Invasion

Thinking this, she had already approached the Colored Bubble.

The instant she touched it, the scene within zoomed in, revealing a deep, dense forest. She also felt a pull and was drawn directly inside the bubble.

"This is..."

She felt as though she were viewing everything from an observer's perspective.

In her sight, two ferocious monsters covered in scales, with chrysanthemum-like mouths, were gnawing on flesh and blood scattered across the ground.

"Is this a dream too? Or did I enter someone else's dream?"

As she thought this, one of the monsters seemed to notice something. It suddenly bared its teeth and looked warily around.

She jumped in fright and took two steps back, but quickly calmed herself.

"It's only a dream."

She even tried using her imagination to make the monster in front of her walk in circles.

To her surprise, the monster actually did it.

"Interesting."

Increasing her demands, she had the two monsters take the lead in scouting the way. She even successfully transformed herself into a monster.

"It was easier than I imagined."

However, Ye Xin soon sensed that something was wrong, because she discovered that while doing this, the Life Energy stored by her main body was being consumed.

Just as she was surprised by this, faint screams came from the distance.

Frowning, Ye Xin moved toward the sound.

Soon, she saw three people dressed in modern clothes.

"Careful! The thorns on this plant are highly poisonous. Don't get hurt."

Along with a loud shout, a plant covered in thorns stabbed forward. Flames burst from one man's hand, instantly setting the plant ablaze.

"Haha, see? Plants are all afraid of fire." The man laughed loudly.

"Don't celebrate too early. This mission can't possibly be that easy," said the only woman.

At that moment, the man who had released the flames suddenly noticed the two creatures Ye Xin had brought with her.

"Damn it, new enemies!"

Seeing the three of them look her way, Ye Xin willed the two "beasts" to charge.

She charged forward as well.

After a brutal battle, Ye Xin was injured, but with a thought, she immediately recovered.

"Recovery consumes Life Energy too?"

Damn it.

She gave up fighting and retreated to the side.

Meanwhile, her two monster subordinates performed exceptionally well and quickly killed the woman among them.

"Even though it's a dream, it still feels far too real." She could not help sighing.

"Run! Damn it, didn't the system say we wouldn't encounter Fang Beasts as long as we carried the powder? Why are we still being attacked?"

"How should I know? Hell, I don't have enough Life Energy left."

"This shitty mission's difficulty isn't normal."

The remaining two fled in terror, scrambling away.

"Hmm, Life Energy?"

Hearing their conversation, Ye Xin was slightly stunned.

"System, mission... Otherspace?" She stroked her chin, unable to help falling into thought.

Invasion

"I seem to have entered an Otherspace Instance and played a monster attacking the players inside."

The result surprised Ye Xin. Though she was more inclined to believe this was part of the dream rather than that she had somehow gone to the corresponding world.

Not bothering the people below any further, Ye Xin returned to her original appearance and left the bubble.

Halfway through her flight, an object floating in the void suddenly entered her field of vision.

She flew over in confusion, only to find a stone tablet covered in writing.

Curiously picking it up, she glanced at the words on it:

"His body was covered in mouths, and the eyes before his head gazed up at the sky. Facing him was a girl covered in eyes. With her feet pointed toward the sky, she raised her head to stare at the boy on the ground. Their cheeks were about to collide."

"Ah~~"

A violent bout of dizziness struck, accompanied by indescribably insane whispers filling her entire mind. It was as though, in that instant, a boy covered in mouths and a girl covered in eyes had truly appeared before her.

Ye Xin rubbed her temples and only came back to herself after quite a while. But by then, she could already feel that something was wrong with her. Piercing murmurs echoed repeatedly beside her ears, tempting her to continue reading the words on the tablet.

"Something's wrong. I'm going to die."

She hurriedly shook her head and broke free, gasping for breath.

She left the tablet in fear, but the terrifying thing was that it continued. The contents she had read kept echoing through her mind, and bizarre images surfaced in her thoughts.

A boy covered in mouths and a girl covered in eyes.

"Ah!!!" She shook her head hard.

After struggling to fly back into her own bubble, she tried to recover for a while before safely landing beside her main body.

"If I don't think about it, it seems to get better."

She felt that stone tablet was like a cognitive virus. Even thinking about it gave it a maddening power that bewitched the mind.

Looking up, she could confirm that this bubble had repaired itself automatically. Ye Qian's main body ran over and patted Ye Xin on the back, but there was still nothing she could do.

What was even more terrifying was that she discovered her main body could not think about those words either.

The moment she did, she would experience the same insane pain as the duplicate.

"Just not thinking about it isn't impossible." Her main body tapped her own head.

Recalling the knowledge she had obtained from Shi Jing's memories, she roughly guessed what this was.

Cognitive Toxin, and Pollution.

These were things only Transcendents were qualified—and required—to encounter. They could drive people mad and make them lose control.

If ordinary people came into contact with them, they would inevitably be unable to endure it.

Ye Qian's own situation was even more complicated. She had a whole pile of bodies. Though they shared one consciousness and one soul across multiple bodies, they belonged to different brains. Clearly one soul, yet existing within different bodies.

This way, one body could bear the consequences of losing control. The other bodies could retain clear thoughts and become anchors that kept the out-of-control one lucid.

"Even so, it still hurts like hell. This thing feels poisonous."

For one brief moment, Ye Xin had truly felt like she was about to collapse.

"No matter what, I endured it."

She looked at her Life Energy and knew it could not withstand much more waste.

This experience had also taught her a lesson.

The world of dreams was not safe. It was filled with extraordinary mysteries.

"This also shows that nowhere in this world may be safe."

Ye Xin sighed and prepared to leave her main body's dream.

She needed to recover, at least enough to escape her current state, where her head was buzzing and she felt like she was about to go insane.

But at that moment, a strange sensation reached her.

"It feels like... something is coming."

She felt as though some force had pried open the door to her main body's dream. Looking up at the heavens, she inexplicably felt an absurd sense of impending danger.

In reality, the sleeping Alice was forcibly awakened.

She rubbed her eyes, and her gaze fell on Ye Xin.

Without a doubt, from this side, Ye Xin's body appeared completely normal. There was no sign at all that she was causing trouble in her main body's dream.

She ran to the window and peeked outside through a gap in the curtains. Perhaps she was lucky, because a sparrow happened to be perched in the distance.

Empathy!

She successfully synchronized with the bird's senses.

With an order, the sparrow flapped its wings and began flying around the area. Less than a minute later, she noticed two furtive figures lingering near her home.

"What are these two doing?"

She already had a suspicion, but she still needed to verify it on the surface.

The sparrow drew closer, and their conversation reached her.

"Did it really work? It's already been over half an hour. Nothing should go wrong with this Dream Entry, right?" The man crouching by the edge of the wall lowered his voice as much as possible.

"It's fine. Based on the background information we found this time, the target doesn't have any backing. The fact that she managed to hold out against us for so long means she does have some ability. But she provoked the Insect Blood Society, so we have to make her regret what she did."

"True. I'm also curious what's going on with our opponent. Divination said that person is only fifteen, right? And a girl."

"We definitely need to try to get a lot of information out of her in this dream. Hopefully, it works."

Ye Xin, who had been eavesdropping, felt her heart skip a beat.

Fifteen years old, a girl—those details referred to her main body, yet they seemed to be targeting the duplicate.

"They're fucking here already? This fast? Why is this damn organization so hard to shake off?"

They had mentioned Dream Entry, so Ye Xin was certain that someone had entered her dream.

They were definitely looking for her main body.

At that moment, in the dream, Ye Qian discovered that the scene had changed.

It had become an ordinary small town, while she herself was hiding inside a building.

"Hmm, did I make this? Or was it my subconscious?"

No, it seemed to be neither. She truly felt that someone had arrived, except Ye Xin had noticed it from an observer's perspective. Her main body could not sense the other's presence at all.

After standing where she was and searching for a while, a man holding a firearm appeared in her field of vision.

His footsteps gradually approached the room where Ye Qian was staying.

Not long after, the guy pushed open the door.

Click!

Their eyes met at the same time.

The man did not fire. Instead, he walked up to Ye Qian and revealed a strange smile. "Little sister, answer a few questions for your uncle."

Ye Qian: "..."

A powerful pressure descended upon her.

Ye Qian seriously suspected that this dream no longer belonged to her. She could not control it. It seemed the other side had used some method to limit what she could do at this moment. All she could seemingly manage was altering certain details.

"What should I do?"

Ye Qian was at her wits' end.

She did not dare reveal that she was awake. Instead, she acted as though she were truly dreaming, so the other side would not notice anything.