Chapter 1 The Battle in the Nightmare Nest

The battle in the Nightmare Nest continued into its second phase, and the resulting turmoil finally attracted the attention of the guards stationed outside the nest.

This wasn't due to the laxity of the Corruptors' defenses, but rather that the collapse in the Crystal Pillar Layer had almost completely destroyed the upper-level warning and detection systems: when the large crystal pillars broke, they not only created a powerful geological impact, but also released an energy storm from within the crystals, comparable to a small-scale doomsday weapon. This energy spread along the various pipelines and circuits connecting the Crystal Pillar Layer and the Earth's crust, instantly burning out almost all of the energy networks in the equatorial region and the southern third of Amantir, and directly impacting the Corruptors responsible for monitoring the starship's operation.

Therefore, for the first twenty minutes, the Corruptors didn't even know where this sudden impact had come from. And when they finally realized the collapse of the Crystal Pillar Layer, they failed to notice the anomaly in the Nightmare Nest in time: everything was too chaotic.

It wasn't until the Dream Weaver's Brain gradually broke free from the dream and began to actively resist that the guards became aware of the invasion in the nest.

And at this time, only a few last, flickering layers of the barrier around the Dream Weaver's Brain remained.

Lily's dog cannons were powerful, but their combat endurance was quite limited. After firing the last two light cannons in succession, she finally exhausted her divine power reserves. The giant husky bared her teeth and tried to hold on for a long time, but in the end, only managed a burp—so she flopped to the ground, panting with her tongue lolling out, and signaled with her eyes that she couldn't continue fighting for the time being.

Hao Ren couldn't understand the husky spirit's eyes, but he guessed that Lily's power reserves were at their limit, so he immediately used his autonomous turrets to fill the firepower gap after the dog cannons stopped. He looked at the Dream Weaver's Brain on the platform, which was wriggling frantically, seemingly about to fully awaken, and shouted, "Just a little more! This thing can't hold on much longer! Its main body is fragile!"

At this moment, on the periphery of the battlefield, a hazy, gray-black shadow moved silently through the stone pillars and crystal clusters like the wind. The shadow circled around the edge of the nest, then rushed straight towards Hao Ren, slicing several mutated monsters in its path into multiple segments.

The shadow stopped in front of Hao Ren, revealing Gunny's appearance. The cat girl's paws and face were smeared with dirty blood, but her eyes were exceptionally bright. She circled Hao Ren quickly, anxiously saying, "Big cat! Big cat! Lots of cracks over there! Monsters are coming in!"

"The guards outside have already started moving," Hao Ren said, looking at Vivian. "They are forcibly opening the outer wall of the Nightmare Nest."

"This brain won't last until they arrive," Vivian floated in the air, a pair of huge bat wings spread out behind her like a cloak. Beneath the bat wings, swarms of bats flew around, and the vortex-like lightning brewing within the bat swarms made her look like a queen walking on thunder. "I can feel it… it's afraid. This monster that creates nightmares, it actually has the emotion of fear."

Hao Ren smiled slightly, looking at the Godslayer Sword in his hand, which was still talking incessantly: "That's normal. Anyone would be afraid if they were nagged at like this for so long."

Vivian almost fell from the sky: "...That's not what I meant."

"It's time to end the battle," a thunderous voice came from above. Izhaks, transformed into a lava giant, radiated astonishing heat, and dark green arcane runes floated around him. He looked down at the black longsword in Hao Ren's hand and said seriously, "Before we all go crazy from this thing's chatter, let's end this."

"This sword believes that your attitude is biased. This sword is actually telling you some principles of life in a kind and earnest way. Although this sword is only…"

Normally, this thing wouldn't say more than three sentences before Hao Ren would shout "Shut up!" But now, in order to resist the whispers of the evil god, it rarely had the opportunity to ramble on, and it seemed to have completely let itself go.

But Hao Ren didn't have time to waste words with a sword at this moment, because the battle with the giant brain had finally reached its final moment.

—Although the giant brain's main body had never personally entered the battle from beginning to end, the nightmare monsters it summoned and the mutated monsters in the nest were equivalent to a part of it, so this battle was still considered to be between the group and the giant brain.

The multiple layers of barriers used to protect the Dream Weaver's Brain now had only the last two layers remaining. The biological tissues that made up the barriers had suffered great damage in the continuous bombardment and energy overload. Dirty purulent blood flowed from the surface of the platform below the giant brain, and the entire area trembled with spasms. "Thump, thump," the sound like a heartbeat echoed around, becoming increasingly deep and slow. All the signs indicated that the terrifying creature was approaching the end of its life.

But it still needed a final blow.

Hao Ren gripped the two Cosmic Shards in his hands, calculating the consumption rate of the giant brain's shields while striding towards the platform.

The giant brain seemed to sense the impending doom. The red light on its surface surged even more frantically, and the entire brain convulsed violently. Waves of visible distortion spread outward from its ugly skin, and countless terrifying translucent phantoms struggled and danced in the distorted air, as if trying to intimidate the approaching Hao Ren, but also as if begging for forgiveness.

Hao Ren continued forward. The scene before him slowly twisted, and the sounds in his ears became intermittent. He seemed to hear countless miserable voices echoing in his mind, and even the continuous nagging of the Godslayer Sword temporarily faded to the side, but…

"Far worse than Lockmarton back then."

He muttered to himself, and all the hallucinations vanished.

He leaped high, raising his swords to strike the giant brain in mid-air—although he was as small as a fly in front of the giant brain in terms of size, the giant brain trembled as if facing a great flood or ferocious beast.

The Dream Weaver's Brain had awakened from its deep dream. Like all creatures that had just woken up, it still retained a trace of confusion and sluggishness from the nightmare world, which made it particularly vague about what was happening in the real world. However, even if it was blurred, it could sense a power from the two black longswords that were slashing down in a crisscross pattern, a power that was enough to make demigods and even true gods tremble.

That power was specially designed to deal with existences as powerful as gods, and specifically used to break all supernatural things related to the Lord of Madness.

The giant brain vibrated the energy in the space, emitting a howl that directly pierced the soul, and all things before Hao Ren's eyes instantly disintegrated.

The entire Nightmare Nest disappeared. In that brief moment, he found himself standing on an endless plain—grasses grew and orioles flew, the sky was high and the clouds were distant, the warm sun shone brightly in the clear blue sky, a herd of cattle and sheep roamed leisurely on the plain, and the clear call of a shepherd came from afar.

Raven 12345 suddenly appeared before him, saying with dignity and seriousness, "The situation has changed, immediately stop your actions and return…"

Without a second thought, Hao Ren slashed down with his sword.

That world of lush grass, flying orioles, high skies, and distant clouds shattered in an instant. Before his eyes was still the giant brain's disgusting, wrinkled skin. The Godslayer Sword had already cleaved through the last layer of shield on the Dream Weaver's Brain, and the black blade had deeply pierced into the wriggling flesh. Countless black smoke and translucent phantoms were spewing out of the flesh, and a shrill howl echoed in Hao Ren's mind:

"This is impossible! That is a will you can never disobey!"

"You were able to construct such an illusion without knowing 'Her' true identity, which really surprised me, but I have two things to tell you," Hao Ren replied mentally in his mind as well. "First, if it was really my boss, the expression on her face wouldn't be like that, and she wouldn't be talking in that tone—she would only yell at me about her year-end bonus and performance bonus, then open the door and drag me back!"

The longsword cut in even harder. No blood still flowed out from inside the giant brain, because its real structure had begun to evaporate, and all the flesh was turning into smoke at an extremely fast speed.

"Second, 'a will that can never be disobeyed'—where did you get that setting? You don't even know her style, so don't make up our company culture—all the employees in this unit enjoy slandering the goddess behind her back and arguing with her face to face, do you understand! Turning her into a copy is not as good as transforming my elementary school homeroom teacher!"

"No! It shouldn't be like this! There can't be this kind of…"

Hao Ren poured almost all of his strength into the two Cosmic Shards, and a layer of light suddenly rippled across the surface of the black blade. The forty-meter blade extended out and directly cut the entire giant brain into four pieces: "There just is this kind of operation!!"

The Dream Weaver's Brain disintegrated, and the omnipresent real illusions in the entire Nightmare Nest also dissipated quickly. The monster's last thought echoed in everyone's mind: "You don't know how powerful the power of chaos is… You don't know where the power of nightmares comes from… You have shattered the door, now this dream is about to end, she will wake up… It will also wake up…"

The core of the Nightmare Nest vanished into thin air, and the space supported by supernatural power naturally could no longer maintain its stability. A violent shaking indicated that this area was collapsing as a whole towards the Crystal Pillar Layer, but in the midst of this earth-shattering event, Hao Ren's vision was extending upwards.

After the giant brain was destroyed, the flesh and nerve conduits that originally connected the giant brain to the dome above also began to break inch by inch. Corrosive energy leaked from those nerve cords, accelerating the collapse of the entire space. And at the moment when the nerve cords at the very top broke, Hao Ren saw a frightening wound open in the dome of the Nightmare Nest, and countless large and small fragments fell from above.

Among them was a huge crystal filled with powerful energy.

Several autonomous machines rushed towards the crystal, instantly wrapping the entire crystal in a barrier, and then disappeared into the air together.

"Cargo acquired, retreat."