Lingering Fear

Ke Meng finished filming the footage for his "honey sauce" video, but he did not upload it to Bilibili.

When he fell asleep again that night, Great Cthulhu stared blankly at the seafood in R'lyeh. There were no sacrificial rituals that day.

Yet Great Cthulhu sensed something inexplicable. Somewhere beyond his sight, someone seemed to be experiencing the dreams he had altered.

Ke Meng tried hard to grasp that elusive feeling. Before long, his thoughts drifted, and he glimpsed a hazy dream.

No, there were two dreams.

Both dreams were blue oceans, with the sun hanging high overhead, giving off eternal light and heat.

A female player floated on the surface of each dream's sea. Before long, they went under, either suffocating to death or being devoured by ferocious marine animals. Their deaths were gruesome.

Ke Meng was not an evil person at heart. He had never intended to become Great Cthulhu, and tormenting innocent players seemed to be going too far.

After all, they posed no threat to Ke Meng now.

How can I end these dreams? Ke Meng pondered, trying to steer the dreams so the two girls would not suffer so much.

Ke Meng activated Dream Distortion, but the system returned an unavailable status. He had not invaded their dreams; he was only using Synesthesia across worlds.

Ke Meng glanced through his skills and found the description for Synesthesia among his passive skills.

"Synesthesia is an advanced means of perception. Through the connection between something and yourself, you can mysteriously perceive information about the other party. The closer the connection, the higher the success rate and the clearer the images you perceive."

Since the two girls were inside dreams Ke Meng had altered, their connection to him was naturally very close. As a major boss, Ke Meng could directly perceive the scenes of their suffering.

Once Ke Meng understood the principle, he used Synesthesia to invade their dreams.

After invading them, Ke Meng could see much clearer images, no longer obscured by a layer of speckled gray.

Ke Meng's intrusion also caused a drastic change in the skies above both dreams. Dark clouds gathered, forming an indescribable mass of fog.

Even before looking up, the girls who had respawned in the ocean felt pressure bearing down on their minds.

More than a dozen deaths had worn their minds down to the breaking point. With an utterly terrifying monster appearing overhead as well, neither dared look up.

Ke Meng had no intention of speaking. An evil god's words were inherently harmful. Those of too low a standing could not make out what he was saying, just like the Kobolds who had nearly gone mad before.

Dream Distortion!

The last time he had distorted a dream, he had used up one player's mental energy to create it.

It had spread to the other four, and Ke Meng had not altered it again since.

This time, Ke Meng could sense that even as the two girls grew mentally exhausted, they were supplying him with fresh mental energy he could use to continue reshaping their dreams.

Ke Meng imagined a Great Whale. A layer of flesh inside its stomach hardened into a concrete floor.

Reinforced concrete buildings rose from the ground, and farmland appeared on the outskirts of the city.

Tender green shoots sprouted from the soil and grew rapidly. Their branches spread and thickened, and before long, they became trees.

More green shoots grew rapidly in the same way, spreading outward.

Before long, the area around the buildings had become a forest.

With a forest, there also had to be wild animals. Otherwise, people would have no source of meat.

The next second, numerous wild animals emerged from the forest soil.

A well rose beside the farmland, able to draw an endless supply of seawater from outside. As for how to purify it, Great Cthulhu trusted these players' intelligence. They should be able to handle that themselves.

Great Cthulhu surveyed the Great Whale's interior, then looked at the farmland and filled it with all kinds of vegetables.

Then he gave the Great Whale a simple command: search for people stranded in the water and swallow them with its enormous mouth, allowing them to live safely in its belly.

The dream revolved around its dreamer. If the dreamer's mind broke down, the dream would collapse on its own, or they would be forcibly awakened by an outside influence.

Ke Meng quietly withdrew. He was not suited to staying here. His gaze alone was already more than these low-level creatures could bear. Remaining would only increase the burden on their minds.

After Great Cthulhu left, the ocean dreams returned to normal.

The two girls respawned again. The immense agony of death had nearly robbed them of the will to go on living.

There was no virtual game system menu. Everything felt as real as reality itself, making both of them briefly believe they had been transported to another world.

Being transported to another world would have been one thing, but they even kept reviving endlessly.

It was utterly soul-crushing. They were not hardcore players to begin with. After being put through this more than a dozen times, they were on the verge of breaking down.

When they saw the sea surge up to the sky in their identical dreams, a huge dark shape poured down from the horizon, and their vision went black.

Endless seawater swept them into an enormous black maw. They drifted with the current, not knowing where they would end up.

Just then, they woke from the dreams.

"Deep sleep has ended. You rested for three hours, zero minutes, and zero seconds."

The player White Milk opened her eyes wearily and saw the ceiling in the game world. That line of system text felt so reassuring.

"I... came back?"

White Milk spoke very slowly. It took a long while before her vacant eyes regained their focus.

There was no seawater engulfing everything, no man-eating sharks, and no terror that came and went without warning. There was no danger here at all.

At that moment, she treasured the feeling of safety more than anything. Nothing was more comforting than being safe.

As soon as her mind cleared a little, she did not want to spend another moment in the game. She immediately opened the system menu and clicked the logout button.

"You are logging out..."

The light before her eyes faded to black, and her consciousness returned to reality.

Meanwhile, the other girl, Sweetness Fills the Air, did the same thing. She chose to return to reality, unwilling to stay another moment.

To them, that realistic game was one enormous trap. They never wanted to return.

Neither of them knew, however, that Great Cthulhu's nightmares could spread.