lead you to sweep the world!
As for blue-white, silver-white, violet-white young ladies—stop fighting those creepy freaks. Go home and… keep my bed warm.
Your new king is about to ascend!
All that "Chad Scripture" and "Playboy Sutra"—to hell with sweet-talk. That's not a real man.
A real man has broad shoulders and a towering frame, stands against every disaster, shields others from wind and frost; a real man bears a generous chest and a… wholesome belly, and gives his beauties a warm, safe home.
Otherwise—why would a beauty want you? For your three-day no-shower, ten-day no-toothbrush charm?
Only the strong deserve the beauty.That's the truth.