Chapter 7 - 4: Disaster

Chapter 7: Chapter 4: Disaster

The sudden image made Shi An’s gaze narrow.

It appeared to be an underground parking garage, filled with all sorts of cars, including luxury models.

But now, the entire garage was eerily quiet. The light was dim, and many of the overhead lamps flickered unsteadily, like dying candles in the wind.

A middle-aged man staggered out from the shadows. He took a few steps before collapsing limply to the ground.

Blood, deep crimson blood, trailed all the way back into the unseen shadows from which he came.

’What is this?’

Shi An didn’t recognize the middle-aged man in the vision, neither his build nor his face.

’But this vision couldn’t have appeared for no reason.’

’Huh?!’

Shi An’s gaze focused on the man’s blood-soaked hand. A huge pair of scissors, seemingly fused to his flesh, hung limply from his grasp.

’It’s the Curse Dream Object: Shadow Giant Scissors!’

’So, that middle-aged man is the man in the black suit I saw in the Nightmare World. He’s dead?’

’The Safe Zone changed his fate and helped him survive the Nightmare, but he still died!!’

Shi An couldn’t accept it.

The vision appeared abruptly and vanished just as quickly. Before him was once again the glittering surface of the river, the sun shining brightly down.

But when the wind blew past, Shi An felt a chill that pierced him to the bone.

He forced himself to calm down and replayed the vision that had just flashed in his mind.

’It’s only been a few hours since he left the Nightmare World. In such a short time, the man probably wouldn’t have fallen into another Nightmare. Besides, that scene looked a lot like the Present Realm!’

It lacked the bizarre and ominous feeling of the Nightmare World.

But if that was the Present Realm—a place that was supposed to be peaceful and safe—the man still died.

He had survived one Nightmare after another, only to die in the supposedly safe Present Realm.

Shi An was filled with anger and alarm.

’I should have realized it sooner,’ he thought.

’Since Dream Descenders exist and possess extraordinary power, how could the Present Realm possibly remain peaceful?’

The peace was just a facade. A dark undercurrent had been surging all along.

’And I’ve been subconsciously ignoring it this whole time!’

The man had died in the Present Realm.

’How did he die? At the hands of someone else, or... ’

’Besides "man-made calamities" like Dream Descenders, could there be other "natural disasters" in the Present Realm?’

This was just a theory of Shi An’s, one with no evidence.

But if the dangers caused by Dream Descenders could be covered up, then other dangers could be as well. The Present Realm was only able to maintain its peace because some organization was restraining the undercurrents beneath the surface.

Shi An looked to the southeast.

A deep-seated intuition told him the underground parking garage from the vision was in that direction, and not very far away.

All around him, children, couples, and the elderly were still laughing and enjoying their day.

But it felt as if Shi An and they were living in two different worlds.

After a long moment of consideration, he made a decision. ’I’ll go take a look.’

Not that he intended to go right into the parking garage itself.

But now that he knew the general direction and that something had happened, he couldn’t just stay in the small park any longer.

He wanted to confirm a few things.

Hopping on his electric scooter, Shi An sped off.

His eyes constantly scanned his surroundings—old buses, deep alleyways, trash-filled underpasses...

He wondered if these places might harbor dangers that ordinary people couldn’t perceive.

Now, it seemed everything he looked at was a potential source of danger.

Suddenly, Shi An squeezed the brakes. The road ahead was blocked, surrounded by a large crowd of onlookers.

’Guess it’s just human nature to rubberneck,’ he mused.

It looked like police tape had been set up in the distance, but the crowd was too thick for Shi An to squeeze through to the front.

He tapped the shoulder of a guy in front of him. "Hey buddy, what’s going on? Why the big crowd?"

"Sigh, what else? An electric car in the underground garage caught fire and exploded."

The guy spoke with a sigh. "They say the damage is pretty widespread. The whole underground garage is off-limits now, but a lot of residents are worried their cars got burned too. Man, what a disaster..."

The guy was talkative, but Shi An didn’t hear a word he said after that.

Underground parking garage... Cordoned off... Accident... Danger...

The vision replayed in his mind.

The place his intuition had pointed to was right before his eyes.

Shi An’s gaze traveled past the crowd and over the police tape. It was as if he could see into the depths of the underground garage, where lights flickered erratically over the limp body of the dead man.

His dreams, the Safe Zone, the Nightmares, the visitors... none of it was just a dream.

The dream world and the Present Realm were intertwined.

Shi An remembered now. His past was certainly free of ghost stories or strange legends, but there had been no shortage of similar disasters.

Car crashes, fires, falls from tall buildings, explosions...

’How many of those incidents were genuine accidents, and how many weren’t?’

He didn’t know, and he currently lacked the ability to find out.

Having confirmed some of his suspicions, Shi An didn’t linger and quickly returned to his small rented room.

It was still early, but Shi An was in no mood for entertainment, and he certainly didn’t dare to wander around outside.

After all, ’the Present Realm holds dangers that I probably know nothing about.’

After lunch, Shi An decided to start exercising. It might not be useful, but it probably wasn’t completely useless, either. At the very least, a good Physique would help him run faster if he ran into danger.

Time ticked by, agonizingly slow. The wait was much harder than his usual waits for game server maintenance.

Finally, the moment arrived.

DING!

[Notification: Safe Zone upgrade complete. Current Tier: Level 1.]

[Notification: The probability of the Safe Zone appearing randomly in the Nightmare World has been significantly increased.]

[Notification: Safe Zone environment improved.]

[Notification: You now have the authority to directly open the gateway.]

The notifications surfaced in his mind one after another.

After the upgrade, Shi An felt his connection to the Safe Zone grow stronger.

Moreover...

’This is a huge upgrade! The probability of getting new visitors—the thing I needed most—has really increased significantly.’

Even though he had anticipated this, only now that he saw the result for himself could the weight finally be lifted from his shoulders.

In addition,

’The authority to open the gateway?’

Shi An studied it for a moment and realized it was an Ability that allowed him to open the gate to the Safe Zone from anywhere.

This way, even if he were to be caught in a Nightmare and fall into a dangerous world, he could open a passage himself and return to his loyal Safe Zone.

His safety had increased dramatically!

Shi An drew the curtains and prepared to lie down on his bed to enter the dream.

Suddenly, another possibility occurred to him, and his breath quickened.

’Is it possible that opening the gate isn’t limited to the Nightmare World?’

Shi An couldn’t test opening the gate in the Nightmare World.

But in the Present Realm...

He took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut then opened them, focusing on that faint, intuitive connection. Then, at a certain moment, he reached out his hand...

SHIMMER~!

His hand felt like it was parting water. The space before him rippled as circles of white mist expanded outward.

A gateway, wreathed in white mist, had appeared right in Shi An’s bedroom.

Within the gate were the colors of a dream—vibrant, somber, and phantasmagorical.

He had really opened the gate!

Not in a dream, but in the Present Realm!

Shi An took a deep breath and stepped through. It felt like passing through water, crossing the boundary between the Present Realm and the dreamscape. His plain clothes dissolved in a stream of light. The angles of his face grew sharper, a silver-gray greatcoat draped over his shoulders, and the sun and moon pendants on it chimed softly.

Shi An had returned to his loyal Safe Zone.