Chapter 1467: Artificial Existence Core (35)

Of course, in the very beginning, it might have existed in the dreams of everyone above that age.

Strolling across the sun-drenched Plaza, Fu Qian silently turned the thought over in his mind, even though no sun was visible in the sky above.

The atmosphere here in the Plaza was distinctly different from the Corridor he had just left.

One notable change was the sudden difficulty of keeping himself hidden.

This was further proof that while the Old Man had wandered all the way here, this place was no longer a construct of his own dream. Instead, it was more like a convergence of countless dreaming consciousnesses.

The figures wandering the Plaza were fundamentally just like the Old Man. He was no longer the sole core of this dreamscape.

And because of that, there was no longer any need to stay hidden.

This kind of linked dreamscape operated on a deeply cognitive level. The myriad dreamwalkers wandering through it were far from lucid.

Even if someone who wasn't nearly as old suddenly appeared in their midst, it wouldn't startle them too badly.

As for the target he was looking for, Fu Qian never thought stealth would hold any meaning in its absolute home turf.

In fact, from the moment he forced the Old Man to fall asleep, Fu Qian had sensed a highly aggressive rejection pushing back against him from the dream itself.

This was entirely expected. Regardless of its current state, after their previous interactions—especially with Mr. Rick's death—it was impossible for the entity not to be on high alert.

That was exactly why Fu Qian had chosen to expend his SAN Value to activate Pseudo-God Incarnation, rather than directly using Mythical Form to manifest as the King of the Abandoned Prison.

Theoretically, the latter would have been far more effective, and after resting for a while, briefly activating it wouldn't be an issue.

The problem was that entering the dream was only the first step.

While walking through it, the invisible struggle would be constant.

If he tried to match the duration of Pseudo-God Incarnation while in the form of the King of the Abandoned Prison, he would likely exhaust himself to death.

And inside this massive convergence of dreams, hunting down a target utterly determined to stay hidden would be no easy feat.

...

Terror. Sorrow. And yet, there was also a kind of helpless relief.

Coming to a halt before a dark, slightly abstract stone sculpture, Fu Qian studied the elderly facial features etched into its surface. He looked out at the similarly styled statues in the distance, and the bizarre buildings, doorways, and streets stretching even further beyond.

Only a handful of figures wandered this area. The vast expanse beyond represented the countless locations constructed by other consciousnesses.

The elderly woman from before had abruptly slipped into a violent sleepwalking state while fully awake. This heavily implied that even when their surface minds were awake, their deep subconscious likely remained tethered to this place.

The connection might be faint, but it wouldn't stop the target from hiding within it. Just as he'd expected, searching for it would be a massive undertaking.

But the situation was already much better than he'd initially imagined.

Given the population density of Loss, even a relatively small area would contain a staggering number of people who had passed their fifty-ninth birthday.

If they were all gathered here, Fu Qian was certain the scene would look entirely different.

In his estimation, the target might have originally been capable of exactly that—otherwise, how had it been corrupted in the first place?

Mr. Rick's behavior had undergone a drastic shift immediately after his fifty-ninth birthday.

If his earlier hypothesis held true and the entity was indeed responsible, the sheer speed of the change suggested that meeting the age requirement and encountering the creature were practically bound by causality.

But corruption was corruption. No matter how poor the state of these ancient deities, Fu Qian never underestimated their dying struggles.

Perhaps this mysterious creature had managed to turn a disaster into an advantage, seizing enough initiative to benefit from the situation, but the fundamental reality of its defilement remained unchanged.

As a result, it could no longer enter ordinary dreams, drastically shrinking the size of its habitat.

Did that sound like subjective speculation, purely spun from his own imagination?

The evidence was right in front of him. If it could simply flee to other places, why was this thing trying so desperately to push him out?

Wouldn't it be better to just drift through the sea of dreams and let him exhaust himself to death searching?

Of course, it was acting with incredible caution. Even after wrestling with it for this long, he still couldn't detect a single trace.

And while it lasted longer than Mythical Form, Pseudo-God Incarnation still had its limits.

Given the current intensity of the rejection, the moment the ability ended, he would be firmly kicked out of the dreamscape.

He would have to feed in another ten points of SAN Value like inserting a coin to try again.

The problem was that a smaller search radius didn't necessarily mean it was small, and his SAN Value wasn't exactly limitless.

He could take a different approach. There was a way to reduce the search difficulty: physically wiping out the corrupted hosts.

In fact, if he was thorough enough and reduced their numbers to zero, he probably wouldn't even need to deal with it in the dreamscape at all.

But if he really went on a killing spree, the moment his Frost Demigod persona debuted, he'd rocket straight to the top of the Night Watchers' most-wanted list.

Fortunately, Fu Qian wasn't planning to use either method.

As everyone knew, he was exactly the type of customer that arcade owners despised the most.

Ten points of SAN Value were more than enough. And his strategy really was to avoid dealing with the creature inside a dream.

"Hey!"

Standing in the Plaza steeped in the terror of aging, Fu Qian offered a friendly greeting to the empty air.

At the exact same moment, his form explosively expanded.

...

Massive and imposing, he looked like a Tyrant descending upon the mortal realm.

Countless tiny fractures, resembling spiderwebs in cracked ice, spread outward from his body. They extended directly into the surrounding void, flickering and shifting.

In that instant, it was as if the most terrifying meat grinder had been dropped into this exalted dreamscape—a place that was simultaneously singular and a collective myriad.

Even as he stood perfectly still, everything around him seemed to crumble under the creeping fractures.

The reason he hadn't been in a hurry to search was because he had never intended to look for it in the first place.

If there were too many rooms, did you have to open every door one by one? Couldn't you just demolish the whole building?

After his trip to the Pope's place, using Resplendent Tyrant for this exact kind of demolition was something he was already intimately familiar with.

As for efficiency?

He could certainly feel that, after a brief shock, the entity was desperately trying to push back and frantically stitch the dreamscape together.

And his Pseudo-God Incarnation wasn't going to last much longer, either.

But that didn't matter.

In the next instant, Fu Qian plunged a hand straight into a massive rift that had finally appeared in the void under the rampant icy fractures.

Somewhat coincidentally, it was located right on that elderly Statue.

His movements were incredibly fluid; without a hint of hesitation, he viciously yanked his hand back out.

Applying Visceral Attack to an abstract concept was another skill he had honed during his special training at the Pope's place.

The beauty of it was that, as an execution skill designed to shatter all related concepts, Visceral Attack's current target was truly a singular whole. He didn't have to worry about missing anything.

Roar—

An execution delivered by a Tier 2 Transcendent didn't even require a second strike.

With that brutal tear, the rift explosively shattered. The sheer destructive force rippled out uncontrollably, surging into every corner of the dreamscape.

The aggressive force that had been trying to expel him vanished in an instant, replaced by a soul-rending shriek.

Of course, that was only soul-rending for ordinary mortals. To the King of the Abandoned Prison, the moment Mr. Rick died, this source of the sin plague was already a dead entity walking.