Nightmare Despair

Chapter 97 Desperate Situation
An indescribable grayish-brown color, like some kind of living thing, was silently spreading down from the walls of the two buildings and crawling towards the glass corridor beneath everyone's feet.

Niu Ancheng forced himself not to look at the illusory shadows wandering downstairs, but he couldn't ignore the approaching aura of death from all directions.

He stared intently at the irregular, mottled, net-like patterns, almost hallucinating that a few minutes later, the glass beneath his feet would be completely corroded and shattered, and everyone would fall into the deadly abyss below like dumplings.

He couldn't accept this outcome.

"No more waiting! Old Li, lead them and fight your way out!"

Niu Ancheng raised his gun, the muzzle trembling slightly, but his voice quickly regained its firmness.

"At least guns aren't completely useless against them!"

"As long as it can cause even a little damage, even if it only delays the damage by one or two seconds..."

The young police officers following Niu Ancheng were pale and in even worse condition, but seeing their captain standing in front, they gritted their teeth and stood in front of the ordinary people.

They were terrified, terrified to death.

But wearing this police uniform...

Anyone with a shred of self-respect wouldn't want to be the first to stand up and be a coward.

Niu Ancheng looked at Li Xiangqian and asked in a deep voice, "Old Li, what do you say?"

Normally, he would definitely try to take the lead.

But in these bizarre events related to mirages, Niu Ancheng knew that Li Xiangqian was more experienced and knew more than him.

Li Xiangqian's gaze swept over the pharmaceutical company employees who were huddled together, some with tears streaming down their faces, others pale and ashen-faced, and finally he said in a low voice, "We can give it a try."

From a rational perspective, they should hold their ground and wait for reinforcements from the Extraordinary Affairs Bureau's special operations team.

But these police officers have only been here a short time and can afford to wait. What about the trapped people?
They've been stuck here ever since the environmental changes began.

The longer you stay in this godforsaken place, the more deeply you will be corrupted.

At first, it was only sophisticated technological devices like mobile phones and watches that malfunctioned, and then it was fiber clothing and rubber shoe soles that began to decay and become brittle.

Once these inanimate objects are completely corrupted by the power of nightmares, their next target will be living people.

Once it penetrates the body...

Every single one of them will suffer from nightmares, ranging from immediate mutations to even more terrifying consequences.

"If the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs arrives quickly, that would be best. If they arrive late... we can't just sit here and wait to die."

Li Xiangqian skillfully changed the magazine of his pistol, then took the tactical flashlight hanging from his waist and tossed it to Zhou Qing in the crowd.

He addressed the crowd, saying, "As you can see, those ghostly things are spreading towards our feet. Staying here is just waiting to die!"

"Many hands make light work, let's charge out together!"

A few of the pharmaceutical company employees who were still able to remain rational nodded vigorously after hearing Li Xiangqian's words.

They understood that to survive, they had to take action themselves.

Zhou Qing took the flashlight and tried to turn it on; the beam flickered a few times.

Soon, the light dimmed, becoming even weaker than the intermittent emergency lights in the building.

But she immediately realized that the police gave her this not for lighting, but for... the electric shock function at the end of the flashlight.

Having realized this, Zhou Qing immediately held the flashlight upside down in her hand.

Those monsters, after all, are made of flesh and blood; electric shocks should be somewhat effective.

Seeing this, the other police officers also distributed some usable equipment to a few of the employees who were still relatively conscious.

Soon, the group prepared to break through the encirclement.

They chose to retrace their steps and fight their way back.

But perhaps they were too slow, or perhaps the nightmare was spreading faster than they had imagined... The environment of the factory building had begun to undergo irreversible distortion.

As everyone fled, the surrounding scenery began to switch wildly between three states: reality, pseudo-nightmare, and real nightmare, like a faulty light bulb flickering.

Finally, the image froze on that terrifying, dark, and utterly bizarre frame...

A real nightmare.

The number of monsters is increasing, and the surrounding environment is becoming more and more unfamiliar.

Li Xiangqian and Niu Ancheng had to stop.

They looked around blankly, and were horrified to find that everything around them had become unrecognizable.

To be precise, they were "lost" and had no idea where to escape to.

"What exactly is this? A mirage... can it transform reality like this?"

Ding San's words flashed through Li Xiangqian's mind like a revolving lantern, but he couldn't find a description that matched the scene before him. "This might... not be a mirage."

Large beads of cold sweat appeared on Li Xiangqian's forehead.

……

"A nightmare of reality has invaded..."

"Damn it, a wild Nightmare Walker!"

Ding San floored the accelerator and sped off, arriving at the overpass near Xinhui Industrial Park in the shortest possible time.

As the building undergoing its transformation came into view, an urgent call for its deployment from the Bureau of Extraordinary Events also came in.

Special Operations Team One is on its way and is expected to be in seventeen minutes.

During these seventeen minutes, Ding San, the only member of the Dreamless Squad with combat capabilities, needs to do his best to rescue the trapped people.

With a sudden stop, the car nearly spun out and crashed into the gatepost at the entrance of the industrial park before finally coming to a halt.

In the heat of the moment, and incredibly frustratingly, at this critical juncture, she couldn't open her car door.

Newer cars without mechanical doors rely entirely on electronic signals for opening and closing. However, if a collision or other factors interfere with signal transmission and reception…

The car became a metal coffin.

At this moment, this interference is clearly coming from the spreading nightmare contamination.

"Such a rapid rate of infection, what level of nightmare is this?"

"Why didn't anyone discover it beforehand!?"

Ding San's eyes were filled with murderous intent.

The inability to open the car door immediately ignited her anger.

But a mere car door couldn't stop her at all.

boom!
She raised her hand and punched the car door so hard it dented inwards like paper. Then she grabbed it, tore it off, and threw it away.

The car door slammed to the ground with a bang. Ding San didn't even glance at it; his eyes flashed like lightning as he quickly pinpointed the source of the pollution.

She stomped her foot hard, creating a shallow crater in the ground, and leaped out like a cannonball.

Beneath her tight black combat suit, her muscles bulged, resembling a female leopard on the hunt.

In the blink of an eye, it covered a distance of nearly forty meters.

But this was far from her limit. After landing, her sprint speed increased even more, leaving a series of afterimages.

This speed is even comparable to Zhou Kai's victorious charge.

A 100-meter sprint... approaching a mere second.

……

"Qi Tong, where are you now? According to the new information sent back by Ding San, the level of this real-life nightmare is at least E."

Zheng Wen, with a grim expression, contacted Qi Tong, the captain of the Special Operations Team One of the Xishan Strange Events Bureau.

Dozens of kilometers away, in the passenger seat of a modified SUV speeding from the suburbs, a young man with dark circles under his eyes twitched at the corner of his mouth and said, "Ding San has arrived... then what's the rush?"

"Isn't she a level three enhanced human? If we really fought, I might not even be a match for that crazy woman."

These combat-specialized Level 3 cyborgs are almost on par with Level 2 martial artists in terms of combat strength; none of them are easy to deal with.

Ding San, a woman nearing sixty, was the most radically modified model in the early Level 3 experiments.

But the more artificial parts a body has, the more powerless it becomes in the face of nightmares...

Even the official Nightmare Walkers of various countries dare only undergo pseudo-level two modifications at most.

Zheng Wen said in a deep voice, "Enhanced humans can't resist the erosion of nightmares. Because of those intricate artificial structures within their bodies, their strength will only decrease in a real-world nightmare environment... You need to hurry! You must get there within fifteen minutes!"

Upon hearing this, Qi Tong's tired voice instantly became clear.

"Don't worry, I'll be there within ten minutes."

"Speaking of which... Lao Zheng, what's wrong with the bureau's investigation work lately? How many years has it been since we've had an unregistered nightmare like this?"

Zheng Wen looked at the intelligence gathered from all directions on the screen in front of him, and watched the buck-passing and shirking of responsibility between various departments. His expression grew increasingly grim.

"Don't worry, this is the last time... After today, we will restart the surveillance of all citizens and cancel the humane treatment plan for patients with real-life nightmare syndrome. Once discovered, they will be killed without exception."

"This time... those social organizations without dreams, and those short-sighted fools in the bureau who only care about temporary good and momentary peace of mind, should have no reason to oppose it anymore."

(End of this chapter)