["Chrysalis" Dreamland Cursed Being: A dream entity existing within someone's dreamscape, a unique Cursed Being born from the meticulous influence of the "Chrysalis." Their appearance mostly reflects the dream's owner, but otherwise, they are no different from standard Cursed Beings .]
"A Slime? Is that some kind of new-age monster?" Elise asked.
"No, that's just what I call them," Mithra explained, briefly touching on the situation regarding the Wandering God known as the "Chrysalis."
"The power to warp flesh and blood... sounds familiar, though the name 'Chrysalis' feels a bit too lowly for it," Elise remarked after listening.
The two continued their trek into the hospital as they spoke.
"You mentioned bringing me back to clarity. How exactly does that work?" Mithra asked along the way.
"You find whoever the dream belongs to. If they can be persuaded to wake up on their own, then everything's fine. But that's rarely the case. The final outcome is usually just having to eliminate the dream's owner," Elise said matter-of-factly.
"Why is that?"
"Logic is mostly a mess inside a dream. An owner who is too deep in their sleep might not even grasp the difference between being awake and dreaming. Asking them to end the dream is often a concept they literally can't process. Even if they could understand, asking someone to manually destroy their own world is a bit too cruel," Elise explained.
Mithra countered, "So the solution is just to kill them?"
"Exactly. If they want to sleep forever, they shouldn't be dragging clear-headed people down with them," Elise said, her tone turning cold.
As they talked, they stepped into the outpatient building. The vast lobby was deserted, and the health and safety posters on the walls had blurred into illegible smears.
The entire place was a scene of decay.
"Playing hide-and-seek in a hospital this big feels like a massive waste of time," Mithra noted.
"Dream owners usually have a desperate urge to express themselves within their own world. They won't stay hidden for long; in fact, they'll often shove key clues right in our faces," Elise said.
Just as she finished speaking, a hail of flesh-and-blood needles erupted from the shadows. Elise's twin blades blurred, intercepting every single needle before they could reach Mithra.
A figure in a long white coat flickered at the top of the stairwell.
Mithra lunged into the stairs. She traced a Ki totem and cast Ki Conduction, grabbing the person trying to flee and slamming them against the rusted iron bars of the staircase railing.
It was another stitched-skin monstrosity, though the white coat it wore was inexplicably spotless. Aside from the clothes, it looked much like the bloated creature from before.
The entity suddenly thrust its arm through the bars, the limb morphing into a sharp spike aimed at Mithra.
Mithra swung her hammer with a violent snap, shattering the hardened bone-spike arm instantly.
Following up, Mithra's other hand cast the rock-type miracle "Dust Accumulation," shaping a stone slab. Using Object Manipulation, she hurled it to pin the creature's neck against the bars.
The stitched doctor tried to warp its flesh to slip through the restraints, but being pinned so tightly made every effort futile.
Mithra stepped forward, triggered Ignition on her hammer, and brought it crashing down.
The stitched doctor let out a faint, gurgling shriek amidst the flames before crumbling into ash.
Elise walked over, looking at the remains. "Miracles truly grant humans a staggering amount of convenience. Even some of those gods can't claim to master so many different types of power simultaneously, yet you lot can borrow them with such ease."
"But the sheer peak of a god's power isn't something we can just reach on a whim. It's just that the variety is indeed there," Mithra replied.
Elise remained noncommittal. "As long as a path exists, someone will walk it. Especially since miracles offer ten thousand different routes."
Mithra ignored the commentary, noticing an ID badge that had fallen from the charred remains of the stitched doctor.
The flesh and blood had been burned to a crisp, yet the badge remained intact.
She picked it up. Most of the text was illegible, but the department name was just barely recognizable.
"Neonatology," Mithra read aloud.
"That's the dream itself offering up a clue."
"So I guess that means we need to find the neonatal ward in this hospital..."
As she spoke, the lights in the stairwell began to flicker violently.
Then, they heard a sound coming from the upper floors: something was crawling on the steps, and thick, viscous blood began to drip from the handrails.
Mithra and Elise stood their ground in silence.
"Aren't you going to check it out? Miss Passenger," Elise asked.
"Funny. Why don't you go check?" Mithra shot back.
"Exploring the dreamscape is your job. I'm just your guide."
"I don't want to see it," Mithra said, short and sweet.
Elise sighed.
The sound of their conversation completely drowned out the crawling noise from above. It seemed the thing had lost its patience; a dark shadow suddenly plummeted through the gap in the center of the stairwell, landing right next to Mithra and Elise.
A pair of pale, blood-stained hands gripped the railing, slowly pushing the body up.
It was a woman with disheveled hair, her legs twisted and useless. Her abdomen looked like a ruptured Ki sphere, and all the blood covering her seemed to be hemorrhaging from there.
From beneath a curtain of thick black hair, a pair of venomous eyes glared at Mithra and Elise.
Mithra locked eyes with her for a split second, then swung her hammer.
BANG!
The hammer sent the woman sprawling. As she struggled, Mithra noticed the scent of blood in the air becoming stiflingly thick. The blood flowing from the woman's belly began to writhe, molding itself into grotesquely shaped infants.
These newborns sprouted insect-like limbs, scuttling and leaping wildly across the stairwell.
Mithra and Elise began a frantic extermination, but the speed at which they killed couldn't keep up with the rate the infants were born from the blood. Furthermore, the blood the woman had left behind while crawling on the upper floors began to spawn these monstrous infants as well.
Left with no choice, Mithra and Elise retreated from the stairwell.
Mithra slammed the stairwell door shut and locked it, then the two of them returned to the main outpatient lobby.
The fire doors were being hammered from the other side, but Mithra was already leading Elise to find where the neonatology department was located.
"Big hospitals like this always feel like a labyrinth. Let's check the inpatient building," Mithra said, quickening her pace.
The fire doors didn't hold for long before being breached. A pool of blood surged out, and monstrous infants crawled out from the gore, letting out piercing wails as they chased after Mithra and Elise.
"To think the power of flesh-warping would turn into something like this... how ironic," Elise couldn't help but remark.
"Isn't completely liberating the constraints of the flesh supposed to be a good thing?" Mithra quipped back.
Elise gave her a reproachful look.
Stepping through the connecting corridor into the inpatient building, a sudden heavy sensation washed over them.
It was an oppressive feeling, as if someone were pushing down on their shoulders. The atmosphere here was entirely different from the outpatient clinic.
Mithra reached the elevator bank and finally spotted the floor for the neonatology ward.
"Why the hell did they build this place so high..." Mithra muttered, looking at the number. It was in the twenties.
"How about we just take the elevator?" Elise suggested.
"In a place where the vibe is clearly shifting toward a horror movie, you want to take an elevator straight to the twentieth floor?" Mithra said, then suddenly paused. "Wait, you know what an elevator is?"
"I do. The name was a bit different, but the design was similar: a mechanism powered by special energy to move people up and down. I believe it was created by someone named... Fasellos," Elise recalled.
"..." Mithra remained silent.
But she couldn't help but snark internally. Modern-day Dream Nexus wasn't exactly advanced. The era of the Forty-Four Pillar Gods was pushed back who-knows-how-many thousands of years before that, and Fasellos had made something like an elevator back then?
Actually, that sounded oddly plausible.
In the end, the two chose the elevator. After talking it over and thinking it through, the risk of climbing that many flights of stairs seemed about the same as taking the lift.
In a place this twisted, avoiding danger was impossible. They might as well save their legs to ensure they could run faster when things actually hit the fan.
Stepping into the decrepit elevator, Mithra and Elise stood side-by-side as the lift groaned into motion.
"Have you remembered anything else in the meantime?" Mithra asked, taking the opportunity.
"Not really. If you're looking for intelligence support from me, Miss Passenger, I wouldn't get your hopes up," Elise replied flatly.
"Alright," Mithra said, though her gaze remained fixed on the twin blades in Elise's hands.
["Elise's Claw": The talons of the eternal slumbering bird. Once weapons offered to all souls lost in dreams to grant either clarity or rest, they are an extension of her own symbolic being. One blade represents "Waking", the other "Slumbering".]
Named weapons. Mithra was envious.
"Miss Passenger, why are you staring at my weapons?" Elise asked, noticing the gaze.
"They're exquisite... and sharp. Do they have a story?" Mithra asked, despite her Eyes of Night having already revealed some details. It never hurt to ask for the firsthand version.
"They've been my companions for a very long time. Even if much else has been forgotten, they still give me a sense of familiarity," Elise said, raising her right hand and giving the blade a quick, practiced twirl.
The edge grazed the elevator wall, leaving a faint score in the metal.
"Rather than my weapons, I'm more curious about you, Miss Passenger. Your weapon seems to share a very intimate connection with you; that too is a form of flesh-and-blood warping, isn't it?" Elise asked.
"I'm not sure. My understanding of this body is practically zero right now. The only thing I'm familiar with is the outer shell," Mithra replied.
"Indeed. You are one of the few 'Clear-headed' I've seen. Even in a dream, you manage to restrain the deepest parts of yourself quite well."
Mithra paused. "You can tell?"
"I am your guide; naturally, I must understand you. Please, by all means, keep your inner self asleep while we're here. Otherwise, you might tear this fragile dreamscape into a total mess."
"I'm trying."
As they spoke, the agonizingly slow elevator reached the eighteenth floor. As expected, it didn't make it directly to their destination. The doors groaned open, revealing a wide corridor ahead.
Mithra reached out to press the close-door button, but there was no response. She peeked out. The button on the outside of the elevator bank seemed to be held down by something invisible, making it impossible to close from the inside.
"Let's go," Elise said calmly, stepping out.
"Yeah," Mithra agreed, then suddenly smashed the elevator's control panel with her hammer.
BOOM!!
The elevator seemed to malfunction instantly. The doors remained open as the car began to plummet. As it dropped, Mithra and Elise caught a glimpse of what was on top of the car: a blurry mass of flesh, riddled with human limbs and a face twisted into a horrifying, weeping smile. It locked eyes with them for a split second before vanishing into the darkness below.
Mithra walked to the edge of the shaft, traced a fire totem, cast the Burning miracle, and tossed a ball of fire down into the void. Dusting off her hands, she turned back and said, "Let's go."
Ignoring whatever happened to the elevator behind them, they stepped into the corridor. Immediately, they spotted several figures moving about. There were a few stitched-faced doctors and a group of people in casual wear whose backgrounds were unclear.
Even though Mithra and Elise hadn't moved closer, a muffled conversation drifted into their ears as if it were being whispered right next to them.
"How did a reporter manage to sneak in? Looks like this deal has been going on a bit too long."
"We've already dealt with the reporter. Things were a bit chaotic at the time, so the cleanup was rushed: broke their limbs and tossed them on top of the elevator. We'll figure out how to dispose of it tonight."
"Idiot. Do you know why reporters come here? Those rats must have smelled something. Your deal with us has been running for a while now; news was bound to leak eventually."
"But... but..."
"You'd better figure out how to scrub those traces clean ourselves. Heh, though we could help you 'digest' a bit more this time—for the right price, of course. You know how it works."
"I knew you lot were up to no good!"
"Are we doing this deal or not? Just say it straight."
"...Fine. Let's do it."
A series of footsteps, loud to the point of being ear-piercing, echoed through the hall.
"Director, that pregnant woman from earlier escaped!"
"Dammit, she was already on the operating table, how could she run?! Didn't you dose her?"
"We did, but she was the one they pre-ordered. Plus, with the 'meat' they provided, something seems to have gone wrong."
"What?" The previous grating voice chimed in again, sounding curious. "The newborn we ordered earlier had an issue? Because of the mother and the stuff we gave you?"
"Yes, but we can handle it..."
"No, no, no. Take us there immediately. We want to see this for ourselves!"
The voices cut off there. Mithra looked toward Elise.
Elise spoke up: "As I told you, time, space, and internal logic are all warped within a dream. Everything is dictated by the dream owner's desire for expression."
Mithra nodded and stepped directly around the corner, walking boldly down the corridor.
Elise followed, her expression unchanging.
The undisguised sound of their footsteps drew the attention of the freaks ahead. They all turned their heads; without exception, every single one was a monster with a stitched face.
It seemed they weren't the ones who had been talking, as they didn't look like they possessed the sanity required for speech.
The scene and voices from moments ago were more like a tableau staged by the dreamscape itself.
The monsters charged with a guttural roar. Mithra applied Ignition to her hammer with one hand and cast Object Manipulation with the other. Enveloped in a red glow and wreathed in flames, the hammer took flight, smashing into the crowd from a distance.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!
Simultaneously, Elise spread her arms, her twin blades unfurling like the wings of a bird.
A flash of purplish-white light erupted. Elise was even faster than the magically manipulated hammer; several stitched monsters were carved to pieces in a single pass.
The remaining creatures were bowled over by the hammer, the fire spreading across their warped flesh and beginning to incinerate them.
Mithra pulled back her inner garment. "Big Mouth?"
No response.
Apparently, it didn't eat while in a dream. Its 'purity' as a glutton seemed a bit lacking.
Then again, maybe it was just exhausted and wanted to rest. Mithra didn't hold a grudge against it.
Elise's strikes were brutal. Guided by the purplish-white light, her movements lacked even a hint of that cliché "graceful dance" often associated with girls fighting.
[Slumbering Technique: A refined technique designed to grant the victim eternal rest. Upon activation, the user instantly perceives the swiftest method to slay the target; the combination of light footsteps and heavy strikes can strip away even divinity itself. This artistry, themed around coldness and solemn slaughter, represents the peculiar tenderness and mercy of the Bird of Eternal Slumber.]
It wasn't a miracle, but a physical manifestation of her own power, and the Eyes of Night granted it an exceptionally high evaluation.
Elise stood amidst the mangled remains, reversing her grip on her blades. She didn't bother with the cliché of wiping away the blood, her expression remaining unchanging as she looked back at Mithra.
Mithra recalled her hammer. Standing among the burning corpses in the corridor, she waved her hand to extinguish the flames clinging to the weapon.
"Let's go. Keep heading up."
...
"A hospital... that's supposed to be a place where illnesses are cured, isn't it?"
"Yeah, you could say that."
Mithra and Elise wandered the eighteenth floor, searching for the stairs that were hidden who-knows-where. In standard designs, elevators and stairwells are usually grouped together, but in a dream, all bets were off.
"Why would such things happen in a place meant for healing?" Elise asked.
"Who knows. Human greed, probably," Mithra said nonchalantly.
Finally, they located the stairwell. Looking at the familiar fire door, Mithra didn't open it immediately.
The woman who kept spawning infants was in there; there was no telling if she was still lurking behind the door.
Despite the split-second hesitation in her mind, Mithra's hand still pushed against the fire door.
Creeeeeak...
The dilapidated door let out a classic, piercing groan.
Just as Mithra pushed the door open a crack, a pale, blood-slicked arm suddenly shot out and grabbed the hand she was using to push.
Through the gap, a mess of bloodied black hair parted to reveal a single, wide-eyed stare fixed intently on Mithra.
SWISH!
Elise swung a blade, instantly severing the arm gripping Mithra. She followed up with a heavy kick that sent the door flying open, knocking the woman behind it backward.
The path ahead was now wide open, revealing a stairwell drenched in crimson. The pungent stench of blood and rot hit them full force. Gore spread across the floor, and within it, countless infant faces began to surface.
"Must have been tough, crawling from the first floor all the way to the eighteenth," Mithra said, stepping into the blood and crushing several emerging infant faces under her boot, unfazed by the gruesome scene.
The woman propped herself up to crawl, but Mithra's hammer, wreathed in the white glow of Vitality, came down to greet her.
BANG!
The head was slammed against the red-and-white stained wall, exploding into a vibrant spray of blood. The impact left a massive crater in the wall, with spiderweb cracks radiating outward.
"Don't worry too much. I'll find your child," Mithra said, retracting her hammer. She used Ignition to burn off the blood sticking to the weapon, then gave it a light flick to extinguish the flames.
The surrounding blood began to consciously converge toward the woman, crawling onto her still-twitching body.
Elise stepped forward, the glow of the Slumbering Technique appearing once more. In an instant, the woman was finely shredded.
Once touched by that purplish-white light, the writhing flesh gradually settled down.
Mithra noticed that their vitality hadn't completely vanished; their state was more like they had fallen into a deep sleep.
Truly an interesting power.
"Let's go, Miss Passenger." Elise gave her twin blades a stylish flick, shaking off every drop of blood, and turned to look at Mithra.
Even though her strength was formidable and not to be underestimated, she consistently prioritized Mithra's will, rarely acting on her own initiative. As she had stated herself, she was merely a guide and an assistant.
Mithra was curious about how powerful a full-strength Elise could be if she weren't restricted by a Clear-headed anchor like herself.
Judging by the Eyes of Night's evaluation, she was perhaps not inferior to a Wandering God.
The two continued up the stairs without stopping, heading directly for their target floor.
Pushing the door open, they found this floor was different from the ones below; while those were dilapidated and abandoned, they at least had decent lighting. This floor, despite being part of a high-rise, was shrouded in oppressive gloom.
Immediately upon entering, they saw the neonatology posters on the wall. The photos of the mothers had been torn away, while the photos of the infants appeared twisted and deformed.
A sensation of being watched washed over them. Mithra turned her head and saw the face of a newborn.
A child, with half its body seemingly incomplete; its muscles were withered, missing an arm and a leg, yet insect-like limbs had sprouted from its back to crawl along the ceiling.
Its neck elongated, and as Mithra turned, its head swayed nearby, facing her directly.
"Busheng?" Mithra asked.
"... Why the hell is it you again?" Then, the child before her opened its mouth and spoke in a low, thin voice.
"Sorry, I didn't want to come in either. Something went wrong while I was processing the coins you dropped," Mithra apologized sincerely.
"Screw you," Busheng cursed.
"We just killed your mother... well, she was probably your mother?" Mithra pointed toward the stairwell.
Elise looked away.
It was the truth, and Mithra's tone was still sincere, but how could the dialogue be this absurd? It made her sound like some kind of evil accomplice.
"It was her... though I never actually knew her. A pitiful woman, and I'm the one who ruined her," Busheng said gloomily.
"So, can you let me out?" Mithra waved her hand.
"I wish I could, dammit. To think I'd run into you even in the afterlife—you're freaking haunting me!" Busheng said, gnashing its teeth.
"This isn't the afterlife," Elise corrected him.
Busheng glanced at Elise and said, "Then why am I here? This mother became a target for the Chrysalis because she had no one to rely on. After being injected with a Chrysalis fragment, she gave birth to a piece-of-shit broken monster like me in this hospital full of degenerate lowlifes."
Elise opened her mouth, preparing to recite another long, cryptic introduction, but Mithra cut in: "Just think of it as your life flashing before your eyes."
A faint smile touched Elise's lips. The last time she had smiled was when she called Mithra an "idiot."
Busheng's tiny infant face took on a suspicious look. "So you even have to break into my final moments just to torture me? Seeing you downstairs earlier nearly gave me a breakdown."
"Like I said, I didn't want to be here. This is your dream; apparently, you just have to choose to wake up," Mithra said.
"... I can't do that. I'm just wandering here. I can't seem to go anywhere else, and I'm stuck in this weak form," Busheng shook his head, his elongated neck swaying in a truly grotesque manner.
"Have you been able to remain this lucid, rather than sinking into the dream?" Elise asked.
"I was a bit dazed at first, but seeing her scared me wide awake," Busheng replied.
Elise's brow furrowed slightly. "It seems you aren't the dream's master, then. Or at least, not entirely."
CRASH!
A violent sound echoed from nearby. A tall, gaunt man with a stitched face, dressed in black, flipped a hospital bed aside with a single hand. He scanned his surroundings as if searching for something, slowly closing in on their position.
"Who's that?" Mithra asked.
Busheng looked equally stunned. "I don't know. I never saw him while I was wandering around here before."
Suddenly, the stranger's gaze snapped toward the three of them.
Immediately, a grotesque smile seemed to spread across that twisted face, and he began to stride rapidly in their direction.
[The Dream-dwelling "Chrysalis": The will of the Wandering God, having invaded the dream through its connection with the host. It shapes and manipulates a persona fitting the dream's imagery to act, seizing control of the dreamscape in an attempt to recover its power. Though restricted by the nature of the dream, this realm is essentially its half-home turf.]
"It's the fetus—no, it's the Chrysalis," Mithra said.
Suddenly, countless thin tentacles erupted from the stitched man's back, fluttering and coalescing into the shape of wings. With a light flap, a massive volley of flesh-needles shot out from the tentacled wings, hurtling toward the three of them.
Elise was the first to react, her twin blades dancing to deflect every needle.
But the Chrysalis used the opening to surge forward, closing the distance instantly.
A Ki Conduction vortex manifested at that moment; the Chrysalis's body was jerked off course, pulled right into the path of a roaring stone hammer.
BANG!
The creature reacted with startling speed, raising a hand to easily block the blow. Its arm morphed into a massive blade, poised to bring it down on Mithra.
A small, skin-colored knife sliced across the Chrysalis's neck at that exact second, causing it to falter. In that heartbeat of an opening, Mithra and Elise struck simultaneously. The white-glow-shrouded hammer and the purplish-white flashing blade crashed into the Chrysalis's chest.
BOOM!
A burst of raw power erupted. The Chrysalis was sent flying backward, skidding a long distance across the corridor floor.
Busheng dropped from the ceiling, landing on Mithra's shoulder. Its elongated neck finally snapped back to its normal proportions.
"Isn't that your god? Why are you helping us?" Mithra asked, not minding the passenger as she gave him a side-glance.
"... It was the god I wanted to become," Busheng said, eyes full of melancholy and tone turning chillingly cold. "But the thing itself... it's nothing more than the culprit who left me in this state."