Up in the sky, above the bustling city, Giggle transformed into his cat form. His eyes swept the streets and locked on a condominium based on his awareness. Within the condominium was a middle-aged man laying on a bed wearing a game visor.
"It's you!" Giggle flashed and appeared above the man. He sneered at the sleeping man and attacked with his awareness. Giggle frowned.
"No… it's not him…" He lifted his head. "This is…"
He emitted violent power of awareness from his body and the world around him disintegrated and vanished.
"Dream within dream?" Giggle said. "Entering from Closers World's dream into the realm of dreams within dreams? A genius idea but you thought I couldn't distinguish between reality and a dreamscape?"
"I can destroy such a common dreamscape with ease."
Giggle swept the power of his awareness around like a violent storm. The streets, sky, and ground disintegrated, showing scenes of Closers World.
Zhao Yao immediately flashed and vanished after his dreamscape was destroyed.
Giggle chased after him. They flashed and appeared in the sky above the Beginner's Village. Zhao Yao was frozen up in mid-air as he was immobilized.
Giggle floated over and gazed at the controlled Zhao Yao. He smiled and said, "Who are you? Why are you able to access the Awareness Dimension's energy?"
Zhao Yao went into a daze and said, "Don't you know who I am? You did unscrupulous things on this planet. You thought nobody would find out?"
The words were ambiguous but Giggle created Closers World without his tribe knowing. After Zhao Yao's words, Giggle was agitated and he started imagining a lot of things.
"Are you from our Mother planet? Who sent you to spy on me? The Sacred Hall? Long Fur Tribe? Or the Short Fur Tribe?" Giggle looked at Zhao Yao grimly and said, "No, they've no reason to spy on me. Are you from the Furless tribe? That guy was afraid I might grow stronger and return for revenge?
Yes, that must be it. With my talent and potential, they saw me as a thorn in the flesh and wanted me dead."
Giggle gazed at Zhao Yao as he overwhelmed Zhao Yao with his awareness and shouted, "Confess! Are you from the Furless Tribe?"
Zhao Yao laughed loudly and said forcefully, "Since you know who I am, release me immediately. Do you think there's hope left after your deeds are exposed? Release me and repent so that I can plead leniency for you!"
Giggle was glum and frowned. "No." He looked at the Beginner's Village below and sensed with his power of awareness. He found something amiss.
"Dream within dream again?" Giggle recovered himself. The previous reality was the first dream within dream to trick him back to the material world.
After he destroyed that dreamscape, he entered another dreamscape that looked like Closers World.
As both were dreamscapes, unlike the huge differences between reality and a dreamscape, Giggle did not discover the difference.
"You are a genius to use consecutive dreams within dreams…" Giggle laughed and destroyed the dreamscape again. He appeared in the wild plains of Closers World.
Zhao Yao flashed and vanished but Giggle did not pursue him. Instead, he probed the environment carefully to ensure that it was the real Closers World.
"I am back to the real Closers World." Giggle pulled out the players' list furiously and pursued Zhao Yao.
Giggle entered more and more dreams within dreams. Though Zhao Yao's power of awareness was inferior to Giggle's, he had a strong understanding of dreamscapes and he used psychological blindspots in the dreamscape to avoid capture.
"You're not going to last long." Giggle's speed in unraveling dreamscapes was getting faster and faster as his power of awareness was superior. Zhao Yao was running out of ideas and after several attempts, Giggle could break through the dreamscapes in an instant.
As Giggle was about to capture Zhao Yao, the world became dark… then light. All the players vanished, including Zhao Yao.
"This…" Giggle exited the game and contacted the game company. He found out that a blackout had caused Closers World's server to shut down.
Though Closers World was a dreamscape, Giggle chose to use Earth's technology to facilitate Earthlings in entering the dreamscape.
The shutting down of the servers caused the malfunctioning of Closers World.
Zhao Yao took the opportunity to get offline.
"D*mn." Giggle bared his teeth. "He must have done this. Did his companions attack the server room?"
Giggle recovered himself as Tom ran over and shouted, "What's happening, Giggle? Why is the game under maintenance?"
Giggle said, "An unknown person or cat did it and he had control of the Awareness Dimension's energy."
"Ah?" Tom said, "Is there such a genius in the natives on this planet?"
"So what if he's a genius?" Giggle said coldly. "It's his bad luck after meeting us. I'll capture him next time he appears."
Giggle underestimated his opponent and did not put in all his efforts in defending himself so he was tricked many times. He also did not protect the server room in the material world.
He looked down on the Earth's natives but he was going to watch Closers World carefully. He was also going to protect the game company and the server room. He would capture the intruder next time.
…
On Cat Island, Zhao Yao lay on the ground and massaged his brows.
Matcha was by his side as he asked with concern, "Zhao Yao? Are you alright?"
"I overexerted myself. I'll be fine after a rest." Zhao Yao's eyes were filled with red veins as he said grimly, "I'm much weaker than the alien cat. If you hadn't pulled the plug, I would have been captured by him."
Matcha heaved out of relief as Zhao Yao asked, "How did you come up with pulling the plug?"
Matcha said, "You set up a Dimension Portal in their server room!"
Zhao Yao smiled and looked at his Book.
Mission: Escape from capture
Mission Objective: Escape from the alien cat
Reward: 70 000 experience points
Mission Penalty: None
Zhao Yao sighed in relief after seeing the reward of 70 000 experience points.
"With this month and last month's experience points… a second supercat is eligible to upgrade to Level 10. Get ready for evolution."