Chapter 330: Severed Thoughts in Sealed Dust

That night, Su Mu entered Dreamwalking Mode. Drifting through the streets and alleys of the Imperial Capital like a phantom, he picked out lucky audience members at random to hone his Thousand Illusions of Fleeting Life.

With only three days left before their departure to the Nightmare World, he intended to fully digest the Thousand Illusions of Fleeting Life and acquire a new Dream Law.

This proved incredibly simple for him. Thanks to his practically infinite mental power, he could use the Thousand Illusions of Fleeting Life almost without interruption. To maximize his efficiency, he even started targeting prominent nobles.

After all, the greatest concentration of Transcendents in the Imperial Capital was undeniably within the estates of the great nobles.

Thanks to the selfless assistance of those noble families, Su Mu successfully digested the Thousand Illusions of Fleeting Life in just two and a half days, awakening his new Dream Law—Severed Thoughts in Sealed Dust!

His mental power underwent an uncontrollable mutation. Its total capacity didn't increase, but its state of existence shifted. It was a bizarre sensation—his once invisible, intangible mental energy had abruptly transformed into an unseen physical force, as though it now possessed genuine substance.

If his original mental power had been gaseous, it had now condensed into a liquid. With this newfound substance, his mental energy could directly manipulate reality.

Inside the manor, with a single thought from Su Mu, every object in the grand hall—teacups, coffee tables, chairs, and benches—defied gravity and levitated into the air.

He casually waved his hand. A teacup instantly accelerated, shooting forward like a cannonball and triggering a violent sonic boom.

With another thought, the teacup halted just as abruptly. However, the once-pristine porcelain had already disintegrated into a pile of fine white powder.

Su Mu then tried cloaking his entire body in this mutated mental energy, instantly forming an invisible shield around himself. Drawing a Mithril pistol, he fired several shots at himself. The bullets miraculously halted a single millimeter from his body before clattering harmlessly to the floor.

‘Is this Specter's Psychokinesis?’

The very next moment, Su Mu levitated and shot into the sky at supersonic speeds, piercing through the heavy cloud cover like a missile.

As he gazed down from the firmament, the city looked tiny below him.

‘No, this isn't Psychokinesis,’ he realized. ‘Severed Thoughts in Sealed Dust possesses the properties of Psychokinesis, but it also carries the ability to directly obliterate a soul.’

He shifted his gaze to a passing bird. With a single look, his invisible mental energy pierced the creature like a silver needle, instantly obliterating its soul.

The bird stiffened as though struck by lightning and plummeted straight down from the sky.

‘This is a fantastic ability. It converts my mental power into pure combat strength. Given my current reserves, I've long since surpassed the Silver tier and can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Gold powerhouses. Relying purely on the combat strength of Severed Thoughts in Sealed Dust, I can easily kill any Silver Transcendent using only my mental power, without needing a single other trick.’

Overall, Su Mu was highly satisfied with this new ability. It offered attack, defense, and flight—a flawlessly comprehensive package.

The next day.

Su Mu and the others arrived at the General Law Enforcement Bureau's secret laboratory at the agreed-upon time. Today was the day they would depart for the Nightmare World.

Yang Dongqing stared at the colossal metal apparatus in the room, secretly astounded. Was this the true foundation of the Chiyan Empire? To think they actually possessed a machine capable of mass-teleporting Nightmare Apostles into the Nightmare World.

Wait, mass-teleportation?

He cast a surreptitious glance at Su Mu. He distinctly remembered that Su Mu possessed a similar ability. During his very first descent into the Nightmare World, Su Mu had brought a group of subordinates in with him.

"Everyone, step under the apparatus," a staff member instructed.

The group filed into place beneath the machine. The very next moment, metal tentacles writhed on the apparatus and descended, locking onto the crown of each person's head.

...

...

Hot!

It was blisteringly hot!

It felt like stepping into a blast furnace.

The moment everyone opened their eyes, a scalding heatwave crashed over them. They were greeted by a dark red landscape—the hue of freshly cooled lava, as though the very earth had been slathered in a layer of dried blood.

The ground was marred by a crisscrossing network of jagged fissures, acting as channels for the sluggish, winding streams of crimson magma.

The air was thick with the pungent stench of sulfur. The scorching atmosphere rushed against their faces, making every inhaled breath feel like swallowing raw fire.

In the distance, a towering volcano continuously erupted, bleeding rivers of crimson magma down its slopes.

Plumes of thick smoke billowed upward, tangling with the low, leaden clouds and dyeing the entire sky a chaotic, oppressive gray.

"Are we... inside a volcano?" Lin Nanxing wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead, clearly struggling to adapt to the terrifying ambient heat.

"The Law Enforcement Bureau's equipment can only drop us into a general region," Su Mu said, his expression completely unfazed. "We need to find the boundary of this nightmare first, then leave it and head for the Abyss."

The extreme heat didn't seem to affect him in the slightest, as his invisible mental shield was perfectly insulating him against the searing waves of heat.

The group immediately mobilized. No one wanted to linger in this infernal environment for a second longer than necessary—except for Su Qing.

Here, Su Qing didn't feel the heat; instead, she found it wonderfully comfortable.

They hadn't even advanced a hundred meters when the ground suddenly convulsed. The magma churning within a massive fissure violently boiled over. A moment later, a ten-meter-tall lava giant lumbered out of the molten depths.

Its entire body was constructed of flowing magma, radiating blinding red light and a horrifying heat.

The lava giant raised a right arm as massive as a hill. Its colossal fist descended from the sky, hurtling directly toward the group as the horrifying temperature distorted the air into visible, rippling shockwaves of heat.

Yang Dongqing's face drastically changed. He could physically feel the lethal heat packed into that punch—temperatures high enough to melt Mithril, let alone fragile flesh and blood.

If that fist landed, he feared that every single person present, save for perhaps himself, would be killed.

"Everyone fall—!" he shouted, but before the word "back" could even leave his mouth, a distinctly excited voice rang out.

"Leave it to me!"

Whoosh!

Su Qing's petite frame shot past Yang Dongqing from behind like a bolt of lightning.

Under Yang Dongqing's bewildered gaze, she leaped high into the air, drawing back her delicate little fist before throwing a punch straight at the incoming fist of lava.

The sheer difference in scale between the two combatants made for a jarring contrast.

The very next instant, their fists collided.

BOOM!!

A shocking scene unfolded. As if crushed by an overwhelming, tremendous force, the titanic fist of lava instantly exploded. Crimson magma spattered in all directions. The sheer kinetic energy didn't just obliterate the monster's right arm; it cascaded straight through into its main body.

Inch by inch, the ten-meter-tall body of molten rock ruptured and shattered, utterly reduced to a shower of magma that rained down across the earth.

Su Qing's petite figure dropped out of the sky and landed lightly on the ground. She casually blew on her unblemished little fist and waved at the group. "Let's go."

The rest of the group merely resumed their march, entirely unfazed. Only Yang Dongqing remained frozen in place, utterly dumbfounded.

‘What... what kind of monster is this woman?!’

‘She's this strong, yet she isn't the captain? She's willingly serving as Su Mu's subordinate?’

‘Does Su Mu hold some kind of terrifying leverage over her?’