Chapter 131: Taking Revenge on the New World
While Suri was contemplating if she should take this opportunity to abduct the Dream Makers from the research inst.i.tute as hostages, she felt something and wanted to step forward to talk to Qiu Ren.
However, Risor had been watching the movements of Qiu Ren and Suri. Risor didn’t trust Suri. His allegiance was to the entire community of the Army.
Suri was just a Queen he a.s.sisted.
If this Queen had the intention of threatening his people or did something that would affect the future plans of the Army in Risor’s perspective, he would step up to stop her. He would even depose Suri, this “empress,” directly.
Suri sensed Risor’s intention. Luckily, she was a bit closer to Qiu Ren. She directly held Qiu Ren hostage, pointing a gun at his forehead.
“You know it’s useless if you kill me in the Nightmare Dungeon,” Qiu Ren said.
“But this will make you feel painful, take away part of your memory, and also injure your body in reality.”
Suri knew that she couldn’t kill Qiu Ren in this way, but dying in this Nightmare Dungeon would definitely harm Qiu Ren in reality.
“So… what do you want this time?”
In Qiu Ren’s perspective, it was utterly useless for Suri to threaten him with a gun… She was only doing this for acting more than practical purposes.
She acted to put on a show for Risor and the Dream Makers of the research inst.i.tute and seemed to be creating a private s.p.a.ce for Qiu Ren.
“To go back.”
Suri simply said these words that only Qiu Ren and she could understand.
The Great Sage on the side wanted to rush out of the set to save Qiu Ren, which was also the Queen Mother’s first reaction.
However, Qiu Ren raised both of his hands and took a few steps back. After that, a teleportation portal appeared behind Qiu Ren, pulling him and Suri in together.
Qiu Ren brought Suri back to where she lived, her home in the campus rom-com storyline. After reaching home, he also understood why Suri had suddenly kidnapped him back.
Because… Alaina was shining.
Qiu Ren’s first reaction was to think whether Alaina had eaten something radioactive, but upon sensing it carefully, he realized that this was the special effect that appeared when Alaina leveled up.
“Alaina! Take a deep breath and control yourself. It’s not time yet. Don’t… release your energy!”
Suri quickly ran to her sister and helped Alaina suppress the power spreading in her body. With Suri’s aid, the light on Alaina’s body gradually extinguished, relieving Suri.
However, she couldn’t relax for long. This time, Qiu Ren had pointed a gun at her head.
“Who are you hiding Alaina from?”
This was something Qiu Ren had always been curious about. Where exactly did the Lords of Nightmare and the Nightmare Seeds come from?
They all came to this world by “landing” here.
However, where were they before they landed… The outland?
How many Lords of Nightmare were there in the outland? What was the origin of the Lords of Nightmare?
All the researchers of Dream Dungeons nowadays wanted the answer to these countless questions.
There was already a lot of research on the subject of the origin of Dream Dungeons right now.
However, Qiu Ren hadn’t read too many of them because they were too academic. He could take this opportunity to ask the two sisters, Suri and Alaina.
“Do you really think I’ll tell you what you want to know just because you’re pointing that weapon at me?” Suri wasn’t scared of the gun in Qiu Ren’s hand at all.
“Of course not.”
Qiu Ren pulled the trigger, but the pistol in his hand didn’t fire bullets. Instead, a bunch of ribbons fell on Suri’s face.
When Qiu Ren pulled the trigger, Suri really closed her eyes out of fear for a second. After she saw that it was ribbons that shot out…
“You jerk!” Suri caught Qiu Ren furiously and pressed him down on the rug.
“Stop, stop, stop! Miss Suri…” Qiu Ren realized that he was really not as powerful as this mother of the Shadow Beasts. He immediately yelled at her, “We’re not that close yet.”
“What not that close…”
Suri also realized something was wrong as she spoke because Alaina, who was eating chips on the side, was looking at both of them with a weird face.
Suri got up from Qiu Ren’s body in an instant…
“Sister, you must seize the opportunity,” Alaina said this sentence that had a profound meaning… without any emotions.
“Don’t worry. This guy will definitely be mine. He can’t go anywhere no matter what!” Suri didn’t want her sister to think about her relationship with Qiu Ren.
Alaina wiped off the bits of chips at the corners of her mouth at ease.
“Whether I’ll run away depends on… how many things you’re willing to tell me. I think I’ve already made my stance clear enough regarding this incident.” Qiu Ren took off the ribbons on his forehead with his hand and said to Suri, “I’m not the kind of Dream Maker who treats the characters in the Dream Dungeons as objects.”
Suri agreed with Qiu Ren… In fact, as things developed, the Army’s goal for Qiu Ren had already been achieved halfway.
That was to force Qiu Ren to stand on the opposite side of humans and ultimately embrace the dark side of the Army.
Qiu Ren helped the immortals of the Heavenly Court build this resort and worked with the Great Sage to plan on resisting the Heavenly Court. This had already sent Qiu Ren into a very awkward situation.
Suri only needed to pull or push Qiu Ren, and their final goal would be achieved. She could push Qiu Ren to the dark side of the Army and turn him against humans completely.
Suri hadn’t thought about this method for now, but telling Qiu Ren some information and letting him understand the ideas of the Army was also a way to rope him in.
“The Lord of Nightmare protecting you doesn’t seem to want you to know the truth.”
When Suri was about to explain things to Qiu Ren, she felt some kind of pressure. It belonged to Tapir.
Although Tapir didn’t show herself, she was watching everything Suri did.
“I make my own decisions. If she doesn’t show up to stop me, it means that… she doesn’t want me to know but is not opposed to it.”
Tapir rarely interfered with Qiu Ren’s decisions. This time, Qiu Ren also felt that Tapir was next to him, but her att.i.tude was more like she didn’t want him to know these things.
“I don’t have to be afraid of her either. So, I’ll be straightforward.”
Suri carried Alaina, who was eating chips, onto the sofa, while she sat at the coffee table in front of the sofa and found a piece of paper and a pen.
“Do you know the definition of dimension?” Suri asked.
“Of course. You mean…”
“You… The creators are creatures of a high dimension to us, so when you have enough energy, you can create everything in the fragments of our world, including our roles and thoughts,” Suri pointed at her head and said.
“So?” Qiu Ren indeed couldn’t understand the more profound principles. This belonged to the domain of the Dream Dungeon experts.
However, what Qiu Ren really cared about was how many Lords of Nightmare there were in the outland.
“Although you’re creators, your minds are very fragile. If you come to our dimension, you’ll be a mortal existence.”
When Suri said this, she might also be feeling a bit upset in her mind. If a creator came to a Dream Dungeon without the authority to construct this Dream Dungeon, he would truly be like a cat in front of the Lord of Nightmare. He could be played around whenever the Lord of Nightmare wanted.
“I understand, but what I really want to know is, what’s the nature of a Nightmare Dungeon? The Nightmare Dungeon of a Lord of Nightmare I contracted with, Lian, seems to have traces of civilization before.”
“Because the world she came from used to be intact. It only became a fragment wandering in the outland after the world suffered from a disaster and shattered. In the end, it was attracted by your material world and fell into your dimension.”
Suri provided an extremely huge amount of information all at once.
“World… Fragments?”
Hearing these two words, Qiu Ren suddenly realized how those Dream Seeds were formed.
“Yes, every Dream Seed you can contact right now used to be fragments of an intact world. Nightmare erosion is caused by the grievances of thousands of creatures who die when the world is destroyed, and the Lords of Nightmare are the aggregate of these grievances.”
Suri glanced behind Qiu Ren and continued, “The two Lords of Nightmare who protect you, I’m not quite sure about the one called Tapir, but the other one…”
“Lian,” Qiu Ren said the name of the other Lord of Nightmare.
“That Lian, it should be an empress in its own world. When the apocalypse came, her people put the hope of salvation on her, but she couldn’t save her world from being destroyed. Multiple negative emotions like resentment and hatred changed her from an empress to a Lord of Nightmare.”
Suri introduced the most common way a Lord of Nightmare was born. What happened to Lian and its children in the Nightmare Dungeon indeed matched with what Suri said just now.
“The outland we talk about is more like a landfill. Countless fragments from worlds shattered by different disasters are floating in the outland. They’ll be attracted by some lively worlds and the material worlds where you… the creators reside. You guys are as eye-catching as a lighthouse radiating light and heat in the dark and cold environment of the outland.”
Suri then drew a circle on the paper. This was the material world where Qiu Ren was, which she was referring to in her explanation.
“There are three types of attracted world fragments. One of them is the unpolluted nightmare fragments, the so-called Dream Seeds. The second type is world fragments that have already been polluted, but the leader inside can still remain sane, which are the normal Nightmare Seeds with a Lord of Nightmare. The third type is world fragments that have completely lost their sanity and are full of Shadow Beasts. These are Nightmare Seeds that have completely lost control.”
Suri listed three different types of world fragments in three colors, green, red, and black.
“The situation of the material world you’re living in right now is like this…”
Suri drew countless black dots and a little bit of red and green dots next to the circle representing the “material world.”
“These Nightmare Seeds that have been dominated by the Shadow Beasts and have completely lost control are destroyed by the ‘guardians’ you created, like the Great Sage, Zeus, and the superheroes, before they invade the material world. However, not every Nightmare Seed that has lost control can be dealt with in time…”
“But they couldn’t stop the arrival of you, the Army.” Qiu Ren looked at the picture Suri drew and thought that the Nightmare Seed of the Army belonged to the category that was about to lose control. It had extremely low stability.
If Qiu Ren didn’t catch the mother of the Army, Alaina, temporarily and kept feeding her energy, the Nightmare Seed of the Army would probably have lost control already.
“…” Suri didn’t continue talking. She seemed to be hiding something.
The next question Qiu Ren asked inadvertently exposed her secret, “So, I’m curious. Are there other material worlds, apart from ours?”
When Qiu Ren asked this question, he felt someone touching his shoulder.
Although n.o.body was standing behind Qiu Ren, he could smell the unique scent of Tapir. She must have hidden her body to stand behind him.
This sounded a bit creepy, like a ghost story, but Qiu Ren knew that Tapir was just putting her hand on his shoulder to seek comfort out of anxiety.
Qiu Ren also squeezed Tapir’s hand on his shoulder gently as a reply.
“Yes.” Suri didn’t hide anything anymore. She drew the location of another material world with the pen and said, “Of course, there are. We were abandoned by the creators in this material world.”
“Abandoned… Tell me the details.”
When Qiu Ren was in the Nightmare Dungeon of the Army, he had already felt traces of construction.
The style of design of the Army and the ecosystem in the Nightmare Dungeon of the Army both seemed to be designed by someone.
“We used to be the guardians of this material world, repelling nightmare erosion for our creators wave after wave. Our situation was the same as that of the immortals in the Heavenly Court. More and more of our own kind were corrupted while fighting with the Shadow Beasts. At first, they dealt with the erosion by resetting their personalities and memories, but in the end… the pollution became uncontrollable.”
When Suri said this, she unconsciously held her arms, and her slim body was also trembling slightly…
Alaina came to Suri, as if telling her sister, “It’s alright. I’m here.”
Qiu Ren also reached out to comfort Suri, but she avoided Qiu Ren’s hand agilely. However, she seemed to have accepted Qiu Ren after a while and didn’t avoid him anymore.
She looked at the outland she drew on the paper and said softly, “After the pollution of me and my children became more serious, the creators divided and abandoned us, throwing us into the outland. The flow of time in the outland is different from that in the material worlds. We were in the outland for almost forty years… All of my children have turned into Shadow Beasts and have been wandering near the world you live in.”
“In this case, I can understand where your resentment for the creators comes from. But wait… How many completely polluted Dream Seeds did this material world throw away?”
Qiu Ren noticed a crucial point. The fact that the world he was in was surrounded by such a large number of Nightmare Seeds… didn’t feel like it was caused by nature but by humans.
Simply put, the previous material world threw the Nightmare Seeds that were eroded by nightmares to Qiu Ren’s world.
“There should be a lot. Since they have mastered this skill, they could catch more ‘pure Dream Seeds’ as a replacement. And it seems that your exploration of the outland hasn’t begun yet,” Suri said.
“So, you don’t want to go back and take revenge on these wicked guys but run over to avenge those of us who are also victims? Why… Because we’re also creators?”
As Qiu Ren listened to Suri, he really wanted to say that quote… “You hate him? Yes! You hate me? No… Then, why the f.u.c.k are you pointing a gun at me but not him?”
“Just because we want revenge. We need energy… energy that allows our kind to live, energy for us to fight against the Shadow Beasts, energy that gets us back to the outland… That’s why we tried to keep you in captivity.”
“The problem is, don’t you have energy already?”
Qiu Ren pointed at Alain. While Alaina cooperated with him, her control over the Nightmare Dungeon of the Army had already risen to 40% right now.
Once it increased a bit more, Qiu Ren would be able to begin transforming the Nightmare Dungeon of the Army.
“…” Suri went into a creepy silence again and had nothing to say.
“So, do you want to take revenge or not? If you do, help me operate the Alaina Cup and the Romantic Movie Universe further. By then, we can go to settle the scores with those unscrupulous creators with the other abandoned Lords of Nightmare,” Qiu Ren said.
“The dream consciousnesses in that material world aren’t weak at all. We’ll need a huge amount of energy to go to that material world and another huge amount if we fight with them after we arrive,” Suri said softly.
“Then, we’ll just get what we need there and absorb the energy produced by the creators in that world, like the ‘creators’ who are eating chicken with the members of the Army in the Alaina Cup right now. As long as the Nightmare Dungeon is interesting enough, it’ll be able to attract a lot of creators to come to be Alaina’s food.”
Qiu Ren asked Suri another question that went straight into her soul, “So, are you going to fight or not? You just need to answer me with one word.”
“…” When Suri was asked this question, she suddenly held Qiu Ren’s hand tight and said, “Yes!”