Volume 7 - CH 120.3

Wu Jian quickly shakes his head and turns his thoughts elsewhere. He realises that this scene may not only have been to help him regain his sanity, but also to help them know the truth without having to investigate.

It’s like a cheat.

This lets them leave the scene smoothly, without even having to go through the repetitions of the Nightmare.

It sure is pretty easy.

Though when Wu Jian sees the door floating into existence in the grey fog, he can’t help but look back around, to look at the people in the stadium, insane, or silent, or confused, and thinks, please wait for us.

We will save you, all… We definitely will.

Xü Beijin is a bit stumped.

As he finds his consciousness drifting away and his vision tunnelling – the Nightmare is eating at his mind more and more deeply.

Even being inside the grey fog can’t alleviate his sweating any. He feels completely drained – likely something delusion from the effects on his brain.

If someone is hypnotised and convinced he is dead, and his brain believes it without a doubt, then would it make sense to call him dead?

While trying to resist the feeling, Xü Beijin tries to use black humour to consider the matter piquing his curiosity all this time – what state is NE really in?

He’s trying to kill him, and also trying to save him?

For an artificial intelligence, would such a conflicting command just cause it to shut down directly?

While mocking NE inside, Xü Beijin is already gasping in pain. Half of his vision has gone dark; or is it simply that his eyelids are shut in one eye?

He doesn’t think he can see what is in front of him clearly, but that’s not the case… No. He can feel it. He can feel something chaotic.

He is both awake and asleep. He is both lucid and insane. He is going to become a walking corpse.

He wonders if this ending is what those people wish for him. Or rather, it is what they arranged for him.

It is simply because he has avoided the Nightmare all these years that this end for him has been delayed for so long.

Long enough that even he is surprised to actually come across a ray of hope after the delaying tactic.

This supposed end of his has become more subtly uncertain, like having a veil cast on it, from NE himself switching stances.

He can’t help but want to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

He can feel wave after wave of a dizziness taking over his mind, his nerves, like a strengthening earthquake. It makes him feel as if his head is filled up with water, sloshing, sloshing…

A long time later, Xü Beijin thinks he has adapted to the sensation a little.

He touches his forehead, and thinks his fingertips would come across a whole streak of cold sweat, but in actuality, there was nothing.

Just like how his physical exhaustion is merely a trick on his mind, the mental pain and suffering, seems not to have been reflected on the body he is using in this game at all.

It’s all fake.

Xü Beijin quietly mumbles.

Then he suddenly feels a rather deep sense of doubt. He always thought he could deal with it all, and he can stay by himself in this damned Tower forever. But now, he can’t help but feel like backtracking. His confidence is wavering.

Some kind of cold, authoritative consciousness from a higher plane of existence is telling him from on high, that he must.

Xü Beijin is wondering, though, that wouldn’t he really go crazy? He’s genuinely, humorously wondering, if he really wouldn’t?

If you ask him, he doesn’t think he’s really that… stalwart in mind.

Even if he did manage to resist sleep all these years.

Xü Beijin is not sure what he really thinks, now.

He quiets down for a little, before mustering what attention he could to look at the Cell Nightmare that Lin Qin is in.

Why Lin Qin? He wonders.

Then he hastily gives himself an excuse – because Lin Qin has such a powerful and inexplicable intuition that can understand what he thinks, right? That’s what Lin Qin has always done.

Though to be honest, right now, Lin Qin is possibly more frustrated than Xü Beijin is.

He is trapped in an amusement park.

Amusement park——When the madness spreads through humanity, ha, surely an amusement park would be near the top of the list of locations by danger. No doubt about it.

Though in reality, the Missiontakers in the Tower only encounter Nightmares related to amusement parks very rarely.

Fundamentally, it probably has to do with the fact that the Nightmares featuring amusement parks, have Collapsed a long time ago as the Nightmare owners have succumbed.

The more difficult, or rather, the more nauseating a Nightmare is, the quicker it crumbles.

Even in Nightmares in the higher floors, the Tower residents still cannot compare to Xü Beijin in how resilient they are mentally and maintain their lucidity all these years.

They might last a while, but they will also fail eventually and end up sleeping while both sane and insane.

Then… it’s over. They are ensnared by their Nightmares. They know best how dangerous their Nightmares, and as the Nightmare owners, the most terrifying part of the Nightmares they are assigned to, would obviously first afflict the Nightmare owners with mental degradation.

This means that Nightmare owners who end up seeing amusement parks are extremely unfortunate. They would be mentally ground without fail, and then… there is nothing else.

A mind may fail over time from continuous stress, but also possibly break from a momentary burst of pressure.

In any case, right now, Lin Qin finds himself inside of a Nightmare whose owner may have gone insane in a single moment.

It’s a Nightmare about an amusement park.

If you ask some people what’s the scariest ride in an amusement park, a lot of people might answer the haunted house, or the rollercoaster ride, but if anything is equally as terrifying as its name would suggest it to be, it is likely the drop tower.

Literally.

This amusement park features one about a hundred metres tall – the drop from the top is about equivalent to falling down from the thirty-something floors of a tall building.

Of course, a normal, regulated amusement park, in consideration for guest safety, would clearly employ much more gradual and safe mechanisms for movement during the fall.

But imagine this – if the drop tower featured no deceleration or gradual acceleration, and simply went up and down at its topmost speed, and never stopped to let its guests off… What would you feel?

Well, it turns out Lin Qin doesn’t feel much. He is even looking at the scenery in boredom.

He isn’t at all terrified of this ‘trick.’

The sensation of weight loss and rapid changes in the forces applied to his body practically has no effect on his body and mind.

At most, he just feels that it’s quite blurry to see, but it doesn’t affect him too much either.

This is simply like a boring, silly and detestable physical test to him.

The wind continues whirring past his ears, making him feel sleepy. He yawns quietly.

Right now, the carousel is at the very top of the drop tower.

Then it pauses momentarily, and then, slowly slides down, until it comes to a complete stop.

Lin Qin tries to move the restraining bars of the carousel, but it doesn’t budge. He’s about to use his full force on it when someone approaches the stopped drop tower.

The person has an elegant swallow tail coat on with brilliant blond hair, and he stops in front of Lin Qin.

He says with a heightened and somewhat pretentious tone, “I welcome you, mister… to the Colosseum.”