Chapter 976: Chapter 974: Value
The perspective shifts back to the central building, where William is waiting to meet the boss.
Although he verbally expresses various discontent and doesn’t want to wait, it takes more than an hour to finally obtain permission to meet the boss. However, such a wait time is considered very brief, or rather, just being able to apply for a meeting with the boss is quite a rare occurrence.
Going to the floor where the boss is located is quite cumbersome, requiring multiple elevator transfers and crossing several staircases of surreal geometry.
After spending a total of four hours, William finally arrives at the upper district of the building, where the floor height exceeds the world’s limit and is even completely separated from the City of Evil, nestled in the unstable gap between planes.
This floor has a vast horizontal area and is made of panoramic glass. Walking through the glass corridors, one can clearly see extremely unstable subspace turbulence with various deep red particles colliding against the glass surface.
Even the chaotic spatial turbulence projects images from different regions of the City of Evil, as if walking here allows one to monitor the entire city.
The glass corridors spiral upwards, stretching to a vertical height of a thousand meters.
When William arrives at the top with light footsteps, what appears before him is an old wooden door that does not fit modern architecture. But the sinister aura seeping from the cracks in the door makes even William shiver, although this is quickly suppressed by a smile.
"Phew~ The pressure is still so intense..."
William pauses at the door for a moment to adjust his tie’s position, takes a deep breath, and gently pats his shoulder, indicating to the little grape inside not to peer into any of the upcoming areas.
Buzz!
Like switching planes,
one second it’s a spiral corridor of panoramic glass, the next, he steps directly into a European medieval style mansion, with only a few corner candles burning, the faint light reflecting a ’constraint chair’ at the center of the hall.
This is a metal chair capable of restraining limbs, with the backrest equipped with a needle headband, rusted over many years.
William says no excess words; having been here once before, he’s well aware of the rules, so he walks straight into the hall and lets himself sit down! With the restraint of his hands and feet and the wearing of the headband, part of his view is blocked by wire.
Clack~ Clack~
Steps sound like they’re treading on the surface of a heart and soul,
in the view appears a man cloaked in white, slowly descending along the staircase from the second floor, his steps slow but seemingly skipping frames, appearing closer with each step.
Like the staff who welcomed him downstairs, the face under the hood is indistinct, as if obscured by a mosaic.
Descending the final steps, a frame skip lands him in front of William,
Swish!
A cold hand thrusts into William’s physical form, extracting the document containing all signatures from within him, meticulously checking the signatures and lingering a while at Hannibal’s signature.
As this person adds the final signature, the paper turns to ash, some unseen authority and rule already taking effect on William.
No communication, no interaction between them.
The restraint device on William and the door behind him simultaneously open, indicating he can leave.
"Thank you, boss~ You sure are silent~ But that’s good, less talking saves time. Too bad, I just love a bit of chatter, ramble ramble~"
William can’t contain his inner joy, humming a tune and walking away with cheerful steps.
Who would have thought, just as he’s near the door, the office which might not see a visitor for one or two months suddenly welcomes a ’second’ visitor today, or rather, a family’s visit.
The visitor is the ’Eighth Disaster’.
William quickly waves his arms in large motions to greet them, "Hello~ Mr. Wilson, Mrs., and the two little ones! What a coincidence, aren’t you fond of living underground? Coming this high, aren’t you afraid of heights?"
William’s proactive greeting also carries social phobia; the moment he finishes speaking, his mouth is stitched shut, with the eldest daughter holding a needle and thread from nowhere, her face full of disgust.
William doesn’t mind, he grabs the corner of his mouth, slowly lifting the skin, and with a forceful tear~ Swish!
The stitched mouth skin is completely torn away, becoming a permanent bloodied grin where gum tissue is fully exposed. He then bows to the boss and says with this bloodied smile:
"Looks like the Eighth Disaster has something important to discuss with you, boss. May I sit in? Perhaps there’s something I can assist with?"
Seeing no action from the boss counts as acquiescence; William obediently stands at the door with a well-behaved expression.
It’s ’Mom’ who delivers the message, recounting their encounter at the subway station.
"Using a brain soaked in a metal container, they linked the dreams of two people together. Severe physical changes occurred during the dreaming period, with varying degrees of surface wounds appearing as if events within the dream were synchronously mapped to reality. This mapping is very peculiar, a method I have never seen before.
I intended for the children to try this special brain dream; however, the other party was very alert, having set up advanced illusion techniques beforehand, allowing them to escape.
Since they are part of a crew, per rules, it’s inconvenient for our family to go in and capture them.
In my view, this kind of special brain that can blur the boundary between reality and dreams, it’s essential to report it to you here."
Suddenly, William interrupts from the door, "Removing the boundary between dreams and reality is a minor task—I can do it too~ What’s the big deal? Reporting this here, I was wondering what it was! Don’t waste the boss’s time, let’s go down together."
William’s words receive no response,
The boss, under the white cloak, perpetually obscured by electromagnetic interference revealing no face, suddenly performs an instantaneous movement to appear before ’Mom’, and with a palm atop the head, directly extracts memory images.
Though the family is concerned about Mom’s status, none dare move recklessly.
As the boss completes the memory browsing from a first-person perspective, a gentle nod acknowledges the importance of this matter.
Mom displays a sinister smile, discerning the significance of the issue, "Seems it’s truly valuable; need us to capture that person back? With permission to go to the crew to capture people, we will definitely bring them back in the shortest time."
A white sheet of paper falls swiftly; the boss quickly writes related words on it, enabling disaster-level ’forced intervention’ regardless of rules.
The smiling William turns to the boss, "Such an interesting matter, can I join in? If those murderers aren’t too obedient, I can help subdue them after all that uncontrollable mask is pretty dangerous.
And I promise not to steal credit from your family, merely promote our internal friendship!"
The boss appears eager to swiftly resolve this matter; as William proposes his assistance, another sheet lands in his hand,
Buzz!
He awakes simultaneously with the family, everyone seated on the lobby sofa at the bottom of the building. There are no elevators here at all, as if they had never gone above, merely had a nap.