Chapter 317 : Chapter 317

Chapter 317: Nightmare in Hand

When the Earth Patrol Team got serious, even the most irrational crowd was forcibly calmed down.

Violence is the most effective way to communicate with unreasonable people.

This time was no exception.

However, when the Earth Patrol Team prepared to escort me to the safe zone, I politely declined.

“There’s no need to escort me. Don't forget, even if all these people attacked together, they couldn't cause me any harm. You and I are people from two different worlds.”

“But… it’s still too dangerous here. There are still Nightmares wandering around. If some unknown consequence befalls you, we…”

“Don’t think of me as so weak. I’m not some frail scholar who only knows theory. Step aside.”

I looked at the captain of the Earth Patrol Team, my gaze icy.

For some reason, my tone and attitude towards these people were filled with coldness and contempt.

It was a kind of disdain that felt completely detached from them.

I didn’t know how they had offended me.

Perhaps it was their attitude, perhaps it was their ordinary, uninhibited lives displayed before my eyes.

“Scholar, please don’t make things difficult for us. Protecting you is my duty. Even if you want to protect these little ones, we don’t mind. Please cooperate with us. Even if you are an outsider, it’s the same. This is our home turf. Even if you are an esteemed scholar, we still…”

“Still have to step aside. You can’t stop me.”

I interrupted him and then looked down at the Fool’s Dream beside me.

“Stay put. I’ll be back after I take care of something.”

Then, I walked straight towards the area they had sealed off.

He subconsciously wanted to stop me, but his hand couldn't touch me.

“Tsk… damn it… All Earth Patrol Team personnel! Enter the sealed-off zone and protect that scholar!”

At this command, all the Earth Patrol Team members looked at each other, thinking the captain must be joking.

He couldn't even touch her himself, so how were they supposed to protect that scholar?

“Idiots… it’s just for show. You guys go and disperse those ignorant fools. The rest of you, follow me. Whether we can do it or not, we at least have to go through the motions to prove we tried, understand?”

The captain angrily walked over to his team members and roared in a low voice, then led the charge.

The others reacted and followed.

A few were responsible for dispersing the crowd.

After being intimidated by the captain, who would dare to linger?

If the specific charges were pinned on them, they would cry their eyes out.

Ganging up to assault a scholar—no one wanted that charge.

So, getting back home quickly was the priority.

---

At this moment, I entered the Nightmare-invaded area.

After getting closer, I "saw" the residual power and information unique to the Nightmare.

Walking into a house, I looked at a person who had been invaded by the Nightmare.

The aura on their body, and… something I could touch…

After being attacked by a Nightmare, does a person's consciousness also leave their body and manifest a body in the dream state?

I looked at a dream body that almost completely overlapped with reality.

The Nightmare's aura was entwined around them.

In their dream, they were constantly struggling as if they had seen something terrifying, their reactions causing their real bodies to show a ferocious expression.

Their reaction after being attacked by a Nightmare seemed to be slightly different from us outsiders.

Perhaps this was worth researching, but I was more interested in the culprit behind all this, the Nightmare itself.

The Nightmare had no specific form.

When I first arrived, the means I used to trap the Nightmare was simply to weave elements into a seamless cage.

But now, with the Dream Rewrite Spell, everything was much simpler.

When my power touched this Nightmare, it flickered warily, and then, this dark energy gathered into a ferocious human face and let out a piercing roar at me.

“That’s it? This can scare people?”

With a wave of my hand, I trapped the ball of Nightmare energy.

This operation was effortless for me.

The suddenly trapped Nightmare seemed to show a hint of disbelief on its ferocious face, followed by a frantic struggle, but it couldn't break free.

“That’s right, just like that. It's just a fragment of a complete Nightmare. Spreading its power so thin to invade so many people, isn't it afraid of killing itself.”

At this moment, the Earth Patrol Team arrived late.

When they saw the black Nightmare, they were so scared they didn’t dare to move forward.

“The troublemakers have arrived.”

I turned to look at them.

Seeing their trembling legs and the fact that they dared not take another step, I knew they were all cowards.

But from another perspective, the Earth Patrol Team were just paid workers.

Why would they risk their lives for that little monthly salary?

“Standing there like that, don't you all feel you're in the way?”

I said, holding the wisp of Nightmare I had just caught.

The Nightmare’s splitting characteristic meant that without special means, they were really difficult to deal with.

I also discovered that even the smallest division of a Nightmare seemed to have a thread of Destiny inside, which meant that these Nightmares had been "assimilated" by the script, becoming complete tool-people, or rather, tool-Nightmares.

“You… you… is this a Nightmare? You caught a Nightmare?”

“Just one of them. The main part isn't dealt with yet. This is no longer something you can interfere with. Can't you see? Not getting in the way is the greatest help you can give me.”

After mocking them, I walked past them and left.

And this wisp of Nightmare in my hand… should be considered the bait I found.

“Nightmare, if you don't come out, this fragment of yours is about to be gone.”

As I spoke, a fireball suddenly appeared in my palm.

The scorching heat stimulated the trapped Nightmare, causing it to dart around frantically, but it still couldn’t escape my grasp.

I looked around, but there was still no movement.

Was my threat not enough?

Or was a Nightmare fragment with only a single thread of Destiny not enough to warrant its attention?

But in the next moment, countless black Nightmare auras from all directions within the sealed-off area converged, forming a huge Nightmare mass not far in front of me.

The surging black gas seemed to freeze the surrounding air, making the Earth Patrol Team members who had followed me catch their breath.

They had never seen such a terrifying scene in all their years on the team.

If they had known the true form of the Nightmare they had sealed off was like this, they wouldn't have thought it was an easy job.

My gaze was fixed on the Nightmare.

This was the first time I had looked so seriously at the existence form of a Nightmare, but the information it fed back was incomprehensible to me.

Looking at it for a long time made me feel a little uncomfortable.

But the Nightmare wasn't just gathering here for me to look at.

It condensed a human-like face, opened its big mouth, and charged at me with a roar.

The intense aura brought by the Nightmare in that instant formed a huge pressure.

The emotions of fear and terror swept over everyone present, and then this emotion continued to grow in everyone's hearts.

Without the resistance of special magical means, relying on my own will and control over emotions was already a bit unbearable.

This was obviously beyond the scope that could be suppressed by willpower alone.

If this emotion was allowed to grow in the heart without an equivalent transcendent means, the consequences would be unimaginable.

I had to admit the Nightmare's methods; at least in terms of emotions, it was already superior to me.

Although this kind of attrition seemed to be able to temper one's will, it was obvious that I didn't have time to use this Nightmare as a whetstone at this moment.

In the next moment, the Nightmare's condensed face wanted to penetrate my body and cause heavy damage to my mind, but in the next moment, it slammed into something like a barrier, unable to advance an inch.

“A lamb entering a tiger's mouth is just like this.”

With a wave of my hand, the Dream Rewrite Spell surged, and the barrier that blocked the Nightmare turned into a cage that trapped it.

I had said that after obtaining the Dream Rewrite Spell, I was already "invincible" in this dream.

If they wanted to resist the effect of this spell, they were essentially fighting against the entire dream state.

Or perhaps, the spell effect was not quite accurate.

The essence of this spell's effect was to replace the channel through which the dream itself acquired information.

The effect it created was actually the behavior of the dream itself, or rather, the laws of the dream.

That's why I said that fighting this spell was fighting the dream itself, and this was also the core concept of this spell: using the environment.

The originally very intimidating huge Nightmare was isolated by the dream itself at this moment, turning into a constantly surging dark condensed ball in my hand.

Such a contrast was indeed sigh-inducing, especially for the Earth Patrol Team.

How could they have ever seen such a spectacle?

“You're all here… Indeed, it's time to clean up the mess.”

I turned to look at the Earth Patrol Team.

At least at this time, they were still somewhat useful.

“You can go back and directly explain the situation. I have taken the Nightmare away and will contain it in the extraordinary research base. I will analyze it and find a way to eradicate the Nightmares. You should know what to say to the public, right?”

“Under… understood…”

At this moment, the middle-aged man who was the captain of the Earth Patrol Team hurriedly got up and replied.

“Mm.”

Seeing that they were so sensible, I didn't bother with them anymore.

I took the Nightmare to the place where the Fool’s Dream had gathered before.

But when I got there, they all subconsciously showed a look of fear, their eyes fixed on the thing in my hand.

“Don’t be afraid, it’s already been trapped by me,” I comforted them.

It seemed that the Fool’s Dream’s fear of the Nightmare was already etched into their bones.

Even though this was once a part of them as dream creatures, when they decided they wanted to become true living beings, this instinctive resistance to the Nightmare still showed.

“It’s okay. If you encounter any difficulties next time, just come and find me directly. If I hadn’t been with you this time, I’m afraid you would have suffered too, right? Go back and have a good rest. I hope you can appear in my laboratory full of energy tomorrow.”

I reached out my hand subconsciously, wanting to pat these little cuties, but I touched nothing.

After bidding farewell to these lovely Fool’s Dream, I prepared to take the Nightmare back to the extraordinary research base.

Getting off work on time was my regular routine.

At the base, pulling all-nighters was commonplace for those geniuses.

I needed to try to create something to trap this Nightmare tonight.

After all, what was currently trapping it was my spell.

Once I stopped maintaining the spell effect, the dream would be unable to receive the corresponding information and the cage restricting the Nightmare would dissipate.

At that time, this Nightmare would regain its freedom.

I naturally couldn't let this happen.

I still had many questions I hadn't gotten answers to from this guy.

I hope the guys at the base wouldn't be scared by this Nightmare.

---

At the same time.

On a street on the other side of the underground city.

Bai Yu strolled along the bustling street, constantly whispering something.

Her gaze saw through the prosperity and noise here.

The passing pedestrians and the street thugs she saw, everything seemed to be in slow motion in Bai Yu's eyes.

Seeing the essence through behavior, seeing human nature through essence.

The scene here was something she had never seen before.

This was something that would absolutely not happen in the world she lived in.

She saw people who harmed the interests of others for their own selfish desires, saw people become selfish and greedy under their undisguised desires.

She was doubting if this was really ordinary.

Ordinary, in her understanding, was a normal state, a normal state of life.

However, this did not mean mediocrity, nor did it represent no value or meaning.

If what these ordinary people in this world showed was their normal state, then what was their value and meaning?

She needed to constantly think from their perspective, to substitute herself into their perception of ordinary, but this undoubtedly impacted her own concepts.

Bai Yu suddenly stopped, standing in place, taking a deep breath.

As a body cultivator, the ability to control her own state had already become her instinct.

That's right, body cultivation, not physical arts.

When she was choosing her graduation project, she chose the most popular branch of the soul project: ordinary.

Because Bai Yu felt that if she had to use an adjective to describe herself, then along the way, she was indeed too ordinary.

She had also been full of hope when she entered the Witch Academy, but reality had smoothed out her edges.

Perhaps her mentor was right.

Her experience at the Witch Academy was a process of constantly accepting that she was just one of the ordinary masses.

So how did her ordinary life take a turn?

Was it… when Little Han decided to apply to the Witch Academy?

Bai Yu didn't know.

She just simply filled her mind with these thoughts, hoping that they would collide and produce an answer for her.

But this time, it failed again.

Bai Yu looked at the people on the roadside.

They greedily satisfied their own desires, unscrupulously showing the ugliness of their human nature.

Was this their own fault?

Perhaps, but it was more about the environment.

The environment shapes a person's character.

The beauty and ugliness of human nature are intertwined, just like ordinary.

Everyone's definition of it is also different.

It seemed that everything had returned to the starting point.

Her understanding of ordinary, her research on the project of ordinary, had shifted from exploring the outside world to her own perception of it.

Perhaps she shouldn't have avoided it like this, but should have tried to understand it.

Just like she had stayed at the Witch Academy for so long and accepted and understood her own ordinariness, perhaps she should also accept their definition of ordinary.

She looked at a disabled person in a wheelchair passing by her.

Even if they were physically disabled, didn't they continue to live on?

This was probably the truest form of ordinary.

Just as Bai Yu was thinking this, a woman wearing what was clearly a nurse's uniform hurriedly came forward and grabbed the handle of the backrest.

"Are you trying to die by coming out for some fresh air like this! Do you know where this is? If you do this again, we'll go back early, and you can forget about coming out for the next few days!"

"Using such a tone on a patient is too much," Bai Yu followed her heart and stepped forward to speak.

After all, just now, that disabled person was also a part of a certain vague revelation she had gained in her enlightenment.

"Who are you? Don't show off your overflowing sympathy in front of me."

"No, I'm just questioning you as a nurse for treating a disabled person like this."

"Questioning me? Are you the nurse or am I the nurse? I advise you not to pity this guy. His environment and other things have destined his mentality to be different from normal people..."

"Oh... pretty little thing..."

Before the nurse could finish, an inharmonious voice came.

And this nurse subconsciously pushed him a little further away, making his hand miss.

"Now you understand how this guy's leg was broken, right? Don't meddle in other people's business."

At this moment, Bai Yu was shocked by what had just happened.

The nurse's words echoed in her mind.

Yes... this was a problem she needed to face... whether it was congenital or acquired, their disability was destined to be looked at differently by others.

People who grew up in such an environment would naturally have a slightly different mentality from normal people... perhaps they would become very bad, perhaps they would still face life with optimism.

These were all points she needed to face.

This point would not change because of her kindness or pity.

And what was the difference between those at the bottom living in this underground city and that disabled person just now?

The environment, external factors had shaped them.

They themselves were not at fault.

Bai Yu looked at the white figure walking away.

She hadn't expected to be enlightened in this way unintentionally.

Ordinary was not just about beauty and happiness; suffering and ugliness were also a part of ordinary.