Changsheng did not hesitate for long. She closed her eyes and slowly pressed her forehead against that ominous dream bubble. She had to know what information her Lord had left behind.
The moment she made contact, a strange sensation, alternating between hot and cold, transmitted from her forehead and pierced straight into her soul.
She fought back the discomfort, focused her mind, and dived deeper into this quagmire of consciousness.
A wave of dizziness engulfed her, the world spinning around her. Once this intense vertigo subsided slightly, Changsheng finally "opened" her eyes within the dream.
However, before her vision could clear, a sharp, piercing pain exploded from the location of her heart!
She subconsciously reached out, wanting to press down on the source of the agony, but was shocked to find she could not lift her arm. Only then did she realize she had lost her human form and reverted to the form of a white snake.
She instinctively tried to mobilize her adeptal power to investigate the root of the pain, but her body was empty; not a shred of adeptal power could be gathered.
The severe pain in her heart caused her to twist and roll her body involuntarily, her cold scales rubbing against the void.
Right amidst this painful spasm, she "felt" an invisible hand grab the location of her heart and squeeze tightly. It was as if her bones and muscles were being crushed; the immense force ruthlessly compressed her stinging heart!
"Urgh!" A sensation of filth instantly swept through her entire body.
She felt that what pumped from her heart was definitely not blood, but a mass of viscous, putrid sewage!
This sewage did not flow along her blood vessels but charged straight toward her body's surface, forcibly drilling and squeezing out from under the cracks of every single tightly arranged scale on her body!
Immediately afterward, her remaining vision in the dream vanished completely. A tactile sense, vivid to the point of cruelty, dominated her entire perception.
She felt her smooth snake skin being completely covered by sticky, foul-smelling sludge, heavy and suffocating.
A few seconds later, a tearing pain began at the top of her head and spread throughout her body! The sensation was as if a pair of hands were truly using a sharp blade tip to slice open a slit on her scalp, and then, bit by bit, peeling the entire skin off her body...
"Urgh—ah!"
"Ah!" In reality, Changsheng abruptly let out a short, pained scream. Her body trembled violently; one hand covered the top of her head, the other clutched her abdomen, and her forehead was covered in cold sweat.
Coppelia and Columbina were startled by this sudden commotion and looked over together with worry!
Coppelia shouted loudly, "What happened?!"
However, Changsheng did not hear Coppelia's call. She panted rapidly, wanting to return immediately to that unfinished dream to obtain more information.
But when she looked at her palm, it was empty.
That bubble carrying the nightmare had already completely shattered.
She reached out, wanting to grab the dissipating bubble, but quickly realized that this was a nightmare; it not ending normally was, in fact, normal.
Changsheng allowed the bubble to dissipate, then forcibly circulated her adeptal power to soothe the pain stemming from the dream.
Her gaze fell upon the pile of ores on the ground. These were perhaps the remains transformed from part of her Lord's divine body, corresponding to the "skin" peeled off in the dream...
She stood up and, while walking toward Coppelia and Columbina, rapidly connected the information from the dream and reality in her mind: the filth pumped from the heart, the eerie characteristics of the black mud, her Lord's two distinct states before and after obtaining the moonlight stones, and that sudden campaign with an unclear objective...
Seeing this, Coppelia stood up, while Columbina remained sitting on the ground leaning against the railing, looking slightly exhausted as she raised her head to watch Changsheng approach.
Changsheng stopped, organized her thoughts, and spoke slowly, "I deduce that after my Lord obtained those strange stones, the power of the stones immediately formed a counterbalance against the filth entrenched within her body. The clash of these two forces allowed my Lord's consciousness to regain the initiative."
She paused, then continued her deduction, "She must have taken advantage of the moment she could still barely control her body to employ an extremely cruel method. She forcibly transferred and imprisoned that mass of hard-to-eradicate filth into a certain part of her divine body, and then tore that part off raw, forming that pool of black mud."
"That mass of sludge," Coppelia asserted, "is the power of 'The Abyss'."
"The Abyss?" Changsheng was unfamiliar with this term.
"It is power from outside the world," Coppelia explained.
"Outside the world... no wonder," Changsheng realized with a start, carrying deep worry. "Even my Lord's Archon body would find it difficult to contend with it for long..."
Coppelia pressed for the crucial timeline, "When did she perform this separation? Was it after returning from Liyue?"
Changsheng pondered for a moment. "If my Lord had carried those stones with her the whole time, her mental state should have remained stable while in Liyue, and she wouldn't have appeared mad... Viewed this way, the act of separation likely occurred before she went to Liyue. She only set off south immediately after excising the contaminated part."
"But that doesn't make sense," Changsheng continued. "If my Lord was conscious, she should have taken these stones with her to Liyue."
Coppelia added, "The primordial elemental energy in these stones is also harmful to Archons. She couldn't have carried them on her person without a seal."
At this moment, Columbina interjected with a question, sounding puzzled, "If she left those stones here, why did I not sense their existence at all when I was nearby earlier?"
Before Changsheng could answer, Coppelia spoke up, "This kind of abode carved out by relying on 'Sub-Space Creation' is an independently existing space. Physically, it is not located inside Mount Mingyuan. This might be related to Rex Lapis, or some big shot who holds authority over space. It is quite normal that it could cut off your senses."
Changsheng continued her reasoning, "My Lord did not tell us her destination when she left. This likely means... the moment she stepped out of the abode and lost the continuous suppression of the moonlight stones, the erosion of the Abyss made a comeback, and her consciousness fell into madness once more."
She frowned deeply. "However, even if she fell into madness and wanted to destroy, she should have destroyed Chenyu Vale first; she wouldn't have gone to the distant south to start a war with Rex Lapis..."
"Perhaps her goal was distorted," Coppelia suggested a possibility. "Her initial purpose might have been to seek Rex Lapis's help, but under the influence of madness, it turned into warring with Rex Lapis."
Changsheng's expression turned stern. "If that is the case, then the frustration brought by defeat would inevitably be amplified and twisted. It might very well drive my Lord to do something even more terrible and irreversible. We must find her as soon as possible!"
As soon as the words fell, Columbina, who was to the side, pushed against the railing with her hand, trying to stand up with some difficulty. Her limbs were clearly still trembling slightly, and Coppelia immediately reached out to support her steadily.
"We will go together." Columbina's voice, though carrying fatigue, was exceptionally firm.
___
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