Nina had never expected this scene to unfold—she had imagined several changes that might occur after Mr. Morris touched the light curtain, like sothing running out of the curtain or the surrounding environnt turning upside down. She even thought of a loud crack as if Uncle Duncan and the entire Holoss might fall from the sky, but she never expected this.
The light curtain, suspected to be a "Silence Wall," broke silently, like a soap bubble bursting.
The grand light wall that had ford the barrier shattered into fragnts in an instant, and the structure that once upheld the heavens and earth dissipated into luminous dust.
With the barrier’s breaking and vanishing, it seed as if the entire forest was plunged into a brief stasis, and after just a second, the mist that pervaded the forest began to flow again—Nina finally realized what had happened and rushed to her teacher’s side in just a few steps.
"Mr. Morris!" she exclaid, "Are you alright? How did this suddenly..."
"I don’t know..." Morris was obviously a bit stunned. This scholarly teacher, who always seed calm, reliable, and refined, looked sowhat at a loss. His lips quivered, and inexplicably, his mind flashed back to the seven great principles of archaeology that his ntor, Rune, had taught him years ago at the Academy of Truth—
First, do not touch things recklessly; second, handle the environnt with caution; third, do not touch things recklessly; fourth, do not jump to conclusions; fifth, do not touch things recklessly; sixth, revere the traces of civilization; seventh, don’t fucking touch things...
The old gentleman lowered his head and looked at his hand sowhat perplexedly, feeling once again, after so many years, the sensation that "this incident must never be known to the teacher."
But soon, this jumbled thought in his heart was interrupted by a low exclamation from Nina beside him.
"Ah—" Nina couldn’t help but exclaim softly at the edge of what remained of the broken light curtain, as mist continued to seep and spread from the forest. Her eyes widened as she looked towards the distance—the region that was once shrouded by the "Silence Wall."
Morris instinctively looked up, following Nina’s gaze.
It was a dim Sky Light, a murky firmant enveloped in chaotic mist that shrouded everything. At the edge of the forest, spread the vast expanse of mountains and hills. Within that endless fog, a massive silhouette was gradually revealing its shape.
At first, Morris thought it was a mountain, a strangely shaped, craggy, and twisted mountain.
Later, he realized it was a tree, an almost torn-apart tree, whose remains covered the land in a twisted and knotted posture, making it nearly impossible to imagine its original appearance—a gigantic tree.
The tree canopy that once could have shielded an entire plain had collapsed and beco desolate; its trunk had also broken and splintered. The lush green had long vanished from it, as if burnt away by a fierce fire, leaving behind twisted branches resembling grueso skeletons, twisting grotesquely towards the sky.
There, giant branches rose like towers; remaining stumps were like cities, creating a wilderness akin to doomsday with the remains that inspired terror. The ash-like dust and debris filled every inch of the earth’s crevices, surrounding the great tree, scattering a pallid desolation—while Morris and Nina stood at the edge of this extinct realm, as if on the boundary of the apocalypse, gazing at the day of ancient destruction.
A breeze blew over this ashen land, lifting a fine, pale layer of ash, mingling with the mist seeping from the forest, wrapping around Morris and Nina like a coiling mist.
In the disordered wind, Nina thought she heard soone whispering beside her—the voice sounded familiar:
"...because she knew from the beginning that the Silence Wall couldn’t save anyone; she was just a little sapling, and on the day it ca, all she could offer them was a pretty bubble..."
Nina’s eyes widened slightly, and she quickly looked towards the direction of the voice.
But there was no one there, only a small tree.
A frail little tree stood quietly between the dust and the ashes, its trunk and branches curling upward, but the tips drooped down, swaying in the breeze—just like the tree Sherry had ntioned, the one Xilin had transford into at the end.
Any tree in The Dream of the Naless was more substantial and robust than this one.
Nina slowly approached the small tree, hesitated for a long while, then took a step forward and placed her hand on its trunk, venturing to ask, "Xilin?"
The little tree didn’t speak, only the branches at the edge of the canopy swayed in the wind.
The whispers that had reached her ears were like illusions, and what she felt at her fingertips was nothing more than the rough and hard touch of tree bark.
However, Nina couldn’t help imagining the elven girl, who had taken a long journey with her and Mr. Morris and who had excitedly headed ho through the fog of the Silence Wall. She thought of how that girl had made her way through the borders of the dense forest, passed through that light tomb, and ca to the edge of this ashen land, quietly turning into this tree at a spot with a view of the ruins of Silantis.
"Nina, look here."
Morris’s voice suddenly ca from not far away, disrupting her wild thoughts.
Nina imdiately snapped back to the present and hurried over to Morris, looking in the direction he was pointing.
More little trees appeared in her view—on the edge of the colossal tree’s remains, on the border between the ashen dust land and the forest, along this apocalyptic frontier, little trees stood one after another, as if guarding the ash and wreckage.
Or perhaps guarding beyond the remains, that lush forest sketched out by Dreamscape.
Around the entire wasteland, myriad of these naless little trees filled the space.
A gentle breeze blew, causing the young trees to sway their branches and produce a sound so subtle that it was hard to tell whether it was the whisper of the wind or the murmur of the trees.
Nina stared blankly at this scene for an unknowable amount of ti before she couldn’t help but murmur to herself, "There are so many...all these are Xilin..."
Morris, however, did not speak. The elderly scholar simply stood there, quietly gazing at the young trees arrayed around the ruins of Silantis, before climbing a nearby hillock as if sothing had occurred to him. He surveyed the direction from whence he and Nina had co, overlooking the vast expanse of dense forest in the distance.
The mist issued forth from the forest, blending with the ashes and dust in the air above the plains, sketching out a hazy "boundary."
He descended the hillock with a contemplative look and approached Nina.
Noticing the expression on her teacher’s face, Nina asked, "Mr. Morris, have you discovered sothing?"
"I have a bold hypothesis—’Xilin’ is the Silent Wall," said Morris in a grave tone.
Nina was a bit stunned.
"Silantis created the Silent Wall and charged it with the mission to protect the Elves, but it was a task it could never fulfill. Moreover, it seems that Silantis, the ’Creator,’ knew this from the very start—yet the Silent Wall has continued to execute this command," Morris said seriously. "I’ve just observed the edge of the forest and confird that those ’Naless Saplings’ are arranged precisely along the boundary between the forest and the ruins. The arrangent hints at a pattern, like so sort of... array, rather than a random natural distribution. It’s a sign of ticulous design."
"Then..." Nina hesitated before asking, "but we are not Elves..."
"But this isn’t the true Silantis or the ’Dreamscape’ of old," Morris shook his head and said, "Don’t forget, this is just ’The Dream of the Naless.’"
At those words, Nina was taken aback, imdiately grasping the profound aning behind her teacher’s statent.
This was only The Dream of the Naless.
The era described in the ancient Elven myths, the epoch when the great demon "Saslouka," who created worlds within dreams, and the World Tree "Silantis," which sheltered Elves in the dreamscape, truly flourished, was before the oceanic era.
That era had long ended—in the Great Oblivion.
What had appeared at Light Breeze Harbor was rely a large-scale anomaly caused by the failing sun and the impending "Twilight," a suspected "echo" left in the racial mory of the Elves.
In the "echo," Silantis and the Silent Wall regarded each individual who entered the forest with benevolence as an "Elf."
For they had perished many, many years ago—well before any intelligent race other than Elves erged in this world.
"What should we do next?" Nina asked.
Morris didn’t respond imdiately but instead focused intently, communing with the captain in the depths of his mind—he reported everything that had happened here and then patiently waited.
...
Duncan was sowhat bewildered.
He still remained with Agatha at the bottom of the "Holoss," studying the vast ancient divine spine, hoping to find more useful information related to the "great demon Saslouka" or to unearth more secrets about the Holoss itself.
He hadn’t expected that in the brief span he’d been distracted, Morris and Nina’s team had managed to stir up such a world-shaking event.
They had pierced through the Silent Wall, viewed the truth within it, and even... glimpsed the remains of Silantis, now reduced to wreckage.
Duncan felt a surreal disconnection.
"The Witch" and the illiterate team were still wandering in the forest; the athlete was still eating dirt alone in the desert, yet the historian had taken his student to the center of the map and unearthed the grave of an ancient god.
There was a thrilling sensation as if releasing two investigators at the beginning and discovering three turns later that Cthulhu was lying dead at the doorstep.
Duncan shook his head, putting aside the random thoughts that had suddenly sprouted in his mind.
Morris was still awaiting his instructions.
He looked up at the space around him, shrouded in dark mists.
Saslouka’s spine stretched beneath his feet, and that fragnted ancient deity seed to be conveying so ssage to him in this manner. Even the Holoss, built upon this ancient spine, appeared as if it were straining to display its "mories."
Duncan took a soft breath.
"Approach that ’ruin’," he said internally, "investigate Silantis."
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