Volume 5 - CH 75.1

This is an unsteady skyscraper barely still standing amongst a burning city.

The fire seems to have spread to every corner of the city already, with humans completely at a loss at such a terrifying scene. Cries and wails have already faded away amongst the smoke of the fire, leaving behind only a deathly silence.

The city, is silent.

The rolling smoke is so thick that the people within this building can only see what is two, three hundred metres away at best. Things further away are silhouettes hidden away in the almost dream-like haze, but that is already terrifying enough.

Even more so is the state of the building on the verge of collapse. Dim, unlit interiors, with all the facilities and tools strewn about, broken. It almost looks like an earthquake has struck.

The windows allowing one to peer into the outside world already has its aluminium frame charred, charred by what is presumably a fire. If people inside can see the exterior wall from outside, they will certainly be more in awe of whatever caused this disaster in the first place.

Glass on the window has long since shattered, scattering extremely dangerous glass shards on the ground near the windows.

The Missiontakers do not appear by the windows, fortunately.

The moment Xü Beijin arrived in the Nightmare, he first takes in his surroundings, before turning his streaming system on.

The lights are off in this tall building, so it is rather dark inside, but things are still barely visible, so the night vision mode of the stream isn’t triggered. Xü Beijin checks out the list of locations on the right of his stream, and sees that, again, a large amount of locations are visible.

A light skim reveals that there are about these categories – each single floor of this 36-storey building, the interiors of all seven elevators, and the emergency stairwell, among others.

The Missiontakers’ names are all over on the 36th floor, the highest floor of this skyscraper.

Xü Beijin moves his stream’s camera source over, while looking at the names listed carefully.

… Oh wow.

Eight Missiontakers in total, five of whom he already knows.

Lin Qin, Fei, Wu Jian, Shen Yünjü, and Jiang Shuangmei.

It’s a shock to Xü Beijin that all of these people are in the same Nightmare at once.

… Maybe praises for the efficiency of Dai Wu’s work is in order.

Also, why is Lin Qin even in this Nightmare?

Meanwhile, some viewers have already trickled into the stream, and, also noticing the Missiontakers present, are laughing in the comments.

“hahahaha we know them all”

“so something like a team game this time with the 5?”

“hey Beibei! what kinda nightmare do we have this time?”

Xü Beijin leaves the awkwardness he is feeling from seeing the five acquaintances behind, and then goes to analysing information he has on this Nightmare in this mind.

He has been to this Nightmare before, with the same identity as an Actor, so he knows some information already. That was pretty long ago, though, and so Xü Beijin has to take some time to recall the relevant information about this Nightmare.

He speaks up, “this Nightmare takes place in this skyscraper. There are 36 floors in total, and the Missiontakers are on the 36th floor right now, so the top floor.

This is a Nightmare depicting the aftermath of some disaster which has also affected this building. Three hours after the Nightmare begins, it will collapse. So before then, the Missiontakers must escape this skyscraper. Of course, the exit is on the 1st floor.”

Here, Xü Beijin’s thoughts can’t help but digress.

He is recalling the Tower.

Earlier today, when Dai Wu’s subordinate Actor came to report on the progress, he was told that among the Missiontakers, a rumour that ‘the Tower’s exit is actually on the bottom floor and not the top’ is making the rounds.

Here, there is a skyscraper – a tower in the Nightmare, but the Missiontakers face an opposite challenge. They appear on the top floor, and must reach the exit at the bottom.

Would it trigger some thoughts on the Missiontakers’ parts?

Fei and Wu Jian are certainly on those lines of thought.

They were already paying attention to this Nightmare because Mu Jiashi told them that this Nightmare contained elements of an apocalypse, so after the True End last Nightmare, instead of going up, they remained on the bottom floor for a bit, and also asked Mu Jiashi for more information.

Among the information included the fact that the Nightmare takes place in a tall building, the exit is on the bottom floor, and the fact that Missiontakers appear on the top floor. These were enough to give Fei and Wu Jian ideas.

Mu Jiashi didn’t tell them about how to reach a True End; he tried to do so, but Fei and Wu Jian stopped him, saying that they did not want to form an impression beforehand and instead, collect information from the very beginning.

So, after confirming the residence of that Tower resident, Fei and Wu Jian went to look. They didn’t expect, though, that the Tower resident would not be at home at all by day, and instead spends all that time crouching in some dark corner of the Tower.

Fei and Wu Jian wanted to try communicating with the Tower resident, so they spent some time investigating the Tower resident’s daily schedule.

They found out what they wanted to, and while they didn’t obtain any useful information from the woman who held her head down and shivered the entire time, in just a few days rumours about that particular Nightmare was suddenly all the rage on the bottom floor, even with information that ‘the exit to the Tower should be on the bottom floor’… This certainly caught Fei and Wu Jian completely by surprise.

Through what Mu Jiashi told them, they did have some thoughts regarding the possibilities of the ‘exit to the Tower,’ even considering if the Nightmare could be the rumoured ‘exit,’ or even be the ‘Ultimate Nightmare.’

Though…

These were all still hypotheses in their own minds! How did all of it become topic du jour of the bottom floor?!

… Shit, did they accidentally leak information out somehow?

Fei and Wu Jian were rightfully terrified.

It was after they traced the footsteps of the rumours and understood what happened, that it was merely what a Missiontaker overheard incidentally, that they could sigh in relief.

That said, the fact that this was now the hottest rumour of the bottom floor of the Tower worried Fei and Wu Jian, as they did not know whether the Server, NE, would react to this at all. Of course, the possibility of that is very slim.

… Actually, though, it is bad news whether NE reacted or not.

If NE reacted, they can only speculate fearfully of what he might do; if not, then wouldn’t that mean, the information is actually, definitively, worthless?

A rock and a hard place, for sure.

In the end, they used some method to smuggle all these information up to companions of the higher floors, and then entered the Nightmare.

After entering the Nightmare, they set their sights outside of the window, and now, they finally realise, why Mu Jiashi told them that the scene in this Nightmare, is an apocalypse.