The general turned and took the metal in his hand.
He examined it carefully.
However, he couldn't identify it; it seemed like he had never seen it before.
"Can you let me see it? I might know," Baraz said cautiously, looking at the metal in General Kriel's hand.
The general looked at him and handed the metal to him.
Baraz took it, examined it carefully for a moment, and then said, "I've seen this metal in the hands of an outsider before. I heard that melting it into weapons can harm the soul. It's extremely rare and expensive."
He then returned the metal.
So, was this metal material obtained by destroying these shadow monsters?
Was it related to the dream General Kriel had described?
He couldn't help but ponder.
As time passed, the entire island was rapidly sliding towards the dream. This caused the abnormality to grow larger and larger, and the direction became increasingly chaotic. "Have Julia and the others head to the right of where we are now. If they encounter any monsters, go around them. That's the coast," Alka said to Lucelia as they walked.
"We're behind them now. What are they doing? Why are they wandering around?"
At this moment, Lucelia said, "They've encountered dream creatures. Attacks won't work. They can only flee."
Hearing this, Alka remembered something like this. He had forgotten that dream creatures were impossible to attack unless they had special means.
Without further thought, he said, "Send Lily to join them. She can harm dream creatures."
After all, Lily was made from his hair and dream materials. She could easily harm dream creatures, and her strength was considerable.
On this island, she was like a fish in water.
Then Alka turned his attention to Jason and the others.
He discovered that Jason and the others were following a straight path, unaffected by any dream creatures.
Unaffected? While thinking, Alka dispatched another dream creature that moved towards them.
As time went on, the number of dream creatures around them increased, so it was impossible for Jason and his team not to have encountered them.
It seemed that one of them could attack a dream creature.
It must be the Crystal Dragon.
After all, the Crystal Dragon was the only one in their group that Alka didn't understand. He knew the others well, and none of them had the means to harm a dream creature.
"They're approaching, let's speed up," Alka said, turning around.
At this point, a number of puppet girls had gathered around them, all of whom had come all the way to his side.
Alka was thankful that they were at least fleeing in one direction, rather than scattering in all directions.
Suddenly, the island beneath their feet began to shake violently.
"What's going on?" Lucelia asked.
The constant shaking made people wonder if something serious had happened again.
It was a bit exhausting.
Arka shook his head, completely unaware of what was happening.
The violent shaking forced them to crouch slightly to steady themselves.
The shaking soon ceased, and the twisted trees and rocks around them instantly returned to their original state.
But the sky had completely transformed into a dreamscape.
The island had completely appeared within the dream world.
Arka frowned and stood up. With a wave of his hand, a large amount of pink mist erupted under his control.
"What's going on? How did I get completely dragged into the dream world in an instant?" Arka frowned.
This was completely different from what he had expected. It was so much faster.
Accidents always happened one after another, leaving no one any chance to prepare. He could already see the sky and the dream bubbles drifting in the distance.
"Ahhhhhh~"
A sharp, ethereal cry echoed, a shrill sound unlike any emanating from a normal, intelligent being.
The sound pierced their souls.
Lucille and Shadati instantly fell to their knees, clutching their heads frantically.
Although Alka could feel the stinging pain in his brain, he frowned and endured it.
But he couldn't help but crouch on the ground, clutching his head.
Only the puppet girls accompanying them seemed unaffected. Their souls, still unformed, were immune to this kind of spiritual damage.
This allowed them to escape unscathed.
Everyone on the island collapsed to the ground simultaneously, struck by the roaring pain.
The unimaginable pain left them in a trance.
Alka endured the pain and discomfort, and with a fierce wave of his hand, a large amount of pink mist spread out.
A semicircular mist formed, completely enveloping the group and the surrounding puppet girls.
As the pink mist enveloped them,
The stinging pain in their souls caused by the screams instantly vanished, though the sounds could still be heard.
As the pain faded, Lucilia and Sofia collapsed to the ground, sweating profusely.
They gasped for air.
"What...what is that?" Sofia asked, straining his nerves.
A simple cry left them powerless to fight back.
"If nothing goes wrong, it should be the monster in the dream I mentioned."
Alka spoke, listening carefully to the screams outside.
Completely immersed in the dream world, Alka's strength was actually greatly enhanced.
He felt a momentary sense of relief, but the presence of this monster left him unsure how to respond.
Fortunately, the pink mist held a high priority within the dream.
After a while, the sound completely faded.
However, Alka didn't dispel the protective shield. Instead, he made it transparent and peered outside.
Another violent tremor.
This time, he could clearly see the cause of the change, no longer completely clueless as before.
But this was clearly not a good thing.
The cause of the change was a long, thick tentacle composed of blood-red mist.
The enormous tentacle was so conspicuous, it crashed down from the sky.
As it fell, the entire island began to shake.
Just one tentacle was so enormous.
The creature's true form.
Alka was completely lost for words.
This creature was the second largest creature Alka had ever seen.
The largest, of course, was the giant cloud snake that obscured the sky.
As the massive, blood-red tentacle descended, it didn't rise again, but remained on the island.
The mist-made tentacle began to branch out into tiny tentacles, each one slithering like a python.
It began to spread across the entire island.
From the tentacles, it spread in all directions, seemingly encircling the entire island.
Seeing this, Alka immediately urged the two of them.
"That thing's coming! Let's run! It's definitely not good."
With this, Alka led the two of them and the puppet girls as they scurried off into the distance.
As for their original plan to head toward the coast, they no longer cared about that.
They could only run quickly in the opposite direction of the tentacles.
As they ran, Alka asked, "Lucelia, ask Jason and the others how they're doing?"
Just now, thanks to Alka, they'd at least been able to hold on.
But Jason and his men didn't have Alka's pink mist to help them. They practically faced the screams head-on until they stopped.
Lucelia closed her eyes to relay the message, then opened them again to share the news she'd received.
"They're in very bad shape. Juanlu has fainted, and Simon and Jason are also in poor condition.
Julia's situation is better than Jason's. Lily helped them block it for a while."
Alka still maintained his ability to detect.
However, the ripples he sent out could only reach the areas ahead that weren't affected by the red mist. The waves wouldn't bounce back to the areas behind where the red mist's tentacles were, like water entering the sea.
There was no time to think. Alka immediately said, "Tell them all to run in one direction. Don't let them get caught by the red mist tentacles."
They continued running without stopping.
But running like this was no solution.
Alka looked at the massive red mist tentacle behind them, and the smaller tentacles it had dispersed, slowly spreading outward.
At this rate, it wouldn't be long before it surrounded the entire island.
Then there would be no escape.
Think of a solution quickly.
Alka kept thinking in his head, wondering how to break the current situation.
A large amount of pink mist enveloped the group and the surrounding puppet girls, propelling them to a swift escape.
"Dream, dream..."
Alka seemed to have a thought and immediately closed his eyes.
As his eyes closed, a massive dream bubble rapidly expanded.
Caught off guard,Sofia, Lusilia, and the others were thrust outward.
The thin membrane clinging to the suddenly appearing dream bubble felt like a wall pushing them forward. Yet, they were instantly engulfed.
"What's going on? We've... entered your dream bubble?" Lusilia asked, gazing at the surroundings. Alka's face lit up with ecstasy.
"It works! This method truly works." Without hesitation, he addressed Lusilia, "Hurry and tell Lily to take Julia and the others back to the ship.
Then, use the dream bubble to envelop everyone around her and the ship." Lusilia nodded immediately.
The message was delivered instantly. "They're already on their way."
Then, a thought struck him, he looked up and asked, "What about Jason and the others?"
That's right.
Julia had a mysterious power, capable of enveloping her within a dream.
But Jason and the others didn't have it.
Besides, he couldn't split himself up into two separate entities; he couldn't distinguish his dream counterparts from his own.
His mind raced.
He stared at the golden and silver energies within the crystal behind him.
He immediately waved his hand.
Golden energy emerged from the crystal, and he controlled a strand of silver energy to converge in his hand.
Looking at the golden energy in his hand, a large amount of pink mist merged with it, enveloping it, and transforming it into a sphere resembling a crystal ball.
It looked very similar to the Dreamcatcher.
"This is a makeshift artifact I made, modeled after the Dream Catcher. It doesn't do much, but it should allow you to open a dream bubble in your physical body within the dream world."
In simple terms, it grants the user the ability to travel through dreams, similar to what he and Lily had.
Alka handed the Dream Catcher to Sofia, leaving it to her to take action.
"I'll leave them to you," Alka said, looking at Sofia.
Sofia took the Dream Catcher and nodded, a halo of light appearing on her forehead.
She told Sofia the direction of Pororo and the others, then had Lucilia pass on a message, telling them to wait there.
Then she opened the dream bubble.
Xadaiti immediately transformed into a stream of light and vanished.
After completing all this, Alka breathed a sigh of relief and sat down within the dream bubble.
This series of changes had left him feeling a bit exhausted.
Every step today had felt like dancing on the edge of a knife.
But he still couldn't rest.
Lucille sat nearby, frowning as she waited. She was waiting for a reply from the puppet girl with Pororo and the others.
After a while, she received the news, and a smile finally broke out on her face.
"Lily has already opened the dream bubble, enveloping the Voice of Dawn and everyone on board.
Sofia has also arrived, and she has also opened a bubble."
Hearing this, Alka collapsed onto the dreamland grass.
Finally, she was safe.
No, she couldn't let her guard down just yet.
The bubble might not be able to stop it, but there was no better way now.
A scarlet tentacle moved over, touching the dream bubble, one tentacle connecting to it.
Other tentacles spread out in other directions.
Arka stood up and turned to look at the bubble's membrane.
He could sense something in that direction absorbing the dream's energy.
This meant the red tentacles hadn't shattered the bubble, but were still steadily absorbing its energy, just as they had the previous night.
The last large rock finally fell.
"What do we do now?" Lucelia asked, sitting on the grass.
All around them were doll girls, resting on the grass.
Although the scream hadn't harmed them, it had still exhausted them.
This was the first time they had ever felt tired, having just been discussing this novel feeling.
Hearing Lucelia's words, Arka sat up and looked at her.
"All we have to do now is wait. Logically, it should take another half a day for the island to completely fall into the dream and then begin to reconnect with reality."
"But now the island has been forcibly dragged into the dream. I don't know how long it will take to return to reality, but it should take at least a day and a night."
Lucelia nodded, looked at Alka, and asked with some concern, "Can you hold out for a day and a night like this?"
"No problem, don't worry," Alka nodded.
It's just a day and a night of continuous absorption of dream energy. It's completely manageable. At most, she'll become very tired afterwards.
"What about them?"
Alka frowned at this and began to calculate carefully.
"Sofia will definitely be fine. The replica I gathered also contains some dream mist, which can replenish her to some extent."
But as for Lily and the others, Alka was not so sure.
"I remember you could absorb the energy from their bodies and return it to yourself, strengthening your own strength, right?"
Lucille nodded. The [Bloody Flag] did have that effect, but she had never used it.
"Then could they, like you, absorb the energy from the other puppet girls to strengthen one of them?"
Hearing this...
Lucelia pondered.
She had never considered this before, because even this ability of hers had never been used before.
She loved her Puppet Knights so much that she couldn't possibly harm them.
She closed her eyes and began to carefully comprehend the treasure's power, conducting a few simple experiments.
After a moment, she opened her eyes. "Yes, this method works, but they can only absorb energy from their surroundings, and they must voluntarily transfer it to her.
I can't force them to transfer energy to one another."
Compared to using it herself, this ability was somewhat weakened, but that was acceptable.
"Enough, that's enough."
Julia and her team had the largest number of Puppet Girls; after all, half of them were left on board.
Not to mention Vice Captain Zero, who had reached the third stage of strength.
This was definitely enough to boost Lily's spirit and strength, allowing him to hold out for much longer. "Then tell them this method. When Lily is about to give up, have the other puppet girls gather their power into her."
After handling all this, Alka could only sit in her dreamland to rest.
‐‐ She called it rest, but she could feel the constant drain of her dream energy, which manifested itself as mental fatigue.
‐‐ She couldn't leave, and couldn't see the changes outside. The membrane of the dream bubble had become as hard as steel, just like that night.
‐‐ She could only feel the dream energy slowly draining away, being absorbed.
‐‐Alka wanted to know what had become of the island outside, but she didn't have the ability.
‐‐ She could only wait quietly within her dream bubble.
‐‐ But as long as she survived, it was good.
‐‐Lucelia looked at the huge crystal behind Alka and the swirling gold and silver energy within.
‐‐ "What exactly is this energy?"
‐‐ Lucelia, having never seen anything like this before, asked curiously. Arka turned to look at her crystal.
"This, it contains two energies from the dream world.
The golden one allows objects in the dream world to exist in reality, and the silver one allows objects in reality to enter the dream world."
"Is this energy increasing?" Lucelia asked uncertainly, watching the energy in the crystal slowly increase.
Arka nodded. "After all, we were dragged directly from reality into this, generating countless amounts of silver energy. The silver energy is indeed increasing, you're not mistaken."
"The golden energy should increase soon, because the island will begin to move back towards reality."
The silver energy has been increasing since Arka arrived in the dream world, but it has now stopped.
This means that the island has been completely dragged into the dream world, and the remaining energy has almost disappeared.
Once the golden energy begins to increase, it means that the island is returning to reality.
This was the only way he could tell if the island was beginning to return to its time limit.
"Then can you use this energy to open a portal to reality?" Lucilia asked curiously.
Arka looked at the energy within the crystal.
He had just thought about this; if it were possible, he could escape immediately.
But he shook his head regretfully: "If my real body were in reality, I could do it, but now my body is sunk into the dream, and there's no medium."
He needed a connecting channel to locate the coordinates, and then he could open a portal to reality from within the dream.
He had previously relied on himself as the coordinates, but now that was out of the question.
"Unless I find a way to open reality from within the dream."