Chapter 550: Traitors (2)

My left fist landed heavily on Chu Men's head. The moment the white light radiating from the merit touched his body, wisps of black smoke poured out of him, reacting as violently as water poured into hot oil.

With disaster looming, I abandoned all hesitation and poured every bit of merit from the Buddhist Prayer Bead Bracelet into the strike, slowly gaining the upper hand.

"Crack! Crack!"

Only when two crisp sounds rang out one after another and two consecutive Buddhist Prayer Beads shattered on the bracelet did the white light flare brightly enough to suppress the black smoke formed by malice and negative emotions.

Before long, Chu Men's body—already heavily injured by Chen Jiuge earlier—could hold out no longer and completely dissipated. The black smoke melted back into the Dream Realm, leaving only a Blue Talisman and a thumb-sized Ink-Colored Pixiu Stone Carving on the ground.

'The Blue Talisman was left by Chen Jiuge, but what is with this black Pixiu stone carving? Could this be the true form of that wisp of malice?' I looked at the stone carving in my hand, figuring it was probably related to the fierce entity beneath the Bridge No. 3 Crematorium. It might be useful when dealing with it later, so I tucked it away and hurried out to escape.

The Plush Bear used a red thread to guide the way as I rapidly wove through various rooms. The number of charred corpses continued to multiply, making the entire escape fraught with peril.

Fortunately, no more vitality leaked from within my Liver Aperture. Aside from that single crack, the Dream Cocoon looked no different than before.

I sprinted wildly for a long time before finally escaping that core cluster of buildings. Compared to the entirety of the Despair District, the core structures were merely a small fraction.

The vitality radiating from earlier had reached much further than I imagined. The entire district seemed to be rioting, the charred houses shaking and trembling as if an earthquake had struck.

"I really messed up this time." I glanced left and right. Chen Jiuge had long since vanished without a trace, and the Plush Bear's red thread hung limply on my shoulder, completely lifeless.

A distinct tremor traveled through the ground, and houses not far away even began to collapse. I desperately tried to recall the route I had taken to get in, but before I could fully piece it together, the buildings in the core area caved in with a deafening crash. Like dominoes, several interconnected, pitch-black lofts toppled over as well, sending a cloud of ash and smoke over ten meters high billowing into the air behind me.

'I'm getting an extremely uneasy feeling.' Chen Jiuge had fled far too decisively, which made my own hair stand on end. 'This Despair District shouldn't be as simple as it looks on the surface. There are probably even more terrifying things buried underground.'

As the smoke and dust slowly dispersed, a massive shadow blotted out all the light. Covering my mouth and nose, I turned to look.

Charred corpses were crawling toward the massive pit at breakneck speeds, slowly filling it up. They piled on top of one another, forming an enormous mountain of bodies.

'What are they trying to do?' I had already unconsciously started fleeing toward the edge of the district. Throwing a quick glance back out of the corner of my eye, I saw that the stacked, charred corpses were actually beginning to fuse together! All those memories of despair and agony twisted into one, slowly taking the shape of a massive, three-story-tall monster!

'It's made entirely out of corpses? Fusing and devouring memories... isn't this thing the Nightmare I've seen before?'

I sprinted as fast as I could. Watching corpse after corpse meld into a monster right before my eyes was a process no normal person could stomach.

By the time I had run about a hundred meters, a deafening boom erupted behind me. When I looked back again, I was so terrified my soul nearly left my body.

That massive, three-story-tall monster, its surface still bristling with various unfused human limbs, was charging straight at me!

"Fuck me!" I threw every other thought to the back of my mind and ran for the outskirts of the district like my life depended on it. "If that thing catches me, it'll absolutely be a hundred times worse than death!"

Fleeing madly, I never expected that just a tiny bit of vitality leaking from the Dream Wing Gu's breakthrough would attract such a terrifying monster.

The Nightmare gave chase from behind, while charred corpses would occasionally burst out from the houses on both sides to block my path. The distance between the Nightmare and me was slowly closing.

Now I finally understood why Chen Jiuge had fled without a second thought. Nightmares essentially belonged to the most terrifying class of entities in the Deep Dream Layer—absolute taboos that could never be provoked.

About half an hour later, I was getting closer and closer to the edge of the district. Yet, the Nightmare remained hot on my heels. I was genuinely terrified it would follow me right out of the district's boundaries. If that happened, I wouldn't have the slightest chance of escaping.

Two hundred meters, fifty meters, ten meters!

The scorch marks from the massive fire on the buildings flanking me slowly decreased, and the foul stench in the air dissipated. Even my line of sight seemed to grow a bit clearer.

'I'm almost out!' Surging with a final burst of energy, I dashed out of the Despair District. Gasping heavily for air, I didn't even have time to look back; I just strained my ears to listen. The wind howled behind me, and the ground was still trembling. Clearly, the Nightmare had chased me out!

'Dream Wing Gu, oh, Dream Wing Gu. You just had to wake up right at that moment instead of any earlier or later. Otherwise, I could have extorted a few more good items from Chen Jiuge.' Complaining was useless now. Besides, this was no longer a question of whether or not I could extort Chen Jiuge—it was a life-and-death crisis.

Stumbling and crawling, my speed gradually slowed down, and the distance between the Nightmare and me shrank to just over ten meters.

For something as massive as the Nightmare, that distance was merely a few strides. It could close in for the kill in the blink of an eye.

Indeed, the Nightmare acted much as I had anticipated. It took only a few seconds to barrel right up behind me. Yet, when there was only five meters left between us, it abruptly skidded to a halt.

Its massive maw opened and closed, blotting out the sky with ash. Emitting a thick, putrid stench, it roared several times with intense unwillingness toward a certain direction in the distance, then slinked back into the Despair District in defeat.

'It left? It just left like that?' Surviving such a hopeless situation left me overjoyed, but also somewhat puzzled. 'Was the Nightmare wary of something at the very end? Could it be Chen Jiuge? Impossible! That bastard wishes he could kill me himself. Why would he ever save me?'

Plagued by doubt, I looked in the direction the Nightmare had roared. Across the wide street, a man in a multicolored suit leaned against a streetlight, silently watching me.

My Judging Eye swept over him, and when I saw his face, I was genuinely taken aback.

"Xia Chi?"

Standing over 1.8 meters tall, he had the vibe of a sunny, cheerful guy. With a sturdy, model-like physique, he managed to make the multicolored suit look effortlessly stylish.

'Could he be a nightmare in disguise?'

I stayed rooted to the spot. Xia Chi smiled and took the initiative to walk toward me. "Streamer, we meet again."

"We meet again? You know who I am? No, wait—I'm wearing a mask. It's impossible for you to recognize me on sight!" I deduced out of habit, taking a few steps back.

"Gao Jian, you're still as cautious as ever. Relax, I really am Xia Chi." The man in the multicolored suit gave a helpless smile. "This meeting is much more comfortable than our last one. At the very least, I don't have to worry about you sending me to the Electric Chair."

He mentioned the Electric Chair. That was a key prop during the death game livestream. I furrowed my brows. "Are you really not a nightmare?"

"Do you think a nightmare could have scared off that monster just now?" Xia Chi scratched his head. "Though I was just riding on someone else's coattails."

He slipped a token-like object into his suit pocket and reached out to me. "Actually, I've been lurking in your livestream channel the whole time. I've watched every single one of your broadcasts, which is how I was able to keep track of your whereabouts."

"That answer isn't going to convince me." Using livestream viewers as a shield was something I had absolutely no way to verify, but I still reached out and shook his hand.

"That's more like it. Welcome to the Deep Dream Layer." Xia Chi laughed heartily. He naturally had a very straightforward and bold personality. In my eyes, however, a personality like that was full of fatal flaws. In terms of height, looks, and temperament, he could easily be considered a god-tier handsome guy, but if he were really sent to be an Underworld Live Show Streamer all on his own, I figured he wouldn't survive for more than three days. It was no wonder he had ended up hiding under a bed, carving words into the floorboards.

Naturally, I wouldn't say any of this to his face. In truth, I had a lot of things I needed to ask him right now; I just didn't know where to start. Feeling an inexplicable sense of irritability, I suddenly blurted out, "Got a smoke?"

"A smoke? I really don't have one." Xia Chi shrugged. "Let's go. I'll take you somewhere. Oh, right—before we go, you need to put your Live Show Phone away first."

"Put the phone away?" I raised my hand, preparing to slip the phone into my pocket. But the moment the camera lens swept across Xia Chi's face, the phone suddenly emitted a "ding." It seemed a message had just arrived.

I didn't bother hiding it from Xia Chi and simply tapped open the phone's inbox.

"Attention: Traitor discovered! You must kill him! Reward: 10 points and one Live Broadcast Immunity!"