The skin beneath Huang Ying’s clothes was invaded by resentnt, his body gradually becoming like a nightmare. While gaining terrifying power, he would also be affected by negative emotions.
"The eleventh layer of nightmare isn’t the end of all nightmares, but it seems the dream isn’t prepared to let players further explore; it wants to complete its transformation of all players at this layer."
After putting his shirt back on, Huang Ying pointed to the TV in the living room: "There are many such residential cities, all of which are places that nurture nightmares. To transform the players step by step, the dream not only uses special drugs and ntal suggestions, but it also extracts information about their relatives from players’ mories, using those mories to reshape their family mbers to harm them."
"Were you just trying to use the nightmare’s house to recreate your mother from your mory?" Han Fei, knowing Huang Ying’s past, understood him well.
"I’ve already beco a nightmare, unable to change my mory anymore." Different from other players, Huang Ying had not only been tortured by the Butterfly into becoming a nightmare long ago but was also the most fearso and powerful type. He had high authority in nightmares, and ordinary nightmares would avoid him.
Huang Ying stood up and turned off the TV. As the mories on the TV screen disappeared, the entire residence imdiately returned to normal, with the writhing black hair on the floor and the eyes growing on the walls all vanishing.
"The Shallow World is already a ss, and players suspect you’ve died in the nightmare. My main purpose for coming this ti is to bring you out," Han Fei leaned against the wall, examining the wallpaper in the room.
"I can’t leave for now, as this nightmare has no exit and can’t be completed. It isn’t a nightmare for a particular person but a collective nightmare for everyone." Huang Ying’s face was pale: "We’ve beco each other’s nightmares, dragging each other into our own despair. Instead of saving each other, we’re dragging each other into the abyss."
"Aren’t all the players trapped in Xinhu Ninth Hospital? If they realize this city is fake, shouldn’t they wake up?" Han Fei didn’t expect the eleventh layer of nightmare to be so troubleso.
"I’ve already tried, but it’s useless," Huang Ying shook his head: "It’s not just those high-level players trapped here but also other ordinary players who were killed in nightmares. Their consciousness scattered in the nightmare, and their mories were thrown here by the dream, becoming the foundation of the city’s construction. In other words, dreams make the environnt increasingly real by continuously plundering players’ mories until everyone inside deludes it as reality."
Huang Ying raised two fingers: "Players here only have two choices: beco mory fragnts that construct the city or beco nightmares and accomplices of dreams."
"Do you an players who previously died exploring nightmares still have a chance for rebirth?" With the players suffering heavy casualties in the nightmare exploration, Han Fei now realized that their mories were stolen by the dream, opening a slight possibility for them to beco ghosts, which was good news for Han Fei.
"It can be understood that way..." A bitter smile appeared on Huang Ying’s face as he looked into Han Fei’s eyes—those eyes imrsed in the depths of despair yet always carrying a light.
Han Fei wasn’t an optimistic person but was adept at finding hope in despair due to spending so much ti in it.
"The Unspeakable imprisoned in the Shrine has been released by . All rules in the nightmare can’t bind . For , this eleventh layer of nightmare is a massive granary—nightmares, players’ mories, all beco rare delicacies," Han Fei said, raising the Rebirth Slaughter Saber: "Players’ mories can be temporarily stored in the Rebirth Saber. Special strong nightmares can be taken away with the Greed Personality, and if there are appealing Fierce Ghosts, I can store them in the Ghost Pattern, or let my neighbors devour them directly."
"You truly don’t waste a thing." Huang Ying’s tensed nerves gradually relaxed, feeling that following Han Fei was indeed advantageous: "High-level players are now trapped in Xinhu Ninth Hospital, but it resembles more of a prison. The genuine Nightmare Factory is elsewhere."
"Let’s check out the hospital first."
Guided by Huang Ying, the two took a taxi to Xinhu Ninth Hospital.
The surrounding buildings were pitch-black and lifeless, resembling a ghost creature, with the hospital being the only place brightly lit. Nurses and doctors constantly walked through the corridors, patrolling the wards.
"Doctors are in charge of ’treatnt,’ nurses supervise daily, and fake family mbers accompany throughout. These players soon fall into self-doubt, gradually unable to distinguish between nightmares and reality." Huang Ying led Han Fei through a complete tour of the hospital’s treatnt process, personally witnessing a player being successfully brainwashed and finally "recovering" and being discharged.
He left accompanied by his fake family, moving into a small house filled with writhing black hair and walls full of eyes. Amidst the hair and eyes, he lay asleep, his body undergoing gradual transformation, with his mind and personality unknowingly changing.
Over ti, even if brought back to the real world, the player would still follow the dream’s commands as he had lost everything that made him human, just a nightmare wearing human skin.
"If nightmares are compared to ghosts and players to living people, then the eleventh nightmare resembles a gradually perfecting small Deep World," Han Fei analyzed, observing the players’ transforming bodies and connecting the information he held: "Dreams aim to create a new Black Box. Though the Black Box isn’t yet complete, it’s close to reconstructing a Deep World. There must be a certain relationship between this Deep World and the Black Box; could the deepest part of the Black Box be the origin of the Deep World?"
Han Fei found it hard to understand. The Deep World is vast, while the Black Box is small enough to fit into a living person’s Brain Sea. They only share the commonality of being born in despair. Nobody has reached the end of the Deep World, nor has anyone ever opened the final layer of the Black Box.
"Could reaching the end of the Deep World allow touching the walls of the Black Box? Could opening the last layer of the Black Box reveal the Deep World?"
"The world is like a box, and I want to open it, but actually, I’m already inside the box."
"Why are you getting philosophical? Did you allocate your Attribute Points to Brain Power?" Huang Ying noticed Han Fei talking to himself and pulled him aside: "What you need to do now isn’t opening the box; it’s opening the hospital prison to release the players. I’ll take you to the Nightmare Factory; only by destroying it can we lead the players out of the eleventh layer of nightmare and simultaneously affect the eleven Shrines."
No matter which shrine in the Main City District you enter the nightmare from, you will eventually end up here. Destroying this layer will have a significant impact on the dream.
Politely dismissing the taxi driver, Huang Ying and Han Fei drove into the Old City District.
The Nightmare Factory is not a real factory. It exists within people’s daily lives. When the negative emotions in an area beco intense enough, the residents, once asleep, will attract nightmares.
The sleeper will feel as if they are awake. They can see terrifying things crawling out from under the bed, the closet, or even from within the quilt. However, they can’t shout or struggle and are left to let the nightmare caress and gradually rge with their body.
But from an observer’s perspective, those nightmares actually erge from their bodies, continuously absorbing their negative emotions, becoming increasingly terrifying as the environnt twists.
When a nightmare grows to a certain stage, it will have a permanent effect on its surroundings. Even if soone else sleeps in that bed later, they will still have terrifying nightmares.
If negative emotions aren’t changed, life will beco gloomy, and the place they live in will be occupied by filthy things.
The place Huang Ying brought Han Fei to was the most "dirty", "gloomy", and "wicked" area in the whole city, the Nightmare Factory on the eleventh layer of the nightmare, and a building very familiar to Han Fei.
"Are you sure we’re in the right place?" Han Fei opened the car door and stared at the building outside. He initially thought the Nightmare Factory would be set in a funeral ho, a mass grave, a shady hospital, or a desolate countryside. But in fact, the Nightmare Factory wasn’t in any of those places.
"Yes, I’m sure this is the Nightmare Factory." Huang Ying parked the car, walking with Han Fei towards the dilapidated community, "It’s actually strange, why is the Nightmare Factory in your ho?"
The large iron gate of the old community was pulled open, and Han Fei looked at the apartnt building where he usually resided, which gathered all the grudge energy of Xinhu, seemingly brewing a black storm.
"I’ve been living here since I graduated. Although I haven’t encountered any happy events, don’t smile, occasionally feel despair, I’ve never had a nightmare!" Han Fei truly didn’t understand how the block where his ho was located beca deed the Nightmare Factory by the dream.
"Maybe you haven’t even realized how much pain you’re in yourself." Huang Ying patted Han Fei’s shoulder, "In the future, with and other brothers accompanying you, don’t keep things bottled up inside."
"What are you talking about! Don’t you know ? If sothing happens, I imdiately deal with it head-on, who has the chance to bottle things up?" Han Fei reflected on his past. Whether it was before obtaining the Black Box or after, he indeed seed very desperate. At least in Xinhu, there wasn’t a second person like him.
"You know, this Butterfly really knows how to pick a place. When I first ca here, I didn’t believe it either, but after circling the entire city, alone, your ho has such strong resentnt." Huang Ying walked ahead, the interior temperature of the community being about five degrees lower than outside, the atmosphere of despair enveloping everything. Yet, ironically, every household was sound asleep, completely unaware of the nurous nightmares crawling outside their windows.
"All nightmares are attracted by sothing, continuously bringing the negative emotions and sources of ntal pollution collected in the city here, offering them to that thing, which then exudes even more desperate aura and conveys even more oppressive emotions, helping nightmares grow rapidly." Huang Ying turned his head to look at Han Fei, "What on earth have you hidden at ho?"
"How would I know?" Other celebrities might hide beauties in golden houses, but what Han Fei conceals at ho might be scarier than a corpse. Paparazzi daring to enter might not even have their souls escape.
"We have to destroy that thing anyway." Huang Ying cleverly concealed his presence, then used the nightmare’s power to hide Han Fei "You follow upstairs."
The two cooperated well, smoothly entering the stairway.
The despair within the apartnt building had beco tangible, with pitch-black mist drifting along the stairs. The residents here were either mad, or on the brink of madness, normal people could not survive three nights.
All kinds of strange sounds echoed, with the mumblings of sleep-talking residents sounding terrifying, so describing murder processes, others sharpening knives, and so crying and laughing while sleepwalking through the halls.
After avoiding all the residents, Han Fei finally arrived at the door to his ho.
Staring at the familiar door, Han Fei had opened it countless tis in reality, but never felt as nervous as he did now.
Grasping the handle with force, Han Fei suddenly realized sothing, "I don’t have a key?"
"Let ." Huang Ying glanced around, seeing no other nightmares in the stairway, he took a deep breath and kicked the door hard!
"Bang!"
A loud crash, Huang Ying and Han Fei looked into the room, where in the small room stood sothing that looked like a coffin, a Ga Box, surrounded densely by the dead!
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