Chapter 18 The Nightmare Ends: "It was a scam! Everyone was..."

Chapter Eighteen

"What do you mean?"

"Aren't scholars who pursue knowledge most likely to be corrupted by it?"

Du Yu manipulated "Xiao Ran" to lift Wenren Qiu's hand. Her hand, which was covered with thin calluses, had become soft at some point, and her skin was slightly transparent. You could vaguely see the pale bones through the writhing muscles.

Cat Whiskers frowned, then abruptly closed his eyes and coughed: "Cough cough... Quiet, Mind Guardian! This dream can disturb the mind!"

This was supposed to be the first thing they should do upon entering the dream, but they all forgot about it. No one noticed anything unusual along the way. Were they disturbed at that time? Shen Xijing hurriedly rubbed her hands together, took out a piece of cured meat from her waist pouch, picked it up with one hand, and rubbed the edge of the meat with the other hand, rotating it. The piece of cured meat with a small bite taken out of it gradually turned into a rose.

The roses are half-open, with plump and full buds, and their rich fragrance fills the area, making people feel refreshed and their minds lighter.

Du Yu found the rose scent pleasant, but others seemed relaxed and their gloomy expressions slowly disappeared after smelling it, as if the fragrance could resist the strange pollution.

But when Wenren Qiu's nose started twitching, her symptoms not only didn't lessen, but seemed to have worsened considerably.

Her brow furrowed, large beads of scarlet sweat rolled down her forehead, and a faint smell of blood wafted through the air. This metallic scent was somewhat pungent and unpleasant, yet surprisingly intoxicating, easily overpowering the rich floral fragrance.

The edges of the once fresh and vibrant rose withered at this moment, and the petals dried and fell off layer by layer. With a heavy heart, Shen Xijing pinched off about two-thirds of the petals. Her face was as white as paper and her lips were bloodless: "The protection of the soul has failed. I'm afraid that, at the very least, Sister Qiuqiu is in the late stage of moderate erosion."

Ordinary people might suffer a mental breakdown and go insane just by looking at the eerie things deep in the fog, but those with superpowers have some resistance because of their strong mental strength and resilient souls.

In the early stages of corruption, when the corruption is relatively mild, individuals with special abilities can overcome it through special traits or medication. However, as the corruption deepens, reaching the moderate or even severe stage where corruption is imminent, external forces are no longer sufficient to resolve the issue. The only options are to gamble on luck or rely on sheer willpower to endure.

If the corruption deepens to this stage, even if the superhuman awakens, their personality is very likely to change. If the superhuman encounters corruption again, they may completely embrace depravity and fall into madness even in the early stages of corruption.

Seeing that Wenren Qiu was slowly oozing blood from every pore, her body was convulsing, and she looked like she was in great pain, she was not one of those who could withstand the erosion.

As soon as Shen Xijing finished speaking, Aliya exhaled, raised the gun towards Wenren Qiu's head, pursed her lips, her fingers did not tremble at all, and looked at Cat Whiskers.

"Hey, don't rush into making a drastic decision."

Du Yu gripped the gun barrel tightly, preventing it from pointing directly at the head of his prospective believer. What if such a precious believer accidentally went off?

Cat Whiskers stared intently at Du Yu, her eyes clearly filled with distrust. It was obvious that if Du Yu didn't give a clear answer, she wouldn't hesitate to attack her along with the fallen monster.

Du Yu shrugged helplessly, rummaged through Wenren Qiu's backpack for a handkerchief, wiped away her blood and sweat, and casually dropped a bombshell:

"Didn't you notice that after entering the lab, you've been communicating with the NPCs in the language before the Cataclysm?"

Although it is unknown why, Chinese has become an ancient language with an eerie atmosphere here, and only Wenren Qiu, a "secret scholar", has mastered this language in the entire team.

However, after they met Qin Liangping at the entrance of the research institute, they kept communicating with this NPC in Chinese!

They all understood it, and Wenren Qiu, the only one in the group who understood ancient characters, didn't raise any objections!

It is said that language is the carrier of thought, but the moment they entered the research institute, even their language was altered. Are their thoughts still normal?

Everyone stared in horror. Du Yu's words were like a hammer, shattering the invisible wall in their minds, and all sorts of anomalies that had been forcibly ignored along the way surged out.

"vomit--"

Shen Xijing gagged, her pupils trembling with terror. The fire that Chen Xingzhi had lit exploded with a "boom," the flames piercing the ceiling and spreading everywhere. Terrifying heat accumulated, and space began to distort. Bishop D, who was squatting next to Wenren Qiu, looked up and gave her a standard smile.

She remembered! She remembered everything!

They hadn't entered a research institute at all, but rather the gaping maw of a monster! All the staff were writhing chunks of flesh! The sample room was filled with the remnants of its meal! You Shi was a constantly twisting vortex, and Chen Xingzhi was a dying ember!

It's all fake, it's all an illusion!

It wasn't the mist that distorted their dreams; rather, they were lured by the monster and unknowingly entered its dream!

It's all fake, a complete scam! Everyone's lying!

It's over, it's all over, they have no way of escaping!

"Shhh."

Shen Xijing knelt on the ground, covering her head and screaming silently. The steps deep in her consciousness were collapsing layer by layer. Extreme emotions and bizarre truths weighed down her reason and made her teeter on the brink of collapse.

A single, ordinary syllable drowned out all the noise. Chen Xijing, panting heavily, looked up at the blurry figure in front of her, her eyes filled with a despair and trust she herself was unaware of.

"Help...help...me..."

"Poor child."

The person in front of her seemed to touch her head, their palm warm, but an indescribable, enormous figure appeared behind them, their cold and chaotic aura locking onto her. She could only tremble and submit, surrendering all her reason.

The raging flames gradually receded, the terrifying heatwave slowly subsided, and all the eeriness vanished abruptly.

Shen Xijing stared blankly up at the laboratory, which was no longer as clean and tidy as before. The whole room looked like it had just been burned down, with debris and flying black ash everywhere. Only the operating table in front of Chen Xingzhi was still neat and tidy, quietly burning with a ball of flame.

Shen Xijing saw the fire tremble a few times, as if she suddenly remembered something. She stared blankly and looked down. Her teammates were lying on the ground in all sorts of crooked positions, but judging from the rise and fall of their chests, even Wenren Qiu, whose face was the most distorted, was still alive.

Having done all that, she was somewhat at a loss for what to do next. She stared blankly at a bright purple light that had barely formed a human shape, and her empty mental space began to fluctuate.

"Lord, save my friend..."

"Let them recite my name."

The voice was majestic and resonant, speaking in a foreign and profound language, yet she miraculously understood the meaning of the command. Instinctively, she crouched down beside Wenren Qiu, recited his name once, and then froze in place:

"But they can't speak now?"

The noble figure in purple paused for a moment, then said, "Use your abilities to hypnotize them."

The unknown entity in this dream is similar to Shen Xijing's ability; both affect the mind, which may be why this dream is particularly targeting Shen Xijing.

Watching Shen Xijing hypnotize each person and increase his number of followers, Du Yu nodded in satisfaction and poked 166: "What's going on with Shen Xijing? Have my followers gone mad?"

[Gurgle~ It's only temporary. She's too compatible with this dream, seeing things no mortal should see, causing mental overload. If it weren't for her faith, her head would have exploded. Right now, her brain is just in a stress-relief phase.]

For now, yes, meaning Shen Xijing is indeed a fool. That makes sense; otherwise, why would a normal person hypnotize their teammate to believe in a cult?

"Sister, what you're doing isn't in accordance with the rules. There's an order to hunting, isn't there?"

Du Yu looked up and saw You Shi standing next to the monster, which had become much weaker. You Shi kicked the monster, his voice still carrying a smile, but Du Yu was certain that she could hear the killing intent in his voice.

She glanced at Chen Xingzhi, who had just pulled out another cigarette, and raised an eyebrow. "'Hunting'? Didn't you fail again?"

"The one who failed was [the one who lost their mind and senses], what does that have to do with me?"

"But by helping this monster devour them, aren't you also helping this [Heartless Eye]... Perhaps, this is your purpose?"

Du Yu stroked his chin and said to himself, "It's reasonable to interpret this dream as the hunting ground of the strange entity 'Heartless Eye,' but it can't explain why Chen Xingzhi and You Shi, these two oddballs, are here."

They seemed to have reached a consensus on some points, yet their conversation was clearly laced with barbs, unlike those of like-minded people. What, then, was their purpose?

Chen Xingzhi took action to eliminate "Tianxin," which was suspected to be the core of the dream, but he chose to act when "Tianxin" had failed to hunt and was already experiencing a backlash, making the opponent's stance ambiguous.

Not to mention Yu-shi, although she always had a smile on her face and called her "sister" affectionately, Du-yu could "hear" undisguised malice from her.

"I didn't originally intend to take action directly."

Yu sighed dramatically, "Why is it so hard to be a person who follows the rules?"

The vortex on You Shi's face reversed, and two pale purple pointers appeared in the black area in the middle.

As the "tick-tock" sound rang in their ears, the two pointers reversed, and an invisible vortex enveloped the monster. The monster, which had been mostly burned, recovered from its wounds under the vortex and began to swell, becoming even larger than when it first appeared.

The three heads wrapped around it also swelled up, their skin stretched transparent by the bulging flesh, their expressions ferocious. If Du Yu hadn't seen what it looked like before, he wouldn't have been able to confirm that these three piles of unknown things were actually human heads.

"I told you! You can't interfere!"

Chen Xingzhi, who had been idling away, finally made a move, but not at the monster, but at You Shi.

She finished speaking slowly and deliberately, and the whites of her eyes were quickly covered by black. The cigarette in her hand burned rapidly as if it had been pressed on a fast-forward button. A terrifying aura emanated from this researcher who had just been inconspicuous.

Yu Shi's mouth gaped open to its widest extent. Before the black flames, which were like cannonballs, descended, he jumped to the ground with both feet, bending his body at an incredible angle of 360 degrees, and his two feet were thrown directly into the vortex on his face.

"Heh, you're nothing but the embers of a star, do you really think you're the master of time? Goodbye, remnants of the past!"

Seeing that You Shi's calves, thighs, and waist had all been flipped into the vortex in the blink of an eye, and that most of his body had disappeared, Du Yu suddenly grabbed 166's wings:

"Quick, 166! I need to take over her body!"