Fear of food

Chapter 132 Resurrection
"How come we can hear you arguing over here?"

Chen Qi's consciousness in Jinghai City had just returned when he heard the familiar sounds of arguing. He didn't expect that Menglong and Shiyan were arguing on the other side.

The two sides were arguing about different things.

The argument between the two Nightmare Clan members was already making him feel annoyed, but now it had escalated to the point where he was listening to two pairs of Nightmare Clan members arguing at the same time, with four mouths chattering incessantly in his ear.

Unable to bear it any longer, Chen Qi instantly felt like he was Sun Wukong being tormented by the golden headband, wishing he could swing his golden cudgel and beat the two of them to death!

But he was completely helpless against these two Nightmare Clan members. He was now just a pure consciousness, without even a body, and couldn't do anything.

The only thing I could do was try to interrupt their argument by asking, "How come you two have split up too?"

The Nightmare Eater said helplessly, "There's nothing we can do. We've all merged with you a little bit. Since you were split in two, we were also split in two."

Menglong corrected him, "We are not quite the same as you. You were divided into two equal parts, but the two of us... were not divided so evenly."

The two Nightmare Clan members used their limited language skills to barely make Chen Qi understand their situation.

Unlike Chen Qi, Shi Yan and Meng Long, the two members of the Nightmare Clan, could only return to their respective homes after being resurrected.

Nightmare Eaters cannot resurrect at the Nightmare's resurrection point, and vice versa.

Therefore, the Nightmare Eater's true form resides in Chen Qi's body in Jinghai City, while the Dream Dragon's true form resides in Chen Qi's body in Changle City.

However, a fragment of their consciousness was taken to the other side's territory by Chen Qi, which led to the current situation, resulting in Chen Qi having three consciousnesses in each of his bodies.

However, fragments of consciousness are very fragile and have no hope of gaining control of the body.

Moreover, like a rootless duckweed, it has no support and will slowly dissipate over time.

Hearing this, Chen Qi breathed a sigh of relief, feeling that there was some hope in his life... In other words, as long as he persevered for a while longer, he would be able to get out of the argument between these two.

In the days that followed, Chen Qi either acted as a peacemaker, mediating the arguments between Menglong and Shiyan, or he could only hypnotize himself, trying his best not to pay attention to their arguments and filtering out their words as noise.

Eventually, he couldn't stand it anymore and simply joined directly.

So the argument between the two turned into a three-way brawl, with Chen Qi attacking indiscriminately and insulting the two Nightmare Clan members equally.

He found that this made the time pass less unbearably and the noise less bothersome.

Chen Qi didn't know how many days had passed until one day, he suddenly felt the existence of his "body" again after a long time!

Menglong couldn't help but laugh triumphantly: "Hahaha, I'm back to life! You wait, you noisy bastard, the first thing I'll do after I'm back to life is get rid of you!"

The Nightmare Eater immediately fell silent.

Chen Qi's body in Chang Le City has finally completed the resurrection process, but it's still early in Jing Hai City.

His body in Jinghai City would be more difficult to revive, and would require a longer time.

Chen Qi calmed himself down, tried his best to control his body, and finally managed to open his eyes with difficulty.

The vision gradually became clearer from blurry.

"I am..."

Chen Qi found himself suspended high in the air. When he turned around, he saw a towering tree behind him that blocked out the sky!

And now he's hanging from the tree branch like a gourd-shaped gourd.

Besides him, he saw many other people hanging from tree branches like him, but each person's situation was different; some had almost intact bodies, while others only had heads left...

"Is this the resurrection point for the Nightmare Clan in Chang Le City?"

"Did the dead parasites all grow from trees?"

However, upon closer inspection, it was discovered that the leaves of this large tree were actually made of bark, and the veins on them were actually fine blood vessels.

The branches, also made up of thick, interwoven strips of flesh, were still moving slowly.

Chen Qi touched the top of his head and found that he was connected to the tree branch by an umbilical cord-like thing.

At that moment, the umbilical cord broke automatically, and Chen Qi immediately fell off the tree and plummeted from the sky.

boom!
Chen Qi fell heavily to the ground, but felt no pain.

He turned around to look, only to find that the big tree had disappeared from his sight!
Or rather, his field of vision was compressed, and he could only see a narrow area of ​​the world, with his head and feet invisible.

This familiar scene made him instantly realize: I am in a subterranean world!

"That's right, the resurrection point is hidden in the interdimensional world, so I appeared directly in the interdimensional world as soon as I resurrected!"

"However, this layer between reality and dreams is indeed somewhat different from the layer between illusions..."

The interlayered world that Chen Qi saw was not as chaotic and upside down as the illusionary interlayer. Everything was in good order, except that the line of sight was relatively narrow, and it was not much different from the outside world.

But the whole world was split in two, divided into two layers.

Everything in these two layers is upside down and corresponds to each other. For example, when Chen Qi looks up, he can see another version of himself directly above him, head to head.

From his perspective, that was another version of himself walking upside down.

The two were like conjoined twins, their heads connected, and both missing a piece of their skull.

"How about it? I told you our Dream Interlayer is simply a work of art, incomparable to the crudely made Illusion Interlayers of the Nightmare Eater Clan," Dream Dragon said proudly.

Before Chen Qi could answer, the Nightmare Eater's disdainful voice rang in his mind: "It's just a mirror image, what's there to brag about?"

Chen Qi observed carefully and found that it was indeed like a mirror image, as if a mirror was hanging above his head.

Everything in the mezzanine was copied exactly.

"Tch! What do you know!" Menglong retorted. "The so-called interlayer is a transitional zone between two worlds. My Nightmare Clan's interlayer cleverly completes the transition from reality to dreams through mirroring, smooth and seamless. Clever... what's that human idiom again? Cleverly creating a pretext?"

"Exquisite craftsmanship," Chen Qi remarked.

"Indeed, a masterpiece!"

With Menglong's explanation, Chen Qi immediately understood the layout of this dream-layered world.

It's roughly the same as the illusionary mezzanine.

The difference lies in the fact that the dream interlayer has been mirrored and layered. For example, the world Chen Qi is in now is the "reality interlayer," while he can easily jump into the mirror image above his head, swap with his reflection, and enter the "dream interlayer."

The difference is that when Chen Qi escapes from the "reality" side, he will directly return to the real world.

From the "dream" side, one can directly enter the dream world.

Moreover, this makes it easier to observe the real and dream worlds from within the interlayer. To be fair, the Nightmare Clan's interlayered world is indeed more ingeniously designed and more practical.

However, since the Nightmare Clan relies more on the dream world, they will definitely focus more on it.

The Nightmare Eaters are better at fighting in reality, so they don't place much importance on developing illusions.

Chen Qi wandered around the interlayered world for a while, gradually becoming familiar with it, and was able to skillfully move between the two sides, observing the situation in the real world and the dream world.

Based on what he saw from both sides, he realized that he was near a large shopping mall in Changle City.

Two things puzzled him...

"Why can't I find that big tree anymore after I just revived from it?"

Chen Qi was naturally very interested in the resurrection point in Chang Le City, but as soon as he resurrected and fell from the tree, he couldn't find the tree's shadow when he turned around.

I've walked around the area now, but I still haven't found a big tree.

"Of course they hid it. In the end, those despicable and shameless Nightmare people still don't trust you." Nightmare never misses an opportunity to sow discord.

Menglong explained, "This isn't targeting you. It's the automatic hiding mechanism of our Tree of Resurrection. It's the same for other resurrected nightmares as well."

Chen Qi didn't delve into it further, and said, "I thought that once I was resurrected, I would be surrounded by a group of high-level parasites of the Nightmare Clan, but there was no one around. It seems that they don't take me very seriously."

He thought at least Marilyn Monroe would show up.

At least twenty minutes have passed since he was resurrected, and he hasn't seen a single Nightmare Parasite.

Menglong chuckled and said, "You humans really are animals driven by desire. Judging from your expression, you're thinking about that little girl, Marilyn Monroe?"

"Don't rush, master the ability first. Your current body is still too weak."

Nightmare Eater bluntly retorted, "That's just because you didn't see it. Believe me, there are at least five Nightmares watching you right now!"

Chen Qi frowned and carefully observed his surroundings, but unfortunately he couldn't see anything.

The Nightmare Clan is naturally adept at concealment, and now that he has lost all of his abilities as a Devourer, his strength is too weak, so it's normal that he can't detect the Nightmare Parasite.

He still tended to believe Nightmare Eater's words, thinking there must be Nightmare parasites watching him.

The reason he didn't show himself was probably because he didn't want to provoke his hostility.

The Nightmare Clan hopes that Chen Qi will master the Dream Thief's abilities as soon as possible. If there are Nightmare Parasites following him around, Chen Qi will definitely be on high alert and may even try to deal with them.

"Shut up!" Menglong couldn't take it anymore and threatened Shiyan, "If you say another word, I'll have you taken care of right now!"

This time, the Nightmare Eater didn't retaliate; unusually, it backed down.

Clearly, he knew that Menglong wasn't just talking; he truly possessed the ability.

After Chen Qi was resurrected, they were already under the control of the Nightmare Clan in Chang Le City. It was not difficult for the Nightmare Clan to remove the Nightmare Eater, who only had a fragment of consciousness left in Chen Qi's body.

Chen Qi pondered to himself: No matter what, acquiring the Dream Thief's abilities was in his own interest. Without those abilities, he would be powerless against the Nightmare Clan.

His body's combat power comes from the initial fusion with Menglong, which allowed him to master some abilities belonging to the Nightmare Parasite.

However, all these abilities are limited by Menglong. If Menglong does not cooperate and deliberately opposes him, he will not be able to fully utilize even his remaining combat power.

Based on Menglong's previous self-disclosure at Jinghai Medical College, it is clear that if Menglong were willing and there were no external interferences, he could absolutely perish together with Chen Qi.

With that thought in mind, Chen Qi stopped worrying about the potential nightmare parasites lurking around him and just went about his business.

"So now I'm going to enter the dream world to acquire abilities?" Chen Qi asked proactively.

"Yes."

"How to do it exactly?"

Chen Qi already knew about how Dream Thieves acquired their abilities from official documents.

However, he knew his situation was special and that the methods that worked for other dream thieves might not work for him, so he asked one more question.

At this moment, he was unusually grateful for the existence of Nightmare Eater, which made Menglong dare not deceive him with false information, because Nightmare Eater might expose him at any time.

Menglong replied, "Like other ability users, let's explore your basic abilities first. I only know that you can absorb dream sources, but the dream ability system is more complex than the Nightmare Eater Clan's. Try to explore it yourself."

Menglong's words provoked Shiyan, and the two started arguing again.

Chen Qi automatically ignored the two people... He found that after his resurrection, his main attention was focused on Chang Le City.

As for the bodies in Jinghai City that have not yet been revived, only a little attention is needed.

This allowed him to ignore the argument between the two nightmares; he could barely get used to the arguing within his current body.

Chen Qi was deeply engrossed in thinking. The basic ability that Meng Long mentioned was actually equivalent to the food-hunting ability of a pagan.

This ability was something these individuals naturally acquired after the pollution outbreak.

They possess this basic ability without needing to consume high-quality food.

For example, Xu An'an's ability to make bread, and Chen Qi's ability to transform pollutants into high-grade food... these are basic abilities.

Correspondingly, the basic ability of dream thieves is actually quite uniform, which is "safe house"!
This is what is known as a "personalized dream".

Every dream thief has a safe house, but some people find their safe house early on, so they can escape the pollution of dreams and get a good night's sleep.

Some people, however, can never find a safe house and can only accept their fate of being contaminated.

“Every Dream Thief has a safe house, but they are all different. Different safe houses serve different purposes and have different future potential…”

"For example, a safe house with a mirror is a bathroom, a safe house with people is a church, and there are also classrooms, attics, etc..."

"Not everyone's safe house is a building; some people use wardrobes, large drawers, or other furniture, or other things that can provide shelter."

What will my safe house be?

As Chen Qi pondered, he leaped into the interlayered world on one side of the dream, then closed his eyes and sank directly into the dream.

He appeared instantly on the sidewalk next to a large shopping mall.

The streets were bustling with traffic, and the square in front of the shopping mall was crowded with people—it was quite a lively scene!
Menglong spoke up to remind him:
"Although most people find their own dream in the first layer of the dream, they are mostly people living in Changle City."

“But you are different. There are no memories of you here, so you’d better find your own dream within your own dream. This requires you to enter a dream within a dream.”

"You'd better find a quiet place to get some sleep."

(End of this chapter)