"?"
"Doesn't Rule 5 say not to sleep at night?"
Elias retorted confidently in his mind while aiming his gun at the colorful blob of light above his head.
"There is no Rule 5!"
The voice jumped an octave.
"It's right below Rule 4, the carving isn't very obvious!"
"There is no Rule 5! Those are ironclad laws printed uniformly! Where would a carving come from?"
"Bullshit! I clearly saw it!"
Elias was furious.
"Are you blind, or just senile?"
"I think you're insane!"
"I think I'm insane too, considering I don't even know if you're just a figment of my imagination!"
Elias cursed as he tried to use the butt of his revolver to drive away the so-called spirit world creature floating above him.
But the thing was like a holographic projection; the gun butt passed right through it, bringing only a chill with no other physical feedback.
"You crude little brat, I certainly am not!"
"You stupid old fool, show yourself if you have the guts!
What kind of skill is it to hide in someone's head? Come out and fight me one-on-one!"
"If I could show myself, I would have done so long ago!"
The two of them argued across the void for a full five minutes.
Until Elias grew tired of shouting and struggling.
He slumped onto the floor, panting heavily, looking at the humanoid object that was still hovering above him—its light even brighter than before—and spread his hands helplessly at the air.
"So, you're just going to watch and talk nonsense?"
The voice in his mind fell silent for a moment, seemingly calming its emotions.
Then it spoke gloomily: "That thing is a dream demon."
"A low-level, but in certain environments, very troublesome spirit world creature."
"It is currently connecting to your consciousness and sucking away your spirituality."
"I am merely a conscious spirit."
"If you hadn't rummaged through the basement today and released me from my physical shackles, I don't know how much longer I would have been trapped in my own corpse."
Hearing this, Elias suddenly understood.
No wonder he felt the mummy move in the basement; it wasn't a reanimated corpse, but a soul leaving its body.
"So you're a ghost?"
"...That's not entirely wrong to understand it that way, though it's not accurate enough."
"What happens if my spirituality is sucked dry?"
"Why don't you take a look at me?"
"Then why did you ask me why I wasn't sleeping earlier?"
"If I fell asleep, wouldn't I be opening a buffet?"
"Of course not! The spirit world has the rules of the spirit world!"
"Besides, with your level of spirituality, why don't you use a spell to drive it away?"
"Which god's believer are you?"
The voice suddenly asked back, its tone filled with confusion.
This question left Elias stunned.
He had been transmigrated for less than a day, and his biggest cheat was the original owner's history of mental illness. Where would he get a faith?
"Should I... be a believer of some god?"
Elias asked tentatively.
This question silenced the other party as well.
A full half-minute passed before that gloomy voice came from his mind again, carrying a hint of disbelief.
"You... are not a transcendent?"
"Should I be?"
"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!"
The voice was categorical.
"Just get to the point!"
"A normal person's spirituality is like a firefly, but your current spirituality... it's like a bonfire lit in the dark!"
"If you aren't a transcendent, why do you have such a massive spirituality?"
"Maybe I'm naturally gifted, a divine birth, a child of destiny?"
"The Kingdom of Velen could never find someone as shameless as you."
Elias felt that was just the Kingdom of Velen's lack of cultural depth; if it were in Chinese, he could use idioms to praise himself for half an hour without repeating.
"Then there is only one way."
Elias perked up.
"What way? Chanting an incantation? Drawing a talisman?"
"Wait for death."
"Screw off!"
"You old ghost just love talking nonsense!"
Elias said dissatisfied.
"Impolite fellow."
"It has already connected to your consciousness; this is a link on the spiritual level, and physical means are useless."
The voice said coldly.
"Don't you feel your spirit draining away? That feeling of sleepiness, that blurring of memory?"
Elias sensed carefully.
Aside from his mouth being a bit dry from the arguing, there seemed to be... no special feeling.
"No."
He answered honestly.
"..."
There was another dead silence in his mind.
"...I forgot your spirituality is absurdly high."
The voice sounded a bit frustrated.
"It's like a mosquito sucking the blood of a lion; it certainly won't kill you anytime soon."
"Then can I overfeed it to death?"
Elias had a sudden thought.
"...Can I curse at you?"
"No."
The two fell into silence again.
Although Elias said he was fine, as time passed, a strange sensation did begin to appear.
It wasn't sleepiness, but a strange sense of trance.
It was as if a tube had been inserted into his brain and was sucking something out.
Hopefully, it wasn't brain matter.
"Wait, you said it's connected to my consciousness?"
Elias suddenly asked, his eyes becoming somewhat dangerous.
"Correct."
"This is a two-way channel; it sucks your spirituality, provided it can access your consciousness."
"A two-way channel..."
Elias chewed on the words, and a spark of inspiration flashed in his mind.
The corner of Elias's mouth curled into a crazed arc.
"You better stay back."
He said to the old ghost in his head.
"Where am I supposed to go?"
"Do whatever you want. I really didn't expect them to let a green boy become a Firebearer—wait, what are you doing?"
"Talk later! I'm going to give this beast a little extra to its meal!"
With that, Elias took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
Since you want to suck, I'll give you some extra seasoning. I hope you don't get indigestion!
He began to actively recall.
Not resisting, but actively touching the darkest, craziest, and most soul-shuddering fragments in the deepest part of the original owner's memory.
It was the voice he heard in his hallucinations, the images he saw in his despair.
As he recalled, the Pandora's box in the corner of his memory was opened.
"Abyss... Abysis... in... the bell tolling..."
At first, they were just blurry syllables.
But as soon as these syllables surfaced in his mind, the various items in the hut began to shake violently.
The temperature plummeted, and a salty, decaying, rust-scented aura appeared out of thin air.
Elias snapped his eyes open.
His vision was once again covered by that nauseating blood-red color.
Not just vision; this time, that tyrannical spiritual pressure covered his entire body.
Two lines of fresh blood flowed down from his nostrils, followed by his ears, the corners of his eyes, and even his pores began to seep beads of blood.
Intense pain!
It was as if someone was using a blender to turn his brains into a pot of porridge.
His body began to spasm violently uncontrollably; Elias gritted his teeth hard, letting out a beast-like low growl from his throat.
But he didn't stop.
Just as he expected, the sense of "connection" instantly became incomparably clear.
The dream demon hovering above his head was currently like a greedily sucking infant who had suddenly sucked in a mouthful of molten iron!
"Come on! Eat! Let's see if you can stomach this!"
Elias roared in his heart.
He endured the pain that was almost tearing his soul apart, gritting his teeth, and using all his strength to squeeze out that name of supreme terror in his consciousness:
"Abysis... help me!!!"
A silent roar exploded on the mental plane.
Although he had no idea which mountain this name represented, it didn't stop him from bringing out this great deity to crush people.
That gaze from the abyss instantly flowed upstream through the "consciousness channel."
The dream demon, which had been hovering in the air emitting a beautiful phosphorescence, seemed to have been hit by a pause button.
Following that.
Crack.
A crisp sound, like glass shattering, rang out in the silent hut.
On the dream demon's originally blurry humanoid body, cracks actually appeared out of thin air!
It felt fear.
It was the pressure from the top of the food chain.
With an almost instinctive desire for survival, the dream demon shrieked and immediately cut off all connections with Elias.
Its figure blurred instantly, like a mouse scared out of its wits, desperately burrowing into the void, trying to flee back to the spirit world.
The connection was broken.
Elias collapsed onto the floor like a pile of limp mud, vomiting blood in large gulps, but a winner's distorted smile hung on his face.
And at this time.
In the spirit world.
A certain "old ghost," after witnessing all of this, subconsciously said:
"Holy hell..."
"By the Moon Lord!"
Rate on N.U.
