Light Barrier

A desert.

An endless expanse of sand.

White grains of sand swirled in the air, and heat waves swept through, distorting the distant horizon.

Gu Shen opened his eyes. His first reaction was to look down and check his body. Seeing that it was still intact, he breathed a sigh of relief. Phew, I wasn’t cut into pieces this time.

Unlike the previous cube dream, the space in the Sands of Time Dream was vast, stretching as far as the eye could see. Rolling sand dunes formed everything in this dream.

“Chu Ling,” Gu Shen said.

The next moment, the space around him distorted, and countless lines of garbled code appeared, forcibly opening up an oasis of pure land in the Sands of Time Dream.

A barefoot girl in a white dress appeared out of thin air and slowly landed on the hot sand.

Gu Shen squatted down and stretched out his fingers to pinch some sand grains.

The white sand grains matched the texture observed in the sealed object.

“What’s the fastest record for the Sands of Time?” Gu Shen asked.

“The fastest record recorded in Deep Sea is two hours and eighteen minutes,” Chu Ling replied.

Two hours and eighteen minutes? Gu Shen’s expression became solemn. From the moment he stepped into the dream, his mind became extremely focused. “It’s rare to encounter a dream sealed object of this level. In my last Dream Decipher, I seemed to have sensed some inspiration. But I haven’t awakened my transcendental ability yet, and my mental power is weak.”

After pondering for a moment, Gu Shen continued, “In this kind of high-difficulty nightmare, the biggest challenge is the consumption of mental power.”

After he deciphered the Blue Cube, his mind was already feeling tired.

“Just focus on the Dream Decipher. Don’t worry about anything else. I’ll take care of everything.”

After speaking, Chu Ling fell silent.

She returned to being the quiet observer. The world in front of her was raging with winds and countless particles of sand, but she only had her eyes on Gu Shen.

…

So far, Gu Shen stood still in the Sands of Time dream, not advancing rashly.

He recalled what the grand magistrate had said.

The grand magistrate had said that the three dream sealed objects on the table all had quite intense characteristics. He had already experienced the characteristics of the Blue Cube, which had cut his body into pieces.

And this seemingly peaceful world of sand dunes gave Gu Shen the feeling of dangers lurking beneath the surface.

This place was very large, so he couldn’t observe it up close like with the Blue Cube.

Do I have to walk? Gu Shen took a tentative step forward.

Just one step.

Trouble occurred.

Quicksand wrapped around his calves and dragged him down. In the Sands of Time Dream, the entire world was made of soft sand, and with every step he took, he faced the risk of being devoured by quicksand.

As expected, this dream is very dangerous.

Seeing the quicksand devouring him, Gu Shen felt somewhat relieved.

What he was afraid of was unknown dangers caused by not understanding the unexplored rules of the dream!

As long as I wrap my feet with my mental power, I can stop the quicksand for a short time. So every step forward consumes mental power. He gradually understood the rules of this dream sealed object. The dreamer might be able to discover the trick quickly, but to complete the Dream Decipher, a solid foundation of mental power was indispensable. The Sands of Time Dream in front of him was the best example.

Gu Shen speculated that there might be an exit that led in the right direction.

Even if he walked on the right path, he needed enough mental power to reach the end.

Swish…

Gu Shen felt himself sinking. Just as he was about to use his mental power, the sinking speed of the quicksand around his calves greatly slowed down. Invisible garbled code appeared in the quicksand.

Chu Ling was intervening.

The speed at which the quicksand enveloped him instantly decreased several times, and Gu Shen easily pulled his legs out of the sand.

He turned back to look at the girl smiling at him, once again feeling that she was amazing. Chu Ling could actually modify the rules of the Sands of Time Dream. Did she do it using Deep Sea? Unimaginable technological methods.

This way, he could ‘unbridledly’ explore the Sands of Time Dream.

Without needing to consider the consumption of mental power, Gu Shen instantly felt much more relaxed.

He observed the direction of the wind and decided to run in the direction the sand was flying. If ‘inversion’ was a sign of activating the sealed object, then the direction of the sand’s movement might be a breakthrough point.

Ten minutes later.

Gu Shen returned to his original position.

Chu Ling smiled, watching him quietly.

Should I change direction and try again? In the vast Sands of Time Dream, Gu Shen made a second attempt.

Ten minutes later, he once again returned to his original position.

This seemingly ‘infinite’ world actually had an invisible barrier. The outcomes of these two attempts were the same—returning to the starting point. Every time he traversed a distance, sand and dust would wrap around him from all directions. Regardless of whether he moved along the sand wind or against it, the outcome was the same… He returned to the starting point.

And Chu Ling hadn’t moved a step from beginning to end.

Clearly, she knew the characteristics of the Sands of Time.

If I were alone, then it would take a long time to discover that this world is ‘cyclical’. Gu Shen realized a very serious problem. Without Chu Ling, I might have thought I was going in the right direction and kept moving forward. But in reality, I was just repeating the useless effort of returning to the starting point.

He counted silently in his mind.

Every time he returned to the starting point, it was about six hundred seconds or ten minutes.

Does this mean… the boundary of this world is the distance I run at full speed in six hundred seconds?

Wait… Gu Shen thought of another possibility.

He squatted down and began to dig a hole in the sand. The quicksand in the dream was already turbulent, and digging only made it flow faster. After seeing Gu Shen’s actions, Chu Ling’s eyes flickered slightly.

This time, no garbled code appeared to slow the quicksand from collapsing.

Gu Shen dug a sand pit, jumped into it, and waited for the quicksand to engulf him bit by bit. At the same time, he silently counted down in his mind. Sand swept over, devouring first his calves, then his thighs. He lost feeling in his lower body, as though two thick walls were squeezing him tightly. He closed his eyes.

600… 599…

120… 119…

With only two minutes left, the quicksand reached his neck, and Gu Shen felt a strong hand gripping his heart.

The pressure was immense.

Suddenly, garbled code appeared!

A series of blurry symbols appeared out of thin air and circled around Gu Shen’s neck, significantly reducing the corrosion sensation of the quicksand and preventing Gu Shen from suffocating. He looked like a diver wearing a breathing mask. Although he looked disheveled, he was safe.

His eyes were closed as he sank into the quicksand.

This world was pitch-black… even darker…

10… 9… 8…

In the last few seconds, the sense of suffocation and restraint all disappeared.

Gu Shen opened his eyes. He raised his hands without any hindrance from the quicksand… because he wasn’t buried under the sand at all but was standing on a small sand dune. The sand pit he had dug earlier was nowhere to be seen.

This world was filled with sand and wind and stretched endlessly, making people feel hopeless.

“Ten minutes.” Gu Shen looked at Chu Ling. “I know the characteristics of the Sands of Time Dream.”