"Spare me, good sir, spare me…"
Wu Piwu's hand transformed into a claw, gripping the neck of the dark-skinned man.
His eyes showed no fluctuation; with a fierce grip, he directly crushed the man's Adam's apple.
The dark-skinned man fell to the ground, clutching his neck and struggling desperately, but after about ten seconds, he became stiff and motionless.
Once the man lay still, Wu Piwu crouched down to search his body.
A small dagger, a piece of broken silver, a handful of copper coins.
Wu Piwu collected these items into his bosom, gazing at the dark-skinned man for a few seconds before dragging him into the nearby woods, carelessly discarding the body, and then striding towards the nun's temple.
"It seems that ordinary people at baseline reality 0.7 haven't changed much."
As Wu Piwu walked along the night road, he recalled some important information that his seniors had shared with him upon his awakening.
Due to the gaze of "?", the Dream Network had warped into the Dream World, causing all citizens to sink into the Dream Network and never awaken again.
Only those maintenance personnel, who were not within the Dream Network, could either awaken naturally when the time was right or gain mainframe authority after establishing a sanctuary in the Dream World, allowing them to free three to five maintenance personnel from their sleep pods.
According to the varying degrees of baseline reality, the further the Dream World deviated from the baseline reality, the more terrifying it became.
Once they entered the Dream World, they would be detected by the bizarre entities within it, which the seniors referred to as Nightmares, categorized into three levels.
This categorization was not based on the strength of the Nightmares themselves; some Level One Nightmares could be stronger than Level Two ones.
The levels were a classification of the Dream World's hierarchy rather than a measure of strength.
Level One Nightmares could only exist within the world they were born in, while Level Two Nightmares could traverse sanctuaries to enter the material reality or follow them into the Dream World.
This was extremely terrifying; once encountering a Level Two Nightmare, unless it was completely exterminated, one would almost certainly be hunted to death, as escape was nearly impossible.
The only fortunate aspect was that Level Two Nightmares would be suppressed by the Dream World.
For instance, if a Level Two Nightmare from baseline reality 0.9 entered a Dream World of baseline reality 0.8, its strength and bizarre nature would diminish a hundredfold.
This was also the method by which Wu Piwu's seniors had previously killed a Level Two Nightmare, luring it into a deeper Dream World to slay it.
As for Level Three Nightmares…
"Xiao Wu, we definitely haven't encountered a Level Three Nightmare, but other districts have!" Wang Xiuting had explained to Wu Piwu at that time.
"Other districts?"
"Yes, the entire Gaia is so vast. Our designation here is Z-117-6123, where Z represents our main area, the second group of numbers 117 represents our awakening shift, and the last 6123 indicates our maintenance and patrol location.
There are a total of twenty-six districts, marked by letters, and the awakening shifts are divided into three hundred shifts, with each shift maintaining for two thousand years. During this time, we can occasionally use sleep pods for short-term slumber, which roughly consumes three hundred years of our lifespan, after which we can become citizens and enter the Dream Network.
You know all this, right?"
Wang Xiuting asked.
Wu Piwu nodded in confirmation.
Three hundred shifts, each maintaining for two thousand years, far exceeded the total time of navigation, but this accounted for the attrition of maintenance personnel.
The so-called three hundred years of lifespan actually equated to three-fifths of 2788 years of human lifespan.
However, this was merely theoretical; over ninety percent of maintenance personnel would die on the job, and they could not accurately calculate their short-term slumber time, so all personnel in the three hundred shifts were essentially consumables.
Wang Xiuting continued, "The Dream World is actually the bizarre transformation of the Dream Network. The Dream Worlds we enter are all born from the Dream Network. In other words, if by coincidence, we could encounter maintenance personnel from other areas within it. Before my awakening, my seniors encountered maintenance personnel from other areas, and as you know, it wasn't just the Dream Network that underwent distortion; the entire Gaia experienced distortion, with a multitude of demons, monsters, and bizarre entities, terrifying rules, spreading throughout Gaia."
"The mainframe has almost completely sealed the connection channels and gates of the entire Gaia, which has blocked these horrors from rampaging everywhere. Therefore, we cannot go to other districts, and naturally, other districts cannot come here. Our only hope is to establish Level One, Level Two, Level Three, Level Four, or even the top-level Level Five sanctuaries in the Dream World to gain mainframe authority, which would allow us to open these channels and awaken more people, especially those citizens who possess mainframe authority!"
At this point, Wang Xiuting sighed, "My senior told me that he encountered night watchmen from another area, who were also struggling to survive in the Dream World. That team was much stronger than us, consisting of sixteen members. My senior exchanged information with them and agreed to watch over each other, but soon, their entire team was annihilated. In a shared Dream World they had, my senior found the information they left behind; they had encountered a Level Three Nightmare…"
"A Level Three Nightmare cannot be suppressed in any world, even if it… comes to the material world!"
At this moment, Wu Piwu had already spotted the nun's temple.
He sighed, temporarily setting aside his nostalgia for Wang Xiuting and Li An; he had more important matters to attend to.
"I cannot establish a sanctuary in this world, baseline reality 0.7. This is not a place where I can stay. Every Level One sanctuary must be occupied for at least ten days every thirty days, or else it will be detected by Nightmares. If a Level Two or even Level Three Nightmare is among them, they can come through the sanctuary into the material reality and kill me."
"But ten days… The longer I stay, once it exceeds five days, the Nightmares of this world will generally be able to detect my location, and the pursuit and attacks will gradually come. Ten days is far too long; I cannot deal with any monsters of baseline reality 0.7, so I cannot establish a sanctuary here!"
"Today is the early morning of the third day since I arrived in this world. As soon as dawn breaks, I will first investigate the situation here—dynasty, location—and then find a way to make money. It would be best to buy a house or acquire a piece of land. After settling the little mute, I must leave this world immediately, even if it means losing the coordinates of this Dream World…"
"And I must be extremely cautious while making money. Calculating that I previously established a Level One sanctuary and earned twenty dollars, let’s say that’s equivalent to twenty taels of silver. I cannot earn more than twenty taels of silver here!"
To establish a sanctuary in the Dream World, Wu Piwu had learned from his seniors that making money was essential.
Earning twenty to thirty dollars in that world would allow one to establish a Level One sanctuary.
Thinking of this, Wu Piwu's mind flashed to the not-so-attractive, even somewhat ugly visage of the mute little nun, but the sight of her large tears rolling down her cheeks, and her appearance when she was beaten by ruffians, especially the fact that she had saved his life!
Wu Piwu felt a surge of anxiety, but he could only take it one step at a time.
His nature and conscience would not allow him to disregard the life-saving grace.
Just as Wu Piwu was chasing the ruffian away from the nun's temple, within the dilapidated nun's temple, the only decent structure was the hall where the Buddha statue was placed.
In the center of that hall, the statue of Shakyamuni seemed to be writhing.
Some black sludge oozed from the statue's eyes, mouth, ears, and nose, falling to the ground and then writhing towards the outside of the hall…
Despite the ruffian's disturbance, there were still several robust men in the guesthouse who had collapsed and fallen asleep.
This sludge seemed to possess some sort of sensing ability, writhing its way towards the position of the tallest and strongest man among them.
It was already deep into the night, and this man stood eight feet tall, his skin dark, his beard like steel needles, and his physique resembling a wild boar.
He had a petite nun in each arm and was snoring loudly.
The sludge crept in through the crack of the door, slowly making its way to the side of this man, and then, in a flash, it lunged at his face.
The man suddenly opened his eyes, ready to roar in anger, and with a forceful motion of his arms, he flung the two nuns, still in a daze, away.
However, as he instinctively roared in fury, the sludge immediately surged into his mouth.
In that instant, the man surprisingly still had some awareness; he executed a nimble leap, his body surprisingly agile, and reached for a wooden knife from the bedside, preparing to attack what he thought was an enemy.
Yet, his movements gradually slowed down.
The sludge flowed into his mouth, ears, nose, and eyes, then spread through his body via his skin, blood vessels, and meridians, causing his skin to develop grotesque dark blue veins.
In just a few seconds, the sludge disappeared, and the man stood frozen in place.
The two nuns, their heads bloodied, groaned as they got up, but they dared not express their anger towards the man.
This man was a well-known rogue in the area, specializing in free work, unafraid even of the authorities.
He was someone who could not be trifled with in this secluded nun's temple.
The two nuns stood by, trembling, unsure of what madness had overtaken the man standing on the bed.
They watched as he slowly twisted his body from the stiffness, accompanied by the sound of cracking bones.
In the dim moonlight filtering through the window, the two nuns saw the man's pupils gradually shift from clear black and white to an increasing amount of black, until finally, his eyes turned completely pitch black.
Then the man suddenly turned his head to look at them, his face contorting into an incredibly sinister smile.
The two nuns trembled all over, a fear that transcended their terror of villains and ruffians suddenly descended upon them.
It was an instinctive fear of a higher level of terror that humans possess.
They screamed and rushed towards the door.
But the man was faster; with a single leap, he pinned the two women to the ground.
Then, with his arms bulging with veins, he gripped one nun's head, and amidst her horrific screams, the sound of cracking bones echoed, and then…
This man actually tore the nun's head off along with her spine!
(End of Chapter)