Chapter 23 - 20: End

Chapter 23: Chapter 20: End

Shi An had indeed considered making a move.

He remembered what was written in the manual:

"When a Nightmare invades reality, the Weirdnesses no longer follow their killing rules; this is the most dangerous aspect of a Nightmare invasion. However, at the same time, by breaking through the barrier between the Nightmare and reality, their own abilities will be somewhat weakened."

His Employee Number One, the Blood Hand Seal, was no Yugui Stream Ghost Object, but a purebred Weirdness.

Even if it had been weakened by thirty percent after being purified, fighting an Ordinary Weirdness that had descended into reality wouldn’t be a big problem.

Besides, the Blood Hand Seal might not have even been weakened that much.

In other words, relying solely on Little Blood, Shi An possessed power equal to—or perhaps even greater than—an expert in the Control Stage.

Furthermore, Shi An had an absolute means of retreat: the Safe Zone.

However, he reminded himself, "The Safe Zone is only to be used as a last resort.

"And if I do make a move, I should try to avoid doing it in public."

Therefore, after encountering Huangzhou, Shi An dumped the survivors on him and chose to venture deeper himself.

As he went further in, the light grew dimmer.

Lush trees grew wildly, with many sprouting right in the middle of the main road, their roots piercing the asphalt and burrowing deep into the earth.

He wondered, "Is this the Nightmare Realm starting to affect the real environment?

"Will the Nightmare Area eventually turn into a complete Nightmare World?

"If such a Nightmare Area isn’t cleared in time, will it continue to expand outwards?"

Shi An frowned. There were still way too many things he didn’t understand.

He hoped he would be able to find more information at the Countermeasures Bureau later.

While he was lost in thought, strands of white spider silk appeared before him, crisscrossing between the trees.

Shi An stopped in his tracks. He pondered for a moment and decided not to proceed any further. Instead, seeing that there was no one around, he crouched down in front of a bush.

As if tying his shoelaces, he reached out and gently tapped the ground.

Instantly, a faint flash of blood-red light flickered, though it seemed like a mere illusion.

Shi An casually stood up, hesitated in front of the white spider silk for a moment, and ultimately turned back.

After all, he was just flesh and blood—an Ordinary person who wasn’t even a Dream Descender. Going any deeper was too risky.

Thus, Shi An sent Little Blood in his stead to scout ahead.

Possessing the Blood Concealment Body, Little Blood’s stealth Ability stats were practically maxed out.

He thought, "Not only that, but Little Blood hardly emits any gloomy aura. You could say it’s even less conspicuous than before it was purified."

Through their contract, Shi An could share the Blood Hand Seal’s vision.

However, the perspective wasn’t very clear; it was tinted with a bloody hue and set rather low to the ground.

He observed, "It seems that the further away it is, the blurrier the shared vision becomes. However, for a short distance of just a few hundred meters, there’s no noticeable impact.

"Another thing is that traditional Yugui Stream Dream Descenders can recall their Ghost Objects from afar, and I can also use the contract to summon the Blood Hand Seal to protect me. It’s just that this process drains physical stamina, and if I lack stamina, it consumes Belief Value."

Confirming this put Shi An much more at ease. He moved around the perimeter of the Nightmare Area, searching for lost college students to guide back to safety, while occasionally switching to Little Blood’s vision to monitor the situation.

The deeper it went, the denser the trees became, and the more spider silk appeared.

Shi An even spotted large white spiders that were a size bigger than an adult’s hand.

He paid them no mind.

However, along the way, he had Little Blood test the waters slightly.

When a speck of bloody light surfaced, the spider silk snapped with a SIZZLE, like a hot knife cutting through butter.

In truth, the test was practically pointless.

The silk wasn’t all that tough. The large spiders looked terrifying, but as long as an Ordinary person kept their cool, they could directly squash them to death with a single STOMP.

With just a gentle tap from Little Blood, an entire giant spider melted on the spot.

But the truly tricky part was...

He realized, "The sheer quantity!"

Firelight flickered in the distance.

The Blood Hand Seal immediately sneaked over.

Astonishingly, at the end of the forest, a massive white cocoon hung suspended in mid-air.

This giant cocoon was the very source of the gloomy aura brewing that Shi An had sensed from afar earlier.

The Weirdness inside the cocoon had yet to awaken, but a continuous stream of little spiders was already pouring out from beneath it.

Though called "little" spiders, in reality, the smallest were larger than a hand, while the bigger ones were the size of a washbasin or even a millstone.

They crawled along the silk webs, leaping nimbly between the trees.

Several figures, presumably Dream Descenders, were currently fending off and slaughtering these spiders.

One of them looked extremely familiar to Shi An.

He exclaimed inwardly, "Xi Xue from the Wizard’s House?!"

This was reality, yet her outfit was exactly the same as it was in the Nightmare World.

At this moment, however, the Dream Descenders were in a tough spot.

If it were merely a matter of slowly whittling down the spiders, it wouldn’t be difficult. But...

"There are too many spiders! We can’t get close to that big guy at all!"

"Should we wait for backup? Or—"

"No! If we don’t stall these little spiders here, they’ll scatter across the entire Nightmare Area!"

"That’s what I’m saying! We’re just lowly Fusion Stage Dream Descenders! How the hell are we supposed to fight a Weirdness? And this is before the Weirdness has even woken up!"

Beside Xi Xue stood another Dream Descender, also dressed as a Witch.

She was cursing up a storm, but she continually thrust and smashed with her Magic Staff, crushing the pouncing spiders one by one. Occasionally, when the sheer number of spiders overwhelmed her ability to swing the Magic Staff in time, her cheeks would bulge, and with a SPLAT, she would spew out acidic fluid that dissolved the arachnids.

Curse Object: Acidic Gastric Bag!

By sporadically utilizing the power of their Curse Objects, the Dream Descenders managed to fight the spider army to a standstill.

However, a Dream Descender’s stamina was limited.

Not to mention...

The gloomy aura surged. In the distance, the giant white cocoon wrapped in countless threads of silk began to beat like a heart, THUMP THUMP.

This terrifying creature seemed on the verge of reviving!

Before the Dream Descenders could come up with a countermeasure, a low shout rang out.

"I’ll do it!"

Silvery-white hair began to dance without any wind. Strand by strand, it flew up, extended, branched out, and extended again, drifting forward like white snow blown by the wind.

In the blink of an eye, hundreds of silver strands reached out as far as twenty to thirty meters away.

This was quite absurd; many High Tier Dream Descenders couldn’t even achieve such a feat.

Still, Xi Xue was ultimately just a Fusion Stage Dream Descender. By choosing a method with a wide area of effect, she had to sacrifice the inherent lethality and toughness of the hair strands.

At this moment, her silver hair looked spectacular, but it packed only a visual punch.

"But the formula for victory has been set."

Hair strands, spider webs, and spiders were now completely intertwined, indistinguishable from one another.

Her palm, clad in the Blazing Flame Roar Gloves, gently touched her own extended silver hair.

The next moment—WHOOSH!

Flames ignited, Spreading across an area of dozens of meters in an instant.

The hair acted as a conductor for the fire, continuously engulfing both spiders and spider webs.

Meanwhile, Xi Xue had already severed the extended hair from her head.

She leaned backward, watching the firelight bloom brilliantly before her eyes, watching as the Liuhuo from all directions ultimately converged toward the giant cocoon in the center.

BOOM!

The flames blazed fiercely.

The stench of burnt flesh permeated the entire forest.

More than half of the little spiders were dead or injured, and the core Weirdness was swallowed by the inferno.

Beside Xi Xue, the other rookie from the Wizard’s House widened her eyes, thinking, "Come on, sister! We’re both rookies, the Twin Stars of the new era. How did you secretly get so strong? And by this much?! There are limits to this kind of rat race!"

...

Xi Xue’s strike had succeeded, but a Weirdness was still a Weirdness, possessing an unimaginably terrifying Life Force.

It was injured, but it was far from dead.

It was on the verge of breaking out of its cocoon.

Shi An pondered, "Should I have Little Blood make a move?" but suddenly looked off into the distance.

There, at the boundary of the Nightmare Area shrouded in gray mist, Dream Descenders in black trench coats were filing in one after another.

The main force of the Countermeasures Bureau reinforcements had arrived!

As soon as the reinforcements arrived, one group quickly plunged into the spider-infested forest to slaughter the remaining little spiders; another group, holding various instruments, rapidly began searching for and rescuing survivors.

Yet another group wielded axes capable of being brought into the Nightmare Area. Targeting trees that clearly didn’t belong to the local flora, they swung their weapons and began chopping away.

In just twenty or thirty seconds, the entire Nightmare Area began to destabilize.

The gloomy aura radiating from the spider Weirdness inside the massive cocoon was also weakened a bit.

Two expert Dream Descenders strode toward the center of the forest.

However, before they could even dash up to the Weirdness, the giant spider that was just about to break out of its cocoon suddenly shuddered violently. It glanced around and let out a hiss; the next moment, its figure faded, vanishing into the vast forest.

The Nightmare was over.