Chapter 156: Connection 2
Chapter 156: Connection 2
Heart of the Exiled Serpent was a Dream Demon.
Probably another case of someone turned into a Dream Demon artificially, like me.
Once I accepted that premise, a few things started making sense.
First: manifesting without paying a cost.
She must've projected a Clone, or slipped into the dreams of that girl who collapsed in the alley. With a Dream Demon's magic power at her disposal, seducing people was child's play, and when I thought about my own Incarnations—Han Ye-ji and the rest—the killer's unwavering loyalty checked out.
Next: ignoring the Academy's barrier. I didn't fully understand the mechanics, but if Dream Demons could pierce all the way into a Constellation's Sanctum, she probably had an Authority that tricked perception. Hell, hadn't I just been caught in something like hypnosis myself?
And lastly, this whole business of us stumbling into each other's Sanctums.
Normally, the intrusion should've been one-sided—me into hers. The fact that it wasn't made sense if she was a Dream Demon too. If a corridor had opened that only Dream Demons could traverse, she'd simply used it in reverse to reach my Sanctum.
And the reason I'd been ejected from the Dream City must've been because she, as a different Dream Demon, had touched the Stone. Like in a game: try logging into the same account from two devices, and the first one gets kicked.
'So this makes the second Dream Demon I've run into.'
The first one—whose name I'd long since forgotten. The bastard who'd targeted Han Ye-ji's city and staged a terrorist attack, only to eat a nuclear bomb in an Origin clash and get atomized. Now that I thought about it, that guy had been pathetically flimsy, but this Heart of the Exiled Serpent was somehow even flimsier.
She appeared to be from this gender-role-reversed world to begin with, and the moment I nicked the back of her hand, didn't she start flailing at me with teary little bunny punches? Snatching up that teapot mid-tantrum was a decent move—too bad you actually have to land the hit for it to count.
A pampered rich girl who'd never known real danger in her life. The kind of silver-spoon corporate heir who didn't know the first thing about brawling.
'Still, an Origin clash makes me a little uneasy.'
But that didn't mean I could just throw down with her recklessly. Unlike the last Dream Demon—the one from a fantasy world who'd gotten himself killed—Heart of the Exiled Serpent came from a futuristic sci-fi setting. Not on the level of The Incinerating Tyrant, with his outer-space fleets and planetary colonies, but at least a world with the technology to settle the Moon and Mars. If her world had destroyed itself in an interplanetary war between Earth and the Moon, she could probably brush off a stealth fighter carrying a nuke without breaking a sweat.
I had zero intel on what her Origin could do, so I had to approach with some caution. Hypothetically: say I subdue her, beat her in a fight, and then in the Origin clash she hits me with a space-weapon beam and I lose. If I died that pathetically, I wouldn't be able to close my eyes from sheer frustration.
While those thoughts were churning, the last target dropped with a crack.
In the live-fire training program, Han Ye-ji had just nailed every single target. Gripping the beam-shooting pistol, she beamed a sunny smile and trotted over to me.
"Constellation, did you see?! They said it's a new record!"
"Yeah, you really are a damn good shot...."
Even my slightly dumbstruck reply made her laugh with delight. No wonder, given her marksmanship had improved by leaps and bounds to the point of startling even herself. To think she'd shot down every last one of those zipping, flashing drones with her talent and Authority still sealed—talents bordering on the supernatural. So this was why people called them souls who hadn't yet bloomed.
"Yes! My trigger pull definitely feels crisper than last time. Maybe they tuned all the firearms when they overhauled the training grounds?"
The same part-time convenience-store girl who'd once groaned over missing low-flying drones now twirled her pistol like a middle-aged cowboy and holstered it at her hip. Behind her, the floor was littered with an arsenal: pistols, shotguns, a rubber grenade launcher, rifles, even a sniper rifle. Throw in a tranquilizer gun and a taser, and she'd practically become a one-woman gunslinger.
"Back when you were an Academy cadet, you couldn't even spot the low-flying drones."
"Ugh, why are you bringing up ancient history...."
She'd once dreamed actual Nightmares over her stagnant training scores, and when I teased her about it, her cheeks flushed crimson. Yeah, the flustered look suited her way better than the cool-gunslinger act.
"That was some fine shooting. Want a reward? Like a nurse's coat, or a school uniform."
"Eeek?! I-I, no, but—"
We whiled away the time with that kind of casual chatter, then had dinner together before heading back toward my quarters. I wanted to check on the Dream City—the place I'd been dragged out of and hadn't gotten a proper look at, thanks to Heart of the Exiled Serpent.
※
The days that had seemed ready to erupt into chaos at any moment turned out unexpectedly peaceful.
Mornings spent examining the test subject and talking with Lee Ha-rin. Afternoons spent visiting Han Ye-ji's team, half-jokingly consoling them about being out of a job. Evenings spent watching the Dream City's robots and touring the metropolis. A string of tranquil days.
The reason was simple.
'Guess she's got no guts, the crazy bitch.'
Heart of the Exiled Serpent had tucked tail and gone into hiding. So much for the nerve she'd shown assassinating The Incinerating Tyrant's prospective contractor. All that remained was a coward who'd sobbed her eyes out over a little poke to the eyelid and vanished.
With the central figure—Heart of the Exiled Serpent—completely off the grid, everything else ground to a crawl. She was so spooked by that single eye-jab that she hadn't dared come near my Sanctum again, which rendered the poisoned tea useless. Research on the Incarnation was stalled because the sample pool of Dream Demon contractors was abysmally small. And as a Constellation, I could hardly badger the alchemists to hurry up. These were top talents, each carrying a continent's-best title, summoned to the Academy for a reason. If they couldn't crack it, no alchemist in this world could.
Hell, in this world, were magic and science really even that different? Thinking of it that way, devoting months—even years—to developing new techniques was perfectly normal.
The problem was, my head could accept that, but my gut wouldn't. Maybe because I'd tried to process this world by comparing it to a game. The Incinerating Tyrant's request kept nagging at me like an unfinished quest—I just wanted to knock it out fast and clean my slate. Every time I looked at the test subject in the mornings, gratitude and irritation swirled together until my head spun, leaving me feeling like someone frantic over a forgotten task.
But as the saying goes, the darkest place is under the candlestick. Or maybe: heaven helps those who help themselves. A helping hand reached out from a direction I never would've expected.
"Good day, Constellation."
"Mm. And?"
The person standing before me was a complete stranger. My memory had sharpened considerably since becoming a Dream Demon, so I was sure of it. Had there been a lot of patients from the Southern Continent in this latest batch I'd treated? Her frame was lithe, and her skin was a deeper brown than a suntan. Short-cropped hair that wouldn't get in the way during action. Sinewy forearms and a sharply defined abdomen, all plainly displayed by an outfit that barely covered anything.
"I am an Incarnation sent by Tail-biting Hound. My Constellation bids me relay a message: she wishes to offer her assistance as a token of gratitude."
"And can you tell me what kind of assistance?"
The beauty—who, with a pair of pointed ears, could've passed for a dark elf—flashed a grin that showed white teeth and vivid red gums. If the Unfading Giant Tree's smile was that of a mischievous boy, this Incarnation's was closer to a confident young woman's. It suited the bearing of a warrior who walked with her shoulders squared and met every situation head-on.
"I've heard the Academy has been in an uproar lately. Word is they caught the culprit who infiltrated the campus and harmed a Northern Continent Constellation's prospective contractor."
"That's right. Already found and caught. Doesn't sound like there's anything left for you to help with."
A Constellation's name carried a lot of information. Look at the Unfading Giant Tree, or Loyal Fang, or Nightmare, or Tyrant, or Sword—the keywords told you plenty. In that respect, Tail-biting Hound was brutally straightforward. A hunting dog biting its own tail: wasn't that basically a giant neon sign saying "pursuer"? Probably meant she was a Constellation of hunters or assassins.
Most of the time, other Constellations sent me perfumes, handkerchiefs, jeweled necklaces, trinkets like that watch, or offerings of pure beasts and rare monster byproducts. I'd long since handed full authority over to the Academy and stopped paying attention, so this was only the second time a Constellation had personally offered direct help like this.
For some reason, my mind flickered to the Sword That Severs the Yoke's female disciple—the one whose Origin had been etched with a voyeurism fetish. Yeah, I'd done something a little unfair to that patient. A voyeurism kink as the price for escaping Qi Deviation....
While my thoughts drifted, the woman in front of me let slip something I hadn't expected at all.
"Oh, but isn't there still a quarry you haven't caught?"
"...Is that possible?"
She meant Heart of the Exiled Serpent. Specifically, the Dream Demon's Clone she kept sending down to the mortal world. Even if the main body stayed in her Sanctum, if someone could capture a personally crafted Clone, they'd be unspeakably useful—orders of magnitude beyond a regular Incarnation.
But was that even possible?
From my perspective, a Dream Demon's Clone was little more than a phantom. A construct of magic power, sharing only partial sensory feedback with the user. To be precise, it was like one of those bubble buddies from SpongeBob. A doll sculpted from mana-mist. A mirage that would dissolve into vapor the moment it took damage. Who could arrest a mirage and a ghost?
Yet despite all that, the woman standing before me—Tail-biting Hound's Incarnation—just thumped her chest confidently and started making bold guarantees.