Samsara Paradise: Dream Weaver of Connections.

"Dream device? More details. What is that? How did you get it? How many does your Black Tooth Gang have?"

"No... I don't know... I really don't know what that thing is... I only heard the higher-ups mention it, it's like a helmet. If you wear it, you'll be automatically pulled into the Nightmare Realm in a safe place... Otherwise, you can only rely on luck, or enter through a specific location..."

He paused for a moment, then coughed violently, blood and foam spilling from the corner of his mouth.

Those bloodshot eyes, filled with pain, carefully observed Gulu's expression, afraid that their answer would not satisfy her.

"I heard that thing can only be made using special materials that are mined down there. Our Black Tooth Gang only has one, and we can only send one person down at a time, and that person has to be someone the boss trusts..."

"So, large organizations rely on the number of devices they have?" Guru's knife tip gently probed the wound on the man's arm.

"Ugh—! Yes...yes!" The man convulsed in pain. "The more devices there are, the more people can go down, the more resources can be collected, and the more people can be recruited to seize more territory..."

In this forgotten, slumbering city, the ability to enter the Nightmare Realm has long transcended the realm of mere tools.

It is the nakedest proof of power and the most indispensable cornerstone for maintaining survival.

The "dream entry device" is the only key to open that forbidden door.

The number of these keys directly determines the rise and fall of the twisted forces lurking in the shadows of the city.

Those powerful gangs and secret societies that dominate a region all possess multiple devices.

These devices form the core of their chain of control, flowing like blood vessels with resources from nightmares, nourishing their ambitions.

Meanwhile, the pathetic creatures like the Black Tooth Gang, struggling to survive in the filth, can only scavenge for scraps in the garbage dump, fighting for the meager leftovers that slip through the fingers of the powerful.

“One last question,” Gulu’s voice returned to its previous calm, “Which area of ​​the City of Sleeping Demons is your Blacktooth Gang’s headquarters located in?”

The man fell silent. Betraying intelligence might bring him a quick release, but betraying the location of the stronghold meant utter betrayal.

In gangs where violence is the norm, the cost of such betrayal often goes beyond death itself.

Death here is not the end, but the beginning of a deeper nightmare.

The thin blade moved again, this time slicing towards the man's genitals.

“West…West ​​Third District…Old Drainage Hub…Underground…B7 Floor…” The extreme fear instantly overwhelmed his hesitation, and the man almost blurted it out.

"very good."

As soon as she finished speaking, the dagger that had been stuck in the man's throat twisted to the side.

Click.

A crisp sound of a neck bone breaking rang out, and the man's final convulsions ceased.

The hissing sounds stopped abruptly, and the cloudy eyes completely lost their luster.

Gulu released the blood-stained dagger, letting the corpse slump to the ground.

She casually brushed her fingertips across the hem of her skirt, wiping away a few dark red spots, then opened the temporary team's communication interface and sent a message to Lin Yi.

"Location? Tell me a landmark."

Lin Yi replied almost instantly after seeing Gulu's message: "On the right, a black tower, about ten kilometers away."

Gulu looked up, his gaze piercing through the perpetually gray sky above the City of Slumber.

Far to her left, a massive, towering black shadow pierced the low, chaotic skyline.

Like a giant, rusty sword forgotten in the long river of time, it stands silently and stubbornly in the ruins of the city, its tip hidden in the depths of the rolling gray fog, exuding an ominous loneliness.

She extended her thumb, squinted one eye, and compared the tower's massive silhouette, which was faintly visible in the gray fog, to the path in her mind, estimating the straight-line distance and the complex terrain obstacles she might encounter.

"Tsk, thirty or forty kilometers..." This number made her tense nerves relax a little.

By the standards of the contractors, in an urban environment like the City of Sleep where buildings are generally low and staggered, a straight-line distance of several tens of kilometers is not too far.

For those with agility, these obstacles are more like stepping stones to gain leverage and accelerate than true hindrances.

Especially when the target is so large and conspicuous, like a lighthouse in the dark, there shouldn't be too much of a problem as long as the direction is correct.

"I'll be right there," she texted Lin Yi.

Then, Gulu lightly touched a protruding piece of metal debris on the alley wall with its toes, and without making a sound, it flipped onto the half-collapsed roof next to it.

The roof is sloping, covered with tiles whose original color is no longer discernible and rusted metal plates.

She identified the direction of the tower and then began to move at high speed on the top of the city's low, staggered buildings.

Lin Yi closed the communication interface, leaned against a metal wall covered with graffiti and rust, and remained in place.

The lingering burnt smell and strong volatile odor of engine oil from the crushed mechanical insects by Dark Surge Thunder had not yet completely dissipated from the air.

During the brief interval while waiting for Gulu to arrive, Lin Yi activated his senses to begin probing the surrounding area.

Although the mental interference permeating the entire surface world is like an omnipresent viscous swamp, severely hindering the outward projection of mental power and clear perception, his "halo" ability is not an active mental scan, but more like a field sensing of energy fields and life fluctuations, and is subject to relatively less suppression.

In his perception, the surroundings were not completely silent; there were still many residents whose life force was fluctuating. However, these fluctuations were extremely weak, like candles flickering in the wind, emanating a numbness and despair that penetrated to the bone.

Their spirits are like tattered rags that have been repeatedly trampled, leaving only hollow echoes, devoid of any positive emotions, only a kind of silence awaiting final decay.

These life forms mostly retreat to the deepest corners of the building, like wounded and dying beasts hiding in dark caves, responding to any disturbance from the outside world with a stagnant silence and complete isolation.

Time passed in silence, with only the occasional scraping of metal or the hollow whistling of the wind coming from afar.

About fifteen minutes later, a very slight scraping sound came from the side and above.

Lin Yi opened his eyes instantly and saw Gulu slide down from a rusty metal beam above him and land lightly on the mountain of gear and pipe debris piled up in front of him.

After Gulu stopped, his gaze swept over Lin Yi to check his condition, and then fell on the pile of mechanical insect remains on the ground that were still emitting faint blue smoke.

Her face was expressionless, and she sighed softly. Her voice wasn't loud, but it sounded exceptionally clear in the deathly quiet alley.

Lin Yi looked at her, and combining her astonished questioning during the teleportation with the Paradise's hint about "gaining physical access due to the Dream Walker's status," a hypothesis formed in his mind.

Lin Yi didn't beat around the bush and asked directly, "What problems will occur if the physical body comes in directly?"

Gulu didn't answer immediately. She casually glanced around the alley filled with metal debris, a gesture that seemed more like she was checking the safety of the surroundings and potential spying.

A few seconds later, after confirming that it was temporarily safe, Gulu turned his gaze back to Lin Yi, looking at him as if he were a guy carrying a bomb without realizing it. "The problem? The problem is huge."

She extended her index finger and tapped her smooth temple: "Even if the spiritual body is torn to pieces by those ghostly things inside, as long as it's not completely corrupted and devoured by something particularly evil, or its soul core is shattered, there's still a chance to recover. You can think of it as the spiritual body here being like a flexible slime. Even if the body, or rather the spiritual form, is mostly destroyed, as long as the core consciousness remains, a small fragment of the spirit can escape, and there's still hope for recovery. It's like having an extra buffer, understand?"

"The park's warnings are not so optimistic."

“That’s because Paradise never guarantees anything. It only tells you that when your spiritual body dies, the body it’s anchored to also perishes.” Gulu chuckled. “But there are always special cases, such as when your spiritual body is only severely damaged and scattered rather than completely annihilated, and your core consciousness is still intact; or when you possess certain life-saving tricks or special items that are bound to your soul. Paradise won’t specifically mention these possibilities, but they objectively exist.”

Gulu paused for a moment, then looked directly at Lin Yi: "But once your physical body enters, all chances are completely cut off! Your body is here, and your soul is here too. The two are anchored tightly together, with no buffer zone whatsoever. If you die here, you are truly dead. Your soul will be scattered, and your body will become nourishment for this nightmare land. Not even a trace will be left for you. You can't be pulled back even if you want to."

Gulu looked at Lin Yi with a bit of a headache. Entering the dream world with one's physical body is an extremely rare occurrence, and she had never expected that Lin Yi would possess a skill sufficient to trigger such a special condition.

This unexpected event completely disrupted her original action plan and risk assessment. For an assassin like her who was used to acting alone, the difficulty and potential risks of operating in the City of Sleeping with a living "physical anchor" increased almost exponentially.

"What benefits would there be from physically entering?" The danger is clear, so there must be corresponding value.

"Benefits?" Gulu seemed to have heard something interesting. "There are indeed benefits. Your body is a real anchor point, a projection of the material world. This gives you a much higher natural resistance threshold to the mental pollution permeating this nightmare land than a pure spiritual body or the natives who have been assimilated here for a long time. Simply put, you are less likely to go insane. Secondly, your ability to acquire and carry certain 'physical' resources unique to certain nightmare realms may be more advantageous than that of a spiritual body. But do you know what the biggest 'benefit' is?"

Gulu tilted his head slightly and said, word by word, "You will become the most exquisite delicacy in the eyes of all 'abnormalities.' The legendary 'Tang Monk's flesh.'"

Lin Yi frowned almost imperceptibly: "Tang Monk's flesh?"

“Yes! A walking feast! An unparalleled top-tier lure!” Gulu nodded vigorously. “The monsters here, especially those ancient beings who have entrenched themselves in the depths of the Nightmare Realm for countless years, know better than anyone what kind of ‘dream’ they are trapped in. They crave reality, crave fresh flesh and blood, crave to escape this eternal cage. And a body that has not been assimilated by this world…”

"For them, it's the only hope to escape this hellhole! A ticket to the real world! Do you think that when they smell your 'flesh,' they'll pounce on you like rabid dogs that haven't eaten for hundreds of years?"

As if to confirm Gollum's words, the instant her voice fell—

hum...

A deep humming sound suddenly arose from all directions without warning.

The pile of metal junk beneath their feet began to tremble violently, as if shaken by an invisible giant hand.

The piled-up gears, bearings, and pipes collided and rubbed against each other, producing a series of dense and ear-piercing "click-clack" sounds, like countless tiny teeth gnawing at each other.

Lin Yi and Gulu tensed up almost simultaneously. In the deepest part of the alley, the area that was originally just a relatively dark shadowy spot, now surged and boiled wildly, like a pool of viscous ink with stones thrown in.

The boundaries of the shadows became blurred, as if melted and collapsed inward by an invisible force, forming a vortex that was constantly shrinking inward, connecting to some unknown realm.

A powerful, suffocating mental shock descended instantly, no longer the tentative harassment of the mechanical insects, but a "sticky" voyeuristic feeling with an almost tangible greed.

This feeling was hundreds of times stronger than the mental impact of those mechanical insects before. It wasn't simple malice or murderous intent, but a more primal hunger and possessiveness. This desire frantically assaulted Lin Yi's willpower barrier, trying to penetrate his body.

[Warning: The hunter is under the "gaze" of the Nightmare Realm, and his mental pollution is rapidly worsening, with his sanity continuously decreasing (current rate of decrease: 7 points/minute).]

"Does this thing have a dog's nose? It arrived really fast!"

"Keep your mind focused! Don't let its mental attacks break you! And don't let it pull you into that vortex! Anyone who can escape the nightmare space and forcefully manifest a projection in the real world is definitely a tough nut to crack!"

The shadow's movements grew more and more violent, its edges bulging and collapsing like boiling, churning asphalt.

Lin Yin could clearly sense that something was trying to tear apart the membrane of this space and crawl out of the shadows, and the feeling of being spied on was getting stronger and stronger.

The churning shadows suddenly collapsed inward, as if gripped tightly by an invisible giant hand, coalescing into a blurry, indeterminate outline.

The outline was somewhere between solid and shadowy, barely discernible as a humanoid torso and a multi-jointed arm like that of an arthropod, but the details were blurry, like a poorly received television screen.

It had no eyes, but two pure black holes lit up at the location of its "head," staring intently at Lin Yi.

A mental shock far stronger than before crashed into Lin Yi's consciousness.

Om-!
Lin Yi felt as if his brain had been struck by a heavy hammer, and everything went black before his eyes.

[Warning: The hunter has been subjected to a mental attack by the "Gaze," resulting in a 25-point decrease in sanity. Mental status is being assessed...]

[The hunter's soul strength far exceeds the attack's threshold, reducing the mental attack effect by 80% and the additional chaotic information flow impact effect by 70%.]

[Actual SAN value reduced by 7. Current SAN value: 2153/2187.]

At the same instant the mental shock descended, that ferocious arm ignored the physical barrier, instantly traversing several meters of space, its five fingers outstretched, reaching straight for Lin Yi's chest.

"Go away!"

Gulu did not choose to confront the claw head-on. As she spun around, the thin-bladed dagger in her hand trembled and drew an arc along the trajectory of the shadowy arm.

Tsk-!
A strange sound, like tearing a thick tarpaulin, was heard.

About a third of the front part of the shadowy arm that was reaching for Lin Yi was forcibly "peeled off".

The fragments that separated from the main body instantly lost their activity and quickly turned into wisps of foul-smelling black smoke that dissipated.

Dark Soul Silk appeared beside Lin Yi, and his arm was instantly cut into countless fingernail-sized fragments, like rotten wood thrown into a shredder.

The fragments also turned into black smoke and dissipated, leaving not a trace behind.

Upon seeing this, Gulu paused noticeably for a moment, then a hint of joy replaced his expression.

"So you have a soul attack skill, huh? Why didn't you say so earlier?" Gulu sheathed her dagger. That special skill with its high-frequency shockwave had consumed a considerable amount of mana for her, a pure agility-based assassin.

She doesn't have much intelligence, and her mana cap is low, so every bit of energy is extremely precious, and she tries to conserve it whenever possible.

Lin Yi's ability to counter the soul attacks of these dream creatures undoubtedly relieved her of a huge amount of pressure and energy expenditure.

Lin Yi's gaze did not leave the still twisting and writhing shadowy area on the wall. Although the attack was neutralized, the vortex point connecting to the nightmare space did not disappear. Instead, it surged violently due to the setback, and more blurry tentacle-like shadows emerged from it, trying to coalesce again.

Several sword energies burst forth from Lin Yi's hand and pierced into the shadows. Several inhuman screams came from the wall. The sounds did not seem to travel through the air, but rather resounded directly in people's minds, filled with pain and anger.

As the screams subsided, the distorted area on the wall quickly flattened out like the receding tide, and the unstable connection point finally closed completely, returning to its normal shadow state.

The alleyway returned to its previous deathly silence, with only a slightly dark stain on the wall as evidence of the brief but deadly confrontation that had just taken place.

For Lin Yi, launching an attack at the soul level was not difficult.

The additional skill he gains after advancing to Sword Master level 20—[Soul Shadow Sword]—allows him to attach soul damage to his attacks at will.

Gulu carefully sensed for a moment, and only after confirming that the uncomfortable feeling of being watched had completely disappeared did he truly relax.

"It seems that taking you on this mission is more troublesome than I imagined. Our immediate priority is to find a way to conceal or disrupt the aura emanating from you. Otherwise, every step we take from here on out will be a series of endless troubles." (End of Chapter)