Cultivators feared inner demons above all else, yet this Hundred Faces Nightmare had gone and taken in the divine senses of others one after another—it was quite remarkable that it hadn't driven itself completely mad. He Lingchuan raised a brow. "To completely forget your past—isn't that the same as dying?"
"You could put it that way, or you could call it a rebirth," the grotesque head said. "In our world, memories are the cheapest things there are. Otherwise, Hundred Faces wouldn't keep giving birth to one self-awareness after another."
"A dreamscape is a world unto itself?"
"Of course. A dream is a reflection of the real world, the inside to its outside."
He Lingchuan pointed around them. "This place isn't a dream, is it?" The soul-snatching mirror had told him it wasn't, but he wanted to verify again.
"Of course not! We originally thought this was a realm of souls, a lingering place for the dead!" The grotesque head glared. "But we took a close look just now, and no realm of souls looks like this. It's too bizarre, completely different from any we've ever visited."
"You've been to other realms of souls?" What did that mean? Could the mirror's understanding of Panlong City have been mistaken too?
He had only asked offhandedly, never expecting to uncover something suspicious.
"Dreams and realms of souls occasionally intersect. When we roam by night, we sometimes wander into a realm of souls." The grotesque head's eyes darted around. "Realms of souls all form naturally, and they often perish naturally, beyond the control of mortal power. But this... this place of yours seems to be alive!"
At the last few words, it made no attempt to conceal its terror.
He Lingchuan's heart stirred. "Alive? What do you mean?"
The grotesque head thought hard, only speaking after He Lingchuan urged it twice. "At the summons of curse masters, we occasionally have to enter the real world. Crossing from the illusory into reality encounters tremendous resistance; not all nightmares can breach that barrier."
He Lingchuan nodded. That was understandable. The boundary between two worlds was supposed to be clearly defined; otherwise, if everyone constantly dropped in on one another, what kind of chaotic mess would the world become?
"When we found you, we thought this was just an ordinary dream." Remembering how it had been trapped and deceived, the grotesque head was filled with bitterness and grievance. "It wasn't until we tried to alter it that we discovered it wouldn't obey us at all! That kind of powerful resistance is something we've only ever experienced in reality—after all, nightmares cannot change reality. As for realms of souls, my original self, Hundred Faces, once relied on his vast power to forcefully alter parts of them."
*Your original self was dragged into a bottomless abyss by the guardian of this world,* He Lingchuan silently swallowed the retort.
The strength of the Hundred Faces Nightmare was beyond doubt; one could tell that much just from its sheer size and imposing aura upon arrival.
Had that massive red shadow not intervened, He Lingchuan would never have stood a chance against it.
"This place even knew how to disguise itself and trick us inside! If that's not being alive, what is?" the grotesque head added. "What I mean by alive is having self-awareness, knowing what it's supposed to do. You could even say it's awake! What kind of realm of souls is like this?"
The fellow had finally realized what happened and felt thoroughly aggrieved. After all, He Lingchuan was no match for the true body of Hundred Faces, yet it had lost before it could even unleash a single one of its ultimate moves.
"So what kind of place is this?"
Even as well-traveled and knowledgeable as the clone of the Hundred Faces Nightmare was, it could only answer honestly, "I don't know. I only know it harbors deep malice toward us, and it has been watching us all along!"
The realm of souls—or rather, Panlong City—had been watching them all along?
He Lingchuan recalled that during his first two visits to Panlong City, he had also felt like he was being watched, as though he had nowhere to hide beneath someone's gaze.
That feeling had faded later, but he hadn't forgotten it.
Now that the nightmare brought it up again, He Lingchuan also sensed something amiss.
Indeed, what realm of souls could ever be like this? Compared to Panlong City, the realm of souls inside the soul-snatching mirror was as innocent as a newborn babe.
Just what kind of place was this?
Was everything taking place here truly just a retrospective replay of past history?
He knew a bit more than the nightmare: Panlong City was inside the Dafang Pot.
In that case, did these anomalies stem from the Dafang Pot?
"What is that eye on your forehead used for?" The vertical pupil on its forehead was currently closed, narrowed to a slit.
He Lingchuan hadn't forgotten the sensation of being stared at by that giant eyeball. It had been deeply unsettling, as if the deepest secrets of his heart were being peeked into.
"It can see through to the deepest fears in a person's heart," the nightmare said, licking its lips. "That allows us to reshape the dream accordingly. But strangely enough, you have none."
"I have no what?"
"I couldn't find any true fear in your heart."
"Oh?" He Lingchuan scratched his head, feeling somewhat smug. "Am I truly fearless after all?"
"Fear isn't necessarily cowardice; it can even stem from emotional ties or regrets. In short, the human heart always has weaknesses. Otherwise, you cultivators wouldn't need to labor so hard over your states of mind and slay the Three Corpses to attain the Dao. But you..." The grotesque head eyed him with a strange look. "You have nothing."
Deep within this man's heart, there was no fear, no emotional ties, no fury, and no regret. At most, there was a tiny sliver of worry, but concerns regarding life and death were far too vague to be given tangible form and exploited.
The grotesque head asked him, "Just what kind of monster are you?"
He Lingchuan gave a wry smile.
What was the world coming to when a monster asked him that?
Could it be because his life before crossing over had been muddled and devoid of drama?
Wasn't that just the normal state of an ordinary person?
In his world, didn't most people live like that? Working half to death at their posts, only getting to rest once safely put into the ground.
If one had such wild emotional swings, how could one ever be a diligent, dutiful little cog in the machine?
He changed the subject. "Alright. Seeing as your answers were reasonably sincere, you get to choose whether you want to live or die."
"If you want to die, look to that." He Lingchuan pointed at the Juluo tree by the water.
"If you want to live, find Cheng Yu for me!"
"Find Cheng Yu?" A gleam flashed in the grotesque head's eyes. "I made a pact with him. As long as he doesn't move against us, we cannot harm him."
When dealing with monsters like this, a curse master naturally took precautions.
"I don't need you to attack him. Just find out where he is." A faint smirk touched He Lingchuan's lips. "Don't tell me you can't even locate him?"
"If he doesn't summon me, I'll need something that belongs exclusively to him."
"Blood."
"That works." The grotesque head was much more cooperative this time. "But I need to rest! Right now, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. I can't break through the barrier to locate him in reality!"
"When can you do it?"
"For the next seven or eight days and nights, you have to make incense offerings to me. It'd be best if you also found me some food."
"Food?"
"Souls, of course."
"Oh." He Lingchuan shook his head. "None."
There were souls in the realm of souls, certainly, but they were all heroic spirits; this grotesque head probably couldn't bite off a single piece of them.
The grotesque head let out a long sigh. "A pity our idol is gone. It stored incense power gathered over a long time."
"Its physical vessel?" He Lingchuan's heart stirred. "Was it carved from wood?"
"Yes, yes! Carved from seabed wood." The grotesque head gazed at him eagerly. "Did you seize it?"
He had brought back some wooden fragments from the fire, and pieced together, they did indeed form an idol. "I did take some fragments from Cheng Yu, but this is a realm of souls, uh..."
Yet those things were left in reality; they shouldn't be able to be brought into the Panlong dreamscape... right?
"Bring it out, bring it out! Of course you can bring it in!"
He Lingchuan reached into his robes to check, and to his surprise, he actually pulled out a cloth bundle.
Unwrapping it, what else could it be inside but the idol fragments?
The grotesque head cried out repeatedly, "Give them to me! Give them to me!"
Holding the bundle in hand, He Lingchuan weighed it. "You can recover by consuming these?"
"Yes! I can recover a good portion—more than enough to find the man for you."
The more eager it became, the calmer He Lingchuan grew. "Then let's establish a pact first."
Lest this grotesque head fail to work properly for him.
Left with no choice, the nightmare could only swear a vicious oath, proclaiming that if it dared feign compliance while secretly disobeying, sought to harm He Lingchuan, or even perfunctorily brushed him off, its soul would be devoured by a hundred bugs and it would die in excruciating agony.
It didn't even know what a "hundred bugs" were, and was just quietly gloating that this was nothing more than an empty toothache curse, when several wisps of pale red smoke drifted in from the south. Unremarkable at first glance, they would occasionally condense into a solid red in midair before dispersing again.
The moment they arrived, the grotesque head's voice echoed through the air.
The words it had just spoken were replayed several times in succession. Murmurs and whispers filled the air, as if a hundred grotesque heads were swearing the oath together.
Hearing this, the grotesque head's expression shifted drastically. It looked at the phantoms as if seeing a ghost.
"Three Corpse Worms!" it shrieked. "Why are there Three Corpse Worms here with you? How are you even still alive?!"
It was the first time it had ever seen Three Corpse Worms—creatures whose instinct was to confound the mind and whose food was wicked thoughts—appear in a realm of souls, and even peacefully coexist with the native denizens and the man before it.
This completely shattered its understanding.
Even a nightmare disliked being so close to Three Corpse Worms.
He Lingchuan extended a finger with a smile. The Three Corpse Worms hovered around his fingertip, behaving quite docilely. "Remember, you just swore a solemn oath to them. If you violate it, they will be your executioners."
The grotesque head shuddered violently.
In truth, He Lingchuan was somewhat surprised himself.
Although he saw these Three Corpse Worms every time he passed the city gates, they had never paid him any mind.
Why had their demeanor suddenly changed today? Were they giving him face in front of an outsider?
Or was it because he had lured in the true body of the Hundred Faces Nightmare, allowing them to feast to their hearts' content, and by extension developing a fondness for him?
Then again, could Three Corpse Worms even harbor "fondness" toward a human?
Could these things even be considered living creatures?
They coiled around his finger, bone-chillingly cold. Before his teeth could start chattering, He Lingchuan quickly pulled his finger back. The Three Corpse Worms then flew toward the grotesque head, boring into its nostrils and ears under its horrified gaze.
"Ah, no, no, no, no, no!"
Was resisting of any use?
The Three Corpse Worms burrowed into its head anyway.
The grotesque head shrieked, "Don't eat me!"
"As long as you keep your promise obediently, they won't eat you," He Lingchuan said with a yawn. "They're merely lurking inside to keep watch at all times."
Otherwise, he knew far too little about monsters like nightmares; who knew if he might fall into its trap?
The nightmare pulled a long face, looking as miserable as if its parents had died.
"Alright, get to work!" He Lingchuan paid no mind to its mood, lifting the grotesque head and bringing it close to the idol fragments.
Chapter 496