A chill spread through Hao Ren’s body when he passed through the moonlight water.

It was not a chill perceived by physical senses, but one that concerned the soul. It was like a cold expanding from the inside out of his consciousness. When the chill struck, Hao Ren realized that he had entered a realm dominated by the shadowy forces.

The sense of disorientation fleeted quickly. Hao Ren felt like he had done a somersault in the air while the world spun around him in the first second and the earth under his feet in the next. The scene around him quickly stabilized. He found himself still standing in the courtyard, but the castle and sky had changed entirely.

Color had faded from the world. Everything appeared in shades of black and white. The world had essentially become a black and white photo—monotonous, cold and gloomy. The castle, which was rundown in the outside world, was perfectly intact in here. It also appeared much larger than Hao Ren remembered. The courtyard had become a large square, in which still fountains and grotesque sculptures were everywhere. Hao Ren did not see them on the outside earlier. The four ordinary towers in the square had turned into skyscrapers, like four pillars supporting the heavens and the earth in the distance. The cloudy sky was above the towers, and large vortexes were spinning where the towers met the sky. Part of the castle wall extended from the east side of the courtyard to the west. The wall was also several times larger than the one on the outside, making it look like the wall of a mega dam. There were hundreds of gothic, slender windows on the wall, with each window glowing faintly. It was as if an endless banquet was going on in the castle.

High up in the sky, blocks of black and white clouds had seemingly frozen, solidified, and covered the world.

Hao Ren looked at the massive and complex buildings in amazement. He realized that what he saw was only a small part of the castle. The crumbled Haron’s Castle in the outside world appeared strange in the shadowy realm. Perhaps it was just an asymmetrical projection of the original.

The witches came out one by one from the pool. Lily was the last; she jumped out screaming like mad with her eyes closed. But quickly, the scene in the shadowy realm quieted the husky maiden. She stared at the surroundings, wide-eyed, and then looked back at the pool where she came out from. Less than ten meters in diameter originally, the pool was now several times larger with many dark and twisted sculptures and patterns around it. Lily blinked and sighed. Whoa! This is how the shadowy realm looks like, eh?”

“The shadowy realm can appear in many different ways, depending on the controller and the distorted projection of the real world,” said Hessiana. “Shadow is abstract, so its appearance is always beyond what you could imagine.”

Madam Marie opened her hands and looked at the small black flames that danced in her palms. “The magic concentration of this world is unbelievably high. I have never captured any runaway magic energy in the air so easily. But here is a black magic paradise!”

“Control your desires, witch!” Hessiana warned coldly. “The magical energy of this world belongs to Vivian. Even the entire world is her extension. You can indulge in it, I will not stop you since you will soon become a part of the shadows, absorbed by Vivian’s dream.”

Lily blinked, but it looked like something had occurred to her. “So is this Vivian’s dream?”

“You are not wrong to say that,” Hessiana replied casually. “Lord Vivian will transform her realm during hibernation. This realm is separated from the real world and forms a highly protective shell, in which Vivian’s subconscious mind dominates and creates everything.”

Lily scratched her head. “She even craves for a big house in her dream.”

Hessiana was stupefied.

Hao Ren was speechless.

Lily had just hit the nail on the head. It seemed to suggest that Vivian could only become rich only in her dreamland.

The husky maiden’s unwitting remark caused a long, awkward pause. Finally, Hao Ren hemmed and said, “We can leave this topic to another day. Hessiana, where are we going next?”

“Wait a minute, I need to see,” Hessiana said with her arms open, and a pair of huge bat wings spread behind her. There were many shadowy, phantom-like bats under her batwings. The shadows flew out and then scattered in all directions. “This is my first time here. Lord Vivian usually dislikes me to bother her. My understanding of this place comes from my investigation work.”

“That means you are only a theorist.” Lily’s mouth twitched.

“But theorist like me knows many things.” Hessiana glared at Lily. “For sure Vivian does not like to be disturbed, but she once told me about this dark world in her dream. I know where the control center of the soulless guards is!”

As she spoke, Little Bat’s facial expression suddenly changed. She then looked in a particular direction.

“What happened?” Hao Ren asked curiously.

“I could see a shadow node had been disturbed. The wizard Bain has been here.”

There was a commotion among the witches; the wizard they initially recruited had turned out to be a mole. So any news about Bain would hit their nerve. “Can you track down him down? Hao Ren asked.

“It is hard.” Hessiana frowned and shook her head. “The wizard is better than I thought. He is an expert in Shadowmancy. And he has the key. He erased most of his trails and hid himself using the environment of this world.”

“But he will eventually go and look for the seal.” Hao Ren looked up at the sky made up of black and white blocks. Some faint shadows appeared behind the solidified clouds. “What are those?” he asked.

“Soulless guards,” Hessiana said after a glance, face serious. “The shadowy realm has already sensed our trespass, and the soulless guards are waking up. Come with me, we have to go to the north tower and first gain control of a part of this world.”

“Umm, guys.” Lily looked at around. “I think they are coming.”

As soon as Lily’s voice trailed off, a clattering noise came from all over the square.

There were hideous black stone sculptures everywhere in the square. Most of them had the body of a human and the limbs of beasts with bone spurs, bat-like wings, and long tails. These weird stone sculptures were crumbling, revealing a smoke-like amorphous body inside. The broken stone chips rolled inside the smoke and formed the bizarre appearance of the monsters.

“Damn it! The soulless guards are coming out from the gargoyles.” Hessiana cursed in a low voice. With the flick of her hand, a blood-red whip immediately popped up in her hand. “Everyone, move to the north tower! Do not engage them, you can’t possibly kill them all!”

While speaking, a gargoyle that had come to life shrilled and lunged over.

In a flash, the high-temperature flame from the plasma spear cut the shadow-stone monster in half. Hao Ren stood in front of the team with his spear in one hand, and Graviton Grenades in another with the radar-lock activated. “Lily, you only need to carry Hasse.”

Hao Ren threw out the Graviton Grenades, which imploded and created a gravity field five meters in radius. The gravity field, as powerful as a mini black hole, instantly captured several gargoyles. They cried as the dark spot at the center of the implosion sucked them in. The witches stopped dead in their tracks, and Hessiana froze when they saw the strange power. Hessiana looked at Hao Ren in disbelief. “What power are you using? This is not sorcery!”

“I have some connection with those Norse fellows,” Hao Ren said, casually cooking up a reply.

Lily kicked away a gargoyle while still carrying Hasse on her back. She became impatient. “This old man is bogging me down. I don’t want to carry him anymore—I want to fight! Mr. Landlord, can’t you keep him in your dimensional pocket?”

“I cannot really feel him in the dimensional pocket while in this place,” Hao Ren said while throwing Lily a very heavy alloy two-handed sword. “Use this to defend yourself.”

Lily swung Hasse on her left shoulder while caught the long sword with the right hand. She then brandished the two-handed sword that looked like movie props. “At least it is a staff!”

She smashed a gargoyle with the sword. The gargoyle instantly shattered into dust.

Hessiana and the witches also sprung into action. They used all the magic spells and summoned all magical creatures they could get to join the battle.

But Hao Ren soon noticed that it did not take long before the shattered and vaporized gargoyles reemerged again in the air. Some of them even split and multiplied, adding to the already large number of enemies in the square.

He finally realized what Hessiana meant. The soulless guards were not killable. The monsters came from Vivian’s dream. As long as Vivian was still not awake, the nightmare monsters would not go away.

The external excitations seemed to worsen the nightmare based on the increasing number of monsters.

Everyone had now realized it. With Hessiana leading the way, they began to retreat to the north tower.