America: The Cremator

Su Long followed the faint sound and walked forward.

The corridor's structure became more complex here; as he rounded several corners, the crying became clearer.

Finally, under a wall with a picture of the Passion of Jesus, he saw a small, thin figure squatting on the ground, hugging his knees and burying his face in them, his shoulders trembling slightly from sobbing.

Su Long walked up to her, reached out, and gently patted the girl's shoulder.

The girl's body visibly trembled, and she slowly raised her head.

It was an extremely young face, still bearing the innocence of childhood, with delicate features and smooth, fair cheeks, but at this moment it was filled with fear and tear stains, making it look pitiful.

It's Hannah, a younger version of Hannah.

"Hannah," Surong's voice sounded hollow in the empty corridor, "wake up, don't let these illusions blind you."

The girl's eyes were filled with wariness and unfamiliarity. She looked at Su Long in fear, her body shrinking back involuntarily.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"I am Surong," Surong tried to make his tone sound gentler, "I've come to take you out."

Hannah shook her head vigorously, her fear deepening.

"I don't know you... Run away, it will kill you!"

"What is it?" Su Long pressed.

"It's a monster."

Hannah's voice trembled with fear, and she suddenly spread her hands as if to show something.

Su Long's gaze fell on her palm, his pupils contracting slightly.

Two deep cross-shaped scars were clearly imprinted in the center of those two fair and delicate palms.

Suron frowned. He clearly remembered that Stella's ritual only involved making a cut on Hannah's chest and did not touch Hannah's palm.

"It was afraid of the wound on my hand," Hannah's voice trembled with despair. "It wouldn't come near me as soon as my wound started to glow... but my father, mother, brother, and friends in church were all eaten by it."

Su Long looked at her, at the fear in her eyes that was twisted by the logic of dreams.

It seems difficult to persuade her for the time being.

The next moment, a huge, muffled tremor suddenly came from the darkness behind Su Long.

A bizarre creature, beyond description, suddenly sprang out from the shadows at the end of the corridor.

It was a mass of flesh, writhing tentacles, haphazardly embedded eyeballs, and forcibly pieced together sharp teeth. It writhed and rolled as it rushed toward their location at high speed, causing the oil paintings on the walls to fall and shatter wherever it passed.

Su Long felt his scalp tighten instantly.

Hannah let out a piercing scream, scrambled to her feet, and, sobbing uncontrollably, ran headlong down the corridor without looking back.

Su Long immediately activated his spiritual vision.

However, there was no trace of any strange power on that terrifying-looking monster; it was like a phantom made purely of dream material.

Is there a problem with the environment itself?

He intended to stand still and test whether the phantom possessed real physical attack capabilities.

But he remembered Stella's warning: in the bizarrely constructed deep dreamscape, any carelessness could lead to the permanent demise of consciousness.

He dared not gamble.

Without further hesitation, Su Long turned and followed Hannah's figure, starting to run through the seemingly endless corridor.

The two were chased by that indescribable phantom, passing through countless similar corners and doorways, until soon a magnificent and spacious architectural space appeared before them.

It was a huge main hall of a church.

Hannah rushed in without hesitation, while the monster that had been chasing her abruptly stopped at the boundary between the church and the corridor. Its countless eyes stared intently at the interior of the church, but it seemed afraid to step into this area even a little.

Su Long stopped, panting heavily, and began to observe his surroundings.

The tall dome, the neatly arranged oak benches, and the altar for preaching in front—everything was arranged in a normal and solemn manner.

Then, his gaze fell on the very center of the altar.

There stands a statue of the Virgin Mary, which is three meters tall. The statue is majestic and holy, and the flowing lines of its robes exude a divine radiance.

The only odd thing is the expression on the face of this Virgin Mary.

The exaggerated upward curve of the corners of his mouth created a chilling, malicious smile.

Su Long’s brain felt as if it had been struck by a heavy hammer in an instant.

He finally understood.

Hannah, however, seemed to have found her last refuge. She staggered and ran toward the statue that radiated a holy light.

"Don't go over there!"

Surong lunged forward and grabbed Hannah's arm just as she was about to touch the altar steps.

Hannah was pulled off balance by the immense force, and she turned around with extreme confusion and anger on her face.

"Let me go! You don't understand, the area under the idol is the safest place in the entire church!"

Su Long ignored her struggles and pushed his spiritual vision to its limit.

A surge of energy rushed into my eyes, and the world before me was instantly stripped of its disguise.

The sacred furnishings and towering domes all transformed into translucent phantoms, while a thick, scarlet, writhing mist, like a living creature, clung to the enormous statue of the Virgin Mary, exuding a nauseatingly evil aura.

He found it.

The true form of the Smiling Virgin Mary.

Without further hesitation, Surong shook off Hannah's arm, stepped onto the steps of the altar, and walked straight to the foot of the huge statue. He raised his right hand, and a cluster of golden flames suddenly rose up.

The next second, he pressed his burning palm heavily onto the cold plaster base of the statue.

In an instant, the statue of the Virgin Mary seemed to come alive.

Its once downcast and compassionate stone-carved eyes suddenly opened, revealing not eyeballs, but two bottomless, pitch-black voids.

The mouth with the eerie smile silently opened to a terrifying extent, and a shrill shriek, not belonging to this dimension, exploded directly in the depths of Surong and Hannah's minds.

The surrounding environment could no longer remain stable.

The church walls, dome, and pews, like glass shattered by a tremendous force, collapsed simultaneously in an instant, turning into billions of bizarre and colorful fragments that fell into the endless darkness.

Hannah stared in horror as the world around her suddenly shattered.

The church is gone.

Instead, they found themselves in a boundless space made of viscous blood and twisted flesh, standing inside the stomach of this enormous creature.

"Bang!"

Dozens of thick, dark red tentacles suddenly shot out from the statue, which had already revealed part of its true form. They coiled around Surong's arm, which was pressed against the base, like venomous snakes, while more tentacles, like sharp spears, mercilessly pierced into his body.

Intense pain instantly coursed through Su Long's entire body; even in a dream, this damage originating from the soul felt incredibly real.

He endured the excruciating pain of his body being torn apart, turned around, and roared at Hannah, who was standing frozen in fear.

"Hannah! This is the monster's true form!"

"This is your dream world. In your world, no one's power can surpass yours!"

"Since it's afraid of the mark on your palm, then use that thing against it!"

Sulong's roar jolted Hannah awake. Fragmented memories began to reorganize and rearrange in her mind, and the confusion and fear in her eyes quickly faded.

The girl took a deep breath, ran forward, and stepped over the flesh and blood that were writhing wildly on the ground, pressing her hands, branded with cross-shaped scars, hard against the statue.

In an instant, a blinding white light burst forth from between Hannah's fingers.

The light was holy and pure, carrying a purifying power, and it erupted with a violent impact the moment it touched the statue.

"boom--"

Hannah was blasted away by the enormous recoil and crashed heavily onto the bloody ground some distance away.

At the spot where she had just pressed, a spiderweb-like crack appeared on the statue's hard outer shell.

opportunity!

When Su Long saw the crack, his eyes widened. He mobilized all the primordial fire within his body, and the golden flame in his palm surged to more than half a meter high.

He pressed the raging flames hard into the newly appeared crack.

Golden flames, like magma finding an outlet, surged wildly into the interior of the statue through the cracks, and then burned fiercely at its core.

"Sizzle—"

Golden flames simultaneously erupted from the statue's mouth, nose, eyes, and ears, and its shriek became even more piercing and weaker.

Finally, a crisp sound, like glass shattering, rang out.

boom!

The entire statue burst into flames, golden flames engulfing it from the inside out. The face with the eerie smile twisted and melted in the flames, eventually turning into ashes along with the tentacles that were wrapped around Surong, dissipating into the blood-red space.