From the end of the world

Chapter 180 Lu Chan's Nightmare 2
Unfortunately, the several "fireflies" I released have not yet found Chang'an's whereabouts.

Inside this secret base, there are many secret rooms that "fireflies" cannot easily enter. Most of the areas that can be explored are limited to corridors, and you must always be careful not to be noticed by the guards. These guards are not ordinary shopping mall security guards, but weirdos with strange powers. They may notice the small dots of light floating in the air and realize that they are actually the eyes of me, the intruder.

As for the deal proposed by the girl Lu Chan, I chose to accept it.

In fact, I don't have many options. Because even if I find Chang'an, I can't use fire teleportation to escape from here with anyone other than myself, and the only ones who can enter and exit this independent reality space through "legal procedures" are Dr. Silver Mask and Chen Long. I don't think I can force these two people to do whatever they want, and in the end I guess I still have to find a way to destroy this secret base of the Humanitarian Department itself.

I currently lack the conditions to accomplish this task single-handedly by violence, nor do I have the confidence to destroy the enemy's lair by wisdom. In this situation, having an extra helper like this can only be regarded as a timely help.

Admittedly, accepting the girl Lu Chan, a "ghost whose true identity is still unknown", is risky, but I have never been averse to taking risks.

Thinking of this, I no longer hesitated and swung my sword directly to cut the straw ropes that bound the girl Lu Chan's hands and ankles.

Seeing this, the girl Lu Chan's face changed and she shouted: "Wait a minute——"

She was still a little slow in speaking, and as soon as she finished her words, I had already freed her from the cross.

Suddenly free, she nearly fell, but luckily she grabbed the cross behind her in time. After stabilizing herself, she said hurriedly, "This is bad. The mechanical restraint device here has a built-in alarm function. Once it is forcibly destroyed by external force, it will immediately emit a piercing alarm and notify nearby guards to come over. You..."

As she spoke, her voice suddenly stopped because the cross did not sound an alarm.

In my opinion, this is normal. How could a cross made of wood or a restraint made of straw ropes set off an electronic alarm? However, in her opinion, this was definitely not the case.

Perhaps this is also evidence that my cognition is distorting external objective matter. However, I was indeed careless just now. Since violent destruction of the wooden yoke may trigger an alarm, violent destruction of the cross is also likely to trigger an alarm. My thoughts were led astray by what I saw.

"...How did you do it?" The young girl Lu Chan looked at me in confusion. "By the way, I've been wondering from the beginning, how did you get into this special cell? The door here should only be opened by Dr. Silver Mask and Chen Long. You don't look like you broke in violently, otherwise it would definitely trigger the alarm..."

I came back down to the ground and said, "I have something to confirm with you, too. You come down first."

She nodded obediently and also landed on the ground from the metal base of the cross. Like me, she was barefoot, wearing only a white straitjacket. The researchers in this secret base probably didn't intend to let the test subjects move around on their own feet, so they certainly didn't provide shoes. From another perspective, this might also be to prevent the test subjects from escaping.

It is said that human traffickers in some places will force victims to wear socks filled with sharp fragments to prevent them from escaping. In comparison, this place is actually considered "civilized".

The girl standing on the wire mesh floor was like a pure white flower quietly blooming in the hell of hell, and the cold white straitjacket made her look even more charming. But when I thought that the person inside this body was Lu Chan, I felt an indescribable sense of contrast.

I organized the speech a bit, and then told the girl Lu Chan about my strange cognitive phenomenon.

To make my argument more convincing, I took out the iron key from my body and unlocked the wooden shackles that bound her hands.

She looked at her freed hands in disbelief, then looked down at the wooden yoke that had fallen to the ground and split into two pieces, with a puzzled look on her face.

"…This thing is a 'Mana Sealing Lock'. As the name suggests, it can seal the demon hunter's mana, and its effect is more than that..." She said woodenly, "Without completing the relevant verification procedures, even if you have the key to unlock it, you should not unlock it directly. Otherwise, the Mana Sealing Lock will inject an extremely powerful curse on the wearer. Even a spirit like me will be reduced to ashes on the spot..."

"In my eyes, this is just a crude wooden yoke," I said, "and what bound you just now was just a cross."

"The yoke... the cross..."

Her face was filled with the expressions "What nonsense are you talking about" and "What the hell is wrong with this world?", and in the end she could only let out a long sigh.

“…Is this base really not a dream?”

"How to say?"

I felt like she was not just expressing her shock. "If this is a dream, everything can be explained. Not only my formation, but also your strange cognition." She said, "First of all, you were transported here by the spirit of Lu Chan outside, right?"

"Yes."

I did not see the scenes of the secret base of the Humanitarian Department with my own eyes and then teleport myself here; instead, Lu Youxun performed divination and vision first, and then I was able to see the scenes here indirectly by establishing a connection and synchronization with his spirit. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that it was "through Lu Chan's spirit."

"Whether it's for the Lu Chan outside or for me, this place is a veritable living hell. Since you are synchronized with his consciousness, it's not surprising that you perceive this place as a slaughterhouse and various scientific research equipment as torture tools." The young girl Lu Chan patiently explained, "It's not that the spirit of the Lu Chan outside is enough to tamper with your cognition itself. The influence he has on you is like a thin layer of colored plastic film.

"No matter how powerful your eyesight is, as long as you perceive the space through this colored film, the color you perceive will inevitably be distorted. And because this is a dream, there is no so-called "objective thing". Everything depends on cognition. Therefore, what your cognition is, the objects you come into contact with will automatically fit your cognitive pattern.

"Because your spiritual power is much stronger than mine, even if the same object is touched by two of us with different perceptions, the object's properties will tend to be more in line with your perception. That's why the mechanical restraint device didn't sound the alarm and the mana lock didn't inject a curse into me just now."

I added: "But the problem is... this is not a dream, but reality."

"Could it be that the senior researcher deceived you... No, the Black Rope Locking Heart Ring can prevent this... Then he was also deceived by Ying Lingyun? But if this is the case, all researchers will become 'dream research', and this secret base itself will become meaningless..." The young girl Lu Chan was also confused, "Or is it that only you have some kind of 'ability to treat reality as a dream' factor? But this cannot explain my birth..."

A large number of contradictions are intertwined.

"Since there are not enough clues, let's not speculate yet. Tell me what you can do first." I said, "Do you have the ability to fight? Can you use the 'possible clone' that Lu Youxun was good at in the past?"

"I'm sorry, I can't meet your expectations in combat. As I said before, I was abandoned by Lu Chan outside, and I represent my 'weak' self." She said, "As for 'Possible Clone', I am different from him. I have the qualifications to use this spell, but I don't have enough mana to use it. You can think of it as a skill that consumes 100 mana points, while my own mana limit is only 10 points."

"Qualifications?" I wondered. "I heard that the reason why Lu Youxun couldn't use the 'Possible Clone' was because of the aftereffects of human experiments..."

"He misunderstood," she said. "'Possibility Clone' is a supernatural power that can only be cultivated by fools who do not succumb to fate and believe that they and the world have infinite possibilities. In the past, as a hegemonist, he knew very well what kind of future the world would go, but he still had a passion and hoped to change Luo Shan and the demon hunter group from within. But now, the 'smart Lu Chan' who always talks about 'historical inevitability' has already parted ways with this power."

"...Speaking of which, I've always felt very strange..."

I picked up a question in my mind and tried to tell her: "Lu Youxun was disappointed with mortals, and even developed hostility and hatred towards them, so he changed from a politicalist to a supernaturalist. But he told me in the past that the rule of supernaturalism is fair to mortals, and that politicalism will eventually turn all mortals into slaves..."

"You mean, driven by hostility and hatred, he chose another route that sounded better for mortals, which doesn't make sense, right?" she asked.

I nodded.

Lu Youxun once used the example of the heaven in mythology.

The ones who can guard the houses of gods and Buddhas are often spiritual beasts, and even the heavenly soldiers and generals are definitely not something that ordinary people can do.

Although it is impossible for transcendentalism to really establish the heaven in mythology, there is no need for mortals to run around for it - this is his proposition.

"Your suspicion is correct. Although Lu Chan outside did not lie to you, he did intend to mislead you." She said, "The purpose of supernormalism is to become a true supernormal, to completely draw a line between oneself and ordinary people, and not even to require ordinary people to be one's slaves... Then the question is, since they don't need ordinary people to run around for them, why do they still go to so much trouble to become the ruler of the mortal world?"

"You mean..."

I vaguely realized that what she was about to reveal to me was some even more terrifying possibility.

She said coldly: "In their worldview, mortals can't even be slaves, they are only worthy of being 'resources'."

(End of this chapter)