Chapter 13: Attempt

The night was deep, and all was silent.

Lumian woke again in his dream, and the first thing that met his eyes was a faint gray mist.

He instinctively raised his hand and slipped it into the pocket of his clothes.

The cold, hard touch of metal immediately reached his mind.

He pulled out the object he had touched, and a flash of gold lit up his eyes.

It was a coin.

A gold Louis.

“It’s still here…” Lumian sat up and examined himself.

He still wore the same cotton jacket, cotton pants, and leather coat from his last exploration; the nearly two-meter-long steel fork and the sharp iron-black axe lay within arm’s reach.

This was exactly the same state as when he had left the dream.

“That means this dream is evolving—it doesn’t reset every time I enter…” Lumian played with the gold Louis for a moment, then tucked it into the inner pocket of his cotton shirt.

Though he couldn’t take it to reality, just looking at it brought him joy.

Lumian rolled off the bed and stared out the window for a while, confirming that the red mountain peak among the ruins showed no obvious change.

He picked up his axe and steel fork, stepped out of his room, and entered the dim corridor.

Aurora’s bedroom and study remained open.

Lumian glanced at them and suddenly had an idea:

“In this dream, my room corresponds almost exactly to reality—everything I expect is here. Aurora’s seems the same too.”

“Then, could I find her witch notes, alchemical formulas, or instructions on becoming a witch in her bedroom?”

The thought whispered like a devil’s temptation, stirring Lumian’s heart and urging him to try.

Compared to exploring the unknown, dangerous, mysterious, and bizarre ruins, ransacking Aurora’s room was far easier and safer.

No, no! Lumian shook his head sharply, flinging the idea aside.

He would rather take risks than invade Aurora’s privacy—he would not search her bedroom without her permission.

This was respect for Aurora.

Without her, he would have died five years ago as a homeless orphan.

With great pain, Lumian tore his gaze away and headed for the stairs.

If the owner of that bedroom were anyone but Aurora, he would already be rummaging through it for useful materials.

Down the stairs, Lumian did not rush outside but checked the kitchen’s supplies.

Aurora’s stored olive oil, corn oil, and animal fats were neatly arranged in barrels and jars, just as in reality.

Almost instinctively, Lumian first lifted the barrel of corn oil and placed it beside the stove.

His only reason for this choice was that animal fat and olive oil were more expensive.

Then, skillfully using coal and wood, he lit a fire in the stove and made several torches ready to be ignited.

He was preparing to burn that monster.

Of course, if another solution existed, that would be better—this was his last resort.

After finishing these tasks, he picked up his axe and stepped outside.

Lumian immediately noticed a difference:

The faint gray mist that filled this dream felt damper than before, and the ground beneath his feet was slightly muddy.

“It rained? Even when I wasn’t here, when I wasn’t dreaming, this place still existed—and evolved naturally according to some rules?” Lumian was surprised, yet strangely felt this made sense.

Thinking of the strange stories Aurora had told him, he suddenly had a suspicion:

“Could this be a real world?”

“Does my dream connect to a real world, and did that Tarot card wake me to cross the barrier between dream and ruins?”

Lumian quickly glanced left and right and saw that on both sides of the ruins, at the dream’s “edges,” the gray mist stretched endlessly.

“I can test this later—instead of going to the ruins, walk into the mist and see whether beyond it lies a chaotic, illogical dream, or real land, sky, villages, and towns…”

If it was the former, then this was still a dream. If not, Lumian would have to determine exactly which world this was.

He believed, from the use of gold Louis, that this place still belonged to the Intis Republic—but perhaps not the present era. Maybe it was some lost, vanished place from decades or even centuries ago.

Still, Lumian felt he had an extremely high chance of never escaping the surrounding gray mist.

He steadied his mind and continued toward the ruins.

He had not forgotten his purpose for entering this dream: to resolve the monster.

After walking two or three hundred meters across the muddy wasteland littered with rubble and cracks, Lumian suddenly stopped.

He realized a problem.

His preparations had been flawed!

Previously, his two-story house had no firelight, making it safe in this mist-shrouded world. Now, it had a stove fire, glowing through the windows—would it attract countless monsters and destroy its safety?

Lumian instinctively turned back and looked toward where he’d come from: in the faint gray mist, the bottom of his semi-subterranean two-story house cast crimson light across its glass panes.

It was like a lighthouse in a dark world.

Considering how much time had passed, trying to extinguish the fire now was clearly too late. Lumian simply quickened his pace, entered the ruins, and hid inside the collapsed building at the edge.

He sheathed his axe on his belt, climbed nimbly up a wall, and crouched into a dark corner formed by bricks and wood.

Lumian gazed far across the wasteland toward his own house.

Seconds ticked by. He saw no monster drawn by the fire, no creature approaching that side.

“It seems the fire won’t change anything—at least not enough to draw monsters to my house…” Lumian exhaled quietly in relief.

That meant, even if danger arose, as long as he could escape back home and fall asleep quickly, he could safely break free.

He began considering how to lure out and defeat the previous monster:

“From our brief fight last time, its strength, speed, reaction, and agility were roughly equal to mine—but clearly, it fought purely on instinct, lacking experience, skill, or intelligence. That’s why I was able to kill it despite the surprise attack…”

“It gets confused, freezes up—just like a human…”

“Beyond combat skill, I have two advantages over it: superior intellect, and the ability to use weapons and tools—this is humanity’s greatest edge against such monsters…”

“As long as I’m careful, defeating it again won’t be hard. The key is how to eliminate it completely…”

Just as Lumian considered making a noise to lure some monster closer, he saw a figure silently approaching beside the completely collapsed house.

The figure was entirely blood-red, its skin gone, exposing muscles, blood vessels, and fascia—it was unmistakably the same monster from before.

But unlike last time, this monster held a manure fork in its hand.

A manure fork!

“It can use weapons too…” Lumian’s face stiffened, his expression souring.

His confidence subtly waned.

As the monster drew nearer and turned toward him, Lumian saw exaggerated wounds on its back, neck, and occiput—but those fissures no longer oozed pus; they had mostly healed.

“It’s definitely the same one I encountered before…”

“Its self-healing ability is countless times stronger than a normal human’s…”

Lumian sucked in a silent breath.

He forced himself to calm down and rapidly analyzed the current situation.

In an instant, Lumian made his decision:

This was a good opportunity—and when an opportunity arises, you seize it, never let it slip!

He quietly pulled a brick from his side, waiting for the monster to reach his planned position.

In just one or two steps, the monster entered Lumian’s “ambush zone.”

Lumian hurled the brick with sudden force toward the ground behind the monster.

Thud!

The brick struck the ground, causing the monster to whirl around, staring at the source of the attack.

Seeing this, Lumian gripped his axe with both hands and leapt violently from the wall, striking from the side.

Crash!

The axe, driven by its downward weight, slammed into the monster’s neck, splitting it nearly in half.

Thump. Thump. Both Lumian and the monster fell to the ground.

Lumian sprang up instantly, snatched up his axe, and rushed forward, slashing again and again at the monster’s neck.

Once, twice, thrice—the monster had no time to resist before its head was severed.

As the head rolled to one side, the skinless body twitched twice, then lay still.

Lumian did not stop. He stepped sideways, turned his axe, and smashed the grotesque head with the thick spine of the blade until it was crushed into pulp.

Then he turned back and hacked several more times at the muscle-and-vein-exposed body, crushing its heart and other vital organs.

After finishing, Lumian stepped back two paces, stared at his work, gasped for breath, and whispered with a laugh:

“I thought you were truly invincible—turns out you’re this weak!”

In the controlled laughter, the headless corpse suddenly twitched.

Lumian’s eyes tightened; he instinctively wanted to turn and flee.

He forcibly suppressed the urge, stepped forward again, and raised his axe.

The corpse twitched twice more, then fell still—as if it had merely made one last failed struggle before death.

Lumian observed for a while longer, finally confirming the monster was truly dead.

“What tenacious life force…” Lumian murmured inwardly, then moved closer, crouched down, and used his axe to pry open the muscles and fascia, examining the corpse.

The monster’s body structure was no different from a human’s, but its muscular vitality was clearly far stronger—even in death, some incisions still showed faint twitching.

"No treasure, and no extraordinary power has transferred into my body..." Lu Mi assessed his current state, feeling a momentary disappointment.

The idea that killing a monster makes you stronger by a fraction—turns out it only exists in Aurora’s stories.

He then dragged the monster’s corpse and head into the collapsed building and partially buried them under bricks and wooden debris.

After that, he searched the burned-out, collapsed house, hoping for some reward.

(End of Chapter)