Chapter 1227: The Fall of Prism City

Roland went still.

Garcia’s master. Lan. The woman who had sat across from him in the Rose Cafe this morning, smiling faintly over her coffee, was dead.

It refused to settle in his mind as fact.

Even bound by the Realm of Mind’s rules, Lan had been a Defender’s student — capable, trained, hardened. The Prism City was built into the earth like an awl driven through bedrock, its corridors and checkpoints guarded at every level by the Awakened. How had the Fallen Evils breached it so easily?

There was too much he did not understand. He set it aside. “Come inside first,” he said.

Garcia rose from the doorstep as though her bones had turned to loose gravel.

Roland put Zero in her bedroom, then brought Garcia a glass of water. She held it without drinking, staring at something past the far wall. Gradually the hard convulsions of weeping slowed. Her eyes stayed unfocused, but she stopped.

He found six unread messages and a dozen missed calls on his phone. All Garcia. He looked up. “I’m sorry — Zero took a fever and I had to take her to hospital. I left my phone here.” He waited a beat. “What happened? How did you find out your master was killed?”

The silence stretched long enough that he thought she might not answer at all. Then Garcia said, her voice pulling apart at the seams: “I got an urgent message from C02 around noon. He said something had happened to headquarters and he was requesting support from martialists worldwide.”

C02 — the liaison officer from that joint mission, months ago. The missed calls made sense now. “But nobody went?”

“Nobody could. The Erosion in the middle of the building suddenly expanded. Nobody knows how. The cameras didn’t catch it.” She wrapped her hands around the glass. “By the time the Association understood what was happening, the Erosion had cut the Prism City in half. All the connections between the upper and lower floors — gone.”

Roland’s pulse kicked hard.

If the Bloody Moon was the hollow left by Erosion, it could appear anywhere — including underground. If its emergence in the sky had marked the start of the Battle of Divine Will above, then this expansion might be the same thing wearing different clothes.

“When did it happen? Do you know?”

Garcia nodded slightly. “Around nine in the morning.”

Nearly the same moment he had felt that wave move through him.

A warning. The Dream World registering the Erosion’s advance.

“And the Fallen Evils?”

“They came up from underground.”

Half an hour later he had the full picture.

When the Erosion reached the building’s midsection, the Martialist Association mobilized reinforcements. The Prism City’s architecture had always been its own vulnerability — the ventilation system required constant maintenance to keep the lower floors breathable, and all water and food descended from above. With those supply lines severed by the Erosion, the staff below were immediately in peril.

The Association’s priority was to gauge the Erosion’s extent and reconnect the two halves. The building’s architects had anticipated exactly this scenario and installed evacuation exits for an orderly withdrawal. Since the crisis appeared structural rather than hostile, the Association stood down the combat request and waited for engineering teams and paramedics. The Defender and his students were already on-site.

Then the unexpected.

While the evacuation proceeded, Lan’s team at Exit 04 was attacked — not by outsiders, but by their own former colleagues from the lower floors. Ordinary staff. Ordinary martialists. Turned. Fallen cores merged into human bodies that still wore human faces.

Nobody could say what had happened in those hours after the breach. One moment: colleagues. Next: monsters. The bottom level of the Prism City housed the Association’s elite, people who had spent years earning their place there. Within half a day, every one of them had been converted into puppets with fallen cores for hearts.

Lan’s team had walked into the exit corridor expecting frightened civilians. They found an army.

It was a miracle anyone escaped. Lan did not. She held the door switch to give the others time, and the Fallen Evils came over her.

At that, Garcia’s voice dissolved.

Roland slid a glass of milk across to her. He let the silence stretch before he said the thing he needed to say — the timing wrong, the question necessary.

“What the survivors reported, that’s all secondhand, isn’t it? Did anyone actually see it directly? When your master…”

Garcia would have torn his head off on any other day. Now she only looked at her hands and said, voice stripped down to almost nothing: “She pressed herself against the door switch. She held it. The Fallen Evils…” Her throat closed. “Many people in her team saw it.” The words fell apart into something she swallowed back.

“I’m sorry,” Roland said.

He meant it. He also kept thinking.

He did not know what death meant in the Dream World. Return to the Realm of Mind, or erasure? If God controlled the Realm of Mind — nearly everything within it — then neither was a good answer for Lan. She had been a traitor, by God’s reckoning. Without the Dream World’s shelter, punishment would be swift and thorough.

Roland had no difficulty believing God had arranged this. The attack bore the shape of a targeted strike. Lan had barely left his cafe before the Erosion swallowed the Prism City’s center and turned her colleagues into weapons pointed at her.

She was not the only target.

God wanted to tear the Dream World down entirely.

“If you lose this Dream World, you’ll be shut out from the Realm of Mind forever.”

Lan’s voice, from that morning. He could still hear the cadence of it.

A Battle of Divine Will was coming here too, in this soft city with its coffeeshops and apartment buildings and ordinary people who noticed nothing. His enemy would not be demons or the Sky-sea Realm.

He would be facing God.

Hold on.

Loud noises — distant, then suddenly near, the gap between them making no sense.

What had happened?

Pain, enormous and specific: her leg, broken. She had endured the upgrade ceremony and it had not been like this. Death was a thing she had held abstractly for years, but now it arrived as a physical sensation — cold climbing her limbs, the world growing too large and too dim to hold.

Hold on.

The voice was close now. She had heard it somewhere before. She couldn’t place it.

“Someone’s still alive over here! Help me move this stone!”

“She’s badly hurt — quick, lift!”

“One, two, three!”

The weight lifted off her chest all at once, and hands moved her onto something soft. A face above her, talking fast.

“Hold on. You’re going to be fine. The Association’s sent for the best doctors, the best equipment. You’ll be fine once you reach hospital.”

“The Erosion expanded?”

”— you came from Cargarde Peninsula, yes? What’s your name? Do you still remember it?”

She gathered what was left of her concentration into a single point.

”…Valkries.”

Chapter 1227 - The Fall of Prism

City Translator: Transn Editor: Transn Roland was stunned. If he remembered correctly, Garcia’s master was called Lan. Which meant that the lady who had met him in the Rose Café this morning was… dead? How could it be possible? Even though Lan was bound by the rules in the Dream World, she was, after all, the Defender’s student and should have the capability to deal with Fallen Evils. The Prism City used to be a mine, so the main part of it was built underground. It was constantly guarded by the Awakened. How could the Fallen Evils breach the city so easily? There were so many things that Roland failed to understand, but he managed to calm Garcia down. “Get in first.” Garcia rose feebly as if all her strength was gone. Roland put Zero in her bedroom and gave Garcia a glass of water. The latter gradually regained her composure, although her eyes were still kind of out of focus, but she, at least, stopped crying. Roland then noticed that there were six unread messages and a dozen phone calls. He scrolled down and realized that they were mostly from Garcia. “Oh, sorry… Zero suddenly got a fever, so I had to go to hospital and left my phone here,” Roland said in embarrassment. “What happened in the Prism City? How did you know that your master was killed.” It took a long time for Garcia to find her voice. After what seemed to be an eternal silence, Garcia finally broke out inarticulately, “I received an urgent message from C02 around noon, saying that something happened to the headquarters. He requested support from martialists from all over the world.” Roland remembered that C02 was the liaison officer for that joint mission he had attended a while ago. Now, he understood why Garcia had called him so many times, so he asked, “But nobody went there?” Garcia should have immediately gone to the Prism City. “Nobody was able to, because the Erosion in the middle part of the building suddenly expanded,” she muttered. “Nobody knew how it happened, and the video camera didn’t catch it either. C02 told me that by the time the Association realized it, the Erosion had already slashed the Prism City in half, and all the connection between the upper and lower floors were disrupted.” “The Erosion expanded?” Roland’s heart pounded against his ribs like a frantic bird. If the Bloody Moon was actually the hollow created by the Erosion, it should have been able to appear anywhere, including the underground area. If the emergence of the Bloody Moon marked the beginning of the Battle of Divine Will, then could the expansion of the Erosion be another form of Bloody Moon? “When did it occur? Do you know?” Garcia nodded slightly and said, “Around 9:00 in the morning.” That was almost the same time he had seen that wave! Was it a warning from the Dream World that the Erosion had begun? “Then what about the Fallen Evils?” “They… they came out from underground…” Half an hour later, Roland finally had a full picture of the incident. Noticing that the Erosion had reached the middle part of the building, the Martialist Association immediately decided to send reinforcements. The Prism City wedged into the ground like a giant awl. Although it was well fortified, there were also several drawbacks in its architectural structure. For example, they must constantly maintain the ventilation system to make sure that people on the lower floors could breathe easily. Apart from that, all the life essentials, such as water and food, had to be transported from the upper level to the bottom. Therefore, when the supplies were cut off by the Erosion, the staff at the bottom level might be in peril. The most pressing task for the Association now was to find out how large the Erosion was and then reconnect the upper and lower level. The archtects who had built the Prism City had indeed also thought about the possible disconnection and thus equipped the building with a few evacuation exits so that people could quickly escape the building in an orderly manner upon an emergency. Since the Martialist Association figured out that the disruption was caused by the Erosion rather than an enemy attack, they soon withdrew the reinforcement request. At that time, the Defender and his students were all there in the building, and what the Association actually needed was the engineering team and paramedics, so the martialists did not come to rescue at once but waited for further instructions. However, something out of expection had happened. While everyone was going down through the evaucation exists, Lan and her team at Exit No. 04 were suddenly attacked by the Fallen Evils. Later, somebody noticed that many Fallen Evils used to be their colleagues on the lower level. It was quite shocking and incredible news. Nobody knew what had happened at the lower part of the building a few hours after the disruption. What they saw was a group of monsters with fallen cores transformed from ordinary staff members and martialists. Most people at the lower part of the Prism City were elites of the Association. What had made them betray the Association within half a day remained as a mystery. However, the moment they had chosen to merge with the fallen cores, they were no longer human. Even Roland was astonished at the turn of the event, let alone the rescue team at the scene. That was why Lan’s team had been caught offguard. It was a miracle that a few people managed to escape when the whole team was outnumbered and overpowered. However, the team leader Lan did not make it. Some Fallen Evils attacked her when she was trying to close a door. At these words, Garcia started to sob again. Roland handed her another glass of milk. After a moment of hesitation, he asked what concerned him most. He knew it was not a good time to ask a question like this, but he must know the answer. Roland took a deep breath and said, “These are all what the survivers reported to the headquarters, right? Did anyone actually see it when your master was killed?” Garcia would have retorted ferociously had she not been so perturbed and devastated. She croaked, “My master… my master blocked the switch that controls the door… Then she was torn to pieces by the Fallen Evils… Many people in her team saw it…” Her voice again perished into a suppressed sob. “… I’m sorry,” Roland sighed. He did not know what would happen to a dead person in the Dream World. Would she return to the Realm of Mind or completely disappear? If God did control almost everything in the Realm of Mind, neither would be a happy ending. Without the protection of the Dream World, Lan, as a traitor, would definitely be punished severely. Roland had a very good reason to suspect God, for this attack seemed to be targetting Lan. And Lan was not the only person God intended to eliminate. He wanted to tear down the whole Dream World. “If you lose this Dream World, then you’ll be shut out from the Realm of Mind forever,” Lan’s voice reverberated across his head. It appeared that there was going to be a Battle of Divine Will in the Dream World as well. His enemy, however, was neither the demons nor those in the Sky-sea Realm. He would be confronting God directly. … “Hold on…” She heard loud noises. Sometimes the noises were so far away, but sometimes they were suddenly so close. What had happened? She felt excruciating pain. It seemed that her leg was broken. She had never suffered so severe injuries before, not even at the upgrade ceremony. For a split second, she thought of death. “Ah, right, I’m dying,” she thought. She felt that her body gradually turn cold, her mind drifting off. She felt hard to concentrate. “Hold on…” The voice drew nearer. Was there somebody out there? Strange… she had heard this voice somewhere before. “Someone’s still alive here. Can anybody help me remove this stupid stone?” “She’s hurt badly. Quick, move!” “One, two, three!” Suddenly, the weight on her was lifted, and she was transferred to a soft bed. “Hold on. You’ll be OK,” someone talked to her from above. “The Association has sent for the best doctor and medical equipment. You’ll be fine once you get to the hospital!” “The Erosion expanded?” “By the way, you came from Cargarde Peninsula, right? What’s your name?” “My… my name?” “Yes, do you still remember it?” She used all her strength to reply. “… Valkries.”