Dream Ripper

On the outskirts of the city stood the abandoned "Heart Lake" Sanatorium.

Moonlight was swallowed by heavy leaden clouds, and the entire European-style building, covered in withered vines, resembled a gigantic beast crouching in the darkness.

A cold wind whirled through the shattered windows, producing a strange, whimpering sound.

The air was thick with the musty stench of disinfectant and an almost imperceptible scent of dream dust—sickeningly sweet enough to make one vomit.

Fang Gang stood outside the rusted wrought-iron gates.

The heavy Bronze Battle Halberd rested silently on his shoulder. His mental perception swept over the entire building like invisible radar waves.

Countless weak, chaotic mental fluctuations filled with fear struggled and wailed soundlessly deep within the sanatorium, like moths trapped in a spiderweb.

At the center of those fluctuations, a cold, viscous B+-rank mental source radiating intense malice sat like a venomous spider at the heart of the web, greedily feeding on fear.

Nightmare Weaver!

"Found you." Fang Gang's gaze turned icy as he stepped into the courtyard. The rotten branches and dead leaves beneath his feet crumbled soundlessly.

He did not take the front entrance.

Agility Burst! His entire body became a blurred golden-red afterimage, instantly appearing before a shattered stained-glass window on the sanatorium's third floor. Like a phantom, he slipped through it!

Beyond the window was not the sanatorium's dilapidated corridor.

Instead, it was a bizarre, ever-twisting expanse of pure black space!

It was as if he had stepped into a massive drop of viscous ink! There was no concept of up, down, left, or right—only suffocating darkness and cold!

Countless fine threads flickering with ghostly blue phosphorescence wove and darted through the darkness as if alive, forming an incomparably enormous spiritual web that covered the entire space!

Clinging to the web were translucent "cocoons," each like a soap bubble!

Inside every cocoon was a curled-up human figure with a twisted expression of pain!

Their eyes were tightly shut, their bodies twitching faintly, and their faces were etched with absolute terror. Their silent screams seemed capable of piercing the soul! They were the victims dragged into deep nightmares!

Fear! Despair! Pain! These negative emotions flowed like tangible nourishment through the ghostly blue web strands toward its center without end!

There floated an enormous, grotesque monster!

Its overall form resembled a spider magnified countless times, formed from viscous shadows!

Eight jointed limbs condensed from pure mental energy and flowing with ghostly blue radiance elegantly yet lethally plucked at the invisible web.

But its torso was not a spider's abdomen. It was a huge, twisted, swollen tumor constantly shifting through blurry, agonized human faces!

At the center of the tumor was a slit. There were no eyes within it, only a swirling vortex formed from countless nightmare fragments!

This was Nightmare Weaver's true body! A B+-rank mental ghost!

Fang Gang's intrusion was like a stone thrown into stagnant water.

The massive spiritual web shuddered violently! Every ghostly blue strand instantly drew taut!

At the center of the web, the nightmare vortex abruptly stopped spinning. Its "gaze" locked precisely onto the intruder—that bald head still shining within the absolute darkness! Like a lighthouse in the night!

"Buzz... buzz..." A sharp burst of mental noise, like nails scraping across glass, exploded directly inside Fang Gang's mind! It carried intense rejection and warning!

"Get... out... of... my... hunting ground!"

Nightmare Weaver's will was filled with the furious rage of greed disturbed. "Otherwise... become... new... food... for fear!"

What answered it was the cool, dazzling glazed radiance that suddenly erupted within Fang Gang's mind!

The perfected Mirror Still Water Heart Sutra circulated at full force! Heart Like Glazed Glass, reflecting falsehood!

The piercing mental noise struck the glazed heart-mirror like it had hit smooth ice, instantly refracted and dissipated without even stirring a ripple!

Fang Gang's gaze pierced through the darkness and the disguise of that mental illusion, accurately "seeing" the imprisoned souls struggling in pain upon the web! He saw their fear and vitality being forcibly drained!

"Using fear as a web?"

Fang Gang's voice was cold, ringing clearly through the dark mental space like a bell of judgment. "Imprisoning the souls of innocents?"

He suddenly stepped forward!

At that step, the viscous darkness beneath his feet met its nemesis. It hissed as it dissolved and instantly scattered away!

The golden-red Nine Yang Qi and Blood around him, like a suppressed furnace, erupted into flame! Pure yang! Tyrannical! Dispelling all yin evil!

"Then web and spider alike..." Fang Gang raised his right hand, and golden-red light frantically gathered and compressed in his palm!

A golden-red palm seal condensed to the utmost limit, like a miniature sun, instantly took shape!

Glazed radiance flowed along the seal's edges, reflecting the phantom images of those imprisoned souls!

"Burn through them together!"

"Great Sun! Demon Incineration!"

Boom—!!!

The golden-red palm seal flew from his hand! It expanded with the wind! In an instant, it became a blazing, millstone-sized sun burning with purifying flames!

The glazed radiance flowing around the great sun's edges was like a divine sword with its edge drawn. Wherever it passed, the incredibly resilient ghostly blue mental web strands, capable of imprisoning souls, hissed miserably like ice and snow under the blazing sun before instantly melting apart and being purified!

"No!!!" Nightmare Weaver let out a shriek of utter horror! It felt the fatal threat!

The pure yang true fire and glazed heart-light contained within that golden-red sun were the absolute bane of a mental ghost like it!

It frantically plucked the web! Countless ghostly blue threads twisted toward the golden-red sun like venomous snakes!

At the same time, the enormous nightmare vortex on its torso suddenly began spinning in reverse!

An even more viscous and foul flood of nightmares, filled with countless screams and twisted images, crashed violently toward the great sun like an underworld river breaking through its banks!

However!

The glazed heart-light shone! Every ghostly blue web strand that wound toward it snapped apart and dissipated the instant it touched the clear radiance, as if purified!

When the foul nightmare flood struck the great sun's true fire, it was like boiling oil poured over snow, erupting in a deafening hiss!

Countless twisted nightmare fragments were instantly incinerated! The foul underworld river was forcibly evaporated and purified!

The blazing great sun did not slow! Bearing the resolute will to burn away all yin evil and purify all filth, it slammed into Nightmare Weaver's twisted, enormous tumor-like torso covered in agonized human faces!

"Boom—!!!!!"

An indescribable explosion thundered through the mental space!

Golden-red and ghostly blue light collided and annihilated each other wildly!

"Ah—!!!"

Nightmare Weaver released a heart-rending wail that reached the very origin of the soul!

Its body, formed from pure mental energy, twisted, melted, and collapsed frantically beneath the dual scorching of golden-red true fire and glazed heart-light, like a wax statue thrown into a steel furnace!

The agonized faces on its torso gave their final cries amid the flames before turning into green smoke and vanishing!

The massive nightmare vortex was forcibly burned through and shattered! Its eight ghostly blue limbs flailed and convulsed wildly before breaking apart inch by inch and turning to ash!

The pure darkness was completely dispersed! Golden-red radiance illuminated the entire third-floor corridor of the ruined sanatorium!

Drip!

A pool of viscous black gel emitting a foul stench dropped onto the dust-covered floor like rotten mud. It still wriggled faintly, releasing its last resentment. This was the final remnant of Nightmare Weaver's core corruption.

As for the soul "cocoons" stuck to the spiritual web, with Nightmare Weaver's death and the web's collapse, they drifted upward like bubbles freed from their restraints. The pain on the translucent figures' faces gradually eased and faded. In the end, they became specks of soft white light, silently dispersing through the air like fireflies returning home—returning to their respective bodies.

Ding! Killed B+-rank Nightmare Weaver (Core)! Evolution Points +80!

Available Evolution Points: 80!

Fang Gang withdrew his hand, and the golden-red flames in his palm slowly died out.

He looked down at the pool of writhing black corruption and stomped down!

"Splat!"

The corruption was instantly incinerated by Nine Yang Qi and Blood, turning into a wisp of green smoke.

Behind a tightly shut door at the end of the corridor came an extremely weak mental fluctuation, carrying lingering shock and a trace of... dazed relief after surviving disaster.

Fang Gang walked over and pushed open the door.

Inside was a room piled with old medical equipment. On a broken hospital bed in the corner lay a gaunt old man curled up in a faded patient gown.

His eyes were tightly closed, and his body still trembled faintly, but his breathing had stabilized.

Beside his pillow sat an old radio with a shattered screen.

Old Smoker.

Fang Gang's eyes fell on the battered radio. The source of that faint mental fluctuation was precisely this seemingly ordinary radio.

It seemed this was the secret behind Old Smoker's ability to relay intelligence so accurately.

He did not disturb the old man's sleep and turned to leave.

When he reached the sanatorium entrance, his phone vibrated. A message from an encrypted number appeared:

"Thanks, baldy. This old man owes you his life. There's... movement on Nightmare's side. Fear Broadcast was only the beginning. They seem to be looking for something... a 'container' that can truly awaken the 'source'... Watch that bald head of yours. It stands out too much. The information is in the usual place. —Old Smoker."

A container? The source?

Fang Gang's eyes narrowed slightly. The Nightmare Holy Cult's goal truly was not merely spreading fear.

The Faceless Cult Master's cold data scan and the abnormal throbbing of the mark on his left arm... both pointed toward something deeper.

He raised his head toward the night sky still shrouded over the city.

"Looking for something?" Fang Gang hoisted his battle halberd and strode into the darkness. "Then let's see whether you find it faster, or my fists... smash faster!"