Chapter 817 — The Line of Reality

"Found or not, keep the highest vigilance. Detection spells are not omnipotent—there are far too many things in this world that mortals cannot see," Yuri warned, then turned to Magnan. "Keep watching your surroundings. Some things... perhaps only you can see."

Magnan was taken aback. Looking into Yuri's earnest eyes, he understood what the other meant.

He had once, unprotected, accidentally looked directly upon the Upper Narrator.

Perhaps some irreversible damage had already been left deep in his soul.

Without relaxing its vigilance in the slightest, the whole column began making its way back toward the palace's central region.

And behind them, far down the deep and winding corridor, a faint, near-transparent apparition flashed past once more.

It was a segment of a spider's limb, piercing through walls and ceiling alike, moving with such speed that it seemed a colossal invisible spider was threading its way among the stone and earth deep underground, spinning a web no eye could see.

Following the company led by Semler, Magnum and Yuri at last reached the central region of the underground palace—the control hub of Sandbox No. 1 and its largest computation center.

This was the most vital, most essential district in the entire Sleepers' headquarters, a place to be defended above all else under any circumstances, never to be breached.

Relying on its solid ramparts and comparatively spacious interior, Semler's Radiant Pole Cult had thrown up several lines of defense, and hastily assembled a "Bishop Battle Group" drawn from the Radiant Pole Cult and the bishops remaining behind to hold this ground. All clerics confirmed safe and uncontaminated had been gathered here, while several other squads of spirit knights and combat clerics moved through other districts of the underground palace—continuing to pin down the personnel contaminated by the Upper Narrator wherever they were found, and searching all the while for any brethren who had kept their clarity.

Within the vast, fortified hall, tension ran high, as before a battle.

Fully armed spirit knights guarded every entrance and exit, and obstacles had already been set in the outer corridors and in several stout chambers adjoining them; combat clerics in battle vestments and light metal armor stood ready behind barrier after barrier, monitoring at all times the mental state of their own people.

And within this closely guarded hall, around the great stone pillars of the central area, the technical clerics charged with controlling the sandbox system and the psychic network sat in orderly rows at the control seats, neural cables plugged into the backs of their heads, still keeping the system running normally.

Before jacking in, they had laid powerful psychological suggestions upon themselves: even should the hall be breached and blades pressed to their throats, these technical clerics would sustain the system to the very last moment.

Yuri noticed that traces of battle still remained in the corridor outside, and in one corner of the hall lay several technical clerics who appeared to have lost consciousness.

He and Magnum had spent a full day and night moving through the sandbox world, while out here only two hours should have passed—yet in those brief two hours, so much had already happened in the real world.

The contamination and turmoil within the underground palace... were likely far more dire than Semler had described.

Before entering the hall, Magnum first carefully studied the barricades set in the corridor and the disposition of the fighting personnel, then cast a glance at the weapons and equipment stacked along the walls and the state of the reserves, and only then nodded to Semler: "Not bad."

As a former War God's pastor, he could tell that the emergency fortifications here had been guided by professionals.

"Several priests were once soldiers; I raised their command authority on the spot—without them, things would likely be worse," Semler said in a low voice. "Just before I set out to confirm your situation, we took another counterattack; the contaminated spirit knights nearly broke the hall's defenses... Raising a blade against one's own brethren is no pleasant thing."

"Leave professional matters to professionals. Your judgment was correct. As for raising a blade against our brethren..." Magnum shook his head. "This mess—we'll slowly pay it back once we've all survived."

"Radiant Balance Cult Yuri, Dark Balance Cult Magnum, glad to see you emerge safe."

With a mild, magnetic voice, a female cleric in a long white gown, of gentle disposition, stepped out from the depths of the hall.

"Radiant Pole Cult Wendy," Yuri was the first to notice the woman emerging. "So it was you... Is that blood?!"

He stared in astonishment at the leader of the psionic choir, seeing that her long white gauze gown was now soaked with gore, a piercing dark red saturating the fabric, and traced across the chest and hem in intricate, curving runes that looked eerie and arcane.

But after another look at those runes, the tension in Radiant Balance Cult Yuri's heart swiftly dissolved, for he realized what they were—gifts of the Outland Wanderer, the "Deep Sea Endowment" that could withstand a god's psychic contamination.

Wendy smiled, her face a little pale: "I had to come out and report, but I feared that once I left the room, left those runes behind, the contamination in my body would flare up again—so I had no choice but to 'carry the runes on me.' Blood was the only 'spell-conducting material' I could find down there."

She lifted her wrist, revealing the wound on her arm. It had largely healed under a curative spell, but the clotted blood still clung to it, not yet wiped away.

Painting runes with one's own blood was a last resort. The containment zone had originally held many contaminated followers of the Upper Narrator, but Wendy was deeply unsure whether that tainted blood was safe, so she had no choice but to use her own to trace the runes.

Looking at Wendy of the "Spirit Song," come out to report all smeared in blood; looking at the traces of battle in the corridor beyond the hall; looking at the barricades set within the underground palace, and the clerics and knights behind them—Yuri gave a soft sigh.

After the sigh, he still had to lift his head—for the danger was far from over.