Nightmare Light

Chapter 244 Giant Toad Abyss
Lin Wang "squatted" in the driver's seat, driving the jeep "through" the rocks and trees.

A tree passed through the front of the car, into the car, and then through Lin Wang; the scene looked extremely eerie.

As I passed by Dog Brother in the back seat, Dog Brother still couldn't help but flinch.

Lin Wang closed his eyes and said, "When Brother Gou walked back the way he came for the second time, I was already guessing... what happened just now must have been some kind of large-scale illusion."

"Because a person's memory may be flawed, but it shouldn't be so flawed that they would make the same mistake no matter how many times they go through it."

“There is another important reason—he always drives back to the starting point, which is in line with an important principle of ‘creating illusions’—closure.”

"Close?" Bai Xiaoxiao didn't understand.

“Yes, the most important thing for a layman to create an illusion is to make the illusion’s area controllable through ‘closure’. Otherwise, the people in the illusion will definitely run around everywhere—then the area of ​​the illusion would have to be infinitely large, but that is obviously unrealistic.”

"I see!" Dog Brother exclaimed in sudden realization. "So, when we kept walking back to the starting point..."

"Yes, then I can basically conclude that this is an illusion."

Lin Wang nodded, his expression calm, a fleeting white flame appearing in his eyes.

Another point he didn't mention: from his hyperdimensional perspective, there was always a strange energy flowing in the sky above this area—which also indicated that some kind of entity was maintaining a magic circle here.

A magic circle that won't hurt anyone and has the element of being closed... is most likely an illusion.

"Caw!" The strange and loud cry rang out once again.

Dog Bro looked nervous again, glancing around: "What...what's that sound?"

At that moment, he saw May standing to the side, holding a bag of cookies in her hand, calmly and happily eating them.

Dog couldn't help but ask May, "Girl, aren't you scared at all?"

"Why should I be afraid?" May took a bite of her cookie. "My older brother and uncle are here."

"...You're really carefree." Dog Brother shook his head.

“My brother and uncle can fix anything, this is nothing.” May took out another cookie and handed it to Dog Brother. “Do you want some? No, this one is chocolate flavored, I won’t give it to you.”

She withdrew her hand and put the cookie back in her mouth.

Dog Bro's face twitched.

“That sound… if I’m not mistaken, it’s the illusion array’s ‘emergency mechanism,’ which means we’re getting closer to our destination,” Lin Wang said.

"Emergency mechanism?" Bai Xiaoxiao asked.

“Illusion arrays are usually used to keep people away from a location or to keep them in an area,” Lin Wang said.

“A mature illusion array will definitely have an ‘emergency mechanism’ so that when people in the illusion array break through the first layer of illusion, it will continue to block people.”

Lin Wang remained calm and continued driving forward.

Just then, their car broke through the fog, and a tree suddenly appeared in front of them.

Lin Wang slammed on the brakes and brought the car to a sudden stop less than a foot from the tree.

The people on the bus were swaying and staggering.

Fortunately, the braking wasn't too sudden, and no one fell.

"Brother Lin, why did you suddenly stop?"

“Because this is a real tree.” Lin Wang pointed to the tree in front of him, pushed open the door, got out of the car, and said, “Get out, we’ve arrived.”

"Real tree?" Dog Brother and Bai Xiaoxiao said in unison, but still followed Lin Wang out of the car.

Lin Wang walked past the tree and took a few steps toward the mist in front of him.

Dog walked up to the tree, hesitated for a moment, and then reached out to pat it.

Snapped!
The solid feel of the tree made his eyes widen: "Boss, how did you know this tree was real?"

Because it has an energy reaction within it... "Because it suddenly appeared in front of me, it means it's not an element from an illusion." Lin Wang didn't turn his head. "This means that this illusion... has entered the second stage."

"Croak!!!"

A tremendous roar erupted once more.

Lin Wang looked calmly at the mist in front of him.

A few seconds later, the pale yellow mist churned and dispersed, and an extremely large figure, much larger than a heavy truck, emerged from the mist.

Bai Xiaoxiao's eyes widened, and her body began to tremble: "Oh my god... what is this?!"

What appeared before people was roughly a giant toad.

It is about the size of two heavy trucks side by side.

Although its body looks like that of a toad, its back has an uneven, pitted surface that looks as hard as rock and has a dark green sheen.

Its head is higher than that of a typical toad, and it has two faintly visible curved horns on top.

Even more terrifying is that when the giant toad opens its mouth, four or five enormous eyeballs can be seen on the upper palate.

Dog Brother pulled out his stilts: "Boss, those outside were just illusions, so does that mean this giant toad isn't too difficult? We can just hit it a few times and it'll disappear!"

Lin Wang glanced at Dog Brother: "Why don't you go up and give it a try?"

"Great!" Dog Bro exclaimed excitedly, starting to put on stilts while also taking out a lion's head.

Then, the toad croaked, opened its mouth, and a tongue three or four meters thick and more than ten meters long, gleaming with a blackish-green light, coiled towards Dog Brother.

As you get closer, you can see countless tiny, sharp spines on the toad's tongue.

When the tongue was only two or three meters away from Dog Brother, a large block of ice appeared out of thin air in front of him.

The toad's tongue suddenly curled onto the ice block, and the ice block shattered into countless ice shards with a crack.

The tongue quickly curled back, leaving a fishy, ​​foul odor in the air.

Dog Bro was stunned: "This illusion is too realistic!"

"An illusion?" Lin Wang pulled Dog Brother back a few steps. "You still don't understand? This big guy is real!"

"How could a seasoned illusion designer use the same techniques in both stages of an illusion? It must be a mix of reality and illusion!"

"In the first stage, he used illusions, so in the second stage, he placed a real, large object here to exploit our cognitive biases and make people more susceptible to his tricks!"

"Good heavens! That's really underhanded!" Dog Bro exclaimed in surprise. "Those guys from the Steelbone Army would actually resort to such a despicable tactic to avoid being drafted?"

"Whether he's part of the Steelbone Army or not is still uncertain... Let's figure out how to deal with this guy first!" Lin Wang interrupted Dog Brother's rant.

At this moment, the giant toad stuck out its tongue once again.

Lin Wang summoned another block of ice.

But the giant toad changed its tactics.

Before its tongue could even curl up, the five eyes inside its mouth suddenly emitted a blackish-blue light.

The light shone on the ice, and the ice shattered instantly.

The tongue continued its relentless advance, curling towards Lin Wang.

Lin Wang remained expressionless, and almost instantly, another block of ice appeared in front of him.

The toad's tongue struck the ice, shattering it once more.

Suddenly, Dog Bro slapped his thigh, his face filled with horror: "I remember this guy! This...this is a very famous Mist Spirit! Its name is Yuan Bi!"

(End of this chapter)