The dragon circled Klein a few times, its massive body stirring up undercurrents with every movement, forcing Klein to adjust his posture to maintain balance.
It observed him for a moment, and the curious light in those oval, vertical pupils gradually dimmed.
Like a child quickly losing interest after finding a new toy, that human-like emotional shift made a chill run down Klein's spine—it proved that the being before him possessed an intelligence far beyond that of an ordinary creature.
It stopped moving and hovered directly in front of Klein.
Its massive head occupied nearly his entire field of vision, and a faint blue light shimmered between the gaps of its scales, looking like ancient runes slowly breathing.
Klein's heartbeat nearly stopped at that moment.
In the next instant, the dragon opened its mouth.
A dragon's cry.
It wasn't a deafening roar, but a strange, low-frequency resonance.
The sound surged from all directions; no, it wasn't transmitted through the air or water at all—it rang out directly in the depths of Klein's consciousness.
The sound waves conducted from the water into Klein's body, vibrating his bones, his blood, and every one of his cells, even vibrating the most untouched corners of his soul.
To his surprise, Klein found that he could actually understand it.
It wasn't through language or any known method of communication, but a direct understanding on a conscious level.
The rise and fall of those syllables were instantly converted into meaning within his mind, skipping the intermediate step of language and the process of thinking and analysis, as if it were a more primitive, direct way of communication closer to the essence of the world.
It was like how an infant can understand a mother's emotions before ever learning to speak.
But what was the point of understanding?
The amount of information contained within that dragon's cry was too immense.
It wasn't a sentence, a paragraph, or even a book—it was thousands upon thousands of concepts, images, emotions, and memories flooding into his brain at the exact same moment.
Klein's consciousness was hit so hard it became unstable in an instant.
It was like stuffing every book in a library into his head simultaneously, with every book turning pages at once, every word being forced to be read, every illustration unfolding, and every footnote explaining itself all at the same time.
No, it was worse than that.
That information wasn't static text; it was a living, moving, breathing presence.
They grew wildly in his consciousness like countless vines competing for sunlight in a cramped space, twisting, squeezing, and tearing at each other.
Swelling pain.
A violent, throbbing pain erupted from the depths of his skull, so intense that Klein's vision went black and he nearly lost control of his body.
He could feel his consciousness fracturing like a container being forced open, cracks spreading from the edges toward the center.
'Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!'
Klein cursed frantically in his mind, but even that thought was fragmented.
The dragon glanced at Klein, its vertical pupils constricting slightly, its gaze revealing a very human-like disappointment.
It was the kind of disappointment a teacher feels upon discovering a student cannot understand even the most basic question.
Not anger, not contempt—just pure disappointment.
Klein's body in the dream began to tremble uncontrollably, his fingers curling in spasms, and his breathing became rapid and chaotic.
Just then, a faint scent drifted over.
It was the incense that blocked mental pollution.
The array had activated.
The fragrance acted like an invisible barrier, building a defense around his consciousness and cutting off the information that was flooding in frantically.
The concepts and images that were about to burst his consciousness were now held at bay, left to linger outside the barrier.
Klein's body in the dream became translucent, his outline blurring like a bubble about to pop or a fading watercolor painting.
The headache eased significantly at once.
Klein secretly breathed a sigh of relief as cold sweat rolled down his temples—even in a dream, he could feel the relief of a narrow escape.
Thank goodness he hadn't been reckless enough to barge into this dream without any preparation.
The dragon looked at Klein's ethereal body, a hint of surprise flashing in its eyes.
When Klein couldn't withstand the dragon's cry earlier, its eyes held disappointment. Now, they held surprise.
That surprise was subtle, like discovering an ant could actually hold up a leaf as an umbrella during a rainstorm.
It wasn't because the ant was powerful, but because it had demonstrated intelligence beyond expectation.
Its body paused slightly, its head tilting as it re-evaluated Klein.
A new emotion appeared in those eyes, as if it were contemplating something or reassessing the value of this tiny creature.
Klein could feel the weight of that gaze; even with the protection of the incense, the pressure of being scrutinized by a higher level of existence made it difficult to breathe.
But before it could make another move, Klein's body vanished completely.
The effect of the incense reached its threshold, forcibly dragging his consciousness back from the dream.
This was the safety mechanism he had set—he would rather interrupt his exploration than put himself in true danger.
Darkness surged up, the deep sea blurred rapidly in his vision, and the blue sparks looked like receding stars.
In his final glimpse, Klein saw the dragon still floating quietly in the water, the emotions in its eyes too complex to decipher.
Something seemed to be flowing within those vertical pupils, like some ancient wisdom or an unspeakable regret.
His consciousness was instantly pulled back to reality.
Klein snapped his eyes open, gasping for air like a drowning man finally reaching the surface.
He had gripped the sheets so hard they were crumpled, his knuckles white from the effort, and his forehead was covered in cold sweat that dripped down his cheeks and soaked his pillow.
In the room, the soothing incense was burning fiercely, the flame twice as high as usual, and the smoke rose slowly, looking eerie and mysterious under the pale blue moonlight.
The incense that should have lasted all night was nearly gone, with less than a third remaining.
He had made it back alive.
But his head was still buzzing, and the fragments of information he hadn't fully received were still sloshing around in his skull like a storm that hadn't quite dissipated, or like countless tiny needles pricking his nerves.
Klein glanced at the clock; less than fifteen minutes had passed.
A mere fifteen minutes, yet it felt as long as a century.
However, he was no longer sleepy at all.
The things stuffed into his head... the meaning of that dragon's cry...
Because it was across a world and a layer of a dream, the details were somewhat blurry, and the damage wasn't as severe.
Yet those fragments of information still rattled in the depths of his mind like undigested matter or a fishbone stuck in the throat—uncomfortable, yet impossible to remove.
Klein didn't light a candle; instead, he directly activated the lighting magic array.
A pale blue orb of light hovered in the air, illuminating the room thoroughly.
The light was soft and steady, dispelling the darkness and slightly easing the fear in his heart.
His heart was still pounding.
Although the dragon hadn't shown any obvious hostility, its mere existence was enough to make his blood run cold.
That suppression from a higher level of existence wasn't something that power or skill could compensate for—it was like a mouse facing a cat; no matter how smart the mouse was, the instinctual fear could not be eliminated.
Fortunately, the incense had pulled him back in time, otherwise...
Klein shook his head, refusing to think about that possibility.
With some things, the more you think, the easier it is to fall into a panic.
The priority now was to record what he had gleaned from that dragon's cry.
He pulled a pen and paper from the nightstand and sat at the desk. His fingers were still trembling slightly, but he forced himself to remain calm.
The ink bottle was opened, the quill dipped, and the tip rested on the paper.
And then...
Klein froze.
He could remember the existence of the dragon's cry, the sensation of the information flooding his mind, the intensity of the throbbing pain, and the fear of almost losing control.
But the specific content of that information?
Blank.
A total blank.
It was like a memory that had been forcibly deleted; he knew he had received something, and he knew that information had once existed in his mind, but he just couldn't remember what it was.
The sensation was uncanny, like a word on the tip of his tongue—clearly there, yet impossible to say.
Klein's quill stayed on the paper for a long time, the ink bleeding into a small blotch.
He put down the quill.
His memory was like a shattered mirror; the pieces were scattered everywhere, but they couldn't be pieced back into a complete picture.
Fortunately, he had prepared for this.
The array for recording the dream was activated.
A pale blue light flowed from the runes, condensing into a translucent image in the air.
It was his experience in the dream just now—from entering the deep sea to being forcibly pulled back to reality, every frame had been perfectly preserved.
Klein watched the images, trying to find an answer.
In the footage, the dragon opened its mouth and emitted that soul-shaking dragon's cry.
Sound waves rippled through the water, forming visible distortions.
But...
Klein frowned.
The array had recorded the pitch and rise of the dragon's cry, the frequency changes of the sound waves, and even every detail of how the sound traveled through the water.
But the meaning contained within that voice?
The information that had flooded his mind and almost burst his consciousness?
It was gone.
As if it were a presence that couldn't be captured by physical means, that information only existed the moment he received it and then completely vanished.
Klein stared at the images for a long time before finally closing the array.
He returned to his desk and wrote on the paper: Next time before entering the dream, I need stronger mental protection. Or... find a way to translate the dragon tongue.
After writing this, Klein stared at his handwriting.
His pen lingered on the words "dragon tongue" for a moment.
Then he shook his head with a bitter smile.
Was the dragon tongue he wanted to learn the same thing as the dragon tongue of this world?
That dragon existed in the depths of a dream, in a dimension he couldn't understand. The dragon tongue he could learn was merely a branch of this world's magic system.
The two likely weren't compatible at all.
Klein rubbed his temples, feeling his headache worsen.
He had originally just wanted to research an evil god, but he ended up running into a dragon that shouldn't exist in this world in his dream.
And that dragon could speak.
Although he couldn't fully understand it, it proved at least one thing—this wasn't some ordinary manifestation of pollution.
That thing had intelligence, emotions, and a purpose.
What was it waiting for? Or rather, what did it want?
If that dragon really was related to Ophelia's pollution, then... did it want to reach the physical world through her?
Beyond that, there was a more important question—
As of today, Klein had seen three different images through three dreams.
The siren, the sea goat, and the dragon.
Three dreams, three completely different existences.
Klein stared at the scattered words he had written, his fingers unconsciously tapping the desk.
The sirens sang in the shallow seas, the sea goat wandered the deep sea, and the dragon... the dragon seemed to be at the very bottom.
Was there a connection between them?
Or was the west coast's ocean itself a gathering place for evil gods, with different monsters hiding in every patch of water?
His pen traced across the paper, circling the word "dragon" and connecting it to "siren".
The line paused for a moment before extending to "sea goat". Three circles, three lines, eventually converging into a question mark in the center of the paper.
What if these different forms were just different facets of the same entity?
The moment this thought appeared, Klein felt a chill down his spine.
It was like a 3D shape—it looks like a circle from the front, a triangle from the side, and a square from the top.
There weren't three monsters; there was one monster with three faces.
Or rather, three... forms of expression?
Then what did its true body look like?
Klein put down his pen and leaned back against his chair. Moonlight shone through the window, spreading a pale blue light across the floor. The color reminded him of the blood that flowed from Ophelia's left hand. The same blue, the same wrongness.
He should ask Ophelia.
When she faced off against the sea monsters on the west coast years ago, what exactly did she see? What did that so-called evil god look like to her? Was it a siren, a sea goat, a dragon, or something else?
After all, she was the one who had actually fought it.
Wait.
Klein sat up straight.
If Ophelia really struck that thing with a sword and lived to tell the tale... just how strong was she?
To be able to swing a sword before such an evil god and return in one piece, leaving only the pollution of a single hand—such strength was likely beyond the human level, wasn't it?
Then the question was:
Why would the Empire feel at ease marrying such a figure off to the countryside and then ignoring her completely?
Klein looked at the moonlight outside, and a more uncomfortable thought suddenly popped into his head:
Is it possible the Empire never intended to "ignore" her?
Is it possible they are just waiting—waiting for the pollution on Ophelia to break out, waiting to see what that evil god will do through her?
And he, this unlucky provincial noble, was just coincidentally pushed into this position?
God only knows.
Rate on N.U.
