Nightmare Forest

Even in the daytime of the floating island, the rainbow in the valley has never emitted such magnificent colors.

With the rainbow as the center, seven colors of light circles spread out, and each layer of light circle is as thick as liquid, like the syrup after the rainbow candy melts, flowing slowly along the circular trajectory of the light circle.

Countless water droplets overflowed from the aperture and floated to every corner of the farm like flowers scattered by fairies. Under the illumination of the rainbow light and the farm lights, they emitted a dazzling glare.

An Rou stretched out her hand, and a few raindrops that looked like gems passed through her palm, falling down little by little and sinking into the ground.

There was a slight sound in the sky, and Princess Half Moon broke through the light shield and landed in front of her.

"An Rou!" The princess didn't have time to marvel at the dreamy scene. "The forest is running wildly again, even faster than this afternoon! I suddenly realized something!"

"The movement trajectory of Nightmare Forest?"

"...You know?" The princess was surprised.

An Rou shook her head: "I don't know, I just vaguely feel that it has some connection with the farm."

To be precise, it was secretly related to sudden wealth, but she subconsciously blurred the meaning.

"When you told me about the Nightmare Forest, didn't you say it was moving towards the Empty Valley? After the farm entered the forest, it didn't stop, but instead started moving in the opposite direction."

The princess couldn't help but pat her thigh: "Yes! How could I forget this!"

It's not her fault. Ever since the princess found the farm in the forest, Shi Xi was being parasitized by the Ghost King, and the ghouls were the fuel for the Rainbow of the Valley... every single one of them was shocking, enough to consume her entire attention.

"To be honest, this Nightmare Forest was probably recreated by us. Back then, the farm had just left Lengbing City, and the joint team was in hot pursuit, so we were forced to recreate a forest to intercept them. The connection between the forest and the farm must have been planted back then."

The princess quickly recalled the paths of Yongan Farm and the forest. The overlap wasn't significant. But if the forest were considered the farm's pursuer, the paths would be remarkably similar. After all, before today, the forest had moved very slowly.

This was a strange phenomenon that the princess had never seen in the game for more than 20 years. Similarly, the farm owner An Rou was also an NPC she had never seen before.

An Rou ignored the princess's scrutinizing gaze and said, "To the northeast is Ghost Island. Look at the map for your location. Judging from the speed the forest is moving at right now, Ghost Island isn't far away."

The princess turned on the light screen and patted her thigh again: "What do you mean not far? We'll be at Ghost Island soon! I saw it clearly just now, the forest is speeding up!"

The speed at this time has already surpassed that of the top players.

The two looked at each other, and horror appeared in each other's eyes.

If the Nightmare Forest didn't change its course and continued straight ahead, it would either cross the coastline and sink into the sea, or... crush the archipelago and destroy everything.

-

"What, shut down the server?!"

If it weren't for the holographic connection, President Fei would have slammed the table loudly.

"Do you know how high the GDP of Ghost Island is in one hour? How many high-tech devices can it produce? Shut down the server???"

The Atan Guild frowned and looked at him without saying a word.

Although President Feili is not very smart, what he said is correct. Let's first hear how Long Yan responds.

Yu Fengqiu opened the message reproduced by the logistics department. On the holographic projection screen, Shi Xizheng sent a message to the command channel. The presidents of all the guilds were offline, so no one saw the order immediately.

However, no one suspected that Yu Fengqiu had falsely conveyed the imperial edict. After all, as long as they logged into the game, they would know whether Shi Xizheng had conveyed the message or not.

What they questioned was Shi Xizheng's decision.

Seeing that everyone had seen enough, Yu Fengqiu turned to pull out a map.

"I've already told you all that the Nightmare Forest is moving. It's moving northeast. Draw a straight line, and the end is right at Onigashima. President Fei, do you hope that the Nightmare Forest will land on Onigashima again with Yong'an Farm?"

The Nightmare Forest, with its hallucinogenic properties and being a hunting ground for ghouls, was a major problem in itself. Not to mention the Yongan Farm hidden within the forest, which had already dealt a heavy blow to Onigashima.

Naturally, the two major guilds on Ghost Island were unwilling to do so.

"Didn't you say before that, based on the Nightmare Forest's speed, it would take at least two or three days to reach Ghost Island?!" President Feili questioned, "Two or three days, with over a hundred thousand people, isn't that enough to destroy the forest and take out Yong'an?"

Yu Fengqiu said without a trace of guilt: "According to the Dragon Flame Research Institute, the energy of the Valley Rainbow can, to some extent, catalyze the growth of the Nightmare Trees and increase the speed of the entire forest. At this moment, the Nightmare Forest is traveling at a speed of 500 kilometers per hour, and it is still accelerating."

Everyone was shocked.

“500 kilometers?!”

"The latest model of Onigashima's battleship has a top speed of only 100 kilometers per hour. How is that possible?"

"Even the top super gods don't have such terrifying movement speed, right?!"

"...There is still one, except Mo. His weapon is a flying sword."

"But the ink removal function has been taken offline!"

"What's the point of mentioning him? Even if we let him go online, will he stop Yongan? I'm afraid he will run ahead to clear the way!"

…

The chaotic discussion was interrupted by Yu Fengqiu.

"President Fei, President Yatan, a million square meters of nightmare forest crashing into the Ghost Island Archipelago at high speed, what a disaster that would be, can you imagine?

"Therefore, temporarily shutting down the Ghost Island instance is the most feasible solution right now. If you two insist on disagreeing, we in China will have no choice but to follow the guild agreement and forcibly shut down the main server controller."

President Fei hesitated to speak, and finally swallowed his resentment.

Guild Master Yatan pondered, "Even if we temporarily suspend the server, it will only delay the crisis. Once the server is reopened, the Nightmare Forest will still collide with Ghost Island. This will only treat the symptoms, not the root cause."

After the service is shut down, all scenes and characters in the Ghost Island instance will disappear.

Most players believe that the Ghost Island dungeon is confined to the sea, but this is not the case. The true dungeon boundary is actually in the Land of No Life. The United Legion, pursuing the Nightmare Forest, has already entered the Ghost Island area.

If the United Corps vanished, who could possibly eliminate Yongan during the server downtime? Even if they didn't vanish, they couldn't even find Yongan in the vanished Ghost Island instance, so how could they even talk about eliminating him?

"It doesn't matter whether we treat the symptoms or the root cause right now. The most urgent thing is to prevent Ghost Island from being destroyed by the forest, right?"

Yu Fengqiu said, hiding his uneasiness with a determined smile.

"Besides, since President Lu has made this decision, he should have already come up with specific countermeasures. At this point, besides trusting President Lu, do you have any better solutions?"

-

"Team Leader Yu just hurriedly asked me to check the ink removal situation. Sigh."

"That's unavoidable. Too many players have been in trouble recently, and the command center doesn't have enough medical personnel. We can only grit our teeth and hold on until the people transferred in from outside arrive..."

"Is that the point? Do you think I'm tired? Just for the fact that I'm the world's first successful human brain separation, I'm eager to be transferred to the special medical team..."

"Shh, keep your voice down. Are you afraid no one will know you've violated your confidentiality agreement? - Then what's your point?"

"I overheard Team Leader Yu calling the technical team. It seems like they're shutting down the server again..."

"Another server shutdown?! It's only been a few days, and this is the second time?"

"Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to help but tell you? This is truly rare. I wonder what kind of criticism you'll get online this time..."

…

Through the wall, the high and low sounds were transmitted into the patient's ears.

My fuzzy consciousness was unable to piece together the meaning of the words until I heard the words "shut down".

Zhan Xingce suddenly opened his eyes.

The voice from next door became clearer and returned to the previous topic.

"By the way, what's the current status of the ink removal?"

“Not very good…”

"Didn't you say yesterday that your brain is very active and your brain waves are very vibrant?"

"Well, I'm telling you, don't tell anyone. Yesterday, his condition was indeed stable, but after lunch today, all his indicators suddenly began to weaken. The special medical team discussed it for an entire afternoon and concluded that the interruption of gaming resulted in insufficient nerve impulse stimulation..."

"What did you say? Chu Mo is offline?! This is really... I've never seen this before."

"Who says it's not? I always thought that with his physical condition, he would die in the game, but he went offline and had his brain separated. He came back online a few days ago, and now his nerve connection has been inexplicably severed again..."

Command center building, four underground floors.

The special medical team worked late into the night, and finally half of them dispersed to rest. The remaining half stayed behind, feeling dizzy and drowsy.

A member of the medical staff took a last look at the specially constructed, surprisingly small holographic pod.

Although the indicators had weakened a notch, they had finally stabilized. Getting through tonight shouldn't be a problem, right?

He thought so and closed his eyes.

At the same moment, the indicator light outside the holographic cabin suddenly lit up, a bright green. In a place beyond the human eye's reach, the world's most sophisticated instrument components were enveloped in a shimmering electric light.

Nerve impulses are supposed to be sent by the instrument and transmitted to the brain in a special container.

At this moment, the process is reversed.

-

On Princess Half Moon's light screen, the cursor representing her own location almost overlapped with the coastline.

She looked at An Rou: "It's started."

The decision was made by An Rou.

Extinguishing the energy of the Rainbow of the Valley can slow down the forest. With the forest dormant and the farms unable to move, it is only a matter of time before it is surrounded by the United Army again.

It would be better to use the Nightmare Forest as a protective shell and go wherever the forest wants to go. After all, they are also very curious about where the destination of the Nightmare Forest is.

An Rou met the princess's gaze and nodded silently.

The moment the cursor crossed the coastline, both of them tensed. The first challenge facing Nightmare Forest was the high voltage electricity in the waters of Ghost Island.

However, everything went dark before their eyes at the same time.

The princess suddenly disappeared in front of her. An Rou subconsciously reached out her hand, but found nothing.

A thick fog rushed into her brain, causing her to lose her ability to think for a short time. When she came to her senses, everything around her had disappeared.

Ghost Ruins... This was the first term that came to An Rou's mind.

The real soul world hidden beneath the surface of the game is called "Ghost Ruins" by players.

Is the game shut down again?!

The last time I entered Ghost Ruins was because the Spirit Realm server was temporarily shut down...

An Rou was startled and looked in a certain direction. Her sight followed her thoughts, rising and moving further.

Across the charred hills, she saw the white figure.

Ghost King!

It turned out that the Ghost King was using Shi Xizheng's power to cause trouble. Seeing that he couldn't stop the Nightmare Forest, he chose to shut down the server!

She spotted the other person, and the other person spotted her easily.

The Ghost King's face was rapidly approaching, so fast that An Rou couldn't tell who was approaching whom.

There was a cold and playful smile on the corner of his lips: "You didn't expect it, An Rou."