Chapter 1466: Artificial Existence Core (34)

Explosions echoed in rapid succession. Amid a dazzling send-off of light, Master Grimshaw—who had just helped quell a disaster—vanished without a trace.

As he sped away into the distance, Fu Qian made sure to observe the newly arrived demigod reinforcements.

Their condition was hardly ideal; he could sense a kind of damage that went beyond mere flesh and blood.

Yet, by their own judgment, it clearly wouldn't significantly impact their Combat Power.

The fact that they eagerly dove into the encirclement without a moment's rest was proof enough.

It was a pity their brief cooperation was over. The Night Watchers had done their part; now, it was time for his.

Mr. Rick absolutely had to die. If his earlier guess held true, the mysterious creature that served as his mission objective had a nearly invincible sanctuary: projecting itself onto Rick.

While he still wasn't sure why "being polluted" and "completely annihilating" it were mutually exclusive, that scenario would undoubtedly leave him at an absolute dead end.

His role throughout this entire mission had actually been quite simple.

He had dragged the Night Watchers into the fray, used them to locate and isolate the dangerous target, Rick, and investigated the situation along the way. After verifying the necessity of an execution through various sources of information, he ultimately guided the Night Watchers into pulling the trigger.

He had to admit, the Night Watchers here were competent enough that guiding them hadn't taken much effort.

The end result was that, without Fu Qian ever making direct contact, Rick had been cornered and violently killed, completely ignorant of why he had been targeted.

Now, theoretically speaking, every threat to him within Loss had been eliminated.

He had even gained an unexpected bonus: the fearsome reputation of a Frost Demigod.

Unlike his other alternate personas, when a High-Tier Transcendent identified someone, the nature of their power was far more reliable than a face or a name.

Thanks to the effect of Burning Frost, the abilities he displayed were vastly different from his usual flesh-based powers.

Given the Night Watchers' confidence, even if he grabbed them by the collar and confessed his true identity right now, they probably wouldn't believe him for a while.

As for his next step—where to find that mysterious entity, a creature without a physical form that could freely traverse through dreams—Fu Qian actually already had a plan.

His figure materialized. Breathing in a lungful of the invigorating musty air, Fu Qian looked at the dark wooden door in front of him and knocked.

"Come in."

At the slightly aged reply, Fu Qian pushed the door open and walked right in.

...

"Who are... ah?"

The old man in the office looked up, freezing for a moment before something seemed to click in his memory.

"I came to thank you for pointing the way for me earlier."

Stepping forward with a smile, Fu Qian sat down across from the old gentleman and offered a casual explanation.

Yes, he had returned to the hospital where Rick used to work.

Of the facility's two medical luminaries, the older woman had already been hauled off by the Night Watchers, but the other was still here.

Naturally, Fu Qian didn't expect to conveniently catch him sleepwalking. The target he was looking for certainly wouldn't be waiting here for him.

But that didn't matter. As the saying went, having an elder in the house was like having a treasure, and the rich life experience of the man sitting in front of him was exactly what he needed.

Namely, the fact that he had long since passed his fifty-ninth birthday.

"It was just a small favor..."

It was an odd reason to visit, but Fu Qian's demeanor was so natural that the old man took off his glasses, set them aside, and instinctively offered a polite reply.

Yet with that movement, his field of vision abruptly shifted, and there was suddenly no one left across the desk.

This...

The visitor had been bizarre enough, but coupled with this inexplicable disappearance, it was genuinely unnerving.

Unable to sit still, the old man stood up, walked over, and opened the door. To his surprise, the Corridor outside was equally empty; the man who had asked for directions was nowhere to be seen.

At the same time, a faint urge swelled within him—a desire not to go back and sit down, but to take a walk and look around.

Without much hesitation, he actually stepped out the door.

Walking with a briskness that far exceeded his usual pace, he made his way to the end of the Corridor. Yet what greeted him was not the spiral staircase from his memory, but a massive, iron-black door of bizarre design.

Strangely, this anomaly sparked no alarm in him. Without even considering whether he had the strength to move it, the old man stepped forward and pushed.

It wasn't too intense, but a gleaming golden light instantly spilled inside.

Beyond the door lay a Plaza paved with white stone. It wasn't particularly large, and the surrounding structures were of various styles that looked absolutely nothing like the hospital in his memory.

There weren't many people wandering the Plaza—just a few men and women scattered about in twos and threes.

Their only shared trait was that every single one of them was elderly.

His mind felt somewhat hollow, leaving him with no desire to question the reason behind this shared trait. Without hesitation, the old man stepped out into the golden glow of the setting sun.

...

Not many elderly folks go to sleep at this hour.

Meanwhile, Fu Qian—who was using his control over the dream realm to remain completely concealed as he advanced—let out a deep sigh.

The old gentleman had, of course, been dragged into a dream. His own dream, to be precise.

Indeed, the urge driving him to stretch his legs was the result of a custom-tailored dream rule Fu Qian had set for him.

As the core of the dream, the Old Man wouldn't easily wake up until he had walked a sufficient number of steps.

As for why this Old Man—who was clearly polluted—was not only able to steadily enter a dream, but even be anchored as its core?

The answer was simple: a drop of 10 SAN Value.

The moment he sat down earlier, Fu Qian had immediately activated Pseudo-God Incarnation.

Fu Qian had actually been pondering for a while why the polluted victims couldn't be pulled into dreams.

In his eyes, the most likely explanation was that every polluted person functioned as a part of an abstract "whole," meaning they all shared the same absurdly high Rank.

The upgraded Lucid Dream could trap someone in the Demigod Realm with relative ease, but if the target's Rank climbed even higher than that, it naturally became much more difficult.

To test this theory, Fu Qian had opted to forcefully elevate his own Rank as the Dream Dominator. He wanted to see if the boost would bridge the gap, allowing him to forcibly lock a polluted victim as a dream's core.

The reason he went to all this trouble was because of a theory he already had on how to find the Source of the Sin Plague hiding deep within the dream world: if the polluted shared the same Rank, wasn't it possible that their dreams were also connected?

After all, according to Rick's philosophy, they were all simply parts of a singular "me."

If the guess held true, that mysterious creature might be able to hide in any polluted person's dream at will—but every polluted victim Fu Qian approached would serve as a pathway to its hiding place.

The facts spoke for themselves. Bolstered by his forcefully elevated Rank, Fu Qian's violent suppression had successfully brought the polluted old gentleman to heel.

After locking the man in as the dream's core and giving him the task of wandering around, Fu Qian promptly discovered that, beyond the edges of the dreamscape he had constructed himself, there was more content. And there were other elderly people here.

Fifty-nine years old... did that mysterious creature exclusively inhabit the dreams of polluted victims above that age?