Dark Ruins Dawn

Chapter 87 Dreamland
The demon general thought he was roaring.

In fact, it remains silent.

Its consciousness was completely imprisoned, and it was surrounded by a viscous pressure that it could not escape.

This is a power that no human being could possess.

Just then, Zhuang Yuanhang, who had been facing away from it, turned around with a gentle smile on his face.

"You're Xiao Fan's friend, right?"

He extended the invitation naturally, as if he were meeting a junior for the first time.

"Don't just stand there, come and sit down, let's look at this starry sky together."

Zhuang Fan nodded: "You can move now."

星空
The starry sky?

The demon general struggled to raise its head and look at the black sky that it had ignored.

It was a dazzling Milky Way, like a giant scar across the sky, pouring out endless light.

Further away, countless slowly rotating spiral nebulae—Andromeda, Triangulum, Sombrero…

The names that existed in the ancient encyclopedia are now presented in their clearest and most expansive form, layer upon layer, stretching to the very edge of the field of vision.

The demon general was somewhat distracted.

The dark mist that made it up appeared thinner for the first time in the face of this boundless sea of ​​light.

Even the boundaries of consciousness seem to be dissolving.

A sense of insignificance originating from the deepest level of life, mixed with bewilderment at the unknown, seized it.

"Is this your most feared memory?"

Zhuang Fan hummed in agreement.

Instead of answering directly, he turned his gaze to the dazzling sea of ​​stars.

Do you know who Kant is?

"Who?"

He once said that there are two things that we admire and revere more the more often we think about them: the starry heavens above us and the moral law within us.

The Demon General had already retrieved all the information about "Kant" from his early memories.

"so what."

"I'm still seriously considering the moral law."

Zhuang Fan paused for a moment.

"But I have come to fear the starry sky."

The demon general's mind paused for half a second before it finally understood the terrifying nature of this memory.

Zhuang Fan raised his hand and pointed to the starry sky.

"I've loved stargazing since I was a child. I like to memorize them one by one, sometimes even forgetting to eat and sleep, and becoming so hungry that I faint."

"So I always carried glucose tablets in my backpack, and my condition improved a lot. I thought that would make everything alright."

"But a new problem has arisen: whenever I stargaze, my nose bleeds uncontrollably."

"I had another surgery."

The demon general frowned: "And then?"

"Later, the nosebleed stopped."

Zhuang Fan couldn't help but laugh at this point, with a hint of self-deprecation: "But then they found out I had brain cancer, the fate of someone who overuses their brain."

"has no meaning?"

Zhuang Fan pondered for a moment in response to the Demon General's question.

"At that time, I thought that as long as I closed my eyes, the whole universe would be in front of me."

"That feeling is amazing."

The demon general's tone carried a hint of sarcasm: "There's an idiom in your memory, 'An ant trying to shake a tree,' which is quite fitting for you."

"Yes, I was indeed overestimating myself."

Zhuang Fan did not deny it.

"After being diagnosed with cancer, I gradually realized something."

"No matter how hard I try to memorize the coordinates of each galaxy... there are just too many of them, so many that I could never remember them all in my entire life."

"I suddenly felt scared and confused."

"This is not something that humans can accomplish."

"No one can do it."

Standing to the side, Zhuang Yuanhang patted his son's shoulder and gently comforted him:
"Life is finite, but knowledge is infinite. You have done your best, so there is no need to push yourself."

The demon general's face was shrouded in dark mist, making it indistinct.

Its voice was devoid of emotion, and it repeated itself.

"has no meaning?"

The meaning is right before your eyes.

The words fell.

That so-called "meaning" transformed into an unprecedented star map, slowly unfolding above its head.

This time, there were countless points of light, countless galaxies, and countless coordinates, forming an endless, dazzling sea of ​​light.

Trillions of stars flooded the entire dome.

Bright as day.

The demon general was completely disoriented and lost his mind.

It gazed up at it in disbelief. For a moment, it felt a mixture of fear and awe: "You really remember the entire universe?"

Zhuang Fan quickly shook his head.

"Absolutely impossible, who could do that?"

"The universe is constantly expanding at an accelerating rate, and many celestial bodies are unobservable and imperceptible."

"and you."

"I only remember about half of the observable universe so far, not bad."

"."

Zhuang Fan casually raised his arm, and countless star systems appeared.

"In this dream world, we are still standing on Earth, and can only see half of the universe."

"So I took a shortcut."

"I moved all the galaxies in my memory to the top of your head."

You can think that way too.

"The entire universe is revealed to you."

The demon general stood frozen in place for a long time, motionless.

After a long while, it slowly withdrew its gaze and looked directly at Zhuang Fan.

"So you've been pretending to be crazy all along, just to lure me into this memory."

Zhuang Fan didn't look at it, but instead gazed up at the sea of ​​stars and responded softly.

"Clearly, you are not an ordinary demon general either."

"Your abilities are beyond the average person."

"."

Zhuang Fan smiled gently.

"This is our first formal meeting."

"Hello, stranger who is parasitizing my body, I should address you."
"Your Excellency, Demon Envoy?"

The Demon General did not deny the title, saying, "You are very perceptive."

Zhuang Fan pieced together the clues from the past.

"That explains everything. Why Xu Renyi failed to possess someone else's body: because you intervened in secret."

"The reason I can control the mysterious fog and eliminate the decaying fog is naturally because I borrowed your ability."

The demon general shook his head: "Xu Renyi was indeed my doing, but your ability to manipulate the mysterious mist has nothing to do with me."

Zhuang Fan was slightly surprised: "I can't possibly be some kind of demon general or demon messenger, can I?"

"You are human, I'm pretty sure of it."

The demon general stared at him.

"But your memory has gaps spanning hundreds of years, which I cannot access."

Zhuang Fan felt a pang of regret upon hearing this.

"It's a pity, even you don't understand it."

"I'm really curious about what I did to be able to memorize so many galaxies and then seal them deep in my consciousness without going crazy."

“Stargazing is indeed my hobby, but I don’t want it to become a burden.”

The demon general remained silent for a moment.

“Zhuang Fan, I can’t answer you. My true form didn’t come in; it’s still asleep.”

Body
This was bad news for Zhuang Fan.

"Then why did you stay inside me?"

"Rest, and when the time is right, devour you."

Zhuang Fan chuckled: "It sounds like one of those old clichés, so I can't just sit here and wait to die."

Even if the opponent is just a clone, he has to desperately stay and weaken it as much as he can.

"Young man, you can't kill me."

"But you can't get out."

"I can hold out."

"I can too."

The demon general was speechless for a moment.

It was trying to find out the young man's weaknesses.

“You can, but your team can’t wait; their situation will only get worse.”

"I believe them."

Seeing that the demon general remained silent, Zhuang Fan patiently began to explain.

"Except for the first layer of the dream, the time flow rate of each subsequent layer of the dream will be multiplied by ten."

"The seventh layer of the dream is a million times greater."

"In other words, if you spend a million days in your dream, only one day will have passed in the outside world."

"This is the tenth floor."

"I have plenty of time to waste with you."

"."

(End of this chapter)