Chapter 4

"Hero, spare my life, hero, spare..."

Wu Pifu formed a claw with one hand, gripping the dark-skinned man's throat. There was no fluctuation in his eyes. He exerted force with his claw, directly crushing the man's Adam's apple. The dark-skinned man fell to the ground, clutching his throat and struggling desperately. After ten seconds or so, he went stiff and stopped moving.

Once he stopped moving, Wu Pifu crouched down and began to search his body.

A small dagger, a piece of broken silver, a handful of copper coins.

Wu Pifu collected all these things into his bosom, looked at the dark-skinned man for a few seconds, then dragged him into the woods by the side of the road. He didn't care, threw the corpse away, and then strode toward the nunnery.

"It seems that the ordinary people in 0.7 are no different."

Wu Pifu walked on the night road, his mind recalling some important information his seniors had told him when he first woke up.

Because of the "gaze of '?'", the dream network became distorted and turned into a Dream World. All citizens sank into the dream network and could never wake up again. Only they, the maintenance personnel, because they were not in the dream network, either woke up naturally when the time came, or obtained Mainframe permission after establishing a sanctuary in the Dream World, which could free three to five maintenance personnel in hibernation chambers.

Depending on the degree of Baseline Reality, the more the Dream World deviates from Baseline Reality, the more terrifying it is.

After they enter the Dream World, they will be perceived by the bizarre things of that Dream World, which the seniors call Nightmares, divided into three ranks.

This is not a division of the Nightmare's own strength; some Rank One Nightmares might be more powerful than Rank Two ones. This Rank One, Two, or Three is not a division of strength, but a division of the Dream World's layers.

Rank One Nightmares can only exist in the world where they were born. Rank Two Nightmares can pass through the sanctuary to the material reality, or follow them into the Dream World.

This is very terrifying. Once you encounter a Rank Two Nightmare, unless you completely eliminate it, you will almost certainly be hunted to death, because you can't even escape.

The only luck is that Rank Two Nightmares will be suppressed by the Dream World.

For example, a Rank Two Nightmare from Baseline Reality 0.9, if it enters a Baseline Reality 0.8 Dream World, its strength and bizarreness will drop a hundredfold. This is also the method the seniors who killed a Rank Two Nightmare before Wu Pifu woke up used: bring it into a deeper Dream World to kill it.

As for Rank Three Nightmares...

"Little Wu, we certainly haven't encountered a Rank Three Nightmare, but other districts have!" Wang Xiuting explained to Wu Pifu at the time.

"Other districts?"

"Yes, Gaia is so huge. Our district number is Z-117-?" Wang Xiuting asked.

Wu Pifu nodded in confirmation. Three hundred shifts, each shift maintaining for two thousand years, far exceeded the total voyage time. But in fact, this included the attrition of maintenance personnel. The so-called 300-year lifespan was already equivalent to three-fifths of the lifespan of humans in 2788, but this was only theoretical. Over 90% of maintenance personnel would die at their posts. They couldn't accurately calculate their short-term sleep time, so all 300 shifts of maintenance personnel were consumables.

Wang Xiuting said again: "The Dream World is actually a bizarre change in the dream network. The Dream Worlds we enter are all born in the dream network. In other words, if it's a coincidence, we can meet maintenance personnel from other districts in it. And you also know that it's not just the dream network that has distorted; the entire Gaia has distorted. A large number of demons, ghosts, bizarre things, and terrifying rules have permeated the entire Gaia."

"The Mainframe has almost completely closed all link channels and gates of Gaia, which has blocked these terrors from running rampant everywhere. So we can't go to other districts, and other districts naturally can't come here. Our only hope is to enter the Dream World and establish Rank One, Rank Two, Rank Three, Rank Four, or even the top-level Rank Five sanctuaries to obtain Mainframe permission. Only then can we open these channels and wake up more people, especially those citizens who hold Mainframe permission!"

Wang Xiuting sighed and said: "My senior told me that he met a night watchman from another district. They were also struggling to survive in the Dream World, and that team was much stronger than ours, with a total of sixteen members. The senior exchanged information with them and agreed to watch over each other, but very soon, their team was wiped out. In a Dream World they shared, the senior found the information they left behind. They encountered a Rank Three Nightmare..."

"A Rank Three Nightmare will not be suppressed in any world, even if... it comes to the material world!!"

Wu Pifu had already seen the nunnery by now. He sighed, putting aside his nostalgia for Wang Xiuting and Li An for the time being. He had more important things to do now.

"I can't establish a sanctuary in this world. Baseline Reality 0.7, this is not a place I can stay. For every Rank One Sanctuary, I must stay here for at least ten days every thirty days, otherwise, I will be perceived by the Nightmare. If there are Rank Two or even Rank Three Nightmares, they can come to the material reality through the sanctuary and kill me."

"But ten days... the longer I stay, after five days, the Nightmares of this world can generally perceive my location, and hunting and attacks will gradually come. Ten days is too long. I can't deal with any monsters in Baseline Reality 0.7. So, I can't establish a sanctuary here!"

"Today is the third day since I arrived in this world. As soon as the sky brightens, I will first investigate the situation here, the dynasty, the location, then find a way to get money, preferably buy a house or get a piece of land, then settle the little mute, and I must leave this world immediately, even if I lose the coordinates of this Dream World..."

"And I must be very careful when getting money. If I calculate that the Rank One Sanctuary I established before earned twenty silver dollars, then let's say twenty taels of silver. I can't earn more than twenty taels of silver here!"

To open a sanctuary in the Dream World, the experience Wu Pifu got from his seniors was to make money. When you earn twenty to thirty silver dollars in that world, you can establish a Rank One Sanctuary.

Thinking of this, the image of the mute little nun—not good-looking, even arguably a bit ugly, but with large tears rolling down, and being beaten by the rascal—flashed through Wu Pifu's mind. Most importantly, she had saved his life!

Wu Pifu became irritable, but he could only take it one step at a time. His character and conscience made it impossible for him to ignore the grace of saving his life.

Just as Wu Pifu was chasing the rascal away from the nunnery, in the nunnery, in the only decent building in the entire dilapidated nunnery—the main hall where the Buddha statue was placed—something seemed to be squirming on the Sakyamuni Buddha statue in the center.

Black sludge poured out from the eyes, mouth, ears, and nose of the statue, fell to the ground, and squirmed toward the outside of the main hall...

Although there was a commotion caused by the rascal, there were still several strong men sleeping in the guest rooms after being exhausted. This sludge seemed to have some kind of perception ability, squirming toward the location of the tallest and strongest man.

It was already late at night. The man was eight feet tall, with dark skin, a beard like steel needles, and a figure like a wild boar. He was hugging a small nun in each arm, sleeping soundly. The sludge surged in from the crack of the door, bit by bit, to the man's side, and then, with lightning speed, pounced on his face.

The man opened his eyes abruptly, immediately wanting to roar and howl. At the same time, he exerted force with his arms, and the two nuns who were still in a daze were immediately thrown away.

But when the man subconsciously roared and howled, the sludge immediately surged into his mouth. At this instant, the man still had a reaction. He jumped up with a carp-like leap, his figure incredibly agile. He reached out and grabbed a broadsword from the bedside, just about to wield it to attack the enemy he thought was there, when his movements gradually slowed down.

The sludge surged from his mouth, ears, nose, and eyes into his body, then passed through his skin, blood vessels, and meridians to his whole body, making hideous green-black lines appear on his skin. In less than a few seconds, the sludge disappeared, and the man stood still.

The two nuns were both bleeding from their heads, crawling up while moaning, but they didn't dare to be angry at the man.

This was a famous ranger in the area, specializing in "business that doesn't cost money." He wasn't even afraid of the government and was an existence that the Masked Nunnery absolutely couldn't afford to provoke.

The two nuns stood timidly to the side, not knowing what madness had taken the man, but they saw the man slowly twisting his body from the stiffness. Amidst a crackling sound of bones, borrowing the faint moonlight outside the window, the two nuns saw the man's pupils gradually turning more and more black from the clear black and white, until finally, the pupils turned completely pitch black.

Then the man turned his head abruptly to look at them, his face twisting into a hideously terrifying smile.

The two nuns trembled all over. A fear that transcended the fear of villains and rascals suddenly descended. It was the instinct of humans to fear higher-level terrors. They screamed and wanted to rush out of the room.

But the man was faster. With just one pounce, he pressed the two women to the ground. Then, the arm with bulging green tendons gripped one nun's head. Amidst her miserable wails, one could hear the sound of bones dislocating, and then...

The man actually tore the nun's head off along with her spine!!

(End of chapter)