Siren Blade

Chapter 13

"This dream is a virtual time and space constructed inside your consciousness by the warlocks of our Security Bureau combining your memory with the power of magic. The purpose is to treat your mental illness; and the reason why I am in your dream is because In order to monitor the operation of the dream, once there is an error in the trend of the dream, it is necessary to take responsibility to set things right." Qingniao explained, "After you enter the dream, your personality will be reset to the stage where you have not yet developed mental illness. It is like There is a surgery where your mental illness is cut apart in the process."

She added, "But personality is a very complicated thing. Even if you want to remove only the part of mental illness, there will be many chain reactions. Maybe this situation can be described as 'pull out the carrot and bring out the mud'... In short, You also lost a lot of memory in the process."

"I do have a lot of things I can't remember," I admit.

"After people forget something, the brain sometimes fills in the blanks without authorization. It seems that when many people recall the past, they will unconsciously use their imagination to add some non-existent details to the past memory, which conflicts with other people's memories , it’s the brain’s padding of memories that get thinner. And it’s happening to you quite dramatically,” she said. “But it’s not a bad tendency. Rather, it’s a good tendency. Just as the body slowly restores surgical wounds and lost blood with its own regenerative power, your personality also gradually recovers from sickness to health in this self-filling way in the dream environment.”

"But..." I continued, "You said, the dream is out of control."

"That's right, this is an unexpected situation." Her voice became low, "Someone hacked into this dream from the outside with an unknown method, and implanted a vicious factor in the dream. This made the originally peaceful The dream turned into a dangerous and terrifying nightmare, and the embodiment of terror... is the guy you know very well."

"Devil." I read, and the figure that killed myself three times appeared in my mind.

"Every night, you will wander unconsciously to the nameless mountain; and every time you go to the mountain, you will be discovered and killed by the devil." She said, "Although I have stopped you before, even if I use magic to kill you Even if you are bound by your body, it still cannot prevent you from going to the Nameless Mountain. I have also challenged the devil, but the devil is immortal; later, I also tried to seal him first, and then think about how to kill him, but after all, I have no power. Not caught. What's worse, the existence of the devil has become your shackles in this dream. Simply put, if you want to wake up from this dream, you must kill the devil first. .”

"Who hacked into my dream?" I asked, "Ren Sai?"

"Ren Sai...referring to the outsider who used the role of the missing young girl to participate in the dream? She is indeed deeply suspected, so I have been trying to search for her in the dream." She showed a thoughtful expression, "Initially with you When we met, didn’t I say that I was investigating the disappearance of the young girl? In fact, I was looking for this outsider.”

"Do you know her real identity?"

"I don't know, I have no clue at all." She shook her head, "I think the person who planted the evil factor in your dream should be some ghost from the Security Bureau. Although I don't know the motive of this ghost to attack you, if you want to If you want to do something to you who is receiving treatment in the security bureau, you must first sneak into the security bureau."

Her reasoning also applied to Ren Sai, who was also presumably someone in that so-called security bureau.But if Ren Sai and Jade Bird are in the same camp, there is no need to take an evasive attitude towards Jade Bird.Unless she's the insider, the one who turned my dreams into nightmares.

But if this is the case, there is no need for Ren Sai to provide me with that information.According to the clues provided by the blue bird, the purpose of the instigator is probably to destroy my psychotherapy in the dream, so the current situation of this dream should be what he is happy to see, but what Ren Sai is doing is an effort to break the status quo.

So... Let's think about it differently, what if the blue bird is the one who caused the crime, and now it's a thief calling for a thief?

That's impossible, even Ren Sai admits Jade Bird's kindness and sacrifice to me, and I personally can't imagine that Jade Bird will frame me.

Is the perpetrator a fourth party not here?
It feels like my brain is getting muddy.In fact, I have not fully accepted that I am living in a dream emotionally, and I am resisting this absurd conclusion no matter what.

"Why didn't you tell me this was a dream in the first place?" I asked.

"This is for safety. Under normal circumstances, once a dreamer realizes that he is dreaming, it means that he is about to wake up. But now you cannot wake up due to external forces." She replied, "In this case, tell you Dreaming, I don’t know what unknown changes will happen in the dream.”

"I see... But, even if I can't wake up, it doesn't affect you leaving the dream, right? In fact, Ren Sai left first." I said, "Is there a way to wake me up from the outside?"

She asked back: "If I wake you up during the dream treatment, the treatment will fail. Is it okay?"

"Now it's not a question of whether to treat or not to treat." I said.

She said surprisingly: "Is it okay even if the 'you in the dream' disappears?"

"What does that mean?" I asked, but I realized what she was going to say next.

"You used to have occasional dreams of becoming another person, but after waking up, the self-cognition in the dream will disappear, and you will return to being yourself in reality." She said, "But, you Do you really understand who you are in reality? What kind of life did he live and what kind of things did he experience? You who don't know anything about this... Can you really continue to maintain your 'self' after waking up? ?”

Regarding her question, I thought about it and decided to answer, "So what if it can't be maintained?"

"What?" She froze.

"I don't know much about dreams and psychology, but it's not the first time I've dreamed. It's true that sometimes I have dreams of becoming another person, and I may even dream of myself becoming an animal or something, but isn't it? Every time I have this kind of dream, my original personality will die, and a new personality will be born in the dream, and then after waking up, the personality in the dream will die, and the real personality will be resurrected out of thin air? It shouldn’t be like that Well. I have always been myself, but I was temporarily blinded by some hallucinations and illusions to normal thinking." I said to her, "I really don't know who I am in reality, but whether it is here I, and me in reality, are all the same me at the end of the day. I just temporarily forgot some things, and now I'm just trying to remember them again... I say, there should be no mistakes, right?"

"...No mistake." After she finished speaking, she fell silent.

This strange attitude puzzled me.Whether it's just now or now, she seems...doesn't want me to wake up.Why?
Is it because of the mental illness that I actually suffer from?She said it was after my secret incident.This so-called secret event should be the supernormal event I thought of.Does that mental illness refer to some intense PTSD?It would be a lie to say that I have nothing against it.However, I didn't mean to immerse myself in dreamland.

It became increasingly difficult for me to bear the blankness and falsehood in my memory.As she said, if you realize that you are dreaming, it means you are about to wake up.Now I feel that my consciousness is getting more and more "awake", but this kind of sobriety can't remind me of my real self, but the dream self is becoming more and more fragmented and empty in my consciousness.

I can't think of what friends I have made and what life I have had in recent years. There are so many blank spaces, but I always took it for granted that there was something there.Now I finally realize that I have to watch, but I can't watch anything.Only the blinding nothingness made me wonder what I was.

I must return to reality.

"What kind of mental illness do I have?"

"...I can't tell you now." Blue Bird said slowly, "Once it stimulates you and makes you recall it in your dream, the dream will completely get out of control."

"Then... you can always tell me about this." I picked up the axe, "What is the Siren Blade...?"

Ren Sai said, whether it is fantasy or reality, once it is killed by the Siren's Blade, it is really killed.

According to this principle, even a demon who has an immortal body in the dream cannot be immune to the power of the Siren Blade.

But since the devil is the product of the maliciousness of the perpetrator, why equip him with weapons that can kill himself?
Without the Siren Blade, the Majin is truly immortal, which combined with the premise of "you can't wake up from the dream without killing the Majin" will undoubtedly be overwhelmingly unfavorable to me.In other words, the Siren Blade is like a necessary clearance item in the game for me.Is there any preparation necessary for this kind of thing for the instigator?
The blue bird opened its mouth, and at this moment, I noticed a familiar wave coming from a distance.

Turning his head to look, he saw a figure walking through the darkness in the distance, approaching here extremely quickly.

It's a devil!
He who always stays on the mountain has actually gone down the mountain now!

"How could he go down the mountain?" Qingniao was stunned, and then suddenly realized, "So... it's because you left the mountain forest, so the mountain forest is no longer a lost place that you can never leave in your image... So he was able to come out as well!"

"That is to say... the devil has always been able to lock my position regardless of distance, right? He didn't go down the mountain before, just because he couldn't go down the mountain?" I said, "By the way... I want to get out of the dream, so The devil must be killed, will you help me?"

The demon had already invaded within 50 meters at this time, and the blue bird summoned the thunder and lightning sword, and confronted it awe-inspiringly, expressing his will with actions.

For the devil, the distance of 50 meters is like a step for a normal person.The moment the Thunder Sword appeared, the demon's black shadow giant ax had already aimed at the blue bird and slashed at it.The blue bird swung the lightning sword and collided with the giant axe without hesitation.

I aimed at the moment when they clashed, and slashed the ax with all my strength from the side and rear of the Majin.However, the demon's other free hand also summoned the black shadow giant axe, and skillfully guarded his body with a force-relieving blocking technique.The blue bird swung his sword again to attack, but this time the demon took the initiative to retreat and distanced himself from us.

Without hesitation, I charged towards the demon from the front, and the blue bird turned into lightning, and circled right behind the demon at a speed that even I couldn't catch at this moment.This is quite a perfect front and rear attack. Although it is the first time to fight, I have reached such a cooperation with the blue bird.I understand that this is just Jade Bird's own rich combat experience, so it can be compatible with the immature me, but this kind of dreamlike cooperation still makes my heart beat.

Fighting side by side with Jade Bird - this was my dream.

After experiencing so many things, the image of the blue bird in my heart seems to be more and more complicated, but I don't know why, the blue bird has never changed.Even if she has additional identities such as the monitor of the dream and the law enforcement warlock of the Security Bureau, she is still the blue bird who is willing to stand up to save me, and she still can't help but see the young girl character in the dream in danger. A blue bird who wants to lend a helping hand.

I want to keep pace with her, I want to entrust each other's backs with her, I want her to say that I am also like a hero-such a passionate yearning still exists in my heart.

However, such an opportunity is exciting for me, but it is probably the opposite for Majin.

In the nick of time, he flashed out of the gap between the front and rear pincers like a ghost, and walked at a high speed to avoid being caught in the pincer again.

Even a man as crazy as a devil, wouldn't he be willing to fight me and the blue bird at the same time?Is it because his unconscious, which is so familiar with combat, is asking himself to do so?Or is he just seemingly crazy, but is actually as cold and rational as a robot?
In the dream, his setting is "a serial murderer who has killed hundreds of people across the country", but the actual logic of his actions is only targeting me, which somewhat makes me feel a sense of disobedience.

If he is a pure dream character, then he should be faithful to his own setting.Yet his logic of action is that of an actor who minimally plays a role, rather than the role itself.In Ren Sai's words, it is a living person who "wears the skin of this layer of design".

Under this monster-like skin, could there be some outsider?Could he be the one who caused my dreams to spin out of control?

Whether it is or not, the battle should be over.

Blue Bird swung his sword again to attack him from the side, stopping his high-speed wandering; while I slammed into his front, seized his stagnant gap, held the giant ax with both hands, and slashed with all my strength.

This blow split the demon's body straight, splitting it in two from the top of the sky to the crotch!
The Siren Blade is a special weapon capable of cutting both fantasy and reality at the same time, even killing the undead.Whether he is a pure dream character or an outsider with someone else under his skin, there is nothing he can do now.

Just when I turned this thought around, the demon's body that was divided into two suddenly closed.

The ax in his right hand was aimed at my head and fell.

(End of this chapter)