It was a dark gold seed, only about the size of a fingernail.
The surface of the seed was extremely smooth, completely devoid of any natural patterns, and gleamed with a dull, almost metallic luster in the dim sunlight.
The old man held the seed out to Ryan.
Ryan cast his gaze down at it, making no immediate move to take it.
“What is the meaning of this?” Ryan asked in a cold voice.
The old man did not answer, stubbornly pushing his withered palm forward once more.
Seeing that Ryan still made no move, the old man suddenly reached out with his other hand and grabbed Ryan's wrist!
An unimaginable force erupted from that withered, bone-thin hand, clamping down on Ryan's wrist like an iron vise. The old man pried Ryan's fingers open with force, then with extreme care, placed the dark gold seed into his palm.
The old man stared intently into Ryan's eyes.
Deep within those cloudy, pale pink eyes, a distinct emotion surfaced clearly for the first time.
It was a plea.
An incredibly heavy, profoundly humble entreaty.
Ryan looked down at the dark gold seed resting quietly in his palm.
It was heavy and extraordinarily cold, carrying a sense of deathly stillness that did not belong to a living thing.
Ryan closed his fingers, clenching the seed in his fist before slipping it into his trench coat pocket.
“Fine,” Ryan said to the old man, uttering a single, brief word.
As if finally relieved of a burden he had carried for countless days and nights, the old man suddenly released his grip on Ryan's wrist.
He turned around, spreading his arms to stand squarely between the young hunter and Ryan.
Gritting his teeth, the young hunter gripped his bone spear, which was still impaled in the mud, and did not attempt to take another step forward.
Ryan did not waste a single second.
He reached out with his left hand, grasping Lucia's cold, small hand with a firm, precise grip.
“Let's go.”
Lucia dazed for a moment, looking up at the sharp lines of Ryan's profile. “Now?”
“Now.”
Holding the girl's hand, Ryan looked back neither at the old man nor the young hunter. He turned directly around and began walking down the muddy path that led toward the outer edge of the forest.
No one from the tribe pursued them.
Not even a single footstep sounded behind them.
Yet, the exact moment Ryan led Lucia through the last patch of tall ferns at the edge of the settlement, just as they were about to step out completely—
“Thud—”
A second dull impact erupted from the deepest depths of the forest!
This time, the sound was even clearer and more muffled than before!
The ground shook violently enough to be visible, splashing the muddy water beneath their feet half an inch high. Up in the dense canopy, tens of thousands of massive leaves, without a single breath of wind, suddenly tilted and bent violently toward the depths of the forest!
The remaining fluorescent spores in the air fell even faster.
They rained down in a sweeping deluge, clinging to the vegetation and soil, transforming into layers of cold, greyish-white mist.
Ryan paused slightly. Pulling Lucia with him, he slowly turned around to look back one last time.
The dozens of native residents of the tribe still stood silently on the damp earth.
Not a single one of them was looking at Ryan.
Not a single one of them was looking at Lucia.
Every single native, including the young hunter and their ancient leader, maintained their posture—some with heads lowered, others raised—staring with hollow, numb eyes at the dark fog in the deepest part of the forest.
The young hunter had completely let go of the bone spear he had been holding across his chest, leaving it sticking out of the mud at an angle.
The old man, his back hunched, folded his hands over his deadwood staff and bowed his head deeply.
Lucia's small hand suddenly tightened violently, her nails almost digging through the fabric into the skin of Ryan's hand.
“Teacher...” the girl cried out with a hint of tears in her voice.
Ryan looked down at her. “Yes?”
Lucia looked back at the tribe, which was as silent as a graveyard. Her small face was deathly pale, completely devoid of color.
“Let's go, quickly...”
“It's... it's so cold here.”
Ryan asked no further questions.
He retracted his gaze, firmly gripped the girl's wrist, and broke into a sprint, running toward the outer perimeter at an unprecedented speed.
One after the other, they swiftly crossed through the towering forest of giant ferns.
They ran through the gradually thinning white mist.
As they moved further, the surrounding air began to undergo a highly noticeable change—
The thick, sickeningly sweet scent of vegetation that had filled their lungs began to fade rapidly.
A dry, cool wind swept over their faces, carrying bits of grass.
Ryan opened his eyes and sat up from the grass.
The waking world remained that vast, desolate hinterland of wild grass. Night had fallen, and stars were scattered like fine silver sand across the deep blue sky. There were no city lights, nor any trace of modern civilization.
Beside him, Lucia was curled up on a pile of dry grass, wrapped tightly in the old blanket. The girl was breathing evenly, and though her small face was still somewhat pale, the repressed fear and confusion between her brows had dissipated significantly.
Ryan checked the hidden traps around them, confirming that they were temporarily in a safe area.
Leaning his back against a dead shrub, he used the faint starlight to retrieve several items from the inner pocket of his trench coat—
A piece of deadwood embedded with a black stone bead;
A heavy, ice-cold, dark gold seed about the size of a fingernail;
And a few revolver bullets he had unloaded, now covered in green moss and ruined by moisture.
Ryan extended a finger, drawing shallow lines in the dry grass to organize all the clues currently in his possession:
The ancient tribe, the giant golden tree, this dark gold seed that the old man had thrust upon him like a final bequest, and Lucia's strange dreams that frequently resonated with the secret realm...
Ryan closed his hand, slipping the dark gold seed and the deadwood back into his pocket.
He glanced sideways at Lucia. Confirming that the girl was sound asleep, Ryan closed his eyes, adjusted his breathing, drank a little laudanum, and followed the subtle pull deep within his mind to sink into the dreamscape once more.
...
Hum.
The feeling of weightlessness was fleeting.
When Ryan opened his eyes again, his feet were planted on damp, soft grass.
The air was filled with a fresh, sweet fragrance of plants and moisture, with the sound of rushing water and noisy voices echoing from a distance.
Ryan's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.
This was not the Moth Port he was familiar with.
The gloomy port, once constructed of dilapidated wooden buildings, damp docks, pitch-black sea water, and tattered sailboats, had vanished. In its place was an incredibly vast green oasis.
Towering, giant palm trees and unknown broad-leaved plants blotted out the sky, while crystal-clear spring water wound through intersecting streams, dividing the entire oasis into numerous independent areas. The dream wanderers, who had once been scattered across the various dark corners of Moth Port, were now traversing this massive oasis.
A massive number of unfamiliar faces were gathered here.
People gathered in groups of twos and threes by the streams, under the shade of trees, or beside giant boulders, conducting highly low-profile exchanges of intelligence, discussions of lore, trades of items, and even private swaps of forbidden secrets.
Ryan pulled down the brim of his trench coat, hiding most of his face in the shadows.
He habitually scanned his surroundings but did not see Chris anywhere.
With both hands in his trench coat pockets, Ryan walked unhurriedly along the edge of the oasis, beginning to observe the entire gathering.
Slowing his pace, he passed by various small circles, catching their hushed voices and chaotic fragments of information.
The transactions here were extremely chaotic, and the sheer volume of information was staggering:
“...The third floor of that ruin to the south has been sealed off by toxic fog. None of those who went in have come out...”
“...Have you heard? A sect's monastery over in the Holy City turned entirely to stone overnight...”
“...I have a page of a herbal recipe torn from an ancient tome here. I'll only trade it for a ward that can resist mental erosion...”
“...A type of anomalous creature capable of traveling between dreams and reality...”
Ruins, missing persons, ancient religions, anomalous creatures, unknown dreams, forbidden items, extraordinary plants... rumors from various continents and corners of the dreamscape intertwined here, making it difficult to separate truth from falsehood.
Ryan listened quietly, his gaze growing deeper.
Countless people from different places, harboring different secrets, collided here, causing originally unrelated secrets to intersect, thereby piecing together the tip of an iceberg hidden behind the fog from countless fragments.
Ryan stopped wandering aimlessly.
He began to consciously search for small circles discussing plants, forests, ancient tribes, or anomalous dreams.
He stopped near a circle composed of several individuals dressed in voluminous cloaks.
Leaning behind a giant boulder, he listened to them quietly debating a species of carnivorous moss that grew on the far northern ice fields.
When one of them mentioned that “some ancient plants seem to possess the ability to absorb emotions independent of the laws of reality,” Ryan chimed in almost imperceptibly, steering the topic toward “anomalous giant trees capable of growing in enclosed spaces.”
After a brief and vague probing, Ryan received several plausible responses.
When the first round of exchanges ended, he left the circle and stood by the clear stream of the oasis.
Although he had not obtained a definitive explanation, he could already confirm one thing—
In this version of Moth Port that had suddenly evolved into an oasis, there were indeed people who knew of, or had even come into contact with, things highly similar to that “anomalous forest.”
But he was still a long way from the answer he wanted.
Ryan changed his strategy.
Relying solely on eavesdropping and vague probing was too inefficient and made it extremely easy to acquire distorted, secondhand rumors. He had to actively participate in this exchange of intelligence.
Instead of directly throwing out the massive concept of the “South American secret realm,” he dismantled all his experiences within it into several unrelated, minute details:
First, plants that would rapidly rot upon leaving their native environment, unable to even maintain their physical form as mundane items;
Second, an ancient forest possessing self-healing capabilities, able to erase traces of human activity;
Third, emotional dreams capable of forcibly intervening in and affecting the memories and perceptions of humans in the waking world;
Fourth, a primitive tribe devoid of normal emotions like fear and grief;
Fifth, a dark gold seed of a special material capable of triggering a spiritual resonance;
Sixth, a “giant tree” that repeatedly appeared in various ancient myths.
Over the next several hours of dreamscape exploration, Ryan traversed the various trading corners of the oasis.
The feedback he received was vast as the ocean, yet extremely fragmented:
From a fat man dealing in exotic plants, Ryan learned of a species of coral growing in deep-sea trenches that would disintegrate within seconds of leaving seawater. However, that was an aquatic organism, completely unrelated to a terrestrial forest.
From a wanderer who claimed to have studied ancient geography, Ryan heard of a “trackless land” that could automatically erase footprints and structures. However, that was due to a massive subterranean insect swarm living beneath the soil, not any spontaneous behavior of plants.
Someone else tried to sell him a hallucinogen refined from a certain pollen, claiming it could make an entire town's population immune to pain in their dreams. However, that was merely a marketing guise for a potent neurotoxin.
As for the legends concerning “sacred giant trees,” they were as numerous as the hairs on a cow—ranging from Yggdrasil of Norse mythology to the Jianmu of Eastern myth. Nearly every ancient civilization possessed a similar form of worship, and the vast majority were simply primitive humans blindly totemizing massive natural features.
Most of the information was self-contradictory, filled with exaggeration and absurdity.
However, when he inquired about the “dark gold seed,” things took a subtle turn.
When Ryan, standing near a stone pavilion in the center of the oasis, described a seed “the size of a fingernail, heavy as gold, and capable of causing spiritual perception to throb violently” to several seemingly knowledgeable dream scholars—
The group, which had been in the middle of a heated discussion, suddenly fell silent.
One of them, an elderly man wearing a copper mask, looked up and gave Ryan a deep look. Then, without any warning, he gathered the parchment from the table, turned around, and left the pavilion.
The others also shut their mouths one after another, their eyes revealing a clear sense of avoidance and wariness.
Ryan stood where he was, his gaze as still as dead water.
Their attitude was a highly explicit piece of intelligence in itself: this dark gold seed was by no means a product of an ordinary extraordinary plant.
To pry loose more valuable information, Ryan knew he could no longer expect to get something for nothing.
At a small exchange gathering composed of several relic seekers, Ryan presented a piece of knowledge he had experienced while at the White Door.
Finally, after offering a piece of Lantern lore, Ryan managed to exchange it with a mysterious, bandage-wrapped figure with a raspy voice for a piece of information that possessed genuine reference value—
“The plant you mentioned that rots upon leaving its environment... and the special seed capable of suppressing spiritual awakening.”
The bandaged man lowered his voice, his tone extremely solemn.
“About forty years ago, a secret academic society systematically isolated and researched a similar 'anomalous plant and symbiotic system.' They even extracted live specimens from some ancient ruin and left behind extremely detailed research logs.”
Ryan's eyes narrowed slightly. “What was the name of that society? Where are the research records?”
The bandaged man shook his head.
“I don't know. That society dissolved overnight for some unspeakable reason, and all of its members either went mad or went missing. As for those research records... they might have found their way into certain grand libraries in the mundane world, been hoarded by some black market collector, or perhaps they were buried in a tomb along with the researchers long ago.”
The information came to an abrupt halt there.
Who the researchers were, what the society was called, where the records were stored, and whether they truly aligned perfectly with the South American secret realm Ryan had encountered in reality... everything remained an unknown.
Yet Ryan did not feel discouraged.
For an investigator groping through the fog, going from “clueless” to “confirming that someone had once researched it and left behind records” was a massive breakthrough in itself.
Rate on N.U.
