Chapter 71: Nightmare

The red elevator descended all the way to the lowest level, and with a ding, the cabin door automatically opened, revealing a wide corridor.

Li Cheng did not step out of the cabin; instead, he first pulled out a drone and launched it to survey the corridor.

There were no fire exits or emergency doors here—only the elevator provided access. At the end of the corridor stood a circular explosion-proof door three meters in diameter, now open to reveal a narrow gap.

In front of the door were two armed guard posts, where eight armed personnel lay dead, blood streaming from all seven orifices.

Suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the corridor were four rail tracks, each with a scanner hanging from it.

"It seems this is the core facility of the bunker. Visitors must first pass through the corridor and be scanned—likely facial recognition combined with gait analysis."

In the field of intelligent surveillance, gait recognition offers greater advantages than standard image recognition. Iris patterns can be forged, blood can be replaced, fingerprints can be faked, and faces can be concealed with masks.

But long-term walking gait is exceedingly difficult to imitate—each person's muscle strength, tendon length, bone length, coordination, body weight, height, and walking habits differ.

Li Cheng had realized this long ago; during missions, besides using worm genes to alter his appearance, he also wore elevated shoes and placed one or two pebbles under his soles to change his gait.

"After passing the scanners, you must still present credentials at the armed guard posts. Only after verification can the explosion-proof door open. All these measures exist to protect what's behind the door—or to protect the people inside the bunker from what's behind it."

Since the drone lacked the strength to open the explosion-proof door, Li Cheng used a remote to recall it, stepped out of the elevator, and fired a shot at the ceiling rail, causing the scanners to crash to the floor.

He feared the scanners might still be active and detect his gait as unauthorized, triggering the bunker's alarm and causing complications.

After preparing, he crossed the corridor and carefully pulled open the explosion-proof door.

Inside was a vast space, devoid of the imagined nightmare horde—instead, it appeared utterly normal. At the center stood a sealed room, three meters on each side, constructed of explosion-proof glass, its interior holding a metal platform with a perforated stone slab resting upon it.

Surrounding the glass room were numerous instruments, robotic arms, and experimental tables.

Li Cheng picked up an experimental log from one of the tables and read its detailed entries.

【Project Number: 012】

【Project Level: Euclid】

【Special Containment Procedures: Project 012 must be housed in a heat-insulated, radiation-shielded sealed room. The room must be sterilized daily with 100°C steam for five minutes. Any testing procedure on Project 012 requires prior approval from at least two Level-3 authorized personnel.】

【Description: Project 012 is a palm-sized, elongated, perforated stone slab of indeterminate origin. Before recovery, it served as decorative material on the wall of a kindergarten in Chicago. The kindergarten was abandoned in the early 21st century and had been associated with rumors of supernatural phenomena.】

【When a sentient being with an intact brain sleeps within five meters of Project 012, a five-meter-radius reality disturbance anomaly forms. The sleeper enters an uncontrollable nightmare state, exhibiting symptoms such as accelerated heartbeat, sweating, and trembling. The anomaly generates monsters imagined by the sleeper during the nightmare.】

【The monsters remain motionless and dissipate upon the sleeper's awakening. However, long-term testing reveals that if the sleeper undergoes psychological hypnosis before sleep and audio is played during REM cycles, there is a high probability the generated monsters will resemble those from films the sleeper has watched.】

【Monsters generated this way can persist indefinitely outside the reality disturbance zone, possess mobility, and demonstrate limited intelligence and self-awareness. Monster types cannot be replicated. If observed by additional sentient beings, their duration of activity extends.】

【This facility has now reached agreements with global film studios, including Hollywood and Bollywood, to halt all ongoing horror film productions. Expert teams are now writing scripts to deliberately generate specific entities—a malevolent super-scientist, paralyzed from head to toe, possessing technologies such as controlled nuclear fusion, superconducting materials, faster-than-light engines, and super-artificial intelligence.】

【Appendix: Project 012 Test Records】

【Appendix: Project 012 Experimental Accidents】

【.】

Li Cheng read the record, looked up at the perforated stone slab inside the glass chamber, and connected all the clues in his mind.

The stone slab might have fallen out from the Killing Ground as an anomaly—or it might inherently possess peculiar properties; either way, it distorts reality and generates figures from people's nightmares.

In that world, a government agency discovered the stone, contained it, and through repeated testing, uncovered its rules.

The various monsters generated by nightmares posed grave threats to social order—but what if the approach were reversed? What if the government's think tank wrote scripts to deliberately craft horror films, generating a specific villain: the malevolent scientist?

Moreover, since monster types cannot be replicated and their lifespan extends when observed by more sentient beings, the government, under the guise of a super-rich benefactor, established a theme park, filling it with countless monsters to attract tourists while eliminating irrelevant options.

The sole purpose: to generate the malevolent scientist and rapidly acquire advanced technology to reach the technological singularity.

But as in every horror film, the more confident one becomes, the more likely one is to fail. Eventually, the bunker was breached for some reason, and all personnel perished.

"Project Number 012—meaning in that alternate Earth-like world, at least eleven other anomalies still exist."

Li Cheng murmured: "I wonder whether the organization that funded the bunker's construction ever succeeded in generating that malevolent scientist. If they did, where is he—or she—now?"

After a moment's thought, he moved, collecting all robotic arms, instruments, experimental tables, and research materials into the Bone Corridor.

Finally, he stepped toward the glass chamber, shattered the room with a grenade launcher, crushed the glass shards beneath his boots, and, wearing gloves, retrieved the stone slab from the metal platform.

As expected, the moment his palm touched the stone, the system's item description appeared before his eyes.

Li Cheng read the item description, his expression shifting slightly. "This thing is a key?"

No time for further analysis—he checked his watch. It was nearly the thirty-minute mark mentioned by Su Jie. He immediately secured the stone, planted timed explosives throughout the room, and teleported out of the Killing Ground.

Minutes later, when Special Affairs Bureau agents stormed the bunker's depths, they found only wreckage from the explosion.

(End of Chapter)