Chapter 162: Another Arrow Piercing the Clouds

Trekia paused for a moment in thought, then turned and walked in the opposite direction.

Little Butterfly: ......

Stepping into the gloomy forest once more, Trekia let out a sigh of relief. This blurred expanse of obscurity offered him immense comfort. He detested—yes, deeply detested—the light that stubbornly sought to sever ties with its environment amidst the surrounding chaos.

Not only was it abrupt, but it was also blinding, hurting his eyes just to look at.

Couldn't you be a little dimmer? Couldn't you just blend in with everyone else? Such dazzling brilliance compelled those trapped in the darkness to gaze upon it, only to be predictably scorched by its heat.

This boundless, murky gloom was far more pleasing to the eye, far more intimate.

Trekia thought to himself.

He collected his thoughts and decided to press on with his exploration.

This dreamscape was stable beyond imagination, practically a second physical reality. The tactile sensation of the soil, the earthy musk of the dirt, the texture of the turf and vegetation, the sky and the sun—not a single trace of the chaos and absurdity typical of dreams remained here. Every single element was identical to the real world, brimming with a sense of order. It could be said to have been meticulously sculpted, fully deserving of a dreamscape shaped by a deity.

However, the moment Trekia took a single step forward, a ball of white halo ignited from behind a tree trunk not far away. Shortly after, a small silver butterfly fluttered out from behind the trunk, resuming its figure-eight flight path. As the little butterfly flew, it continuously showered down luminous scales. It seemed to possess some kind of self-luminous property; even in the pitch-black woods where no light was available for reflection, those dust particles still glowed.

The scales were exceedingly light, drifting in the air for a long time without falling, thereby sketching out the butterfly's flight path in the empty space.

It provocatively fluttered back and forth twice in front of Trekia, then flew a dozen meters in a certain direction and stopped in place, waiting for him.

Trekia turned around and walked away.

Little Butterfly: ......

After repeating this a few times, noticing that the surrounding vegetation was growing increasingly sparse, Trekia began to catch on. This time, watching the indefatigable little butterfly attempting to guide him, Trekia raised his foot and followed.

Now it was the little butterfly's turn to be surprised. Abandoning its previous leisurely figure-eight flight, it flew straight toward Trekia's face as if trying to stop him.

"Alright, alright, I get it."

Trekia reached out his hand, allowing the little butterfly to land on his fingertips. "I have my own business to attend to. As for Noah's trial, I'm not interested, and it has nothing to do with me."

The little butterfly's wings opened and closed, its proboscis extending and curling. Then, it took flight, resuming its previous movement pattern, except this time it didn't deliberately point in the opposite direction; it still firmly insisted on leading the way for Trekia.

Trekia felt a subtle sense of discomfort in his chest, but in the end, he compromised and followed the little butterfly forward.

Indeed, his curiosity had been piqued once more.

There was a saying that names themselves possessed power of a mystical dimension, a truth Trekia deeply understood from personal experience. His own name meant "mad curiosity"—he wondered what his parents had been thinking at the time. Of course, Trekia didn't dislike his meaningful name; as a scientist, being curious about the unknown was an instinct. Perhaps the name merely reinforced that tendency, and it was precisely because of this curiosity that he was who he was today.

Following the luminous dust left behind by the little butterfly in the air, Trekia allowed his mind to wander into idle thoughts. Hikari's name meant "light," Zoffy's name meant "wisdom," and Taiga's name meant "embracing courage."

At this thought, Trekia snapped back to reality instantly, slamming on the mental brakes to stop his wandering train of thought.

Tch, it was getting rather boring.

As the surrounding trees and vegetation gradually thinned out, Trekia noticed that cyan, irregular stone bricks were occasionally protruding from the soil beneath his feet. Some only exposed a few sparse patches while the rest remained buried, while others connected into a large expanse, forming a gradually clarifying pathway through the woods.

What lay ahead?

Trekia slowly followed the silver butterfly forward. In truth, he no longer needed the little creature to guide him, for it was glaringly obvious that the canopy ahead abruptly gave way to traces of artificial architecture.

Before setting out, Trekia had gathered some intelligence regarding the Ruins of Dreams from Hiroyuki, which mentioned a statue located at the apex of the Ruins of the Temple of Noah, composed of three wedge-shaped pillars and a stone sphere flanked in the middle—that was the "Wing of Stone."

Although Trekia had only seen the upper half of the statue, with a little mental extrapolation, he understood that he... might have found the temple ahead of the candidates. Even more wondrously, he seemed to have been invited here by the master of this dreamscape.

The path paved with mottled bluestone slabs had reached its end. On the left and right sides of the road stood two cyan beastly stone sculptures about five meters high, resembling lions and tigers, both squatting and gazing straight ahead.

Trekia discovered with some surprise that the architecture awaiting him was not a temple in the conventional sense.

It had no entrance.

At least, when Trekia walked up the stone steps at the end of the bluestone pathway to the very top, a solid stone wall awaited him. And the small silver butterfly that had led him there lingered on a protrusion of the stone wall, its wings opening and closing as if resting.

Trekia thought for a moment, then took another step forward, leaving the stone steps to stand upon this platform.

Once he stepped up, he involuntarily lightened his footsteps, silently approaching the butterfly. Upon reaching a close enough distance, he noticed faint carvings upon the wall surface. Presumably, this entire stone wall had originally featured relief sculptures, but the imagery had weathered and eroded away over countless years. The spot where the little butterfly lingered happened to be the face of a figure; with a single spread of its wings, it completely covered the weathered and time-corroded facial features of the figure in the relief.

Trekia stood before the stone wall for a long time, as if carefully deciphering the carved contents of the relief, or perhaps simply lost in thought. He stood there for a long while, until the little butterfly took flight once more—though this time, instead of continuing to lead Trekia forward, it landed on the back of his hand.

"..."

Trekia raised a hand to stroke his chin, a subtle expression crossing his face as he muttered to himself:

"Well then, let's give them a little entertainment."

He raised his right hand, and instantly, a cluster of black mist materialized within his palm. As the mist rapidly dissipated, Trekia's transformation device, the Trekia Eye, was revealed in its place.

Trekia looked down at the dormant transformation device in his hand with a subtle expression.

"...Tch, I've still gotten used to it. Oh well."

Trekia couldn't be bothered to be picky. He unfolded the Trekia Eye, held it up to his eye, and activated it.

That slender figure vanished, replaced by a miniature demon woven in blue and black, still maintaining the size of an ordinary human.

And this demon struck an elegant pose, placing one hand behind his back while the other stretched toward the sky with fingers splayed. A purple-black electric sphere brewed within his palm, and the next instant, it shot straight upward—accompanied by a prolonged, piercing shriek!

This sharp, alien screech instantly resonated throughout the entire dreamscape space, causing both Oda and Hiroyuki—wherever they might be—to instinctively halt their steps. As they looked toward the source of the sound, both men simultaneously covered their ears; the noise was simply too grating.

That purple-black orb of light had now soared over a hundred meters high into the air, before bursting like a prank into a blue rose-shaped firework, edged with a ring of gold just to ensure the blue wasn't overlooked.

Having finished all this, Trekia turned his gaze toward the stone wall and reached out his hand.