The carriage leaving the Inner City traveled along the avenue towards the outer areas.

"We still have a chance, His Excellency Lu Li... My wife... Mim used her real identity, Giant Tree Academy will soon find us missing and then search..."

Professor Hagrid whispered in conversation.

But it won't be now.

The carriage that abducted Lu Li and Professor Hagrid smoothly drove through the long street, leaving the Outer City. They embarked on a cave road leading to the surface and the old sewers, known as the Sighing Path.

The oil lamp hanging on the carriage emitted a dim yellow halo, with a chill seeping into the compartment, dispersing the murky air.

Also seeping into the compartment was primordial darkness, hovering and flickering like mosquitoes gathered around a summer lamp.

Nearly two months later, Lu Li once again stepped onto the surface.

As Lu Li pondered whether Professor Hagrid's wife and children would take them away from Midnight City, the carriage slowed down, struggling along a muddy dirt road without paved stones.

They were not far from their destination.

A dozen minutes later, the carriage came to a halt.

The carriage door opened from the outside, revealing the heretic camp located on the outskirts of Midnight City.

Lu Li, under Xisone's guard, looked up to survey his surroundings, and the dim visibility at noon allowed him to glimpse the silhouettes of giant trees in the distance, along with the blinking tip of the Alchemical Tower.

Turning his gaze back around, the heretics in black cloaks seemed like thick fog, gathered by the fire pits scattered around the square, dispelling the primordial darkness.

Lu Li and Professor Hagrid passed through the makeshift square and were escorted to the depths of the camp where a sparse collection of wooden huts stood.

A church stood in the dimness, its tower's bronze bell replaced by a giant eyeball, the iris radiating a blurred red light, which fell onto the long street as it rotated.

They were separated and imprisoned. Professor Hagrid was taken into a roadside house, while Lu Li, after passing the church, was taken to the deepest part of the camp, into a house lurking in the darkness.

Bang—

The door closed, leaving Lu Li bound to a wooden pillar with only an oil lamp.

As footsteps gradually faded away, Lu Li twisted his wrist, finding the bindings tightly secured, nearly impossible to escape from.

Before leaving a clear friction mark, Lu Li stopped, relaxed his body, and allowed himself to sink into slumber—

The unchanged haze that drove people mad enveloped Lu Li as he wandered through the chaotic dream, searching for globes of light around him.

No one in the camp was asleep, afraid of being discovered. Lu Li refrained from venturing into the camp square, recalling the surrounding details, and drifted outward.

However, this heretic camp seemed to have long since cleared the surroundings, or perhaps it was not rest time, leaving the chaotic dream realm empty.

Lu Li, gaining nothing, retraced his path, but during his journey through the camp's depths, he discovered a patch of dim gleam.

Someone had just entered a dream.

Waiting for the newly formed dim gleam to coagulate into a globe of light, the dream stabilized, and Lu Li merged into it.

Noise rose beside him, and Lu Li's awareness descended onto a bustling and lively street.

This was the core of the dream, the scenery further out was blurry and chaotic due to the dream's crudity, not worth delving into.

Gliding towards the dream's consciousness, Lu Li observed various oddities: pedestrians on the street uniformly tore shillings to pay for goods. In the fighting ring, a victor, whose left arm was severed by an enemy, raised a blood-dripping ax—then chopped off his other arm. The street was symmetrically mirrored, with equal numbers of men and women, and equal numbers of the elderly and children...

Lu Li found the dream's architect—a heretic with a blurred face. He sat behind a café window, picked up a coffee cup, drank half, and left the other half.

Using the dream manipulation techniques he mastered in the Emerald Dream, Lu Li hypnotized the heretic's consciousness to sink into a deeper layer, leaving only the body with instinct, following the subconscious—

But in an instant, the dream collapsed with overwhelming force, expelling Lu Li's awareness.

Was it that his anomaly was discovered, or that heretics were unsuitable for dream navigation?

While lingering in the chaotic dream, Lu Li noticed that the haze emerged once more.

The heretic re-entered the dream.

Like fruit gradually ripening, the globe formed. Yet, it was hard to know whether it was a sweet ripe fruit or a dark rotten plot.

Lu Li approached the globe and merged into the unknown dream.

A magnificent, sacred cathedral, floating in the void like a balance scale, emerged, the heretic's prayers echoed in the empty hall.

"Master of Balance maintaining all things, your humble believer perceives your tendrils, I beseech you to bestow your advice—"

Believing that the master's consciousness was arriving due to Lu Li's guidance.

"Find Lu Li and take him to the depths, rescue him..."

Lu Li touched the dream, delivering a "Divine Inspiration" that filled the heretic with ecstatic joy.

The dream scene suddenly changed, returning to the dark, simple house.

This was still a dream, Lu Li saw the fanatic believer rush out of the house, running towards the depths.

Everything proceeded smoothly within the dream, without heretics obstructing, but when the believer reached the long street under the eye's watch, as red light swept over, the running silhouette melted and collapsed like a candle—

The dream shattered due to death, and Lu Li slowly awoke.

It appeared that self-rescue was impossible, and only waiting for Midnight City to notice Professor Hagrid's disappearance or suspicious vegetation, thereby reporting it.

As Lu Li's thoughts spun, suddenly there was a rustling of footsteps outside the house, then, the door was pushed open, revealing a silhouette holding an oil lamp.

"My lord ordered me to save you."

The believer whom Lu Li had infiltrated in the dream appeared at the door, his face no longer blurred, with dreamlike devotion, and a dagger.

The dagger cut through the hemp rope, freeing Lu Li, who slid down as he stretched his body.

"How can I leave?"

"Avoid the camp's..." the believer's instruction abruptly shattered as he awakened, baring fangs: "No! You are a sacrifice offered to my lord!"

But he was already too late.

Rustle—

Lu Li tied up the unconscious heretic to the wooden pillar, donned his black robe, extinguished the oil lamp, and carried it, exiting the house.

Surging cold darkness clung to him, Lu Li silently sneaked, carefully avoiding the high tower eye of the dangerous church. When it swept over with its blood-red light, Lu Li was already hiding in shadowy corners or unlocked houses, concealing himself.

No heretics came here, Lu Li smoothly snuck close to the square, in front of a windowless small house with a tightly closed door.

He remembered Professor Hagrid was held here.

Quietly listening under the eaves for a moment, confirming the house contained only Professor Hagrid's weak breathing, with no guards lingering, waiting for the eye to sweep over again, Lu Li opened the door and slipped into the house through the gap.

At the edge of the dim halo of the oil lamp, Professor Hagrid was bound to the wooden pillar, just like Lu Li was not long ago.

"His Excellency Lu Li...!"

Upon hearing a noise, Professor Hagrid lifted his head, muttering in disbelief.

The dagger cut through the hemp rope, sending Professor Hagrid stumbling to the ground. His limbs, numb from blood loss, needed time to recover.

"Your Excellency Lu Li, you should escape to find aid first..." Professor Hagrid said.

"The camp is surrounded by heretics, with no way out." Lu Li shook his head slightly.

Without the Doomsday Apocalypse, Lu Li lacked the strength and stamina to escape the camp.

"Could you summon Merchant Anthony?" Professor Hagrid asked again.

"It requires an eye."

"...Then use my eye—"

Professor Hagrid was about to decide when Lu Li interrupted him: "The eye is a fruit of bizarre plants, our eyes are useless."

They didn't have much time left, and no one knew how soon the heretic camp would discover their escape.

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