Time and space shifted, and a scene materialized before Huang Tian's eyes.
"Haha, nightmares killing people, Dream Expellers... this is way too ridiculous!"
Looking at a post he had randomly stumbled upon on his phone, Sun Qiang couldn't help but chuckle. Even the exhaustion and resentment from working overtime until eleven at night dissipated a little.
[A Struggling Survivor: I know that hardly anyone will believe what I'm writing, and I'm not even sure why I suddenly felt the urge to post this. Perhaps putting it into words will help vent some of the suffocating despair I feel toward this world?
Sigh, back to the topic.
First, I want to say that a century ago, our world was a peaceful and wonderful place.
By peaceful and wonderful, I don't mean that there were no wars, slaughter, or hatred, but rather that there were no powers that surpassed mortal boundaries. You can think of it as supernatural power.
Back then, the world was exceedingly tranquil. Nothing that existed only in human imagination was real.
However, roughly a hundred years ago, nightmares appeared in this world!
Nightmares are half-illusory, half-real. No one knows where they come from or what causes them to be born. In short, they simply descended upon reality without warning.
Perhaps the name "nightmare" doesn't make much sense to you. If so, you can call them anomalies, or urban legends!
For a hundred years, nightmares have loomed over the world. In the beginning, they appeared relatively infrequently—perhaps only one incident of a nightmare killing people every few months, or even every year or two.
By now, however, the power of nightmares has grown stronger and stronger. Countless nightmare-killings are occurring all over the world. Modern technological weapons have some effect on them, but when most nightmares descend, they drag people into a dream domain. Inside a dream domain, technological weapons tend to malfunction. Thus, once enveloped by a dream domain, death is virtually certain.
Why do I say virtually?
Because if your luck holds out, you might run into a Dream Expeller who can save you.
So-called Dream Expellers are people who coexist with nightmares. They borrow the power of a nightmare to resist other nightmares.
Yet those who coexist with nightmares are doomed to have their sanity corroded, and doomed to be consumed until they die.
Moreover, compared to the ever-increasing number of nightmares in this world, their strength is far too feeble.
Fierce, Vicious, Wicked, Baleful!
Dream Expellers can usually only deal with the Wicked or Baleful ranks. A Vicious-rank nightmare might cost the lives of over a dozen Dream Expellers without necessarily being resolved, to say nothing of a Fierce-rank nightmare.
And the power of nightmares still seems to be swelling. Fierce-rank may not be their limit. In three to five years, or perhaps ten to twenty, a truly apocalyptic, world-ending nightmare will descend!
When that time comes, not a soul will survive.
You might wonder why I know so much.
Because I am a Dream Expeller clinging to his last breaths.]
In the comments section below:
"666, that's a pretty convincing story you've cooked up."
"OP is a genius! When are you going to write a web novel? I even have a title for you: how about 'Nightmare's Descent'?"
"Speaking of which, something weird actually happened in the residential compound next to mine, a bit like the nightmare OP described. After an old lady jumped to her death, people living in her building kept hearing someone weeping late at night, crying pitifully. Some residents even claimed they saw an old woman dressed in burial shrouds standing outside their windows... Now all the residents of that entire building have fled in terror, and quite a few people have moved away from the whole compound."
"Come on, bro, now you're roleplaying as a Dream Expeller? Come at me through the internet cable and punch my lights out, haha!"
"Sigh, it's only because Fierce-rank nightmares haven't appeared in major cities yet, otherwise..."
"Bro above me, you aren't OP's alt account, are you? Playing along like a double act?"
"All right, all right, I believe everything OP said! You are humanity's guardian hidden in the darkness, so you must never slack off or lose heart! Humanity relies on you guys to protect us!"
"Bro above, keep humoring him, why don't you!"
"..."
Chuckling as he browsed the thread, Sun Qiang stood up from his cubicle, ready to head home. Suddenly—
"Wait, where did the post go?!"
He looked down at his phone. The post had just been banned and removed. He was momentarily stunned. "That doesn't make sense. It was just a made-up story, so why would it violate guidelines? Could it be..."
He froze in place for a few moments, took a deep breath, and glanced around the empty office. An inexplicable chill crept into his heart.
He hurried to shut off the office lights and strode outside. Just as the office doors clicked shut behind him, the sound of a printer booting up came from within. Terror gripping him, he whipped around to look through the glass. The communal printer was lit, followed by a whirring hum, as if someone were printing a document.
"Fuck!"
Sun Qiang felt an electric jolt shoot straight up from his tailbone to explode across his scalp. He cleared his throat with a loud cough, and the pale hallway lights instantly flicked on.
He bolted toward the elevator doors, his finger jabbing repeatedly at the call button until his hand blurred.
Whoosh—
The elevator doors slid open.
Scrambling inside without hesitation, he hit the button for the first floor. As the doors gradually slid shut, he leaned his back against the elevator wall and let out a long, trembling breath.
Abruptly, something a colleague had told him earlier that day popped into his mind.
"A couple of days ago, an employee on the fifth floor died suddenly from overwork. A young woman in her twenties. Such a shame..."
His scalp went numb, and he forced himself not to dwell on such morbid thoughts.
Only...
Sizzle—crackle—
The elevator abruptly shuddered to a halt. The doors did not open, and the floor display froze motionless on "5."
At the same time, the overhead lights flickered violently, plunging the car into erratic bursts of light and shadow. The brushed stainless-steel walls faintly reflected his stiff, bloodless face.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Don't mess with me!"
He frantically stabbed at the buttons, but the elevator showed no response whatsoever.
"Is anyone out there?! Hey! Can anyone hear me?!"
He pounded fiercely against the elevator doors, his voice laced with panic.
Yet no sound answered from outside. The only sounds left in his ears were his own heavy breathing and the drumbeat of his racing heart.
With trembling hands, he pulled out his phone to call for help, but no matter how many times he pressed the power button, the screen remained pitch-black.
"I clearly charged my phone to one hundred percent before getting off work..."
As an employee, mooching electricity from the company was completely routine. Every day, he made sure his phone was fully charged before leaving, sometimes even bringing a power bank to top up at the office.
There was no way his phone was dead, unless it had suddenly broken. But he had just finished reading that forum post barely a minute or two ago—how could it work perfectly one second and die the next?
Sizzle—
The lights flashed violently twice before dimming into a sickly, murky glow.
"Fuck... don't tell me there really is some damn nightmare..."
He instantly recalled the post. A cold dread settled deep in his chest, and cold sweat broke out across his back.
Right then, a faint scent drifted into his nostrils. It carried the metallic, fishy tang of rust—like blood.
His whole body seized up, his heart nearly leaping out of his throat. Trembling, he cast his eyes upward and saw thick, dark blood seeping through the seam in the ceiling. Drip. Drip. It fell onto the floor, emitting soft, wet pats.
He froze entirely. Then, pressing himself flush against the elevator doors, his fingers jabbed frantically at the buttons. But the doors remained locked shut.
Thud!!
A dull, heavy impact suddenly shook the ceiling, as if some immense weight had slammed down directly on top of the car.
Sun Qiang curled up in sheer terror, holding his breath.
Thud... thud...
The sound echoed rhythmically, slow and ponderous, as if something were crawling across the roof of the elevator.
The dark blood seeped in faster now, pooling into a small puddle on the floor. The stench grew thicker, nauseating and foul.
Cowering in a corner of the elevator, shaking uncontrollably, his lips moved in frantic whispers.
"Please, Heavens, Buddha, all Bodhisattvas, Mother Nuwa, Lords of the Three Pure Ones, Huang Tian and Hou Tu, Great God Taiyi, God... save me!!"
Skrrrtch—
A piercing scratch suddenly rang out, like a woman dragging long fingernails across the metal car.
Terror overwhelmed him; cold sweat poured down his face. Sun Qiang could feel the scratching draw closer, louder and clearer with every passing second.
Bang!
With a muffled crash, a pale, bloodless hand tore through the steel seam overhead, reaching inside. Thick, greasy black hair cascaded through the breach, followed by a pair of blood-red eyes.
The moment he met those cold, venomous eyes, Sun Qiang felt as though he were standing face-to-face with a starving tiger in the barren wilderness. His entire body locked up, paralyzed, unable to move a muscle, suffocating under sheer dread.
'So... this world really does have nightmares...'
Only that single thought flickered through his mind. Any will to survive was instantly drowned by bottomless fear.
***
Blue Star, Yandong Garden, inside an elegant study.
Huang Tian frowned slightly. "A nightmare? An anomaly?"
He shifted his gaze away from the paralyzed Sun Qiang and looked up toward the top of the elevator. The view shifted alongside his perception, revealing a woman clad in blood-soaked garments draped across the car roof, squirming into the elevator like a boneless creature.
"She doesn't appear particularly strong."
After a moment's contemplation, he attempted to transmit his power through the voice line. Earlier, he had run an experiment with Daoist Shanjing, confirming that his power could travel along a voice line, albeit with some attenuation.
If it attenuated across the same planet, it would surely weaken even more severely across an unfathomable expanse between worlds. Thus, without hesitation, he unleashed his full strength, sweeping out a beam of the Taiyi Guizang Five-Colored Divine Light straight toward the blood-clad woman!
In the next instant.
Sun Qiang's vision blurred as a magnificent burst of five-colored radiance erupted inside the elevator car!
The divine light was dazzling beyond measure, like the most breathtaking spectacle in all existence, yet so searingly sharp that wherever it passed, the blood-clad woman—who had already wriggled half her body inside—crumbled to ash in an instant, without even time to let out a shriek.
Whoosh—
The moment the blood-clad woman vanished, the suffocating oppression that hung in every direction receded like an ebbing tide. The lights stabilized, no longer flickering. The elevator car gave a gentle jolt and resumed its descent toward the first floor.
Having survived the ordeal, Sun Qiang slumped onto the floor, his chest heaving violently as he gasped for air.
"I... I survived??!"
The back of his head rested against the cold metal wall. Subconsciously, his right hand picked up his phone, and when he pressed the power button, the screen lit up.
"The phone works... the elevator is running again... I really survived?!!"
An overwhelming wave of disbelief, joy, and relief surged through him. "Could it be that I was just exhausted from working overtime and hallucinated? Did nothing actually happen?"
Just as the thought crossed his mind, a flash of red caught his eye.
Right beside his foot, a red hair ribbon had appeared.
Sun Qiang shuddered. He was certain he hadn't seen this when stepping into the elevator. Which meant... "Is this ribbon from that thing? Is she not dead yet?!"
The moment that terror flared, the red ribbon caught fire as though engulfed in an invisible inferno, instantly burning to ash and vanishing into nothingness.
"Sh-she's really dead?"
Sun Qiang stared blankly. Right then, with a soft chime, the elevator reached the ground floor and the doors slid wide open. Without pausing to think, he bolted out of the elevator and tore out of the office building like a madman.
Sprinting out to the street, he leaned over with hands on his knees, panting heavily. Looking around, he saw bright headlights flowing along the road. Many of the shops flanking the street were still open, their white and warm yellow lights casting a comforting glow. Pedestrians strolled along the sidewalks, chatting and laughing.
Whoosh—
A cool night breeze blew past, sending a shiver through him.
He glanced back at the dark, imposing silhouette of the office tower, then looked again at the lively street. An eerie sensation swept over him, as if he had crossed between two different lifetimes.
"Just now... it felt like a dream, a nightmare..."
Now he finally understood why they were called "nightmares."
"So this world truly is as that post described—countless nightmares exist, along with Dream Expellers... Did I survive just now because of a Dream Expeller? But why didn't I see anyone? If it wasn't a Dream Expeller, who helped me?"
Sun Qiang walked slowly along the sidewalk, pondering while replaying everything that had happened in his head.
"From start to finish, I only did one thing: I prayed for help." A sudden suspicion took root in his mind. "Could it be... that besides nightmares and Dream Expellers, immortal gods actually exist in this world?!"
At first, he found it hard to believe, but the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became. If an immortal god hadn't answered his prayer, there was no way he could have made it out alive.
"An immortal god... which great deity was it? Wait, which gods did I call upon just now?"
His eyes lit up. Now that he knew supernatural powers like nightmares existed, his only hope for self-preservation was either to become a Dream Expeller or to figure out what had saved his life.
"Mother Nuwa? Lords of the Three Pure Ones? Huang Tian and Hou Tu..."
He clasped his hands together and muttered under his breath, hoping to see if any immortal god would respond.
Yet no matter how many divine names he recited, nothing happened. On the contrary, passersby cast strange glances in his direction as they walked past, making his cheeks flush with embarrassment.
***
"Power from that world can actually flow back?"
Back in the study at Yandong Garden, Huang Tian felt a strand of pure spiritual energy settle into his body, slightly astonished.
Just now, after slaying the blood-clad woman across boundless time and space, a stream of refined spiritual energy devoid of any impurities had traveled back into his body through the voice line. This energy was roughly equivalent to what he would gain from a brief session of cultivation.
'Obliterating a nightmare grants spiritual feedback? No, more precisely, a nightmare is like an amalgamation of pure energy bound to something else. Once I destroy it, the impurities are stripped away, allowing me to absorb it...'
Huang Tian's eyes shone brightly, filled with curiosity and delight as he gazed toward that new world.
'Even a single nightmare across boundless time and space yields such an effect. What if there are more? And what lies at their root?'
With that thought, he promptly separated a wisp of his consciousness and sent it traversing through the layers of time and space...
Chapter 161