Chapter 649

If it's just a dream, whether dressed as a woman or using a female avatar doesn't matter—after all, when playing games, even the macho characters you choose can wear Scottish kilts.

"This isn't the true dream world—it's reality!" Li Huowang sprinted toward the two.

Lu Mingfei stared blankly at Huizi, dressed in blue-and-white striped hospital scrubs, appearing here without the slightest surprise, then glanced down at the skirt he was wearing.

"."

Fake.

Even you, Li Huowang, are fake.

"All the Source Materials have been forcibly gathered here!" Li Huowang had barely finished speaking when he lost his balance mid-run and was tackled to the ground by several orderlies and security guards behind him:

"The psychiatric patients confined to the hospital's B2 level are all Outer Gods—the hospital's director is Miss Kelaien Mo Leidi!"

What the hell.

Lu Mingfei felt his mind was about to collapse, but Xiao Yan didn't care—he saw Li Huowang's situation and Audrey's still-smiling face, sensed something was wrong, and immediately moved to pull the group off Li Huowang.

At that moment, he saw the staff he'd traveled with, the doctors in the cafeteria, all stand up in unison.

Each person's eyes were hollow; they all lifted their heads to gaze at the sky obscured by the ceiling. The cafeteria grew unnervingly oppressive, darkness slowly seeping from the cracks like a tangible substance.

Xiao Yan felt his thoughts slow, his spiritual awareness pulled upward as if by an invisible force; gradually, his joints stiffened like those of a puppet.

But this anomaly lasted only a fleeting instant—the next second—

Water glimmered dimly; the surroundings blurred, like the hazy, abstract scenery of a dream.

"Director Xiao, are you feeling unwell?" Audrey asked cautiously.

Xiao Yan looked around: Lu Mingfei was still on the phone, Zhou Mingrui had gone to the restroom and hadn't returned; doctors and nurses in the lobby sat in small groups at the smooth, iron long tables, eating and chatting.

"Nothing… uh?" Xiao Yan suddenly touched his throat: "My voice?!"

A soft, melodious voice came from his own throat.

"Let's continue discussing our previous collaboration," Audrey smiled beside him.

"Our hospital has the best treatment team for gender identity disorder—the condition of being unable to tell whether you're male or female."

Xiao Yan was dazed, staring over at the cafeteria's serving window, its glass slightly reflective—he saw a woman with long black ponytail, deep brown eyes, soft facial contours, and a distinctly handsome…

Was the person in the mirror male or female?

Audrey's voice came again: "If I remember correctly, you have this condition too."

"Me?" Xiao Yan murmured, as if trapped in some mental loop.

He unconsciously pulled out his wallet from his pant pocket and saw the ID inside—

—【Xiao Yan, Female】

The mirror's reflection remained calm, facing the deep, dark void.

"I won't harm them, because I am you."

"I knew from the very beginning what you imagined and hoped for."

"But I won't let them leave, nor will I interfere with our Ascension Ritual."

The Zhou Mingruis in the mirror spoke in orderly sequence, their voices overlapping, echoing in the confined space.

"This one's you in the stratosphere," Zhou Mingrui affirmed, smiling gently.

"You are the apex of the 'Deceiver,' a pillar that has absorbed the Paths of Error, Door, and Deception—it's only natural you could calculate all this."

"By universal logic, under normal circumstances—especially under time pressure—it would be extremely difficult for me alone to restrain you."

"I can no longer change my Path unless I abandon everything now and become an ordinary person."

Zhou Mingrui stepped forward, gazing at the 'Zhou Mingrui' in the mirror, who stared back at him.

"If you truly thought that, you wouldn't have chosen Ascension," the mirror's Zhou Mingrui laughed. "Our fates have already merged."

"That's correct," Zhou Mingrui nodded lightly. "From the very beginning…"

The image of the mirror's Zhou Mingrui began to blur; countless semi-transparent worms converged into a swirling vortex of bluish-black.

When everything overlapped, a figure of average height, black hair, brown eyes, and unmistakable scholarly aura appeared on the other side of the mirror—

—Miss Kelaien Mo Leidi

"Yes," Miss Kelaien Mo Leidi held a revolver gleaming with brass luster, a grotesque wound on his temple; he nodded. "From the very beginning."

"I never expected you to be so decisive—to use Nyarlathotep's acknowledgment to transform part of yourself into my divinity," Zhou Mingrui observed the image, feeling a pang of awe.

"Precisely because of this fragment of divinity, you severed the identity of Miss Kelaien Mo Leidi and tethered it to this world."

"Unless I reclaim this life, I cannot awaken—and by the same logic, neither can you."

Because of this, the original alarm clock had been set in motion by Zhou Mingrui as an individual.

All Source Materials in the entire universe—including the Elder Gods beyond the barrier—began converging toward the Source Fortress above the Spirit Realm, Zhou Mingrui's place of slumber, as the alarm clock slowly turned.

Every image ever existing within Zhou Mingrui and Yuanshi Tianzun's thoughts, perceptions, and consciousness had been overwritten by the leaking dreams, spreading across the entire planet.

Zhou Mingrui said: "You seek to draw closer to the Blind, Foolish Origin—the primordial deity that gave birth to all things, above the original Creator."

"It is instinct—and inevitable," Miss Kelaien Mo Leidi said seriously.

"Azathoth is merely a hollow shell—an empty vessel without consciousness, incapable of ever generating it. We are the errors born from its projection, the sentient minds that could never exist within Blind Foolishness."

"After our fusion, we attempt the final step."

"Enter that hollow flesh."

Zhou Mingrui rolled his eyes, speaking with dry humor: "They'll definitely kill me first."

After saying this, he observed Miss Kelaien Mo Leidi for a moment, then shook his head—his companion had no sense of humor and wouldn't play along.

"So if I had a choice, I don't want divinity to dominate, nor do I want to become the humanity of Yuanshi Tianzun."

"This is an unchangeable fact—and your best option."

The Miss Kelaien Mo Leidi in the mirror said: "Before the ritual ends, they cannot leave this place."

Countless snow static points surged from His body; streams of visual information revealed scenes from the "Elder God Hospital."

Zhou Mingrui walked out of the bathroom with a calm smile on his face, shook the water from his damp hands, and walked toward Xiao Yan and Lu Mingfei, who were serving food at the window.

He suddenly looked in surprise at the cafeteria "auntie" flipping a wok—red hair, delicate features, mechanically using a large ladle to serve food to those swiping cards.

Beside her stood a girl in a dress, with black-blue hair.

"Wei Master, Huai Zhi, why are you here?" Zhou Mingrui asked.

"Working to pay for school," Huai Zhi said.

"Working," Wei Master said.

"No wonder Dr. Audrey said the food here is delicious," Zhou Mingrui said, sounding surprised; he was about to say more.

Crackling!

Glass shattered, bricks and wood flew as Li Huowang, wearing a blue-and-white hospital gown, executed a tactical roll and flew through the window into the cafeteria hall.

"Big Brother Xiao Yan?" Li Huowang stared blankly at the several figures he recognized vaguely, now all with long hair and altered facial features.

"Huowang?" Xiao Yan blinked, then snapped back: "Right, I'm a man!"

He rushed toward the men's restroom.

Lu Mingfei fell silent, staring at Weigong Shilang, whose appearance had softened slightly, and exclaimed: "I haven't even reached Sequence Seven yet?!"

"Brother Lu, I just remembered—I don't need to get involved in this at all," Huai Shi said, then looked around in confusion: "Where are we?"

At the entrance to the men's restroom, Xiao Yan's mind froze again—he turned and walked into the women's restroom.

The next instant, the water glowed dimly, the surroundings blurred.

Everything returned to how it had been just now.

Boom—!

The ceiling cracked open, and Li Huowang descended again, staring at everyone: "What's going on? Where's Zhou Ge?!"

In the dark mirror surfaces above and below, and in countless mirrored reflections within them, different scenes of Li Huowang causing chaos in the psychiatric hospital played simultaneously.

But each scene lasted only a short while before going black, then restarting again.

Seeing this, Kleen remained calm, showing no emotional change.

"Gender is the most fundamental cognition of human beings. After gender is altered in memory, this mistaken perception of gender can be twisted and amplified into a distorted view of the world."

Zhou Mingrui grew serious and said:

"You want to use mental blindness and delusion to make them stay in this world according to the identities you've assigned, unable to contact the outside."

"The Lamp God," Kleen frowned.

In a mirror opposite him, a scene from the basement corridor appeared.

The pale golden figure wandering nearby seemed to sense something—he adjusted his monocle and grinned upward:

"I wished to the Fool, can you give me the Source Fortress?"

"." Kleen's smile didn't change, but the scene switched elsewhere.

Zhou Mingrui's smile brightened:

"In this world, you've made too many arrangements and tools, so from the very beginning, I abandoned any angels or true gods who might have helped me."

"Otherwise, why do you think I had Su Lin take Amon and Adam out of this world?"

"I'm not guarding against them—I'm guarding against you."

"The Chaos Sea is in Adam's hands, the City of Calamity is contained by Lu Mingfei, Amon has descended into madness so extreme even you and I find it unsettling—better let them develop outside for a while."

"Unstable factors that don't exist within this world are the tools I use to oppose you."

Moreover, after the Tiancheng incident, he sensed Yuanshi Tianzun's intense desire to ascend to the "Fixed Myth," and was certain this slumber wouldn't be simple.

Sure enough, during the slumber, through historical reenactment, both Yuanshi Tianzun and he regained their former positions in dreams, and combined with the partial Source Essence gathered by the original alarm clock, this influence dragged the entire world into the dream.

"You becoming my divinity isn't entirely bad for me," Zhou Mingrui said. "Thanks to this, in the dream world, we gained identical permissions."

Because he abandoned this part of himself, Yuanshi Tianzun, who originally held the advantage, can now only match him evenly within the dream world's influence.

"Huowang was still tricked—this place is both dream and reality," Zhou Mingrui's gentle smile returned:

"But your remaining self has merged into the entire dream world, so as long as I wake up from the dream…"

Zhou Mingrui didn't finish his sentence, but Kleen, the aspect of divinity controlled by the dream world, understood what it meant.

"On the condition that you can wake up."

Everything in the old hospital kept restarting, as if stuck in a loading bar glitch of some movie.

Everything cycled endlessly, yet Li Huowang remained lucid.

Naturally—Li Huowang's appearance in the psychiatric hospital wasn't Yuanshi Tianzun's doing; it was Zhou Mingrui's prearranged setup.

The medicine Li Huowang consumed was the medium through which his subconscious, by influencing this key area, grafted the dream world's permissions onto him.

The Lamp God in the corridor was Yuanshi Tianzun's guard.

Once Li Huowang makes a wish, under the distortion of rules, the situation will be completely reversed.

"Looks like I won the bet," Zhou Mingrui nodded. "But I didn't expect Amon's composition grew even more complex."

As Zhou Mingrui said, the unstable factor—Amon's regained position is even higher than he anticipated, surpassing even the layered position accumulated after the Tiancheng incident.

What else did he shove inside at this speed?!

Zhou Mingrui and Kleen locked eyes, and gradually, within the narrow space surrounded by mirrors, a brilliant, clear light door appeared.

"Achieving this effect was beyond my expectations—I originally planned to fight you for a long time in the future."

Zhou Mingrui walked calmly toward the light door, a faint smile on his lips, his tone now lighter:

"You just said Su Lin's condition is bad?"

"Combined with the problem of the City of Calamity's Source Essence, I guessed you wouldn't waste this opportunity—you've likely channeled most of your available authority into Su Lin and Lu Mingfei."

"Therefore, at the intersection of dream and reality, when it comes to controlling the authority over blind delusion, I now hold a slight edge over you."

Under the gaze of Kleen and Zhou Mingrui in the countless mirrors, he pulled open the light door.

The next moment, a bathroom lined with white tiles and filled with the scent of disinfectant appeared before him.

Zhou Mingrui stared at his reflection in the mirror, his gaze blank for a moment before clearing again.

He slowly exhaled, some memories rapidly being overwritten, others disturbed.

Seizing the moment while his state still held, he snapped his fingers, restoring a measure of clarity to the people in the cafeteria outside the bathroom.

At that moment, Li Huowang burst in through the door.

The world began to tremble, as if another reboot was about to begin.

Zhou Mingrui nodded in relief at the scene, just as he was about to step out of the bathroom and lock it in to prevent the reboot—when Huai Shi ignored why he was here and pulled Lu Mingfei to the entrance of the women's restroom.

"I've already dressed as a woman anyway," Huai Shi whispered. "Why don't you tell Brother Su I won't take part in this?"

"Why should I tell him?" Lu Mingfei suddenly narrowed his eyes, puzzled.

"Su Lin has a double to hide the truth—he won't be exposed. Why should I ruin my own reputation and drag others into this?"

Nearby, voices of negotiation drifted in.

In the mirror behind them, Miss Kelaien's image reappeared.

"With Su Lin's help, they've already taken the potion," Miss Kelaien's lips curled slightly; his hair lengthened, his face blurred and softened into something resembling Melissa's appearance:

"I only need to graft the fact that I—meaning you—once became a witch onto them, members of the Assassin Sequence."

Zhou Mingrui turned his head in disbelief: "His condition has deteriorated this badly?"

"Worse than you imagine," Miss Kelaien said calmly. "That's why I deceived him."

Click.

In the mirror, Miss Kelaien snapped his fingers.

Outside the bathroom, Xiao Yan hurried to the door, pulled down his pants, glanced, and his expression shifted from rigid to slowly relaxing.

"Thank heaven and earth, the brother's still there."

He turned and walked away, seemingly unaware of Zhou Mingrui and the Miss Kelaien in the mirror.

Just as both of them grew puzzled—

Ziiiir—!

The bathroom lights suddenly went out, then, after an instant, flared back on.

Ziiiaa—

One of the stall doors slowly opened. Zhou Mingrui and Miss Kelaien instinctively turned toward it, their pupils contracting.

"So that was the deception."

Su Lin sat on the toilet, chin propped on his hands, struggling to speak: "Wasn't it for the sake of our friendship?"