How can a retired savior be considered retired if he drops to 40,000?

This dream itself has not yet shown its fangs, but its environment alone is enough to confuse the senses of a heroic spirit like the Count of Monte Cristo. It is hard to say that it will not have the slightest effect on ordinary people like Fujimaru Ritsuka.

"Do you remember how far you have walked?" He carefully confirmed the situation. "What did you see along the way? What kind of marks did you make? What kind of clues did you get?"

For Fujimaru Ritsuka, this should be a question that she could answer without thinking. As the Master of Chaldea, a commander who often personally experienced the frontline of the battlefield, it should have become her instinct to remember and use this basic information at any time. When asked, she should blurt it out - but she clearly showed an expression of "recalling", and it was obvious that she was having a hard time recalling.

"It feels like I walked about forty kilometers," she said slowly.

Although we cannot rule out the possibility that the dream itself changed after Fujimaru Ritsuka passed by, or that Merlin did not place the two of them in the same position when he launched them, the Count of Monte Cristo carefully calculated when he passed the "origin" again - he was able to move at high speed with his own Noble Phantasm, so he crossed this distance in almost an instant, but "this distance" was actually 52 kilometers.

There will always be errors between "physical perception" and "reality", but Fujimaru Ritsuka should be very skilled in similar estimates, and such a large error is almost impossible to occur.

The Count of Monte Cristo frowned even more. He was thinking whether to wait for Fujimaru Ritsuka to slowly answer all his questions, or to throw the words "something is wrong with you" in her face right now. However, during the time he was hesitating about this, the Master of Chaldea also realized something.

"I feel... something is wrong." She tried hard to push her obviously heavy thoughts, as if she was stirring a bucket of cement that was about to solidify. "Apart from the fact that I was walking, I can't remember what happened before. I should have looked around, but I don't remember what I saw."

"..."The situation seemed to be worse than the Count of Monte Cristo had imagined: although he only took a quick glance on the road, he had clearly seen some...quite shocking scenes.

The piles of miners' bodies, the suppressed rebels armed with guns, the black monsters with feathers, claws and twisted wings, the broken fragments of Astartes, and so on. He didn't think any sane person would forget these scenes easily and find it difficult to recall them. However, Fujimaru Ritsuka, at least before coming to this dream, was obviously sane.

"I can't think right now." Fujimaru Ritsuka struggled to get up from the ground, "But this won't work--"

“——I understand. Calm down first.” The Count of Monte Cristo said soothingly, and then focused his eyes on the tools she placed beside him as he followed her movements.

"What did you get?" he asked cautiously.

"Hmm?" Fujimaru Ritsuka's reaction was still a little slow, but generally speaking it was still timely. "I got this from where I started..."

She slowly turned her head back and cast her eyes on the tool. After realizing that "something was wrong", she couldn't say the word "pick" in her mouth.

What was quietly leaning against the wall was not a pickaxe head, but a thigh bone with a knee joint attached, which was obviously human.

——A normal girl of this age would have screamed loudly when she realized this, and even Fujimaru Ritsuka herself would have been startled under more normal circumstances. But now she showed no such emotion at all, and it would be better to say that she was "slow" rather than "calm".

With the evidence here, the conclusion is clear: this is a kind of cognitive pollution. Under normal circumstances, Fujimaru Ritsuka would be able to think of this in an instant, but now, it took her three seconds. The Count of Monte Cristo asked her worriedly: "Is there something wrong? Otherwise, I will take you out of this dream." She still stood there and just shook her head.

She spent perhaps five or six minutes trying desperately to drive her sluggish thinking, and finally succeeded in understanding all of this, relying on the repeated promptings of the Count of Monte Cristo:

Since this dream would pollute her cognition, it would naturally pollute her spirit. Her current emotional response was very slow, her attention was reduced, it was difficult for her to accept new information from the outside world, and it became difficult to think. For her, this was very abnormal, and these changes all occurred after she entered this dream - so it was obvious that the instigator was needless to say.

"I've read a little bit, and these are considered typical 'depression symptoms'." Fujimaru Ritsuka's wording began to show flaws, "I'm not a real psychiatrist, and my own diagnosis is not reliable, but for the sake of convenience, I'll call it that."

"Compared to these, I think it's better for you to go back first." The Count of Monte Cristo did not respond, but proposed another plan, "You go back and have a good sleep, don't think about anything; I will go back and beat Merlin up, he deserves it."

Fujimaru Ritsuka was silent for a while. This made the Count of Monte Cristo somewhat uneasy. In the past, he would have been willing to trust the judgment of the Chaldean Master, but the current situation was obviously different. He began to feel uncertain whether he should continue to let her make the judgment based on her current mental state.

"By the way, whose dream is this?" she asked after a brief silence.

The Count of Monte Cristo didn't know whether this was her thinking after she had recovered somewhat, or whether the things she had decided to explore a long time ago had finally arrived at the to-do list in the slow operation. He thought about it briefly, and finally decided to use "answering truthfully" as the next round of temptation:

"Corvus Corax," he said. "Do you remember who he is?"

Fujimaru Ritsuka stood there in silence for a while and did not respond immediately.

The Count of Monte Cristo's heart sank.

Miu (Leopard)

I overestimated myself, but I still feel like I'm not good enough.

By the way, the Primarch Interlude is really not that easy to beat, and the Raven King's problem cannot be solved by a dream therapy session. You see, Curze's Interlude (what?) requires playing the entire Great Crusade and finally saving Nostramo, and he is still the same. Except for the favorability, other things are basically not refreshed...

Suddenly I remembered that I must shout out: Depression symptoms do not equal depression! Anyone may experience short-term depression symptoms due to various things, but if it is not depression, you still need to see a reliable psychiatrist!

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 160: Assumption is a Bad Civilization

Judge Hastings opened his eyes alertly and stood up from his chair.

To be fair, the room assigned to him on the Storm's Edge was well soundproofed, but it was not thorough enough for those who were paying close attention to the outside world. At least for the Inquisitor, as long as he focused a little, he could clearly hear the sound of the Astartes power armor walking undisguisedly in the corridor.

He walked towards the door and tried to press the button to open the door without much hope. To his surprise, the mechanism started very smoothly, causing the two pieces of metal in front of him to slide open, revealing a corridor outside the room that was ordinary except for its not-so-"Imperial" style.

Hastings was stunned for a moment because he was not restricted in his movements, but it was only a moment that could be ignored. He then stuck his head out of his room and looked at the person who had just passed by. Then, as expected, he happened to meet the eyes of the two people who heard the mechanical sound of the door opening and turned back to see what was going on.

One of them was Arjuna, some kind of Warp entity. There were certainly questions about this, but at least, in the previous hours, Hastings had been aware of his existence and convinced himself to let it go for the time being. But the other one was obviously an Astartes who made the footsteps that drew him out of the room -

Hastings expected to see a Night Lord or a "Fallen Angel", but he did not expect to see a Grand Marshal of the Black Templars - and even from the sword, he was also the Emperor's Champion.

The reason why he came out of the room at the right time was, of course, because he had anticipated this situation and had prepared a plan in mind. He originally planned to ask to follow them and see what they were doing. If they succeeded, it would be a good thing, but if they failed, it could also be a test. However, the identity of the person who appeared in front of him was too unexpected, and all the words he was about to say were blocked in his throat.

In the few seconds that Hastings was stunned, the Black Templar spoke first: "I am sure there was no such person on the Storm's Edge before."

"This is Inquisitor Sibylla Hastings." Arjuna introduced calmly, "The Master believes that Kaelia needs a psychic teacher. This gentleman who once served in the Psychic Council of the Imperial Regent may be suitable."

As he spoke, he turned and prepared to leave, as if Inquisitor Hastings was some unimportant and unworthy person. After listening to these explanations, the Black Templar just nodded to him, and finally turned around and continued to move along the corridor.

Hastings, who was a little angry, simply came to the corridor and followed the other two people: "What happened?"

"None of your business." Arjuna gave an expected answer. But surprisingly, he did not give any more instructions beyond this - not even restrictive instructions such as ordering Hastings to return to his room and stay quiet. The same was true for the Black Templar following behind him, as if the most important thing for them now was to reach their destination immediately without being disturbed.

If something like this happened on the Macragge's Glory, the Inquisitor would have returned to his assigned room without saying anything, pretending he hadn't seen anything. But this was the Storm's Edge, so Hastings didn't stop, and took advantage of the opportunity to follow behind.

-

Sevatar was completely numb. Even the snickering of Jeanne Alter, who was standing in the corridor of the Storm's Edge opposite him and had a sign in High Gothic that read "Sorry, I should have thought before I spoke," could not cheer him up to say anything back.

Two hours ago, he had made a bold statement to everyone else to the effect of "I have used my psychic powers to peer into the Primarch's mental world, and I don't think it's that difficult", and tried to mentally synchronize with Fujimaru Ritsuka who was "sent into Corax's dream". The good news is that now, two hours later, he is still alive and has not suffered any irreversible mental damage. The bad news is that he has failed completely, has not successfully achieved any tactical goals, and has wasted his time.

The Primarch and his spirit cannot be generalized. In Konrad Curze's spiritual world, it can be said that all the aggression mainly comes from the Primarch himself. For Corvus Corax, he himself may be the most harmless part of his spiritual world.

"Oh, who could have thought this would happen?" The Dream Demon, who was talking without any pain in his back, said beside Jeanne Alter, "But Ritsuka will be fine. She is a good girl who can withstand the Garden of Disappointment - Pfft -"

Jeanne Alter, unable to bear it any longer, delivered a straight punch to Merlin's cheek, causing the sign on his chest that read "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have thrown the Master into a dream" to shake violently.

"This time you've caused more trouble than I did! You better reflect on this!" she said gritting her teeth.

"Quiet!" Unexpectedly, the person who scolded these two people who at least looked like adults was a little girl with long blond hair holding a teddy bear. She pinched her waist with one hand, trying to look majestic, "This is a punishment! Stand straight! Don't talk!"

Under normal circumstances, perhaps anyone would laugh at the statement made by such a little girl who looked to be only about ten years old.But maybe it’s because the two people who are currently punished have really made a big mistake, so they know that they are wrong, so they really abide by these punishment measures as if they are playing house, and hold up their chests with "crime" written on them. Sign, quietly stand back up.

——When Arjuna and Sigismund, as well as Inquisitor Hastings who had forced himself to follow them, hurriedly arrived at the door of the infirmary, they saw this somewhat funny scene.

"This... what's going on?" Sigismund gestured to the little girl, unsure of what to call her. Arjuna looked at her seriously, and then they nodded solemnly to each other before explaining:

“This is Abigail Williams,” he said. “It’s a last resort that we don’t want to have to use.”

"I don't think things will develop to that point..." Merlin said with a dry laugh, but then the girl herself urgently refuted loudly:

"Who can say for sure about such things! How can there be such irresponsible adults!" Abigail sounded anxious and about to cry, "There is so much black stuff! What if it all flows into the 'hole'!"

Seeing that another inexplicable farce was about to take place, Arjuna obviously had no intention of participating in it. He just calmly opened the door of the infirmary, allowing everyone to see Asclepius who was monitoring the Lord's physical data inside, and Fujimaru Ritsuka who was lying on the bed with a frown on his face.

"We need to urgently interrupt the mental connection initiated by Merlin's 'assumption'." Arjuna said, "The doctor means that we should try to borrow the Emperor's psychic power first. Perhaps a short-term enhancement will be enough for the Master to break free of it on his own."

Sigismund roughly knew the cause and effect, but because the process of events involved too many idealistic aspects, he was still confused about the whole thing. He thought for a moment and then gave up asking questions.

At least he could understand that "the situation is not optimistic", so he just nodded obediently: "What should I do?"

Meow (six o'clock)

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 161 A Failed Exploration

My name is Fujimaru Ritsuka, and I am the 48th Master of Chaldea. I still have work to do, and I cannot stop here.

In the dark mine, someone tried desperately to push forward his thoughts, which were as heavy and scattered as rubble, and told himself this.

I am very tired, I want to sleep, I don't want to care about anything - but these are not my feelings. This is someone else's dream, the spiritual world, I will be affected by other thoughts. I must think, I must find a way out, I must think of a solution -

Another person grabbed her arm.

"Let's go back." The Count of Monte Cristo pulled her back without saying anything. "This was not originally planned, nor was it an emergency. It can only be said that Merlin took it for granted and there was no necessity at all."

But Fujimaru Ritsuka just stood there.

"There are still...there are still things that need to be done." Her voice was vague and unclear, almost like a dream, making people worry whether she was still thinking normally, "...it's not finished...I can't leave yet."

"You are not in a state to do anything right now." The Count of Monte Cristo commented calmly, and slightly increased the strength of his hands. "Even if you think you still have unfinished work here, you should regroup and think about countermeasures before--"

He didn't finish his sentence, but instinctively turned his gaze away and narrowed his eyes: at this moment, Fujimaru Ritsuka's whole body suddenly glowed with golden light, and the burning sensation caused by the Emperor's spiritual energy burned fiercely in the palm of his hand where it touched the other person's forearm. He ignored this and didn't let go.

Although he may be considered a subspace creature in terms of structure, he is not a Chaos Demon and will not be easily melted by this kind of psychic energy. To a certain extent, he will even be identified as a "friendly party." This may be true for all the "Avengers" heroic spirits under the contract of Fujimaru Ritsuka.

The prayers directed to the Emperor not only contain loyal faith, hope, and pleading, but also anger, hatred, and a strong desire for revenge. Just like a coin has two sides, although more people only see the Emperor as a golden sun suspended in the warp, with the Astronomican burning above Holy Terra, it does not mean that the other side does not exist.

After adapting to the sudden increase in light, the Count of Monte Cristo fully opened his eyes again. A thin golden light strip was connecting from Fujimaru Ritsuka's chest to the darkness deep in the mine, obviously expressing the meaning of "take this road to leave" - ​​but it was obvious that these golden lights brought more than just such a simple instruction.

"Something's wrong." With the help of psychic energy, Fujimaru Ritsuka barely regained some thinking ability and said, "If we judge it purely from the perspective of a 'dream', the structure here is too simple."

"This is not something you should be thinking about right now," the Count of Monte Cristo objected. "You shouldn't stay here any longer. Once we get out, you'll still have plenty of time to think about relevant countermeasures. Although the environment here isn't great, it's stable."

However, as if deliberately going against him, the moment this sentence fell, the mine itself shook violently. As if it had encountered an earthquake, the originally solid and stable structure was twisted by the huge force of the earth itself, dust and stones fell from their heads, and the ground cracked with a loud rumbling sound. In a hurry, the Count of Monte Cristo simply lifted Fujimaru Ritsuka up from the ground.

"Go up there!" While avoiding the rubble and struggling to find a foothold on the broken ground, Fujimaru Ritsuka had no idea what kind of reasoning went through his mind after regaining the ability to think, and he shouted this to the Count of Monte Cristo in a decisive tone amid the rumbling sound of the ground cracking.

The latter didn't think much. Half out of trust in Fujimaru Ritsuka's judgment (of course, in the current environment, the proportion of this reason is inevitably discounted), and half out of trust in his ability to take her out safely, the Count of Monte Cristo jumped in the broken mine, using the floating stones as footholds, and at the same time, he did climb up intentionally or unintentionally. Then soon, he realized that this seemed to be a correct decision:

Looking up through the gaps between the layers of stones, it is easy to see that there is light above.

It was a dim, blood-red, and decidedly ominous light, but it was a light nonetheless.

"The Emperor's spiritual energy stimulated him! His dreams changed because of it!" Fujimaru Ritsuka shouted desperately amid the huge noise, "He must be trying to express something!"

"Understood." Without further explanation, the Count of Monte Cristo naturally jumped towards the light above. "But if I judge that there is danger next, then we will leave immediately, no discussion."

"Well - uh -" Fujimaru Ritsuka trembled uneasily, obviously frightened, "Wait a minute, what on earth is this so-called 'mine'?"

This "normal reaction" is comforting, but the Count of Monte Cristo hardly reacted to the fact that his master had returned to normal: the things falling from above gradually became not stones, but the ruins of a war.

Broken steel, broken chain blades, weapons melted from overheating, stalled war engines, and corpses. Massive, broken corpses:

There were Chaos, renegade Astartes, mortals with eight-pointed stars carved on their bodies, strange aliens, twisted flesh and blood, and all kinds of demons, and so on. The only thing they had in common was that they were all enemies in the eyes of the Empire and in the eyes of Corvus Corax.

This has nothing to do with honor, achievement, mission, or goal. So many enemies have fallen and are piled up here, with no meaning, just for empty revenge and impossible redemption.

Even with the obstruction of the Emperor's spiritual energy, similar thoughts still flowed into Fujimaru Ritsuka's perception on the way up. In reality, her strong empathy ability that can be properly used is an obvious advantage, but in such a spiritual world where the boundaries between people have become ambiguous and even "polluting", this has become a great disadvantage that makes her too easily influenced.

It's not my emotions, my thoughts, my memories. I have my goals, my mission, things I have to accomplish.

With the support of the Emperor's psychic energy, she still had the energy to tell herself this.

"You shouldn't go any further." Perhaps because he was also an "Avenger", the Count of Monte Cristo was not affected much in such an environment and was still able to make calm and rational judgments. "There is too much malicious intelligence. It will not do you any good to read any more."

"But I'm about to catch something—"

The Count of Monte Cristo ignored her. As he said before, if he judged that there was danger next, he would immediately take Fujimaru Ritsuka away without any discussion.

The dark flames with some flashes of lightning rushed to clear the way for him. Then, he and his master moved as fast as lightning - not towards the light source that Fujimaru Ritsuka expected, but towards the light band that the Emperor's psychic energy showed her as the "exit direction". Fujimaru Ritsuka climbed hard on the Count of Monte Cristo's shoulders so that she could pass his cover and shout to the red light higher up where she wanted to go:

"Corvus Corax—"

Because there were so many falling objects, the red light was often obscured by the falling debris, so it looked like a flickering candlelight. And there seemed to be one or two moments when the shadows cast by the dim light source looked like the wings of birds.

Maybe Fujimaru Ritsuka realized this, or maybe she didn't, but that didn't stop her from continuing to shout out what she wanted to say:

"—"

She didn't know whether this sentence was conveyed correctly, nor was she sure if anyone was really listening. In her perception, she might not even have finished speaking it, and the nightmarish scene in front of her had shattered and disappeared, returning to the deep and lightless darkness.

-

Corvos Corax suddenly opened his eyes and looked around in panic.

He had discovered long ago that the Primarch did not need to sleep, nor did the creatures in the Warp. Sleeping did not have any practical significance for them, except that it made them feel that they were still similar to humans. Therefore, in the ten thousand years of wandering in the Warp, Corax could not remember how long he had not closed his eyes - logically speaking, he should not have fallen asleep.

But He fell asleep, and woke up in a room that was neat, warm, and appropriately gorgeous, with a soft mattress beneath Him, some soothing incense burning around Him, and the only "living things" that could be called "living things" were a few decorative green plants. He looked very safe, with no enemies.

This did not dispel His vigilance. He sat up silently, hiding his body as naturally as breathing. During this time, He found that he had been cleaned by some means. Whether it was his skin similar to that of humans or his feathers similar to those of birds, they were all clean. The broken armor plates on his body were also removed and replaced with some soft fabrics.

He didn't know what happened while he was asleep, and he was completely confused by the current situation. He couldn't even be sure how long he had slept - but there was another thing that he should have discovered when he woke up, but he didn't realize it until now:

He wept in his dream.

Miu (Leopard)

I often feel out of tune with the Crow King because I am too mentally healthy...

(End of this chapter)