Dimensional Hotel-Chapter 631: Deep Descent

Thus, the dreaming puppet drifted in its own dream realm, floating from one tangled, shattered memory to another.

No longer pondering who she was, nor where she came from, "Erin" and "Omen" transformed into two insignificant symbols, merging into a pure, indistinguishable perspective. Occasionally, this perspective would "stream" into other dream realms—where she could see towering Spider Web Towers, witness the Shelter Calculation Center built by priests and scholars, see towering peaks, and beneath them, the city lights stretching endlessly, along with the dancing maidens in front of the divine temple, offering sweet water and egg yolk pastries...

She saw herself set out from the Alice Puppet gathering place, embarking on her first task since her creation, saw herself brimming with confidence, fearless even when knowing she might face an Alien God's descent, saw herself climbing up that Tower, bravely confronting the uncontrolled Exotic Gods at the Tower Top's warped time-space—she saw herself leap high, striking with courage and determination just as the Lady of Falling Stars had taught...

But she couldn't reach the top, even jumping couldn't hit, her enemy was so tall, so tall... 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Erin's perspective jumped between different memories and viewpoints, and for a moment she even felt she was on the brink of waking from this groggy dream, but suddenly she sank into the next layer of the dream—the battle was already over, the surroundings seemed settled, she saw the colossal Spider Goddess fallen in the courtyard of the divine temple, her shell lying beside it. In that battle, the puppet and the Alien God struck a deal; with their mutual deaths, they sealed away the disaster of loss of control in a forgotten Exotic Realm...

But this matter has already passed.

Erin thought so—"World Bridge" had already been devoured by Yu Sheng, she saw it with her own eyes, even this temple ruin now whisked away by Yu Sheng, at this moment it's floating above the long-haired princess' Tower. Lately, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White are even considering turning that place into a haunted house...

The little puppet floated in the cracks of memory and illusion, floated above the ruins of the Omen Divine Temple at the top of World Bridge, pondering on and off—unaware of how much time had passed—dream realm time seemed not to flow, and when she finally woke, she found the divine temple and peaks had vanished without a trace.

A pitch-black tower floated in a chaotic space crevice.

"Ah, it's the World Bridge…"

Erin muttered, gently landing on that tower, she looked around, seeing all directions only filled with faintly glowing chaotic mist, the shattered World Bridge behind seemed consumed by something unseen, the tower structure ahead extended infinitely into the mist, seemingly leading somewhere.

She rubbed her eyes, suddenly noticing her golden hair had somehow turned jet black.

"How odd… I entered this dream using my original form... who changed my skin…"

She murmured to herself, instinctively walking forward along the black tower's outer wall.

Behind Erin, the remaining structure of the black tower was swallowed by dense fog as she walked past, seemingly falling into nothingness.

She walked a long time, nearly forgetting she was still dreaming, when the boundless mist suddenly dispersed.

As if crossing a barrier, she entered a concealed time-space—the World Bridge connected to this time-space at one end—Erin saw the land below floating amid chaos, with densely packed yet distinctly separated city-states and villages distributed across it, fragmented city walls standing at the edge, giants and fierce beasts guarding the walls and castles, and dragons circling above distant collapsing ruins.

Erin also saw massive obsidian pillars rising amidst the city-states, seemingly functioning as some stabilizing device, firmly "nailed" to this precarious Floating Continent.

Erin didn't linger, continued descending along the World Bridge, and as she approached the Floating Continent, she saw the base of the tower's situation—the part connecting the "Tower" was a central region of the Floating Continent, there existed a dreadful great hollow, in which floated an island seemingly specifically made to connect with the tower, the island's edge fragmented, unstable rift structures and energy flows regenerating ceaselessly.

Erin rubbed her eyes.

"...Oh isn't this the place where I started to climb the tower... what a detour..."

She suddenly stopped, glancing back—upwards the dark tower extended infinitely into the sky, the top of the tower concealed within the massive time-space rift, at the rift's end, the Black Star hung high.

Only the figure of the Spider Goddess was gone.

Erin blinked, lowered her head, saw an enormous spider shell clinging to the black tower.

No wonder she crawled head down along the tower so steadily, it turned out eight legs held onto the wall.

The next second, the puppet (?) was shocked into a cold sweat: "...Motherhen could it be one of me holding a frying pan is going to crawl up from below!? It's always like this in the games… what kind of wicked dream doesn't wake..."

But the fact was Erin was just scaring herself, she hung on the tower for ages, yet no other golden-haired puppet holding a frying pan appeared on the fragmented floating island below.

Only then did she finally remember to mind the distant scenery.

She crawled backward a bit, climbed to higher ground, surveying the city-states, ruins, banners, villages on the opposite side of the floating island, along with the dragons hovering in the sky like some cycle of surmising memory fragments.

The little puppet's brain doesn't work too well.

But suddenly she had a flash of inspiration, and the knowledge she had previously heard from Baili Qing and Yu Sheng fit the scene before her eyes.

"...Wow! Is this the Boundary Land? Did the Boundary Land used to look like this?!"

Puppet (Omen) exclaimed in shock, and without realizing, her legs loosened their grip on the high wall. The scene before her spun, and Erin let out a "Oh my!" as she fell from the tower.

The entire Boundary Land began to roll and transform in her view. She saw the obsidian pillars silently collapse, a giant dragon plummet towards the city-state, and the distant broken city walls first disappear into a purple mist. Then, the entire continent started to collapse inward and reassemble, creatures that walked on the land disappeared one by one like soap bubbles. She also heard a voice echo in this "suspected Boundary Land" space-time—

"...Stop simulation, current...compatibility insufficient, switching to next template...activating Council..."

But the subsequent words were inaudible, and Erin was still tumbling downward. She waved her eight long legs futilely, realizing at that moment that the length of her legs wasn't very useful—she plummeted solidly onto the broken island at the base of the tower, but then something incredible happened.

She crashed "through" this place.

Just like passing through a model, she briefly felt contact with the ground and then passed through what was marked as "ground". She found herself still falling, and the "World Bridge" that seemed to just connect to the Boundary Land...had extending structures below!

Erin watched as the scene marked "ground" receded in her view, watched the black tower pierce through the surface structure of the Boundary Land and continue extending downward in the darkness. She kept falling along the route of the World Bridge, passing through countless layers of bizarre lights and shadows—falling as if for a century, until she suddenly felt herself slow down.

But she only slowed for a moment before dropping solidly onto the ground.

Fortunately, she landed on soft cushioning—a tall patch of nameless wild grass.

Erin lay on her back amid the tall grass, feeling like her waist was about to break—since her upper body connects to her spider torso at a ninety-degree angle. This structure led to her upper body either crashing into the ground or bending her waist at ninety degrees if she were lying on the ground.

She wasn't sure which was the more unlucky situation, but obviously, the second one would hurt her waist a lot.

Not yet familiar with her spider form, the Omen Puppet summarized another cold fact of being the Spider Goddess—unless necessary, don't sleep lying down.

Erin then began grimacing as she attempted to climb up—a challenging task for a Spider Goddess unfamiliar with her body. She shook back and forth vigorously until she finally found the right angle to exert her arms, and after several strong pushes, managed to rise from a lying position and support her nearly broken waist.

On this matter she felt grateful, because fortunately her waist bent forward—if she tilted back upon falling, it would have truly broken.

She was always a cheerful puppet.

After slightly moving her body and confirming her joints weren't broken, Erin raised her head to curiously observe this place.

A vast wilderness stretched endlessly, a gray and chaotic sky above, with the black tower (World Bridge) piercing a large hole in the sky, slightly tilted and connected to the land—it looked as if it had punctured the heavens and earth.

The spot where she landed was next to the tower.

Blinking, Erin found herself in a familiar déjà vu moment, as this place felt like a small hill in the wilderness.

Tall grass flourished on the hill, wind blowing in from the direction of the expanse, solitary and cold.

To be honest, there wasn't much scenery on this hill—especially since the fallen World Bridge smashed nearly half of it.

The collapsed hillside structure was piled up alongside the black tower base of the World Bridge. Large chunks fallen from the tower, debris from the hill, and some strange items like shredded vines slid down the broken slope, reaching the plains at the foot, appearing as a scene of a violent impact.

And Erin stood now on the still intact half of the hill.

"...This place looks kind of familiar."

The puppet muttered to herself.