Chapter 42: Nightmare Unleashed! Has the Sky Shattered? A Citywide Catastrophe? [Requesting First Subscriptions]

Xu Ran stood up slowly. "There is an eighty percent probability that it is her!"

"Where is she located?"

He Sifang produced photos of the individual, her personal information, vehicle color, and license plate number.

Ye Ping commanded, "Have the patrol guards intercept her. Do not let her enter the inner city. Also, arrange a vehicle for us; we are leaving right now."

And so, Xu Ran and Uncle Ye sat in a car, racing like a thunderbolt toward the location of the suspicious pregnant woman.

On the other side, the pregnant woman driving the car was pulled over to the side of the road, her face full of confusion. "What is the matter? I haven't violated any traffic rules, have I?"

A patrol guard replied, "You have not committed any violations. However, for your safety, our authorities would like to invite you to receive a blessing."

The pregnant woman asked, "What kind of blessing?"

The patrol guard explained, "Miscarriages have been frequent lately, and our Jing City recently experienced a city-wide nightmare. Because of this, specialized Light-type powerhouses are providing a 'Light Blessing' to every pregnant woman entering the city to purify any pollution and ensure the fetus remains healthy."

The pregnant woman frowned. "Is that a formal regulation?"

The guard smiled. "Yes, it is a new rule."

The woman asked, "How long will it take?"

"Only twenty minutes," the guard replied.

The woman sounded dissatisfied. "Twenty minutes? Fine, I suppose."

"You may wait in our office," the guard suggested.

"No need, I will just wait in my car," she replied.

A few minutes later, four vehicles blocked her from all sides, as if afraid she might attempt to speed away. The guards spoke to her while keeping a constant, watchful eye on her.

The pregnant woman asked, "...How much longer? I am going to step out for a walk."

She walked onto the sidewalk and stood silently atop a sewer manhole cover, with the guards following her closely.

Twenty minutes later, Xu Ran and Ye Ping arrived before the pregnant woman. Both men looked at her simultaneously.

Ye Ping sneered, "Madam, you came to Jing City for a visit when the city-wide nightmare occurred. A year has passed, and you have come for another visit."

The pregnant woman wore an innocent expression. "Officer... I don't understand. Is there a problem?"

"Madam, why play the fool? The thing you are hiding in your belly is the Nightmare Mother of Resentment, isn't it?"

The pregnant woman sounded aggrieved. "Officer, you cannot slander me without proof. Shall we go to the hospital for blood tests and a CT scan?"

Xu Ran, watching intently, suddenly flicked a flying knife directly at the woman's stomach.

Ye Ping was startled and immediately erupted in rage. "What are you doing?!"

As he roared, Uncle Ye lunged toward the woman, attempting to "block" Xu Ran's blade.

The pregnant woman stood still. The knife moved with incredible speed, reaching her in an instant. Her face was full of feigned innocence and despair. But the moment the blade touched her clothes, a tiny purple-green arm reached out from her stomach and caught it.

"Hee hee. Not bad. You saw through my disguise."

"Congratulations, you have bought the entire city three hours..."

"However, it is already too late, hee hee! I will soon be fully evolved!"

"Starting with me, the gods will descend one by one! Your sky has already cracked!"

"I shall unveil the grand prologue of the gods' arrival."

A shrill and eerie laughter echoed through the streets. The pregnant woman's body twisted, turning into a mummified corpse at a speed visible to the naked eye. Suddenly, her stomach split open, and a purple-green orb of light shot out. The energy density of the orb was extremely high, and the light it radiated was blinding.

Uncle Ye’s eyes grew fierce as he gritted his teeth. "It really is the Nightmare Mother of Resentment! I have searched so hard for you!!!"

As he finished speaking, he raised his arm, and a dazzling white ball of light, the size of a car wheel, shot toward the Nightmare Mother at extreme velocity.

"Boom!"

The orb instantly engulfed the corpse and the purple-green light. The mummy was incinerated into dust, but the purple-green light flashed into mid-air.

"City-wide Nightmare!"

The purple-green orb shrieked, and tens of thousands of purple-green threads sprayed in all directions, spreading across the entire city at a terrifying speed.

In an instant...

More than thirty children were yanked over by the purple-green threads and left floating in mid-air. The green threads pierced the backs of their heads; the children’s bodies went rigid, their eyes shut tight, like puppets being controlled. They were positioned around the purple-green orb as a human shield. If anyone were to launch an attack, the first to die would be the thirty children.

With the human wall as protection, the orb’s laughter grew sharp and rampant. "Hee hee, let us play a fun multiple-choice game!"

"Right now, all the young children in the city are controlled by my nightmare. My nightmare will invade their brains and devour their mental energy."

"You have two choices."

"The first choice: Regardless of the cost, gather the power of the entire city to fight me. You might hurt me, but the brains of every child in the city will be devoured by me. They will die a miserable death immediately."

"The second choice: Use your flute music to fight me, delaying the speed at which the nightmare invades their brains. This should buy you ten hours. But if you cannot kill my true form within those ten hours, they will still have their brains devoured by me!"

"Hee hee, a quick death or a slow death—which will you choose? Will you give up directly, fight to the death, or use your pathetic intellect to play games of wits with me?"

The laughter of the purple-green orb echoed.

"Choose, choose! Let me see the most helpless choice of the weak! Let me savor the fear of the entire city, hee hee."

As it spoke, the purple-green orb plunged into the city's sewers, with the thirty children blocking the entrance.

Ye Ping wanted to pursue, but after a two-second hesitation, he ultimately leaped onto a high-rise building. Gazing into the distance, he saw the eerie purple-green threads burrowing into thousands of households, likely already entwining countless children. If he truly allowed the Nightmare Mother to devour the mental energy of all these children, the consequences would be unimaginable.

He took out his jade flute and blew into it. A melodious, serene flute melody merged with intangible mental energy, transforming into petals of flying flowers that scattered across Jing City, drifting into every home and merging into the center of every child's brow.

As the flute music descended upon the city, Xu Ran saw a change in the children at the sewer entrance. White light surged from the backs of their heads, spreading upward along the purple-green threads. The white and purple-green lights clashed and tugged, eventually forcing the threads to retreat by more than a meter.

Although the children’s bodies remained stiff and their eyes shut, they were, for the moment, significantly safer!

Xu Ran tried using a paper-based weapon to cut the purple-green threads. "They just reconnect after being cut?"

Xu Ran frowned deeply and jumped lightly to land beside Uncle Ye.

Ye Ping sighed, "Xiao Ran, the situation is not optimistic at all. My Jade Flute Immortal Melody can only barely hold it in a stalemate!"

"It planted this nightmare a year ago, and because its targets are young children with the weakest willpower, its threat level is even greater."

"I can only maintain this stalemate for six hours. Within these six hours, someone must enter the underground and slay it..."

As they spoke, the purple-green light on the nightmare threads constantly eroded forward. Uncle Ye hurriedly raised the flute, channeling his mental energy, blowing with intense focus.

"Whoosh—"

A powerhouse at the peak of the Hill Realm appeared behind Uncle Ye.

"Officer Ye, we cannot enter underground right now. The Nightmare Mother is controlling tens of thousands of children to block the underground passages. Behind that human shield of children, the Nightmare Mother must be completing its final stage of evolution."

Uncle Ye nodded. "I understand. You maintain the stability of this sector. I will find a way."

He picked up his phone. "Zhao Ying, Huang Liang, Gao Yuan, what is the situation on your end?"

Huang Liang, who possessed the demeanor of a scholarly intellectual, replied, "I am underground, but I cannot attack the Nightmare Mother. It is using the children as cover, and I dare not strike. It told me to back off, or it will use the nightmare to kill the children at the Demigod Kindergarten. I was forced to withdraw..."

Zhao Ying, who resembled a playboy, frowned deeply. "I was forced to withdraw as well... Before I left, I saw that it had constructed a massive fleshy nest and was hiding inside to evolve."

Zhao Ying looked back. The purple-green orb was generating chunks of white flesh at a visible rate, with countless pieces of meat coalescing into a gigantic sea cucumber monster. The monster was bloated, like a grotesque, inflated balloon. Embedded in the creature’s head was the face of a woman with a sickly blue-purple complexion. Her eyes were wide, and her smile was venomous and eerie. Across its body, tens of thousands of purple-rose-colored umbilical cords writhed like snakes; at the end of each cord, a zombie infant was latched on.

The zombie infants had indigo skin, sharp fangs and claws, blood-red eyes, and flickering tongues. They were fierce and violent, and they stared at Zhao Ying with hateful, infant-like gazes.

"Come and kill me. As long as I am injured, those genius children at the Demigod Kindergarten will die instantly."

The infants laughed hysterically in unison. Zhao Ying retreated silently.

Gao Yuan, with his prominent nose, asked, "Have you all been forced to retreat? Sigh... it has too many hostages. I dare not act. If the children at the Demigod Kindergarten are killed..."

Ye Ping exhaled deeply. "It’s fine, retreat if you must. Do not risk the children's lives. I can hold on for another six hours. In those six hours, we will definitely find a way to break this deadlock."

"Of course, if you haven't found a way to kill the Nightmare Mother within six hours, head immediately to the Demigod Kindergarten at Mount Qiyun."

"Your help can extend the stalemate to ten hours! I beg you! Please cherish every second to save these three hundred thousand children."

After speaking, Uncle Ye picked up Xu Ran and dashed through the city sky. Every six minutes, he had to stop to play the Jade Flute Immortal Melody. After stopping and going six times, he landed inside the Demigod Kindergarten.

The headmaster looked devastated. "Ping-zi, the children in the kindergarten have purple-green threads behind their heads too!"

Ye Ping drew a deep breath. "I know. Every child eroded by the nightmare has been connected to these nightmare threads."

"The Nightmare Mother even took the geniuses of the Demigod Kindergarten as the ultimate hostages, successfully forcing back three strong reinforcements... With those three reinforcements out of the picture, the difficulty of slaying it has increased dozens of times!"

Damn that Nightmare Mother, she is truly difficult to deal with!

Hearing this, the headmaster and Li Qinghong looked at each other.

Li Qinghong said, "If they were forced to retreat for such reasons... there seems to be no other way... They cannot ignore the lives of the geniuses and act recklessly. Even if they did, they might not be able to kill the Nightmare Mother in one blow."

"That thing is probably a Ghost-type False God! Otherwise, it wouldn't be this troublesome."

At this, the headmaster seemed to age a dozen years in an instant. "Sigh. What are we to do now... Young Ye Ping is already among the top three mental-type powerhouses in the Xia Kingdom. There are also the reinforcements Zhao Ying, Gao Yuan, and Huang Liang—all peak-level late-stage Mountain Realm mental powerhouses. If even they cannot kill the Nightmare Mother... who can?"

"It must be evolving underground right now. Once it finishes, it will be the time of Jing City's doom! Over three hundred thousand children..."

A shadow cast over the headmaster’s eyes. "No, no, even a False God must have a flaw... Can we really not find its weakness? Must we truly sacrifice three hundred thousand children to kill it?"

Ye Ping said, "Everyone, do not panic. I can hold on for five more hours. Let every practitioner in Jing City think of a way. If we pool our wisdom, we will surely find its flaw!"

Before Ye Ping could finish, shrill, mocking laughter pierced the sky.

"A flaw? Hee hee!"

As the laughter spread, a purple-green light shot into the sky. The heavens distorted, and the eerie body of the Nightmare Mother, like a giant spaceship, hovered in mid-air. Tens of thousands of zombie infants, bound by purple-rose umbilical cords, floated around the Nightmare Mother. Their indigo skin, fangs, claws, and blood-red eyes stared down at the entire city. The scene was chilling.

"The God of Nightmares has no flaws."

The massive purple-blue woman's face grinned with a twisted, mocking expression, her long tongue lolling about.

"Children, they are all my children. Let them all become my children, return to my body! My body is the paradise of eternal life."

It created extremely eerie ripples, and the purple-green threads began to erode forward frantically.

Seeing this, Uncle Ye quickly blew his flute. Petals fell into the brows of all the children in the city, the white light burning hot as it clashed and stalemated against the eerie purple-green.

Li Qinghong's eyes burned with murderous intent. "Is that a projection of the Nightmare Mother? Heh. How arrogant! Does it think it has already won? It’s even started mocking us to our faces."

The headmaster sighed, "Judging by the current situation, it has a ninety percent chance of winning. It has the capital to be arrogant."

Instructor Lin Chang added, "It is invincible because of the hostages. By using them to threaten us, we are forced to hold back. If we could sever the purple-green threads, everything would be solved. Can the threads be severed? Can they be purified?"

From behind, Aunt Lu’s voice came. "No. Once its nightmare threads are severed, they reconnect instantly. Purification only slows the erosion; it cannot cut the threads."

"I suspect the threads are its god-level ability. Attacking the threads is essentially impossible. That is its strength. We must start from its weakness."

The crowd fell silent.

"Its weakness?"

"What kind of weakness could it have?"

"The main body hiding underground should be its weakness, but it uses children as shields and holds the geniuses of the Demigod Kindergarten hostage to threaten our reinforcements. It has protected that weakness perfectly."

Aunt Lu asked, "Xiao Ran, you have the aptitude of enlightenment. Do you have any ideas?"

The headmaster agreed, "That's right, you were the one who found the Nightmare Mother... use that clever brain of yours again."

Xu Ran replied, "...Me?"