Chapter 999 Opportunity
Seeing the collapse gradually spreading towards their area and hearing Luo Shan"s question filled with obvious terror, Franca and Jenna exchanged a glance before decisively telling Luo Shan, "Quick, draw a door that can lead to the outside world!"
Clearly, they could no longer continue forward to find the elevator lobby and emergency exits.
"Okay!" Luo Shan nodded vigorously.
She turned around, holding a pen in one hand and a pencil in the other, and began sketching on the wall.
At this moment, Franca and Jenna noticed that the monster children born from the foreign pregnant woman and various objects were all surging towards them.
They seemed to fear falling into the bottomless abyss and were desperately trying to avoid it, to the point of forgetting their goal of attacking enemies.
Being close to Jenna and the others, the monster children quickly reduced the distance between them to two meters. Some of their eyes once again reflected the figures of Franca, Jenna, and Luo Shan, with their desire to attack growing fierce and violent.
Just then, a thick "ice wall" appeared before them.
A translucent layer of ice in the shape of a hemisphere enveloped Franca and the others inside.
This was created by Demoness of Affliction Jenna.
Seeing the densely packed monsters, some square-shaped, some like small beds, some with light bulb-shaped heads, crawling on the surface of the hemispherical ice wall, trying various ways to break through this barrier, Franca felt her fear of cl.u.s.tered objects and humanoid creatures about to explode simultaneously.
She condensed quiet and sinister Demoness black flames around her, waiting for the moment the first layer of ice wall would shatter.
In just seven or eight seconds, the beautiful crystalline ice wall made a crisp shattering sound under the attack of numerous monster children.
Black flames quickly flew out from around Franca and Jenna, pa.s.sing through the rapidly expanding cracks, igniting nearly twenty monster children.
They burst into flames all over, wailing and rolling on the spot, obstructing many of their siblings" advance and igniting those around them.
Seizing this opportunity, before the hemispherical ice wall completely collapsed, Franca and Jenna joined forces to create a second layer of ice wall, only ten centimeters apart from the previous one.
"It"s done!" Luo Shan"s voice rang out.
While continuing to delay the approach of the monster children, Franca and Jenna expectantly glanced at the pattern on the wall with their peripheral vision.
It was a vivid door outlined by pencil marks and blue ink, with a doorplate at the top bearing the numbers "1502".
This was the door to Luo Shan"s home, almost identical to what Franca and Jenna remembered, except for the color difference.
The current one was closer to a sketch!
Luo Shan pressed her thumb to the position corresponding to the door lock, making the fake door on the wall emit an unlocking sound.
Then, she turned the handle and pushed open the door she had drawn to her own home.
The light behind the door was dim, outlining all the items in room 1502, but they appeared unusually illusory.
As the illusion gradually solidified into reality, Luo Shan"s joyful gaze suddenly froze.
She saw her windows collapsing, her balcony collapsing, all of them falling towards an abyss filled with dense darkness!
The door Luo Shan had drawn and the pa.s.sage she had established also collapsed inch by inch, just like the surrounding environment.
"It doesn"t work…" Luo Shan uttered, almost in a delirium.
She turned her gaze, filled with undisguised despair yet br.i.m.m.i.n.g with hope, towards Franca and Jenna, hoping they could come up with a new solution.
At this moment, the nearest collapse had already swallowed the original corridor, causing the double doors separating the two sides to sway and fall.
This was already inches from Franca and company.
Through the gaps between the monster children, Franca could see more clearly the bottomless dense darkness, and something seemingly hidden in its depths.
That figure, apparently wrapped in a robe, or perhaps the robe itself blown up by the wind.
Even just vaguely glimpsing the outline from a distance, the fear in Franca"s heart exploded without warning.
The skin on her face became semi-transparent, and the flesh beneath began to writhe, as if it had gained a certain life of its own.
Instinctively, reflexively, Franca averted her gaze, withdrawing her line of sight.
She suddenly had a realization.
What she had just seen was the thing Mr. Fool"s subconscious or the Celestial Worthy"s subconscious feared most, their strongest psychological trauma!
It was clearly not subject to the dream"s suppression of power levels. If they couldn"t escape and fell into the abyss along with the collapsing corridor, falling towards that place, death might be the gentlest and most beautiful outcome.
Franca shook her head violently, shaking off the small amount of "glue" that was clouding part of her thoughts.
As Jenna used a third layer of ice wall to block those monster children, she took out the Ice Amulet and a mirror.
She said to Jenna and Luo Shan, "We"ll go through the mirror world. No matter how terrifying the hidden dangers in the mirror world are, they can"t be more horrifying than the psychological trauma at the bottom of this abyss!"
Of two evils, choose the lesser!
"Okay." Jenna didn"t object, and Luo Shan, lacking experience, chose to trust her two companions.
The Ice Amulet in Franca"s hand rapidly lit up with a crystalline glow.
The next second, Franca found that the gla.s.s surface of the mirror had somehow already turned pitch black, as solid as rock, impenetrable.
"We can"t get in… it"s different from before the collapse…" Franca felt a surge of uncontrollable despair.
Were they really going to fall into that bottomless abyss and face the strongest part of a great existence"s psychological trauma?
"Can"t get in?" Jenna"s action of shooting Demoness black flames to ignite the monster children noticeably slowed for a second.
Luo Shan was suddenly dumbfounded, her mouth half-open as she said, "Is there really no way at all?"
Hearing these words, Jenna gritted her teeth and created another hemispherical ice wall.
The surface of the ice wall was quickly covered with various monster children, densely packed, now less than a meter away from Franca and the others.
The collapse of the corridor had also reached this area.
Franca"s thoughts raced, her eyes flickering twice as she said, "I still have a way!"
As she spoke, she took out the black eyeball left behind by the reanimated corpse Panatiya and other supplementary ingredients from her Traveler"s Bag:
"I"ll advance to Demoness of Despair now!
"It"s perfect timing, I"ve been using Disease to secretly influence the monsters in this corridor, which can save a lot of time."
The monster children crawling all over Jenna"s ice wall and their companions behind were all within three meters of Franca, numbering close to a thousand.
"It"s useless, even a Demoness of Despair is now suppressed to Sequence 7 level, at most Sequence 6, it can"t forcibly open a path to the mirror world!" Jenna instinctively refuted Franca.
She wanted to stay calm, but was overwhelmed by the monster children breaking through the ice wall, barely managing to establish a new hemispherical ice wall sixty centimeters away from them.
Franca, while using the black eyeball condensed from the reanimated corpse"s Beyonder characteristics to create more virulent viruses, drank a bottle of healing agent and reminded Jenna, "Quickly drink a bottle too, Luo Shan already had one earlier."
Then, Franca explained rapidly, "The important thing is not me advancing to Demoness of Despair, but that every Demoness advancement draws the attention of the Primordial Demoness. I need Her attention!"
Seeing Jenna drink the healing agent, Franca helped maintain the defense line and asked in return, "Does Mr. Fool know about the Primordial Demoness?"
"Definitely." Jenna answered without hesitation.
Mr. Fool"s avatar had dealings with the Demoness Sect many times, he must be aware of the existence of the Primordial Demoness.
Franca glanced at the corridor that had already collapsed to the transfer bed and said to Jenna and Luo Shan, "Let"s move towards the center; buy more time."
The collapse progress on both sides of the corridor was about the same, but Franca and the others were clearly closer to one side.
Without waiting for Jenna and Luo Shan to respond, Franca suddenly withdrew the force maintaining the ice wall and ran at her fastest speed towards the middle section of the corridor about ten to twenty meters away.
Luo Shan ran even faster.
After the three had determined their positions, Jenna once again condensed an ice wall to block the pursuing monster children, while Franca continued to spread mystical pathogens around.
She explained quickly, "Since Mr. Fool knows about the Primordial Demoness, there must be a manifestation corresponding to the Primordial Demoness in this dream—we just haven"t discovered it yet, and true G.o.ds can directly enter the dream city.
"When I advance here, my real self will also advance. Based on our experience, no matter what state the Primordial Demoness is in, whether the situation is good or bad, She will turn Her gaze towards this.
"As a true G.o.d, She won"t have difficulty discovering that my consciousness is in a real dream, and will likely project Herself in, using Her inherent dream manifestation to truly observe me advancing in the underground area of Mushu Hospital.
"She certainly won"t risk descending here, nor does She have the feelings or motivation to save me, but as the ruler of the mirror world, Her mere gaze will likely open a channel between the mirror world and this area, and possibly cause the hidden dangers in the mirror world to temporarily disperse!"
"This can"t be guaranteed." Jenna blurted out, her tone anxious and confused.
This place was a product of the fusion of a great existence"s psychological trauma and the Mother Tree of Desire"s abyssal symbol, and more great existences had projected some power into it. Even if they were all suppressed to mid-low Sequences, could the Primordial Demoness in a poor state break the blockade on the mirror world with just Her gaze?
"There"s no such thing as a 100% successful plan, but not trying guarantees failure." Franca quickly responded.
Jenna fell silent, biting her lip before saying with a trembling voice, "This will prevent you from leaving the dream, and if the dream ends soon, you will die because of it…"
Franca, waiting for the mystical pathogens to take effect, was silent for a moment before saying through gritted teeth, "We"ll deal with future problems in the future!
"If we don"t survive now, there won"t be a future!"
"But…" Jenna"s voice suddenly choked.
Her mind tried to grasp something, but couldn"t hold onto anything.
Franca interrupted her, her expression complex as she mocked her own past naivety and love for fantasy, "After killing the reanimated corpse, obtaining the Beyonder characteristics and supplementary ingredients, knowing that all ritual requirements in the dream city would be lowered to Sequence 7 level, I was thinking, is this, is this giving me an opportunity? When everyone is in a desperate situation, with no other options, to stand up like a hero, consume the potion, break through in the face of danger, forcibly advance, reverse the outcome, save everyone, save the world…"
At this point, Franca"s expression suddenly settled.
She calmly looked at Jenna, revealing a bright smile.
"Now, the opportunity has presented itself."