Chapter 338 : Chapter 338

Chapter 338: The Nightmare Demon's Layout

Underground City.

"Block all passages leading up from the underground city, including those hidden ones. As soon as you find any trace of a Nightmare Demon, send a signal immediately," I said.

The Nightmare Demons were more troublesome than I had anticipated.

It was true that they were no match for me in terms of combat power, but their ability to survive and hide was quite impressive.

Moreover... there were quite a few of them, and they had no sympathy whatsoever.

They had no pity or indignation for the fate of their companions.

When I killed their companions, their anger was only because they had one less helper.

As I spoke, everyone present nodded silently.

This was the first time I had shown them the combat power of an outsider.

It was also a formal declaration that I, as an outsider, already had the ability to interfere with both the dream and reality.

And my fighting style was completely different from theirs.

The use of spells was like a divine art to them.

Even though they had an extraordinary foundation in skills and inscriptions, their thinking was still along the lines of technological development and strategy.

This was evident from their emphasis on extraordinary killers and armaments.

And this battle between me and the Nightmare Demons was fought directly in the urban area.

Too many people had witnessed a battle scene far beyond their comprehension in the aftermath of this battle, which had a strong impact on their concepts.

But I didn't care, and no one dared to raise any objections to my actions.

After all, they knew very well that if it weren't for me, they didn't know what would have happened to them at this moment.

Even if they didn't go to Ninglan New City on the surface, it didn't mean they wouldn't exchange information with the surface.

They also understood the existence of the Nightmare Demons.

They were not some small-time troublemakers like the Nightmares.

They really had the ability to kill people!

They would even treat people as food and constantly extract from them.

That kind of life was simply worse than death.

Plus, at this moment, the new extraordinary armaments in the extraordinary research base were insufficient, and the Earth Patrol Team was short-handed, making it difficult to form an effective defense.

Didn't they send people and armaments to support the surface because they assumed that the special geographical location of the underground city would not be affected by the disasters on the surface?

Now they were directly hit in their weak spot, straight to the main artery.

Even the Earth Vein had become a threatened object.

How could they endure this?

They also realized that they had made a very wrong decision.

They had almost doomed the underground city, and even implicated Ninglan New City on the surface.

So, the only way now was to remedy the situation.

Of course... and also to curry favor with the Scholar Little Han who had just saved them from fire and water.

It was only at this moment that they truly realized what kind of existence this scholar, who usually studied transcendent runes and exchanged skills with them, was.

This shattered the information they had obtained from above.

What outsiders could only be in the dream and couldn't interfere with reality?

The one in front of them had dealt a heavy blow to their perception.

The only thing they could do now was to please the other party.

They had done a lot of behavioral analysis and personality profiling on this outsider, just to understand the behavioral pattern of this time bomb, to make everything controllable.

Now that this bomb had shown the power to really blow them up, the nature of many things had changed.

And the only thing they were glad about at this moment was that the other party was still a "friendly" and communicable target so far.

"We should go back too. By the way... build a containment facility for these guys."

I kicked the few Nightmare Demons under my feet.

These were the unlucky ones who were restrained by my dual restraint spells in both reality and dream.

If I wanted to contain and study the Nightmare Demon I had caught before, it would have cost the base a lot of manpower and resources, and it would have been extremely dangerous.

The person in charge of the base and the senior management would most likely not have agreed.

But now it was different.

When I showed my strength, the other party had an equivalent judgment.

I didn't believe they didn't have this bit of insight.

And the research on the Nightmare Demon that I was leading, or directly interrogating to obtain intelligence, to understand these monsters, was of no harm to them.

What's more... I also needed them to let me try the limits of the Resurrection Spell and other possibilities.

If you don't experiment with many things, and only rely on theoretical research, you will only keep hitting a wall.

The Nightmare Demon was an excellent experimental material.

However, with the current manpower and resources of the extraordinary research base, it was a bit of a stretch to contain the Nightmare Demons.

And, having just experienced the Nightmare Demon's attack, too many scholars were frightened, and many projects were suspended or even completely terminated for this reason.

During this period, a large number of the base's security forces lost their combat capabilities.

After all, even if ordinary people were warriors strengthened by extraordinary power, they could still have a breakdown when faced with an attack that was far beyond their comprehension.

For those who sacrificed in this incident, they still needed to be properly dealt with.

There were too many things in the underground city that needed to be completed slowly.

And there were also potential hidden dangers and so on.

I didn't think the Nightmare Demons would just give up on controlling the underground city.

Even with my existence, they wouldn't give up.

This place held the lifeline of the entire Ninglan New City.

If they controlled this place, they would have the handle to threaten the entire Ninglan New City.

But unfortunately, those Nightmare Demons had discovered it too late.

Before the extraordinary research base officially contained the Nightmare Demons, there was one more very important thing to do, and that was to get something out of the mouths of these Nightmare Demons.

This interrogation was a supplement to the hasty interrogation last time.

And this time, I had caught three Nightmare Demons.

Although the number was a bit too much for me to handle alone, it was not out of my control.

And with more Nightmare Demons, it was much simpler than interrogating a single one.

And there was a very simple and effective method to make them spit out more intelligence, which was the prisoner's dilemma.

And this trick was even more effective on the Nightmare Demons, who had no extra affection for each other.

Plus, with the information gap I had at this moment, I could easily create misunderstandings between them.

And it didn't take long for me to get a lot of useful intelligence from their mouths.

For example, I learned that the "companions" of these Nightmare Demons that I had already caught would not waste the effort to save them.

But according to this statement, they should have sold out the information of those guys.

But they kept their mouths shut about it.

It wasn't until I paid a certain price and used the Resurrection Spell to carry out an inhumane interrogation that I learned that there were still two Nightmare Demons wandering in the underground city.

It could be said that including those two, and the ones I had caught and killed, the number of Nightmare Demons that had come down this time had exceeded ten.

And they had indeed come down through the passage that Ninglan Qiuyue knew.

This matter was also confirmed.

Should Ninglan Qiuyue be blamed for this disaster in the underground city?

No, after all, this was a destined event.

Even without Ninglan Qiuyue, there would have been others.

Then, there was another target for the Nightmare Demons, and that was the Nightmares that were contained in the extraordinary research base!

There was a large amount of Destiny in those Nightmares, which was also their target.

And in the beginning, their goal was simply to control the entire extraordinary research base and the Earth Patrol Team.

"Control the base and the Earth Patrol Team. This is to completely control the entire underground city. Why?"

I asked.

"The Earth Vein... to completely control the Earth Vein..."

The dying Nightmare Demon in front of me replied.

"Hmph."

I snorted coldly and was about to turn around and leave.

And the signal of this action of mine was that I was going to ask the other Nightmare Demons.

If their answers were different from the other two, then what awaited her would be even more cruel torture.

And this question was just a routine question.

After all, besides the Earth Vein, there seemed to be nothing more important in the underground city.

But the Earth Vein was not something they could destroy just because they wanted to.

The Earth Vein energy in it, even if I filled it with a super-consumption spellbook, I couldn't fill it up.

Plus, the carrying characteristics of the Earth Vein energy, even I didn't have the confidence to destroy it.

I thought they just wanted to control the underground city.

With the Earth Vein in their hands, they would have an information gap and use this method to threaten.

And the Nightmare Demons had tried to attack the Earth Vein before.

Besides causing an abnormal fluctuation in the energy within the Earth Vein, what else was there?

Nothing.

The sturdiness of the Earth Vein was beyond imagination.

"Wait... wait..." just as I was about to turn around, this Nightmare Demon called out to me.

Her tone was filled with fear.

When she said "wait," there was also a hint of relief.

"Speak."

I uttered one word concisely, my tone carrying a nonchalance towards their life and death.

Because here, even death was not a release for them.

The Resurrection Spell was the last straw that broke them.

"For... a transaction, to help... control the underground city..."

"Transaction? What transaction? Be clear," I came in front of her and asked in a deep voice.

I didn't expect a routine question to dig up something good.

"Someone... wants to unify Ninglan New City... the surface... the underground..."

"Continue."

"He helps us... come down, we... control..."

"Ninglan Qiuyu?"

I said another name at this moment.

"Yes..."

"He has colluded with you Nightmare Demons?"

"Yes..."

"Then what about you and Ninglan Qiuyun? Was that also a collusion?"

"Yes... no..."

"What do you mean?"

I listened as this Nightmare Demon admitted and then shook her head to deny it.

Was it a collusion or not?

Or was it forced?

"Ninglan... Qiuyu... begged us..."

"He begged you to do it? So Ninglan Qiuyun was set up by his son. Was this his own initiative, or did you induce him by taking advantage of his desire for the position of City Lord?"

"Is there... a difference..."

"Haha... that's true. How interesting."

At this moment, I let out a light laugh.

It was the joy of witnessing the diversity of human nature, the shock of a novel-like plot playing out in reality.

They say power is a seductive poison.

It can make a person pick up a butcher's knife and put it to the neck of their own kin.

According to the intelligence I obtained from the Nightmare Demon on Ninglan Qiuyue before, Ninglan Qiuyu's patricide was also planned by the Nightmare Demons.

It seemed they had planned it from the beginning.

Ninglan Qiuyu's existence was simply the most perfect tool for them.

Ambitious, motivated, with the same goal, only with a cognitive information gap.

This was the best tool, the kind that would still help you count the money after being sold.

"But I still have some questions. How did you find Ninglan Qiuyu? For your plan, to seize the Destiny, when you first came to Ninglan New City, you should have found that City Lord first, not a layout centered on Ninglan Qiuyu."

Even if the Ruin Ritual needed the City Lord's son, as long as they killed his father, his son would inherit in order.

There was no need to go to such great lengths to let Ninglan Qiuyu start a rebellion.

From a god's perspective, everything that was done was just gilding the lily.

There should have been quite a few "innocent" Nightmare Demons who died in the process.

"What's the difference... is there? Isn't it all... the same..."

"I'll give you one last chance," I said in a deep voice.

"Location! Location... for us Nightmare Demons... to descend here, we need coordinates...

that... was mastered by Ninglan Qiuyu... at first we could only... only communicate with him..."

"Even to come over... it took a huge price... that required his cooperation, required... a descent ritual... he... was not easy to trick..."

"Coordinates. Hehe, I thought it was very simple for you to come here."

"The void is very large... to reach a place, you need special means..."

"So you haven't really shown that reckless youth your true terror, right? He's still being kept in the dark by you, thinking he can use you and then deal with you?"

After all, this was the most reasonable explanation.

If Ninglan Qiuyu wanted to use this Nightmare Demon to achieve his own goal, think about it, a person suddenly got something from a demon and could summon them to realize his wishes.

Then when using this demon, he also had to consider whether he could control the other party.

After all, Ninglan Qiuyu wanted to be the City Lord, not a little brother under the demon.

He needed a deterrent means to kill the donkey after the grinding was done.

"Yes... probably..."

"What do you mean by probably?"

"We... are just... using each other, plotting against each other..."

"Hehe... that's true. He has this kind of courage. If he wins in the end, then he is a hero. No one will know the game behind it. If he fails... then he is a sinner, and will even implicate the entire Ninglan New City. As expected of an ambitious man who would cooperate with the Abyssal Demons."

To put it bluntly, the history of Ninglan New City was just the glory written by the victors.

Probably in Ninglan Qiuyu's eyes, if he failed, it was just death.

After he died, who would care about the flood?

But he clearly could have waited, he just couldn't wait.

Faced with something that would be his sooner or later, and the risk of getting it now, he chose the latter.

No matter what kind of mental game and struggle he went through, the result would not lie.

This kind of mentality meant that Ninglan Qiuyu would not be a qualified City Lord.

The continuation of Ninglan New City needed a person with a firm heart to persevere day after day, not a mediocre person who couldn't even suppress the desires in his heart.

And this mediocre person had ambitions that did not match his cognition.

But this was also not for me to judge.

I just needed to make my own choice.

And the choice I was facing now was also very clear.

Agree with Ninglan Qiuyu's actions and help him clean up his mess and cover for him.

Disagree with Ninglan Qiuyu's actions and expose his despicable nature.

Since I had already understood to this level, right and wrong were actually not important anymore.

What was important was the stance, was taking a side.

After all, their level was the one that defined right and wrong.

And it was a coincidence that I was also a very open-minded existence and would not impose this right and wrong on the other party.

My rationality made me choose to understand him.

After all, everything had already happened.

I didn't need to impose my own values on Ninglan New City.

After all, even if they were rotten to the core, it had nothing to do with me.

But his actions made me uncomfortable.

And my sensibility naturally chose to expose the other party.

But the consequences of exposing were unknown, and might even lead to worse and unpredictable results.

And, that City Lord didn't seem to have a second son.

So, both choices made me uncomfortable.

Then I simply didn't make a choice.

I chose to wait and see.