Samsara Paradise: Dream Weaver of Connections.

[Warning: The Hunter is about to enter the Dream World. This is the Hunter's first time entering the Dream World. The Hunter must make the following preparations.]

1. Upon entering the dream world, the hunter's body will transform according to its real-world attributes.

2. Once you arrive in the dream world, please do not disclose any information about the Paradise of Reincarnation.

3. The dream world is a special world shared by multiple forces.

Just as the notification tone ended, a familiar communication icon lit up in Lin Yi's field of vision; it was from Gulu.

[To get back alive from those bizarre dreams, it's best to keep plenty of morphine and sedatives on hand; they're much more effective than mercurochrome.]

After purchasing the potion from the trading market, Lin Yi's time in the amusement park had reached its limit.

[Teleportation initiated. Contractor has activated language privileges (Tier 6).]

hum-

The scenery around Lin Yi was violently distorted, and the space was like the surface of a lake where a boulder had been thrown in, suddenly rippling violently with visible force.

This fluctuation was exceptionally violent, far exceeding any of his previous teleportation experiences. Even when he first entered the Black Abyss, he had never experienced such intense spatial disturbances.

"Ugh!" Lin Yi groaned, his face instantly turning extremely ugly.

A tearing sensation came from all directions, almost pulling his soul out of his body!

"So far?" The thought flashed through Lin Yi's mind, and then his vision was completely swallowed up by the violent spatial turbulence.

boom!
Lin Yi's consciousness was thrown into chaos by this sudden impact. He only had time to form a single thought before he completely lost consciousness.

After an unknown amount of time, Lin Yi's eyelids felt as heavy as welded iron doors. Each attempt to open them was accompanied by a severe headache, and the spot on the back of his head where he had been hit felt like it was being pricked with needles.

With sheer willpower, Lin Yi forced his almost stiffened nerves open, little by little, with great difficulty.

Before me was... a void.

There were no stars, no direction, only pure, heart-stopping "nothingness".

Lin Yi was currently suspended in this void, with nothing beneath his feet, yet he felt as if he were being supported by some invisible force, maintaining a strange balance.

He subconsciously moved his fingers to make sure his body was still intact.

The texture is realistic, and the subtle sensation of clothing rubbing against the skin is clearly and accurately perceived.

However, the terrifying tearing and dizziness brought about by spatial teleportation slowly receded like the tide, leaving behind lingering nausea.

"Hiss... Does this damn teleportation in Paradise always have to be this exciting? My brain..." A slightly annoyed yet somewhat used voice came from the void not far behind Lin Yi.

The sound wasn't loud, but it was exceptionally clear in this deathly silence.

Not far away, also suspended in the void, was a petite figure.

Gulu was sitting up, dressed in a black Gothic Lolita dress. Her small face, no bigger than a palm, was slightly wrinkled, making her look a little grimacing. She was rubbing the back of her head with one hand.

She had clearly just recovered from the dizziness of being teleported and being "stunned".

After putting down the hand that was rubbing her head, she met Lin Yi's scrutinizing gaze.

Gulu grinned, revealing a smile that was a mixture of schadenfreude and sympathy: "You'll get used to it. The teleportation to the entrance to the dream world has always been this hardcore."

Lin Yi ignored her teasing, his gaze sweeping across the void: "Where is this place? A transit station?"

He cautiously extended his mental energy around him, only to be met with deathly silence and nothingness, devoid of any life or energy fluctuations.

"Transfer station? You could call it that, but to be more precise, it's a transfer station." Gulu flexed his wrists and ankles, appearing relaxed, clearly not unfamiliar with the place.

She pointed to the boundless darkness. "Look, see? Apart from the two of us, there's not a soul in sight. Everyone else, or rather, most of the unfortunate souls, their physical bodies are 'sleeping' here. This place will extract their consciousness, knead it, and mold it into a spiritual entity."

Lin Yi immediately grasped the key information: "The spiritual body enters? What if the spiritual body dies in the dream world?"

The last trace of amusement on Gulu's face vanished instantly, and her voice turned somber: "Dead? Then this body here..." She made a throat-slitting motion, her fingertips tracing her slender neck, making a soft "snap" sound, "will also turn completely cold, utterly cold! There won't even be a chance to save it; the anchor of the soul will shatter directly, and the physical body will become an empty shell. Of course, nothing is absolute. Except for some particularly gentle beginner-level dream worlds. In those places, if your spiritual body dies, at most you'll have a splitting headache for a few days, and your mental strength will be weak for a while."

The moment she finished speaking, a familiar notification sound rang out in Lin Yi's mind.

[Hunter detected with the special skill: Dreamwalker's Fortitude (Passive/Lv.MAX).]

[Skill effect assessment in progress...]

[Judgment passed. 】

[Because this skill greatly enhances the stability of the connection between the hunter's body and soul, the hunter has the authority to directly enter the dream world 'Slumbering City' in their complete physical form.]

[Hunter, please select the mode to enter:]

[A. Standard Mode: Separate consciousness and condense the spiritual body to enter.]

[B. Special Mode: Full Physical Entry.]

The choice? There's almost no need to hesitate.

Entering with one's spirit is tantamount to exposing one's fatal weaknesses directly to the dangers of the dream world.

Once the spiritual body collapses, the physical body immediately perishes, without any buffer or room for recovery.

While entering with one's physical body is equally dangerous, at least his body is the fortress he is most familiar with.

More importantly, the park wouldn't offer a seemingly more dangerous option for no reason, especially given his specific skills; it could very well be a hidden path.

[Confirm selection. The hunter will enter the dream world—the City of Slumber—in its full physical form. Teleportation initiation...]

"Hey! What did you choose..." Gulu, who was next to him, had obviously received some kind of prompting. For the first time, a look of astonishment appeared on her face. She turned her head sharply to look at Lin Yi, her eyes filled with disbelief. "Are you crazy?! Go in with your physical body?! Do you even know what's inside...?"

She couldn't finish her sentence.

An even stronger teleportation force than before descended.

Everything in Lin Yi's eyes, including Gulu's astonished little face, was instantly stretched, distorted, and torn into countless chaotic bands of light and blocks of color.

I don’t know how long it took, maybe a moment, maybe eternity.

boom!
With a heavy thud, Lin Yi crashed heavily onto the solid ground, the force of the impact causing his blood to surge.

The dizziness clung to me like a maggot, stubbornly residing deep within my mind, my vision filled with blurry, swaying double images.

He forced himself to endure the intense nausea and lingering headache, shook his head, and tried to dispel the confusion before his eyes.

The vision struggles to focus, little by little.

The first thing that catches the eye is the towering walls on both sides.

The walls were not made of bricks and stones, but rather of rusty metal plates pieced together, with dark brown oil stains, like dried blood, congealed in the gaps between the plates.

The air was filled with an extremely complex smell—a strong metallic odor, the pungent chemical smell of cheap engine oil, and a faint burnt smell, all mixed together to create a uniquely nauseating odor.

This is a narrow, dark alleyway, barely wide enough for two people to pass each other. The light is extremely dim, with only a sliver of pale, gray light filtering through the sky, cut into a thin slit by the twisted and extended metal walls on both sides, at the very top.

What truly constitutes the "ground" of this alley is piles of... garbage? No, more accurately, the wreckage of machinery.

This is a death graveyard made of industrial waste, with gears of all sizes scattered everywhere, some as big as millstones with chipped edges, others only the size of a fingernail, lying in the filthy black mud.

Twisted and broken metal pipes, metal parts and casings of various shapes and whose original purpose is no longer recognizable, are piled up in layers, almost submerging the already narrow alley.

Lin Yi propped himself up on his arms, trying to stand up from the ruins.

As soon as he exerted his strength, his pupils contracted.

Something is wrong!
Lin Yi felt as if his body was filled with molten lead, and every movement became extremely difficult, requiring several times more strength than usual.

I could clearly feel increased resistance in my lungs, and the air I inhaled seemed to become viscous and thin, unable to provide enough energy.

Worse still, even the flow of thought seems veiled, becoming less clear. Suppression!

Suppression from all sides.

This wasn't the first time Lin Yi had experienced this feeling. When entering worlds with special rules or levels far exceeding his own, the Paradise would impose similar restrictions to protect the world's stable structure or to balance the power gap between contractors and native creatures.

But this time the sense of suppression came so suddenly, as if the whole world was rejecting his "foreign" body and trying to keep his power firmly below a certain baseline.

[The Hunter has been detected to possess the Dreamwalker's Fortitude; maximum sanity has increased by 50%.]

The hunter's current sanity is 2187/2187.

"Sanity value?" Lin Yi thought to himself, and quickly opened his personal panel.

Sure enough, the HP bar that originally represented health points had disappeared, and in its place was a new line of blue data.

Next to it was a small note: [Reaching zero sanity will cause the hunter to fall into permanent madness or mental annihilation, equivalent to death.]

It seems that in this dream world, the standard for measuring his survival is no longer physical damage, but mental stability and the continuation of reason.

Lin Yi cursed under his breath, forcing himself to calm down and stop trying in vain to fight against the omnipresent sense of oppression.

He was like an experienced diver, adjusting his posture in the deep sea, carefully adapting to his body which was shackled with heavy chains, and searching for a rhythm and balance to walk.

Lin Yi leaned against a piece of metal debris about half his height and stood up with great difficulty.

"Squeak—click..."

A very faint metallic scraping sound came out of nowhere from the depths of a pile of bearings and broken drive shafts half-buried in oil stains on the left.

Danger!

Lin Yi's physical reactions were faster than his thoughts.

The instant the sound rang out, his body, like a spring compressed to its limit, slid to the right behind a bunker made of discarded metal frames and huge broken gears.

He held his breath, his heartbeat slowed under the control of his strong will, and his aura instantly subsided, his presence reduced to a minimum.

Something was wriggling between a pile of rusted bearings and a broken drive shaft.

It wasn't the wriggling of a living creature, but more like... the commotion produced by countless tiny metal parts colliding with each other.

A few seconds later, a palm-sized, bizarrely shaped "thing" emerged from the oil stains in the gaps between the parts.

The thing had a flat, cockroach-like outline, but its body consisted of seven or eight rusty, discarded gears of varying sizes.

These gears mesh together in a way that defies the laws of physics, serving as the connection points between its twisted torso and limbs.

Several copper wires, flickering with faint electric sparks, acted as its tentacles, with a small piece of broken green crystal stuck to the end.

Its legs are a few bent springs and broken metal rods, making a creepy "click, click" sound when it walks, leaving tiny scratches on the ground.

At the head is a red indicator light the size of a button, which is currently flashing a very faint red light.

A mechanical cockroach made entirely of industrial waste and discarded parts.

It seemed not to have noticed Lin Yi, but was just crawling aimlessly along the edge of the pile of parts. The red indicator light flickered on and off, and the "click" sound was amplified countless times in the silent alley.

"Dream creatures...creations of consciousness? Or derivatives of rules?" Lin Yi's mind raced.

He didn't want to disturb it, especially given the unclear circumstances and his own severely suppressed state.

Before coming here, Gulu told Lin Yi that the dream world is full of strange and wonderful things, and that he should not underestimate anything. Maybe the little white rabbit you think you are is the real big bad wolf in the dream world.

Just as Lin Yi was about to quietly retreat to the other end of the alley, the red indicator light on the mechanical cockroach suddenly lit up, and the flashing frequency suddenly increased!

"Zi la——!"

Without warning, it changed direction, and the copper wires that acted as tentacles suddenly straightened, pointing towards the metal frame where Lin Yi was hiding.

A faint mental shock, like an invisible steel needle, instantly pierced Lin Yi's mind.

hum!
Lin Yi felt a sudden throbbing in his temples, as if he had been stabbed hard by a fine needle.

Although with his soul strength, this level of impact was like a gentle breeze, you have to understand that this is just a creature that came out of a garbage dump. No wonder everyone says that the dream world is dangerous. This creature gave Lin Yi a hard time as soon as he arrived.

The hunter has been attacked by 'mechanical cockroaches', and its sanity has decreased by 1.

Worse still, this attack appears to be a signal.

"Click! Click! Click-click-click-click—!"

Like stirring up a hornet's nest! The surrounding pile of silent parts suddenly erupted into a dense, rain-like sound of metal scraping and colliding.

Countless red dots lit up in the gaps between the parts.

One by one, creatures of various shapes and sizes, forcibly pieced together from discarded mechanical parts, emerged.

There were metal beetles the size of a fist with drill-like mouthparts; snake-like creatures with cable tails and bodies made of broken screens; and even a "spider" the size of half a washbasin, made of rusted iron sheets and springs.

Surrounded by mechanical insects, Lin Yi was surrounded by surging lightning, and arcs of electricity leaped across the surface of the metal junk pile, forming a field filled with destructive energy.

These bizarrely shaped mechanical insects seemed to have no concept of fear, and without hesitation, they crashed headlong into the domain of Dark Surge Thunder.

"Sizzle—crack!"

The ear-piercing crackling of electricity and the sound of metal shattering instantly replaced the monotonous scraping sound, becoming the main melody of the alley!
The first few gear cockroaches and drill beetles that charged forward stiffened abruptly the moment they came into contact with the Dark Surge Thunder's domain.

The discarded parts that make up their bodies—rusted gears, brittle plastic, and exposed copper wires—exploded into tiny sparks in an instant under the bite of the violent electric snakes.

There were no screams, no splattering of blood and flesh, only the pungent smell of disintegrating parts and molten metal, and short bursts of cracking sounds.

"Ok?"

The corrosive and paralyzing effects of the Dark Surge Lightning seemed to have little effect on these things—they weren't made of flesh and blood, so how could they be paralyzed? Let alone have their life force eroded.

"No life."

However, their physical structure is as fragile as rotten wood in the face of the pure destructive power of the Dark Surge Lightning.

“Crackling—!”

The subsequent horde of mechanical insects, like moths drawn to a flame, plunged one after another into this deadly trap of lightning.

The high-voltage current and violent physical tearing effect of the Dark Surge Lightning are the nemesis of these small constructs.

In an instant, lightning flashed through the narrow alley, and fragments of parts flew everywhere as if struck by an invisible giant hammer, clanging and clattering. The red indicator lights went out in the explosion, and twisted limbs, emitting black smoke, were scattered all over the ground.

Lin Yi stood still, the Dark Surge Lightning Domain centered on him, steadily crushing the endless stream of mechanical insects into real scrap metal.

Each explosion, each flash of light, was accompanied by a barrage of notification messages appearing in the corner of his field of vision:

[You have killed the 'Mechanical Cockroach', but have suffered a slight backlash from mental pollution, reducing your sanity by 1.]

[You have killed the 'Drill Beetle', but have suffered a minor mental pollution backlash, reducing your sanity by 1.]

[You have killed the 'Display Serpent', but have suffered a minor mental pollution backlash, reducing your sanity by 1.]

[You have killed...sanity decreased by 1.]

Kill notifications flashed by like flowing water, their sheer number almost forming a blurry expanse of light and shadow.

His sanity level is gradually decreasing.

Although it only deducts 1 point each time, it seems insignificant compared to Lin Yi's maximum of 2187.

But this persistent mental pollution is itself a warning: in this world, any contact and struggle slowly erodes your sanity. (End of Chapter)