229: Chapter 230 [The One Who Soothes], [The One Who Blossoms], [The One Who Remembers]

In a nature reserve in the northern United States, mad, hoarse roars and eerily twisting figures disrupted the forest's former tranquility. The [Power of Madness], flowing through a [Dream Gate] located at a pond within the nature reserve, was affecting all life within a range of several thousand meters.

The first to be affected were not the carnivorous wild animals, but rather the usually gentlest herbivores. The deer herd's necks twisted erratically, as if they would snap and die the next moment. Their mouths, constantly emitting terrifying roars, had long since dislocated their jaws, with bright red blood flowing from the corners. A brown bear twisted its body exaggeratedly, beating its chest as if it were a drum; its sunken chest was covered in bloody marks from its own sharp paws. A squirrel, clutching a pinecone, jumped and spun in mid-air while slamming its caved-in head against the hard stones by the roadside. All the animals' eyes were bloodshot, constantly using their bodies to perform a mad "dance" and "performance."

And all humans who saw or heard the frantic behavior of these wild animals would instantly fall into an incomprehensible madness: they would ignore the excruciating pain of their bodies being torn apart, twisting their bodies and dancing wildly. Accompanied by the sounds of bones breaking, shattering, and grinding, they bent their limbs at unnatural angles. Even if they fainted from impact or excruciating pain, their bodies would still uncontrollably dance, and the accompaniment to this mad dance was the meaningless, frantic howling of humans. Only when someone died of exhaustion from the mad dance, bled to death, or was "accidentally" killed by the equally mad wild animals, would that desperate madness be considered relieved—if having their limbs used as part of the mad performance of other wild animals and humans counted as relief. The entire nature reserve had already turned into a giant stage where life was polluted by a mad meme.

At this moment, the high-level [Host] with the A-rank [Talent] [The Soother], [Light Seeker], was walking slowly into this land of madness. He was a young man abandoned since childhood, innately blind. His plain cotton and linen clothes were washed until they were faded white. In his hand, he held a blind man's cane that seemed to be made from a branch picked up by the roadside. Beside him followed a snow-white guide-dog-type [Dream Spirit], [Qiming]. [Qiming]'s fur shimmered with a faint white light. Its nose sniffed the bloody scent in the air, and its bright, large eyes looked around vigilantly, steadily guiding [Light Seeker] forward. With every step taken, the ground beneath his feet became smooth under a fleeting white light.

As the owner of the [The Soother] [Talent], the blind [Light Seeker] did not need to rely on hearing to clearly perceive the [Power of Madness] permeating the air. It was a force that made life lose control, with disorder and accidents constantly wanting to drag him into this large-scale mad performance.

[Light Seeker] did not violently release powerful energy; instead, as he walked slowly, he allowed strands of soft, milky-white halo to radiate from his body. This halo spread slowly with his footsteps, and even under the noon sun, it was still as conspicuous as a glimmer in the darkness, continuously spreading to the side of the mad wild animals and humans.

[Qiming] gently rubbed its head against a coyote beside it. The coyote, having escaped the state of madness due to [Light Seeker]'s [Talent], was now fast asleep. As the white glimmer from [Qiming]'s fur drifted onto the coyote, the coyote, with its broken limbs, recovered from its injuries at an astonishing speed. Comfortably yawning, the coyote rolled over, exposing its soft belly, its tail wagging rapidly like a broom.

Wherever [Light Seeker] passed, the deer herd, brown bears, squirrels... all the wild animals and humans escaped that desperate madness and fell into a quiet sleep. Under the influence of the white light spots drifting from [Qiming]'s fur, any life that was still breathing had its injuries rapidly self-heal. But following this, their bodies visibly withered, as the body's self-healing also required energy consumption.

[Light Seeker] stopped, reached out, and patted [Qiming]'s head. The little guy happily let out a "woof," its tail wagging rapidly behind it. The white glimmer in its fur brightened rapidly until it formed a huge white ball of light, enveloping the man and the dog. As [Light Seeker] poked his blind man's cane toward the ground with a "thud," the milky-white halo generated by the [Talent] lifted the white ball of light into the air. With a "boom," it exploded into white light fragments that filled the sky, drifting toward the entire nature reserve.

Wherever the white light fragments drifted, the mad life was soothed to sleep, and damaged bodies were rapidly self-healing. [Light Seeker] did not linger, and under [Qiming]'s guidance, he continued to walk slowly through the reserve, as if he were just strolling leisurely through the forest to enjoy the noon sun.

At a pyramid buried beneath the desert in the Pharaoh's Kingdom, as yellow sand flew all over the sky, the lost pyramid revealed its silhouette before the world. Under the erosion of the [Power of Desolation], the mummies sleeping in the pyramid's tomb pushed open the lids of their sarcophagi, stumbled out of the pyramid, and manipulated the yellow sand to form sand tornadoes. The power of the [Lord of Desolation] eroded this ancient land along with the sand tornadoes, causing the already barren desert to completely lose its life.

The high-level [Host] with the A-rank [Talent] [The Bloomer], [Flower Arranger], walked along a path paved with blooming small white flowers, heading toward the sand tornadoes controlled by a dozen mummies. [Flower Arranger] was a young girl dressed in an elegant floral dress, her ink-black hair loosely tied up, with a wooden hairpin pinned in her hair—that was her [Dream Spirit], [Flower Spirit Hairpin]. The hairpin body was carved with patterns of countless blooming flowers, and the head of the hairpin was constantly blooming with tiny white flowers. A verdant halo of vitality drifted down with the blooming flowers onto the yellow sand eroded by the [Power of Desolation], bringing vitality to it once again. The path of vitality formed by these white flowers and the desolation brought by the sand tornadoes formed a stark contrast.

As the owner of the [The Bloomer] [Talent], [Flower Arranger] could make any object bloom with flowers, whether it was trees, soil, steel, magma, or even mummies.

[Flower Arranger] looked at the wandering mummies, raised her hand to gently twist the [Flower Spirit Hairpin] in her hair, and the small flowers blooming on the hairpin head suddenly flew away. She whispered: "Flowers bloom to cover the earth, breaking desolation to return spring." Following her words, [Flower Spirit Hairpin] was pulled from her hair and suspended in front of her. As the hairpin body rotated, countless delicate and beautiful flowers bloomed from it. Red roses, yellow sea buckthorn, purple saxaul flowers... various characteristic flowers of the desert region drifted down from the hairpin. Petals of various colors scattered like a rain of stars in all directions, some falling on the yellow sand, some on the mummies' linen cloth, and some even on the stone bricks of the pyramid.

The beautifully blooming flowers brought vitality to the desolation; where they drifted, they even formed one super-small oasis after another. The oases continuously expanded and connected as the falling flowers increased.

The flowers drifting toward the sand tornadoes caused the sand grains constituting the sand tornadoes to bloom into flowers of sand. In less than 10 seconds, the sand tornadoes turned into flower tornadoes, and immediately after, into a sky filled with flower rain.

The flowers that landed on the mummies continuously absorbed the [Power of Desolation] within the mummies, using it as nourishment to bloom even more delicately and beautifully.

Looking at the pyramid covered in various flowers before her, [Flower Arranger] raised her hand to recall the [Flower Spirit Hairpin], pinned it back into her hair, turned around elegantly, and walked toward the path she had come from. As [Flower Arranger] left, the blooming flowers withered rapidly, and the oases also shrank and disappeared at high speed. Only the land that had been eroded by the [Power of Desolation] restored its original vitality because of this.

At the same time, in a small inland country in Central Europe, it was being turned upside down by the [Power of Plunder]. The [Power of Plunder] forcibly plundered the "memory" of all the citizens. Influenced by this, the citizens of the entire country could not remember more than three things in their minds at the same time—just opened a water cup and forgot to drink, just walked out of the house and forgot where to go, just received change and forgot what they bought. Even the children in class could not remember what they had just heard the teacher say a second ago.

The entire country had fallen into unprecedented confusion and chaos: shops on the street were left unattended, with owners mechanically and repeatedly placing the same item; cars on the road collided, and drivers saved by airbags forgot how to breathe; parents holding their children's hands would turn their heads and forget who was beside them; police in the police station paced back and forth at the restroom door, forgetting the fact that they needed to use the restroom. All citizens stopped in place, their eyes hollow and confused, repeatedly murmuring the three things they could currently remember. The production and life of the entire country had completely stagnated, and the air was filled with thick helplessness and panic.

The high-level [Host] with the A-rank [Talent] [The Rememberer], [Storyteller], climbed a long flight of stairs and finally reached the highest building in the country's capital—the clock tower of the King's Castle. [Storyteller] was a young man dressed in a moon-white long gown, with a gentle smile always on his lips. In his hands, he held a yellowed thread-bound book—that was his [Dream Spirit], [Book of Records]. The edges of the pages were slightly curled, and the four characters "Book of Records" were written on the cover. A faint bronze radiance shimmered between the pages. Gently flipping through them, one could see the illusory text flowing on them; that was the memory and history recorded within.

[Storyteller] stood at the top of the clock tower, looking at the city in chaos beneath his feet. His fingertips gently brushed over the pages of [Book of Records], and when he spoke, there was a gentle tone unique to a storyteller: "Memory, return." Following his words, [Book of Records] opened slowly by itself. The pages moved without wind, and countless illusory pages shimmering with bronze radiance drifted out from the book, like snow falling all over the sky, covering every corner of the entire city.

These illusory pages looked thin and light, but they carried the weight of memory and history, landing on every citizen affected by the [Power of Plunder]. As the illusory pages gently merged into the bodies of the citizens, they opened the door of memory locked by the [Power of Plunder] like a key. The eyes of all citizens became bright again; with the return of memory ability, people were no longer confused, and social order was rapidly restored.

[Storyteller] watched [Book of Records] write this [Real World Task] into its pages, closed the pages with satisfaction, and turned to walk down the clock tower. The castle guards passing by him seemed unable to see him and continued to patrol the castle, while [Storyteller] also walked past shops, roads, and police stations as if no one was there. [Book of Records] faithfully recorded everything around. From beginning to end, [Storyteller] was never discovered, disappearing at the end of the road like a ghost.