Fear of food

Chapter 151 If a haunted house has no ghosts, isn't that a scam?

Mom!

Joy welled up in Chen Qijiu's usually calm heart.

All his efforts and compromises were driven by the desire to save his parents.

Chen Qi flew out with a whoosh, caught up with the bus, and brought it into his crimson domain.

He tried to use the power of his domain to control the bus and force it to stop, but he failed.

The bus was as slippery as an eel, and the power of the Crimson Domain could not affect it.

Swipe...

Chen Qi's body began to mutate, his size increased dramatically, and his two arms continuously split and extended, like two giant octopuses, with thick tentacles wrapping around the bus that was traveling at high speed.

He dared not directly attack the bus with violence because there were many hostages inside, including his mother.

Although these hostages are likely parasites who can be resurrected even after death, resurrection still takes time.

Chen Qi didn't want to wait any longer; delay might lead to unforeseen changes, and who knew how the situation in Jinghai City would develop?

What kind of counterattack will the Nightmare Clan launch?
Moreover, once his mother and the others enter the resurrection state, Chen Qi will not dare to take action against the source of pollution. If the pollution in Jinghai City is completely ended, it is very likely that the resurrected parasites will fail to revive.

Therefore, Chen Qi decided that he would rescue his mother today!

However, things didn't go as smoothly as expected. The bus in front of them was clearly not right; it seemed that Chen Qi's methods were being infinitely weakened when applied to it.

His octopus-like arms had completely wrapped around the bus, but when he tried to lift the entire bus, he found that the surface of the bus was covered with a layer of sticky lubricant, and he couldn't exert any force at all.

With force, his tentacle arms slid off one by one.

"Could this bus be the source of pollution in Jinghai City?"

Chen Qi's current pollution source detection capabilities have completely overlapped with the domain's capabilities. Under the domain's coverage, he sensed that the bus had characteristics similar to a high-level pollution source.

But it seems somewhat different, like a bomb that has been drawn but not yet detonated, more reserved and restrained, containing astonishing energy within, but also more dangerous.

If the source of the pollution is actually a mobile bus, it's no wonder that officials like Peanut searched for months without any leads.

It was indeed very well hidden and extremely flexible.

"This should be a pollution source of a higher level than an S-level pollution source. It's not just a matter of a higher level, but a qualitative improvement. The two are not even in the same league!"

Chen Qi had a vague feeling that even if he were to absorb this source of pollution, he wouldn't be able to absorb it; he simply couldn't digest it!

Even his foraging abilities failed to successfully transform the source of pollution into wild food.

Despite Chen Qi's best efforts, he was unable to stop the bus. The bus continued to travel at high speed and frequently turned around against his intuition and inertia, as if it wanted to run Chen Qi over at any moment.

The bus displayed unscientific agility, and Chen Qi naturally dared not let it actually collide with him. He kept dodging while also trying to stop the bus.

Gradually, Chen Qi changed his approach. He stopped trying to deal with the bus and focused solely on rescuing the passengers inside.

For example, he might enter the bus himself and rescue the people inside.

However, he couldn't even break the car window, and the car door remained closed, leaving him helpless.

"Perhaps we could try the abilities of the Dream Thief and the Nightmare Clan..."

Chen Qi suddenly realized that perhaps it wasn't that he wasn't strong enough, but rather that he was being restrained.

Just as the higher-ranking Nightmare Clan absolutely suppresses the lower-ranking Nightmare Clan, the Nightmare Clan has a strict hierarchy, where being one rank higher can directly crush someone.

Their abilities as pagans, strictly speaking, all stem from the pollution caused by their fear of food, and the bus in front of them may have been transformed from the source of that pollution.

In other words, he was trying to use the abilities that pollution had given him to combat the source of pollution.

It seems only natural that it wouldn't work.

However, the illusionary layers created by the Nightmare Eaters are theoretically more realistic, and the Nightmare Eaters' abilities have limited room to be utilized here.

The Nightmare Clan's abilities in reality tend to bewitch people and cause hallucinations, making them difficult to use against buses.

"The only usable ability is the safe house, but the biggest problem with the safe house is that it's hard to capture this bus, and this bus can't be treated as a normal bus. It might damage my safe house."

Even so, Chen Qi had no better solution and could only give it a try.

The bus was going too fast, and it would also take Chen Qi some time to summon a safe house outside the dream.

Therefore, it is difficult to perfectly encompass the bus within it.

The only option is to directly reveal the safe house and then try to use the safe house's cyclone ability to forcibly suck the bus into it.

"It actually works!"

This attempt invigorated Chen Qi. Although the bus was too powerful, the suction of the safe house was completely insufficient to counter it and could not forcibly pull it into the safe house.

But Chen Qineng could clearly feel the sensation of that power struggle!

In other words, the capabilities of the safe house are actually applied to the bus itself.

Unlike before, Chen Qi couldn't exert any force at all. It was like a strongman trying to catch a mudfish; no matter how hard he tried, it was all in vain.

With that, Chen Qi immediately understood the situation.

If we can find a way to move the bus into the safe house, we should still have a fighting chance.

The biggest difference between the Illusionary Layer and the Dream Layer lies in their size.

Within the Dream Pollution Zone, dreams cover the entire city, and the Dream Interlayer World also covers the entire city. As long as you are within the Pollution Zone, you can enter the Interlayer World anytime, anywhere.

However, the illusionary interlayer is limited to the area covered by the illusion created by the pollution source.

Therefore, the bus and Chen Qi were only able to maneuver around in this small area.

Chen Qi understood that this relatively small space was his opportunity.

He put away the safe house and began intentionally directing the bus into the corners of the current mezzanine world.

The bus kept trying to hit Chen Qi, so it wasn't too difficult for Chen Qi to use himself as bait to influence the bus's route.

Finally, after dodging once, Chen Qi cornered himself.

The strange bus seized the opportunity, made a U-turn on the spot, and crashed straight into Chen Qi.

Chen Qi did not dodge. Strictly speaking, he had nowhere to hide. This was the edge of the interlayered world, a dead end, with no way to go left or right.

The bus seized on Chen Qi's "misposition" and crashed into him recklessly.

Just as Chen Qi was about to be hit, the safe house finally descended from the sky.

Chen Qi timed it perfectly, accurately calculating the delay required for the safe house to be summoned and arrive.

If it had been a little later, he might have been hit by a car, and who knows what the consequences would have been.

Going earlier might give the bus time to react, allowing it a chance to brake or even reverse.

Chen Qi noticed that the bus seemed to have its own consciousness and was acting autonomously.

As for the bus driver sitting in the driver's seat, he seems to be just a figurehead, or at most playing a supporting role. Most of the time, even if the driver doesn't move, the bus can still turn around, make U-turns, and even perform many difficult maneuvers.

Therefore, he knew that he was not fighting against the parasite driver, but against the autonomous consciousness of the source of pollution.

Once inside the safe house, it was Chen Qi's domain.

Here, Chen Qi is the master, able to control all the facilities in the amusement park as he pleases, and he has more than a dozen employees to help him.

Chen Qi is mentally connected to the safe house and can sense everything happening inside in real time, including accurately capturing the movement trajectory of the bus.

Chen Qi showed the utmost respect to the bus.

First, they mobilized the stream in the "Extreme Rafting" project. The water seemed to gush out of the stream endlessly, and in the blink of an eye, it flooded the entire amusement park, reaching up to knee level.

Driving in water creates greater resistance, which would normally affect the vehicle's speed.

But the strange bus didn't seem to be affected much.

So Chen Qi directly controlled the water flow in the amusement park to solidify, and in an instant the flowing water became as solid as a rock.

The bus suddenly slowed down.

Chen Qi then mobilized the largest attraction in the amusement park that had never been used before – the haunted house!
As the sixth and highest-level amusement facility in the safe house, it is formed from a Class A pollution source in Stage II.

The bus was held in place by the water flow, and countless shadows emerged from the haunted house, converging into a black torrent that rushed towards the bus.

Countless ghostly figures haunted the bus... It's common knowledge that there are no ghosts in reality, but isn't it normal to have ghosts in dreams?

A haunted house, of course, has to have ghosts to be called a haunted house, otherwise wouldn't that be a scam?

These ghostly figures pierced through the bus's exterior and entered the passenger compartment.

Chen Qi followed the perspective of these ghostly figures and saw the situation clearly.

It was quite lively inside, with a whole car full of parasites.

Because of the parasites' formidable physical abilities, no matter how dangerously the car was driven, with sudden braking, stopping, and launching, it had no effect on them.

However, these parasites do not seem to be very strong overall, and they are all "family-level" in nature, which is consistent with the characteristics of hostages.

The only exception is the driver, who is a second-generation Nightmare Eater.

Under Chen Qi's control, the ghostly figures swarmed forward and entangled the bus driver.

The driver's shrill screams suddenly echoed through the carriage. He had no visible injuries, but his eyes were filled with extreme terror. His face was contorted and his pupils were unfocused, as if he had witnessed something horrific.

But at that moment, a feeling of weightlessness suddenly struck Chen Qi.

He felt himself falling.

Or rather, the entire amusement park was dragging him down with it!
His gaze pierced through the amusement park and reached the scene outside the safe house.

The mezzanine world where the amusement park was located... has vanished!

The safe house descended into the mezzanine world; when the mezzanine world disappeared, the safe house naturally fell as well.

However, this is not a big deal. As a type of dream, the safe house has no weight and will not cause any damage.

But then, Chen Qi felt the weightlessness disappear, and something stopped his fall from the safe house.

And the scene outside was changing rapidly... His safe house was moving at high speed!
The bus carried his safe house, speeding through Jinghai City.

Freed from the constraints of the interlayered world, it now has a wider space to move around in.

"It should not be able to escape Jinghai City and can only move within the contaminated area."

"But this can't go on forever..."

Chen Qi can put away the safe house directly, but he doesn't know if he can put away the bus inside as well.

Once freed from the constraints of the safe house, Chen Qi was even more helpless in the vast contaminated area of ​​Jinghai City.

"What should I do?"

After thinking for a moment, Chen Qi decided to try controlling the passengers inside the bus.

These hostages were all family-level parasites. Chen Qi tried to use the abilities of the Nightmare Clan to directly and forcibly invade their consciousness. The bus, as a source of pollution, could not provide them with shelter.

He easily gained complete control over all the parasites in the carriage, including his mother, Zhang Qin.

He then ordered the parasites to press the door open button on the bus dashboard, but it had no effect.

Then they were ordered to attack the car windows in an attempt to open an exit.

However, the biggest problem is that their abilities also come from food-related fear contamination. What Chen Qi cannot do, these family-level parasites also cannot do.

During this process, the bus carried an amusement park through the city, a scene I've never even seen in movies.

It's just that there aren't many normal people left in Jinghai City, otherwise it would definitely cause a sensation.

Left with no other option, Chen Qi could only try the method he was least confident about... treating the bus as a regular high-level source of pollution and absorbing it into the amusement park!
"The amusement park is indeed missing a sightseeing vehicle, and it would be great if we could bring one in."

However, Chen Qi knew that this was difficult, or rather, there was no possibility of success at all.

He simply cannot tolerate this level of pollution now.

Sure enough, Chen Qi immediately felt the difficulty as soon as he tried.

It's like asking someone to eat a meal equal to their own weight; the difference might seem small, but it's simply impossible.

Chen Qi's safe house felt like he didn't know where to begin when faced with the bus.

What Chen Qineng could do was to do his best to control the safe house, and even if he knew he couldn't eat it all, he would at least take a few bites.

Unexpectedly, after trying this, it seemed to really make the bus feel the crisis, and it struggled even more fiercely. Its speed instantly increased, and it carried the amusement park straight towards a landmark building in Jinghai City.

But... dreams have no physical form, and the amusement park passed through the building without causing any damage.

Seeing the bus react so strongly, Chen Qi realized that he might have stumbled upon the right direction by accident!
He continued his arduous attempt, trying to absorb as much energy as possible from inside the bus...

at last!

Unsurprisingly, the attempt to recruit them failed.

But the safe house unexpectedly established a connection with the bus.

It was this connection that gave Chen Qi a greater sense of certainty.

The next moment, with a thought, the amusement park that was flying through the air disappeared into thin air!
Chen Qi plummeted rapidly, but he quickly regained his footing in mid-air using his flight abilities.

"I never expected it would actually succeed!"

He successfully used the safe house to house the bus.

"If I leave Jinghai City now, it would be equivalent to taking the source of pollution away from Jinghai City. What would happen to Jinghai City then?"

Will the pollution disappear?

(End of this chapter)