Meanwhile, on the other side, the instant Kiana and Acheron set off—
the light gate snapped shut behind them, and the smile on Aventurine's face vanished like makeup being wiped clean.
Silver Wolf's fingers were still dancing over her holographic keyboard, though they had slowed, as though she were carrying out some kind of cleanup work.
"They're in. Let's hope they can pull it off," Silver Wolf said without looking up.
"Mm." Aventurine gave a quiet response, his eyes still fixed on the spot where the gate had disappeared.
"You really think they can do it?" Silver Wolf suddenly asked.
Aventurine turned around, his trademark smile returning to his face. "Does it matter whether I believe in them or not? We can't get in anyway, can we?"
Silver Wolf scoffed. "Cut the act. Since when did a company man become so selfless?"
Aventurine did not answer right away.
"I just think," he said slowly, "some things matter more than the company's little performance numbers."
"That coming from you sounds seriously wrong."
"Yeah." Aventurine laughed at himself. "If Jade heard me say that, she'd probably think some Swarm bug had parasitized my brain."
For once, Silver Wolf looked up at him and, unusually, did not continue mocking him.
In the end, it was Black Swan who broke the silence.
"Gentlemen, I imagine this dreamscape will collapse very soon. I believe we should leave."
Neither Silver Wolf nor Aventurine had any objection.
The trip back to Penacony's waking world went much more smoothly than the way in.
Silver Wolf seemed to have planned every route in advance, every step landing neatly in the seams of the Family's defensive network.
"Miss Hacker, you seem to do this sort of thing a lot," Aventurine said as he followed behind, a teasing note in his voice.
"First time."
"Really?"
"I'm lying." Silver Wolf replied flatly. "But I'm not telling you the real answer."
A dangerous glint flickered in Aventurine's eyes. "At this rate, when I get back to the company, I may have to recommend that your bounty be raised again."
"Hmph. Be my guest."
After a while, with Silver Wolf and Black Swan working together, the three of them returned to the real White Night Hotel. But the atmosphere between them had turned distinctly strange.
Aventurine leaned against the bar counter, tapping the surface with his fingers in a slow, irregular rhythm.
Silver Wolf sat cross-legged on a nearby sofa, a floating keyboard suspended before her. Dense lines of data flashed across the screen, yet seemed to capture nothing.
Black Swan stood by the front desk, and for once her expression was visibly grave.
At this point, the three of them were the only people left awake in all of Penacony.
"So what now? Do we just wait?" Aventurine was the first to speak.
Silver Wolf only shot him a sideways glance. "What else? It's not like you can go in and help them."
"Can't help, can't even ask?" Aventurine shrugged. "I put in work too. It's only reasonable to care about my investment returns."
Only then did Silver Wolf look up, her mouth curling into something like a smirk. "Since when do you make losing bets? Owing two Emanators a favor isn't exactly a low return."
Aventurine did not deny it. He simply smiled.
But then Black Swan, who had been silent the longest, finally moved.
She turned, her gaze sweeping over the two of them. "Gentlemen, do neither of you find it strange that so much time has already passed?"
The hall fell silent once more.
This time, neither Aventurine nor Silver Wolf said a word.
Because this was the very subject they had all been avoiding.
"Three system hours," Black Swan said, her voice echoing through the empty lobby, tinged with anxiety.
"At the normal flow of time, they should be nearly finished by now. Yet up to this moment, I haven't sensed even the slightest change in Penacony."
Silver Wolf's fingers stopped above the keyboard. Data still flickered across the screen, but there was no sign of anything unusual.
"Maybe the time flow's different?" she said, though her tone lacked conviction.
"With all of Penacony now sinking into Order, maybe the dreamscape can't be measured by normal standards anymore."
Black Swan immediately dismissed the possibility. "Miss Silver Wolf, please do not doubt my professional competence as a Memokeeper."
"At the very least, up to now, the time flow in Penacony remains normal."
Aventurine cut in, "Could your senses have been screened out somehow?"
"That is Gopher Wood's stronghold, after all. It would be strange if it didn't have some kind of defensive mechanism."
Black Swan did not deny that either. "Perhaps. But I have a very bad feeling."
At that, Silver Wolf finally snapped, "Ugh, stop saying things like that."
"If even those two Emanators failed, then what? Are we supposed to do it ourselves? What—break the dreamscape three times over, one layer per person?"
Don't joke around. If even Emanators couldn't break it, what were the three of them supposed to do?
Both Aventurine and Black Swan merely glanced at her.
Instantly, Silver Wolf fell silent.
Fine. She admitted she had been fooling herself a bit. But what exactly was she supposed to do in a situation like this?
She hadn't recalled Elio saying this instance would be this hard to clear.
The two Emanators everyone had pinned their hopes on hadn't even managed to break a single layer of the dream. So what else could they do?
And at last, Black Swan voiced the possibility none of them had wanted to admit.
"Order's Path is reviving more and more. Sunday... is nearly there."
"At this very moment, the company's battleships are gathering, and Preservation has begun to seep into the dream. That is preventing Sunday from fully ascending, but only for the time being."
"Right now, no one from outside can enter, and no one inside can leave. If we do not think of something soon, perhaps everything will truly be over."
At those words, Silver Wolf finally dropped the last of her restraint.
"Hmph. So it's just three layers of dream, right? Then we'll go ourselves. Once I unlock my new form, Lord Wolf won't necessarily be any worse than those Emanators."
"Well? You two planning to hold me back?!"
This time, it was Black Swan and Aventurine who went quiet.
Unlike Silver Wolf, who had suddenly become inflated with confidence, they truly were not that sure of themselves.
Let alone rivaling an Emanator—they were not even in peak condition right now.
"Ahem, Miss Silver Wolf, please calm down," Aventurine said.
"So long as the Interastral Peace Corporation stands, the galaxy has no need for a second kind of Order."
Black Swan only gave him a cool glance.
"But that changes nothing for us, Mr. Aventurine. If I understand you correctly, are you saying the company still has a backup plan?"
Aventurine smiled faintly. "Miss Memokeeper, time to recall something. On the way back, I said a line to the two of you."
"So long as I have not revealed my final card, no one dares follow the bet all the way through. And now... it is time to turn that card over."
"A shard of Jade's light still sleeps deep within the dream. And its release does not require its wielder to be present."
At the same time, aboard the company warship outside Penacony—
reading the intelligence Aventurine had just sent, Jade furrowed her brow.
"Lady Jade, has Mr. Aventurine sent new information?" Topaz asked from the side.
Jade nodded.
"He has. The worst possibility may be about to unfold. The recovery of Order's Path is proceeding faster than expected. Everyone in Penacony has fallen into the dream. At this point, only Preservation can break the deadlock."
Topaz fell quiet for a moment.
"...Then what about Miss Kallen? As a Preservation Emanator, has even she fallen into the dream?"
For once, Jade had no ready answer.
According to Aventurine, after Miss Kallen sold him out once, she had vanished without a trace.
It was difficult not to suspect something had happened to her.
Though Kallen was undeniably powerful, Aventurine had also sent back more intelligence.
There wasn't only one Emanator in Penacony now.
Preservation. Nihility. Destruction.
No one had expected the Charmony Festival this time to draw in three Emanators of different Paths.
And under the combined assault of Nihility and Destruction, they still had not managed to break even Sunday's first dream layer.
At this point, even Jade had run out of confidence.
If Kallen had truly died in Penacony, then even if the company succeeded in its "acquisition" of Penacony, the operation would still be an utter failure.
Still, there was no room left to dwell on that.
Stopping Sunday's ascension came first.
And now, only Preservation could become the true key to breaking the stalemate.
Jade stepped up to the fore, then slowly opened her heart and mind.
"I come to witness, I come to pour the wine, I come to claim."
"I bestow poisoned nectar in the guise of ambrosia, planting in spring and harvesting in autumn, waiting quietly for the branches to hang heavy with withered fruit."
"All for... the Amber Lord!"
As Jade's incantation ended, a Cornerstone long forgotten within Penacony finally burst into its rightful radiance.
The Cornerstone called Jade released the desires of every dreamer in Penacony.
Then, it extended Preservation's promise.
In an instant, heaven and earth were transformed.
Jade's light exploded deep within Penacony's dreamscape like a newborn sun.
It was a cold radiance, like judgment cast down by the Amber Lord, devoid of all mercy, containing only absolute order.
Qlipoth's silhouette gradually took shape within that light, vast enough to split the boundaries of the dream itself.
And then, He raised His colossal hammer and slowly brought it down toward Sunday.
Everyone held their breath.
Everyone waited.
They waited for the hammer of Preservation to shatter Penacony's dream once and for all.
But there was one exception.
A single figure stepped into the path of that hammer.
That figure was so slender that, set against Qlipoth's immensity, she seemed no more than a reed in a storm.
And yet it was that reed that barred the path of a blow capable of crushing dreams.
Yes.
It was Kallen.
And she had waited a very, very long time for this moment.
Now, as long as she could survive this strike, this Penacony operation would be her overwhelming victory.
In the next instant, Kallen threw herself directly at that attack.
"Cough—!"
Blood spilled from the corner of her lips, strikingly bright against the cold amber light.
This was a blow beyond imagination.
Kallen felt her bones scream. Every inch of muscle in her body was being torn apart by that force.
She clenched her teeth, trying desperately not to let a single sound escape.
Yet her vision was already beginning to blur, and the sounds around her were growing faint.
Even Qlipoth's figure splintered in her sight, only to pull itself back together with the next beat of her heart.
But none of that mattered.
Every bit of this was worth it.
This was the chance she had been waiting for.
So long as she survived this strike—
Another mouthful of blood.
This time, even more of it, spilling down her chin and splashing onto the dream's frozen ground like a dark red flower.
Kallen's vision went white, then cleared for a heartbeat.
Her fingers dug into the cracks on the hammer's surface. The skin at her fingertips had long since been worn through, exposing the raw red flesh beneath.
Pain.
It hurt. It truly hurt.
It hurt more than she could possibly describe.
Kallen swore that in her entire life, she had never known pain like this.
But she did not let go.
Grinding her teeth, she forced out the last shreds of strength in her body and pushed the hammer upward by a single inch.
At last, Qlipoth's silhouette changed, just slightly.
His hammer lifted a fraction, as if weighing something, or perhaps judging something.
Then the hammer fell again.
This time, Kallen heard the sound of her bones breaking.
Not one.
Many.
From shoulder to wrist, they shattered one after another.
The strength went out of both her arms at once, and the force drove her down onto one knee.
Even then, she still did not release her grip.
Not because she still had the strength to hold on.
But because her fingers had already been wedged into the fractured metal of the hammer itself, mangled and trapped there so tightly that even if she wanted to let go, she couldn't.
The pain had already passed beyond what language could describe.
Kallen's sight dissolved into a blinding white, where she could see nothing and hear nothing.
Nothing but her heartbeat.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Still beating.
Still alive.
Who knew how long passed—perhaps one second, perhaps an hour—before the weight of the hammer suddenly vanished.
Qlipoth's silhouette began to disperse, as though it had never appeared at all.
The amber light withdrew from the edges of the dream, revealing gray skies and broken buildings beneath.
Kallen knelt where she was, her arms hanging limp at her sides, bent at impossible angles.
But she had survived.
She had endured that strike of Preservation from Qlipoth himself.
And at that very moment, the skill Adapt to All Things finally began to activate.
Kallen could feel it clearly: some part of her was rising at a terrifying speed.
[Ding! Passive skill activated. Kallen has acquired a new passive: Preservation Resistance.]
[Preservation Resistance: Any attack related to Preservation will now deal 50% reduced damage. As more such attacks are received, this attribute will continue to increase.]
At last, Kallen had obtained the seed capital she needed to betray Preservation.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
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Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 230
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Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
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The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 120
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 67
Uma Musume: From Beginner 135
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 85
Uma Musume: I Want All 110
I Can Copy Unique Skills 100
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Checking In in Demon Slayer 80
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 85
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Emiya Shirou, Determined to Slay Every Curse and Evil Spirit 45
The Uma Musume Who Became 40
I'm Definitely Not the King of 45
After Maxing Out Every Class 45
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