After confirming that nothing had changed in his dream besides the silver energy, Alka controlled his flight and arrived next to the bubble membrane, but didn't immediately exit. He thinned the membrane, allowing him to see outside.
A quick glance revealed no significant changes outside. It remained the same as the previous route, filled with bizarre light and shadows, with occasional drifts of multicolored mist.
Alka then poked his head out.
Upon emerging, he discovered a creature of light and shadow he had never seen before, slowly approaching his dream bubble. Right in front of him, it began slicing through his dream with its sharp claws.
The damage these claws inflicted on his dream bubble was no longer comparable to the damage inflicted by the weaker creatures in the previous route, but instead truly caused a ripple within Alka's dream bubble.
Given the intensity of this wave, even if it were cut through all night, it might not cause any damage to the dream bubble.
However, this already demonstrated its difference from the weaker creatures before.
A pink spear appeared in Alka's hand, and he swung it out.
The moment it was swung out, the pink spear vanished. When it reappeared, it had already pierced the light and shadow creature completely.
The spear immediately disintegrated, transforming into a pink mist that completely enveloped it.
The light and shadow creature, composed of strange light, could be seen in extreme fear, frantically struggling.
However, it was in vain. The pink mist enveloped it tightly like a spider cocoon, then compressed until it completely transformed into a round pink mist ball, which floated into Alka's palm.
Alka looked at the pink mist ball in his palm.
This ball was larger than any Alka had previously obtained, indicating that the loot inside was even better.
Most of the cloud balls he'd previously acquired could be grasped with his hands, but this one was half the size of his own brain.
The cloud covering the surface vanished and merged into his body, and the loot contained within fell into his hands.
It was... a pitch-black branch, with two branches of varying lengths jutting out from it, and a small black leaf dangling from its base.
It looked as if it had just been plucked from a tree.
This must be a material.
A wooden material, while still possessing the usual dream attributes, possessed more of a nutrient-rich nature.
Although this was his first time seeing this material, he had no idea what its properties were.
Alka had no idea how to use it, so he simply tossed it into his dream bubble.
Then he looked around.
Dream bubbles of varying sizes filled the surroundings, and since he was likely on the island's edge, there were also numerous dream bubbles of land creatures.
However, without exception, these dream bubbles were small and transparent, indicating that they were the dreams of wild beasts.
Alka lowered his head and looked at the dreams of the crew members around him.
This glance made Alka frown.
When he looked at Simon's dream bubble, a dangerous glint suddenly appeared in his eyes.
Even after such a period of care, Simon's dream bubble was still slightly dimmer than the others'.
And it still had very fine cracks on it, indicating that the wounds within the soul were not easily healed.
This was even after their gods had slightly repaired it with treasures.
Among them, this dream seemed like a clear weakling.
Easy persimmons naturally attract people's attention. A massive, three-meter-tall, humanoid shadowy figure was using its hands to try to carve a hole in Simon's dream embrace. The problem was, it had already opened a gap, and tiny pink fragments began to ooze out. As the giant devoured the bubble, it used its fingers to pry it open further through the hole. This was the first time Alka had seen the dream bubbles of his crewmates damaged. A mirror immediately appeared on his face, and the guise of the Dream Grim Reaper materialized. A massive black scythe appeared in his hand. The scythe's trail was pink. A vast amount of energy merged into the scythe, and Alka swung it out. The scythe spiraled rapidly, then vanished in an instant. When it reappeared, its blade had already pierced the small giant's body. Silent roars echoed through the waves, and Alka could sense the shadow giant's pain.
But he showed no mercy. Two pink spears appeared in his hands again, hurling them swiftly.
The spears arrived in an instant, piercing his body from both sides once again.
The monster finally realized it was being attacked from behind and turned to see Alka.
Seeing Alka in his Dream Death costume, he showed no fear, but instead rage, roaring and snarling.
Several tiny arms sprouted from his armpits, firmly grasping the impaled scythes and pinning them to his body.
Then he sprinted, stampeding through the air, charging towards Alka.
This movement made Alka frown.
This shadow giant must have fought the Dream Death before.
When the thin, dark arms grasped the light-shadow scythe, it lost Alka's control and became firmly embedded in his body.
Without the scythe, the Dream Reaper's power was reduced by half.
The problem was that the Dream Reaper's most powerful attack involved channeling a special force into the scythe and then flinging it forward.
With perfect control of the scythe, it could achieve unexpected effects.
This situation immediately caused Alka to exit the Dream Reaper state, and the black scythe held in the Dark Reaper's chest shattered, creating a mirror-like effect.
The mirror surface faded into Alka's face.
A large amount of pink mist gushed out.
However, when Alka revealed his true form, the dream giant froze in its place, then fled in terror.
His expression was like that of the Dream Death God he had seen before, as if he had spotted his natural enemy.
However, the shadow giant's escape speed was far inferior to that of the Dream Death God. Even though he tried his best to escape, he remained within Alka's attack range.
Arka hurled spear after spear.
Quickly piercing the shadow giant.
Until the shadow giant could no longer run, even then, he showed no desire to resist and continued to retreat.
Fear was fully revealed. Even though his life was in grave danger, he had no intention of resisting, only to escape.
When Alka reached the shadow giant...
The black light and shadow around the shadow giant even began to dissipate, and fear spread wildly outward.
Arka frowned.
Is it really that serious? Terrified as hell.
The mist spear that had pierced the monster's body began to disintegrate, transforming into a pink cloud that enveloped it.
A roar of intense fear continued to emanate, and despite its ferocious struggles, it still couldn't break through the pink mist.
Until it completely enveloped it.
This was the first time Alka had defeated a monster that was clearly intelligent in a dream.
The Grim Reaper had fled so quickly in the previous dream. Looking at the enormous pink mist ball, nearly half a meter wide, Alka couldn't help but feel a surge of anticipation.
However, the pink mist ball continued to shrink, soon shrinking to the size of a palm.
It was even smaller than the previous pink mist balls.
Looking at the tiny pink mist ball in his hand, Alka frowned and then inhaled the mist on its surface.
Although the sphere of mist was small, it contained a vast amount. It took a long time to completely absorb it.
The object within was revealed.
Arka pinched the tiny round bead, only the size of his pinky finger, between his index finger and thumb and held it before his eyes.
It was a black pearl, almost pure black.
As it danced rapidly, a distinct black trailing shadow could be seen on its tail.
Looking at the pearl, a smile appeared on Arka's face.
Every trophy he possessed was known to him, and its effects were known.
This object was a typical energy block; simply put, it was filled with the energy of dreams.
Arka crushed it and threw it into his dream bubble.
Then he entered the dream bubble himself.
As the black pearl shattered, a large amount of golden light floated out, rapidly pouring into the crystal.
In an instant, a corner of the crystal was completely filled, and then these light and shadow energy balls began to dance throughout the crystal.
The golden energy brought by this tiny black pearl was greater than what Alka had gained in the months of dreams in the Forward Channel, even double the amount.
This energy harvest brought a smile to Alka's face.
As expected, the Forward Channel was truly a poor place.
However, when Alka thought about the limited amount of things this energy could accomplish, his smile gradually faded.
Even with the mirror connecting this energy to reduce consumption, it could still only create six lightning rods.
There was still a long way to go.
Afterwards, Alka returned to the outside world and eliminated the dream monsters surrounding the bubbles in everyone's dreams one by one.
These provided a lot of materials, and he crushed some of the less useful ones into energy.
Looking at the dream bubbles scattered around, and the various light and shadow monsters that came and went, there were so many monsters here.
And everyone on the ship might be awakened more and more often in the future.
We had to find a way to protect everyone's dreams. The dream world was becoming bustling, which was both good and bad.
But so far, Alka had no real clue.
With a slight sigh, Alka rebuilt the detection device.
Then he recalibrated the device, adding the parameters for the dream bubbles of the surrounding terrestrial creatures.
This would prevent the ripples from sweeping through the dreams of ordinary beasts.
Now, the only waves that would be reflected were the dreams of intelligent creatures, or those of powerful creatures.
The ripples began to spread outward.
Circle after circle.
Alka waited quietly in place.
According to his previous estimation based on distance, the distance of these detection ripples in the dream, if reflected in the real detection distance, would be approximately between 60 and 150 kilometers.
The fluctuations were enormous, and this was the actual ratio within the forward route.
He wondered if there would be any difference in this vast ocean, but Alka felt it was likely.
After all, it was chaotic enough here, so nothing should surprise him.
The first detection wave soon reflected back.
The reflected light waves were numerous.
The reflected waves then became more and more numerous, densely packed.
Alka immediately blocked and shut them off.
These reflected waves were like countless shrill alarms blaring frantically in his ears.
Such a large number of waves indicated that there was definitely intelligent life nearby, on this island.
Because the reflected waves were heading in the direction of the island.
Alka calculated the distance of the reflected energy and, after some thought, decided not to use the pink mist for propulsion as before.
Instead, he transformed himself into a Dream Reaper and flew swiftly.
This way, he could avoid alerting the surrounding light and shadow monsters and provide a certain degree of reconnaissance.
If he had simply revealed his true voice and used the pink mist for propulsion, it would have certainly alerted the surrounding monsters.
It would have likely scared off any intelligent Dream monsters.
Both the Dream Reaper and the shadowy giant had proven that they possessed a natural predator-like nature towards certain creatures within the dream.
They would have fled frantically upon seeing him, which clearly hindered his observation of the dream.
As he flew rapidly, the surroundings came into view.
The once-rare Dream Reapers had now become visible to two or three.
When Alka, transformed into the Dream Death, flew overhead, they all cast a glance of concern.
Alka also saw many different dream monsters.
However, most were on the same level as the Dream Death and the Shadow Giant, only with slightly different appearances.
Under normal circumstances, Alka would have observed them closely, but now was clearly not the time.
These dream creatures were also constantly fighting and preying on each other.
After a brief observation, Alka discovered that dream creatures could be roughly divided into three categories:
Light and shadow, black shadow, and mist.
Light and shadow creatures resembled a distorted combination of various colors, and the Dream Death fell into this category.
Their robes constantly changed color, but they maintained the distorted appearance of light and shadow.
Shadow creatures, like the Shadow Giant just now, were pure black shadows, as their name suggests. Next were the mist-like creatures. These were the least common, having been seen a few times in the dreams of the forward passage, though they were mostly small creatures like birds.
They were slightly less rare here, but still much rarer than the shadows and light shadows.
These mist-like creatures almost never attacked the dream bubbles.
At least, he hadn't seen any yet.
And neither the shadows nor the light shadows would attack them.
The shadows were the most aggressive and the most numerous monsters.
They would attack the shadow creatures and even each other.
Alka discovered that some shadow creatures would destroy dream bubbles, but some did not do so for prey, but simply for destruction.
The shadow creatures were not very aggressive, but they would still fight the shadow creatures.
They destroy bubbles to prey. At least during this recent trip, Alka hadn't seen any light and shadow creatures destroy bubbles without preying.
And he hadn't seen any light and shadow creatures attack each other.
At this stage, for example.
The mist creatures seem to be a very different entity in this dream world.
It's not clear what their specific purpose is, but they don't attack other creatures or dream bubbles.
The shadow creatures act like typical villains.
They fight each other and are extremely aggressive.
, possessing a strong desire for destruction.
But there are also intelligent beings among them, such as the shadow giant just now.
The light and shadow creatures behave like normal creatures in dreams, destroying dream bubbles to hunt.
When encountering shadow creatures, one must either evade or attack, as their aggression is much lower than that of shadow creatures.
I wonder if there are other dream creatures.
Alka continued to observe.
So far, no particularly powerful dream creatures have been discovered; the most powerful are probably at the level of giants and death gods.
He continued to observe while flying at a rapid speed.
After crossing a considerable distance, Alka finally arrived within the range of the wave's rebound.
Of all the emanating waves, almost three-quarters were concentrated in a single cluster, suggesting that this was some kind of gathering place in reality.
The scenery before him also confirmed this.
Countless bubbles, large and small, huddled together, their surfaces hazy, making it difficult to discern what lay within.
With so many huddled together, it was almost certain to be a colony of intelligent creatures.
Correspondingly, numerous dream monsters were also hunting nearby.