Chapter 2012: Chapter 2012

He sniffed, but the air wasn't filled with the usual scent of Nolan's gray smog. Instead, it reeked of burning tobacco and machine oil.

Pedestrians began to populate the previously empty streets, but every single one of them, regardless of their activity, was smoking, puffing clouds of yellow smoke into the air.

"You've got to be kidding me... Do I call this good luck or bad luck?"

The smoky air made Jenkins choke and cough.

"Damn it. Definitely bad luck."

Just as Jenkins realized he had inexplicably been pulled into the vast dreamscape inhabited by the Difference Engine, back in the physical world, the followers of the God of Dreams at the Sage's Church noticed something was wrong.

Saint Son Williams had been successfully hypnotized and had fallen asleep as planned, but no one could establish communication with his dream self. At first, they assumed the Saint Son's immense spiritual power was instinctively rejecting any outside interference during his slumber.

However, further attempts revealed the situation was not that simple. In a panic, some of them tried to extinguish the candle to wake Jenkins. But no matter what they did, the flame held steady. Even when they pressed down on the blue candle's flame or pinched the wick, the fire merely warped, refusing to go out.

The cat turned and darted out of the room. A few minutes later, Alexia arrived, accompanied by Miss Bevanna and two other demigods from the Church.

"What happened to Jenkins?"

Miss Bevanna demanded an explanation as the Scribe squad behind her secured the room. While the followers of the God of Dreams sweated nervously and tried to explain, Alexia approached Jenkins, who was still reclined on the lounge chair.

She first tried to pull the candle from his hand, but the blue object remained firmly in his grasp. Raising her right hand, a translucent, sky-blue cube materialized in her palm. The cube then disassembled into a complex, 9x9x9 puzzle that spun rapidly, causing a cascade of runes and mathematical symbols that only she could comprehend to flash in her eyes.

"Jenkins must be in that vast dream."

She concluded quickly.

"Can you wake him now?"

Miss Bevanna asked urgently. Alexia, however, shook her head with regret, explaining that she wasn't an expert in dream-related abilities.

At that, the demigods from the Sage's Church turned menacing glares upon the followers of the God of Dreams. These poor souls, whose luck now seemed even worse than Jenkins's, could only stammer that they would do everything in their power to rescue the Sage's Saint Son as quickly as possible.

The passage of time in dreams rarely aligns with reality. As chaos erupted in the Sage's Church over his condition, Jenkins was already exploring the dream-world version of Nolan City.

This wasn't a dreamscape belonging exclusively to the Difference Engine, but a shared reality woven from the minds of countless tobacco smokers and the machine itself. The Difference Engine had leveraged its power to seize control, a dominance made manifest by the appearance of many things in this Nolan that did not exist in the real world.

The sky was a pale yellow, as if the clouds themselves were stained. Towering smokestacks defined the city's skyline, endlessly belching black smoke that drifted north on the wind. A dense web of steam pipes snaked across streets and up walls, a mechanical vascular system trying to link everything together. Buildings were connected high above by a dizzying lattice of slender pipes. Peering through any shop window revealed a complex steam engine within, tirelessly churning out vapor that was siphoned away into the network, destined for some faraway point.

The deafening roar of industry was inescapable, audible from every corner of the metropolis. The entire city felt like a single, colossal factory, switched on and destined to run forever. Both people and machines generated the thick smog, contributing to the pollution, all of them submerged in the hazy miasma that enveloped everything.

He glanced toward the city center. Looming hazily in the distance was not the black metal tower, nor even the original Nolan clock tower, but a massive, palace-like complex suspended in the sky.

The palace was constructed entirely of brass. Its lines were severe and straight, utterly devoid of curves or ornamentation. It tapered with each ascending level, culminating in a perfect triangle at its apex. The structure resembled a truncated pyramid, or perhaps a stone temple built by some ancient, primitive tribe.

From where he stood, he could just make out the moving mechanical structures on the palace's exterior, as well as the vertical lifts that ferried personnel and supplies up from the ground.

All the steam coursing through the pipes—underground, overhead, in every street and alley—was being funneled toward the brass palace. The dense network of conduits enveloped the city like a vast spiderweb, siphoning away all of its energy and passion.

Higher still was the murky yellow sky, where several colossal, brass-colored whales swam among the filthy clouds. These leviathans were pieced together from countless metal components, and the gray vapor they expelled from their blowholes constantly thickened the already choking atmosphere. This was exactly what Jenkins had glimpsed earlier through the breach in the ritual node.

Jenkins stood stunned by the staggering scene, but he also understood. The Difference Engine's consciousness, its presence in this dream, was almost certainly housed within that brass palace at the heart of the city.

He tried to force himself awake but found it impossible to leave the dream. And since he'd been pulled in without any preparation, he didn't have the metal block that sealed his divinity, nor the special potion he might need.

But that didn't matter. In his spiritual form, he was actually at his strongest. Freed from the constraints of his frail physical body, he could unleash his true power.

Since this was a dream that reflected one's true self, he currently appeared as he originally was: a man with black hair and black eyes. So, without bothering to conceal his identity with a black robe, Jenkins began walking directly toward the city center.

The last time he'd fought the Difference Engine behind that great brass door, the God of Lies had looked just as he did now. But Jenkins was certain the machine hadn't dared to truly look at him back then. His current appearance was perfectly safe; besides Chocolate, no one knew to whom this face truly belonged.

He had a good guess as to the Difference Engine's current state. The fact that it hadn't reacted to an "intruder" for this long meant it wasn't fully conscious within its own dream. Fınd the newest release on novel⚑fire.net

There were always sacrifices to be made in the pursuit of a soul, and that weakness gave Jenkins his opportunity.

Space behaved differently in the dreamscape. Jenkins felt he had only rounded a street corner when the great bridge over the Westminster River came into view. He followed the road leading from it, and after taking fewer than a hundred steps, he found himself already in the district of the city square.