Chapter 343: Blessing of the Abyss Dream Demon
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 343: Blessing of the Abyss Dream Demon
"Right~ Dream demons created with just a bit of flesh and soul essence are naturally weak."
"Impossible," I countered. They were clones of the creature standing before me... so how could I have squeezed that information out of them?
How could they be afraid of death?
Though, they had shown a certain level of indifference toward dying, and a complete lack of concern for their comrades...
Or was this something she had revealed on purpose, all to make Ninglan Qiuyu accept this so-called "Blessing of the Abyss"?
Did that mean even I was part of her calculations?
No... impossible. There were too many variables; she couldn't have predicted exactly what I would do.
Was it just a coincidence, or the progression of the script?
"Are you trying to say that every dream demon we've encountered was one of your clones?" I asked, narrowing my eyes. Asking it so directly made my own motives a bit too obvious.
"Of course. Though calling them 'clones' isn't quite accurate. They’re just half-finished dream demons refined from low-grade flesh and soul essence sacrifices. Their heads contain nothing but the orders I’ve implanted."
"So that’s how it is..." Her definition of a clone was different from mine. No wonder a Resurrection Spell could "revive" such things so mindlessly—or rather, that act couldn't even be called resurrection.
At that moment, Ninglan Qiuyu had completely transformed. His massive, hideous frame stood over three meters tall. Dark, chaotic power surged through his body, and the light that had been in his eyes when he was still human had vanished.
"It’s time to move, Ninglan Qiuyu. Give me the anchor. I’ll place it at the center of the ritual. The grand sacrifice must begin. It’s time to call my sisters over to play!"
"...Yes..." A flicker of struggle crossed Ninglan Qiuyu’s gaze before he gave a "submissive" response.
"You want to summon them? In your dreams!"
With a wave of my hand, I completely shattered the sacrificial ritual site beside me.
But the moment I destroyed it, several pillars of blood-red light erupted from the ground across the pitch-black Underground District. The crimson glow illuminated the ceiling, replacing the light of the ley lines and bathing the entire district in red.
"What? When did you..." I stared in shock at the distant ritual pillars. Ninglan Qiuyu hadn't even visited those locations!
"Did you think that first batch of dream demons came down just to play with you? You did kill quite a few and slowed them down significantly, but we have plenty of time. And the one in front of you... was nothing more than bait to lure you in."
I gritted my teeth, consumed by the frustration of being outplayed. Earlier, I had wondered if Ninglan Qiuyu was someone who could play the dream demons at their own game. It turned out he was just a puppet who had been devoured whole without even realizing it.
But I wasn't in a position to judge him. After all... hadn't I been played just the same?
"Goodbye, little witch~ I must say, your method of summoning the main body was quite a surprise, but I don't have time to waste on you. So... let Ninglan Qiuyu play with you for a bit. He just gained this power and has nowhere to vent it~"
With that, the dream demon gave me a wink that said she had high expectations for me, then vanished.
As she left, Ninglan Qiuyu suddenly erupted. His once-decent clothes were torn to shreds.
The sheer contrast was enough to make one sigh.
However, that didn't mean I would stop moving. Facing a monster like this—this "Blessing of the Abyss"—this human modification reminded me of what the Lesser Demon Academy did to its students.
"Yang... Yue... han..."
Ninglan Qiuyu could only manage a raspy, low-pitched roar. His entire body reeked of the stench and rot of the Abyss.
"It’s all your fault... everything is because of you...!"
He growled, venting his inner rage and resentment as if his failures and futilities were all my doing. He swung his grotesque limbs and lunged at me.
With a flick of my wrist, several spells manifested behind me and shot toward him. He didn't possess the powerful defensive measures of that dream demon, but as the spells exploded and tore into his body, the wounds healed instantly under the power of the Abyss. It was as if his body was no longer that of a normal human, but a mass of flesh and bone held together by Abyssal energy.
Spells flew, drawing blood from his form. Every hit tore away chunks of flesh, draining the Abyssal power within him.
"Bastard... you damn wretch... why do you outsiders have such power while we have nothing!"
"I’m going to eat you! I’ll chew your flesh and seize your power for my own..."
Even under the suppressive fire of my Floating Spells, Ninglan Qiuyu continued his relentless charge. The Blessing of the Abyss had granted him immense physical capabilities. He scaled the buildings of the block, leaving shattered stone in his wake with every leap.
He was using his raw physical stats to bridge the gap between my spell intervals.
Moreover, it hadn't been long, yet he was becoming increasingly agile, as if he were fully adapting to his power.
"Such terrifying adaptability..."
Even I had to marvel at his fearsome progress. It was becoming difficult to disengage and go after the dream demon. He would keep hounding me, and if he interfered while I was fighting her, it would be a massive distraction.
Furthermore, it hadn't been long since nightfall. Such a massive commotion had woken the surrounding residents. Some came out in their pajamas to investigate, while others opened their windows and cried out in confusion at the sight of the Underground District bathed in blood-red light.
Those nearby screamed "Monster!" the moment they caught a glimpse of Ninglan Qiuyu’s flickering shadow.
Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury to care about them. I’d be grateful enough if they didn't get in my way; if they went looking for death, I certainly wasn't going to save them.
"Ninglan Qiuyu, if you still have your senses, you should realize our enemies have been those dream demons from the very start! Can't you see that?"
"I don't care... about any of you! Outsiders, dream demons... all of you are invaders!"
"Are you brain-dead?"
"You... you are nothing but slaves who surrendered to foreign enemies, while we are the last legitimate line of the Main World!"
"You..." Hearing his words, I recalled the information I had interrogated from the first dream demon I killed. Ninglan Qiuyu had learned the truth back then as well—that we actually originated from the same Main World, but we had been conquered by foreign enemies...
Had the dream demons already begun driving a wedge between him and us outsiders back then?
Though, I couldn't exactly refute his point.
"Haven't you also accepted the Blessing of the Abyss?"
"This is all because of you! I must live! It has to be me!"
"Then let's deal with that dream demon together first, and then we can settle our grudge."
"It’s all the same... if I can't be the City Lord... then the entire Ninglan New City can perish with me!"
"If you’re saying things like that, then you’re truly beyond saving."
Hearing his textbook villain monologue, I knew persuasion was useless. The conviction that had kept him sane had collapsed, and I had no interest in wasting energy building a new one for him.
One could only say that the Ninglan lineage had reached its end, having produced such a madman in this generation.
Immediately, I stopped trying to reason with him and began looking for a way to deliver a killing blow.
His formidable combat power relied entirely on the Blessing of the Abyss. Though called a "blessing," it was simply the injection of unknown energy into his body. To kill him, I would naturally have to exhaust that power.
That exhaustion would either come from him venting it all out or from me using a saturated attack. There was no other way.
As he continued to clash with me, I realized I didn't have many good options without using an Over-consumption Spellbook.
In this state, I subconsciously used a Practical Learning Spell. I wanted to see if I could derive a method—even just an extension of an existing one—to handle the current situation.
When he closed in again and I had to use teleportation to pull away, a flash of inspiration hit me.
Maybe I could use that...
The Primitive Rune Ritual generated from my research into nightmares. I hadn't even given this technique a formal name yet.
Initially, I had used this elemental rune ritual as a guide to create Nightmare Killing Weapons, allowing people in reality to hold weapons that could restrict nightmares within dreams.
Then, I had performed a reverse test using that dream demon. It allowed one to interfere with reality from a dream, pulling a real person's consciousness into a dreamscape to achieve the same effects as a nightmare.
If I could pull Ninglan Qiuyu’s consciousness into a dream, I could manipulate anyone using dream-rewriting spells.
As for his physical body in reality, I could destroy it completely. After all, at that point, he would be nothing more than a stationary target.
It seemed I had accidentally stumbled upon a rather broken technique.
Unfortunately, once I returned to the academy, these methods probably wouldn't work anymore.
As Ninglan Qiuyu charged at me again, I retracted my Floating Spells to stop wasting mana. Then, runes manifested around me—the Primitive Rune Ritual. Now, I officially gave this spell a name: the Nightmare Spell.
After all, it was born from nightmares and possessed similar abilities.
Facing such a massive brute, even though I was confident in the Nightmare Spell, I subconsciously raised a protection spell.
I really still can't manage to stay composed in battle...
Amidst my self-reflection, Ninglan Qiuyu’s furious fist swung toward me. The next moment, the Nightmare Spell activated.
Ninglan Qiuyu felt his vision go dark, as if his consciousness had left his body and was drifting in another dimension.
Looking at Ninglan Qiuyu in the dream—who still looked like his original self—I couldn't help but sigh. Even though his physical body had become that monster, his consciousness remained unchanged. At the very least, it meant he hadn't accepted his new form.
It was just like how my appearance in the past wasn't my original form from when I was a boy.
Then, I stepped aside. The massive body in reality crashed to the ground, the sheer impact smashing through a wall behind me. The building then collapsed, burying him alive.
For a moment, I didn't know whether to feel bad for Ninglan Qiuyu or the owner of that house.
Talk about rotten luck.
But I didn't forget my objective. My Floating Spells rose again, and a barrage of attacks began efficiently grinding away the Abyssal power.
"No... no! Stop! Yang Yuehan! What did you do!" Inside the dream, Ninglan Qiuyu broke down, screaming as he ran toward me.
I simply waved my hand, and several stone spikes erupted from the ground, trapping him at awkward angles.
In the dream, he had no possibility of resistance. I suppressed him completely.
"No! Please! I know I was wrong! Stop! Just stop..."
"You look pathetic when you beg." I walked up to him, my expression and tone cold.
Just as I was about to stop wasting words on him, I got closer and realized that Ninglan Qiuyu actually had Luck Threads on him!
This discovery made my pupils contract. How was that possible?
I subconsciously checked him, but I couldn't find a so-called Luck Seed. It wasn't in his consciousness, nor his body.
I let out a subconscious sigh of relief. So, he wasn't a Child of Destiny.
But he did have Luck Threads.
When I used Spirit Vision to look seriously at that Luck Thread, the information reflected by the power of Luck made my heart skip a beat!
The total root amount of this Luck was actually... far more than the Luck I had obtained from winning first place in the Dream Exchange Competition!
So... this struggle for Luck wasn't just about killing nightmares. Ninglan New City itself was equally important.
And because Ninglan New City held this portion of the Main World's Luck, it wasn't surprising that this script node was set here.
I ignored Ninglan Qiuyu’s voice. Under the saturated attrition of my Floating Spells, his physical body had shrunk from its massive size back to something near human proportions.
I had originally intended to just kill him—I’m not the soft-hearted type—but if I killed him now, I would inevitably be tainted by that Luck.
Thinking about it, my previous kills of those dream demons might have been risky too. If they had killed nightmares, the Luck would have continuously transferred.
But clearly, I hadn't been tainted by Luck yet.
Perhaps it was because the dream demons I encountered were all clones.
"I can't delay any longer. I don't know if the others in the Underground District have made a move. Honestly, why does it feel like I’m the only one doing any work? Am I playing a multiplayer game or what?"
I couldn't help but complain. With the way the script was developing, I felt like this damn thing would fall apart sooner or later without me. I suddenly understood why the academy teachers were so protective of the scripts. Maybe it was because they were just so fragile?
Just as I felt it was about time to leave Ninglan Qiuyu here and go save the day elsewhere, the last sliver of Abyssal power in his body kept him on the brink of life.
But in the next moment, a sudden change occurred.
Ninglan Qiuyu’s flickering life force suddenly erupted with an intense power of Luck. It transformed into countless chains that burst from his chest, and their target was me.
"The protective Luck of Ninglan New City... if you entangle me, believe it or not, I’ll destroy Ninglan New City with a flick of my wrist."
I didn't care if it had a consciousness or not, but I said it anyway. The chains didn't slow down, continuing their assault.
At that moment, I steeled my heart.
I would never let things spiral out of my control. I still had many things to do: exterminate the dream demons, sever the ley line shackles, escape the script, perform Wisdom Enlightenment for Fool's Dream... I would destroy anything that stood in my way.
"I do what I say."
The moment those four words left my mouth with absolute conviction, the power of Luck froze in front of me.
Seeing this, I knew I had made the right bet. Even if the Luck had no consciousness, the "instinct" to protect Ninglan New City let it know what it could and couldn't do.
Because in that split second, I truly intended to wipe Ninglan New City off the map. Just as I said—I do what I say.