Global Ghost Stories: I'm Investigating Ghosts in My Nightmare!

Chapter 8 The Most Perfect Work

"My dear Baiyu, you must take good care of this body of yours." After Baiyu left the apartment building, Heiyan's elegant silhouette in a sophisticated black suit gracefully appeared beside him. His voice was as gentle as a lover's whisper, yet it carried an unmistakable chill. "After all, if this exquisite vessel were to accidentally shatter, where would I find refuge?"

As dusk settled in the residential area, the warm glow cast a long shadow of Bai Yu, while Hei Yan's ethereal form remained shadowless, as if it belonged to another world. Residents strolled and children played nearby, creating an atmosphere of peace and tranquility, seemingly incongruous with the content of their conversation.

"This fatigue is nothing..." Bai Yu's voice was soft, carrying an undisguised weariness. He didn't stop walking, but just stared ahead, as if saying to himself, "...Why were your abilities sealed back then? That Nightmare's power shouldn't be stronger than yours, so how could it have affected you?"

Hei Yan's illusory figure paused for a moment, then turned his head slightly, a hint of displeasure flashing in his scarlet eyes.

"Oh? Are we going to...dig up old grievances?" His voice remained calm, yet it was like a poisoned thread, quietly entwining Bai Yu's nerves. "I thought we already had an unspoken understanding about that unpleasant past. My dear little Bai Yu, clinging to the past is not a good habit."

“Answer my question.” Bai Yu stopped in his tracks. He stood under a street lamp, half of his face hidden in shadow, but his eyes were unusually determined.

Hei Yan looked at him and suddenly let out a soft laugh. The laugh was deep and pleasant, but it made the surrounding air feel a bit colder.

He slowly floated to Bai Yu's side, leaned down slightly, and scrutinized Bai Yu's tired face with his scarlet eyes, as if admiring a work of art.

"Alright, since you insist," he slowly adjusted his illusory bow tie, "the answer has always been within you, hasn't it? Every time you feel powerless, every time you're awakened by a nightmare in the dead of night. What, do you need me... to help you 'review' your lessons?"

Bai Yu fell silent. That memory was like a brand etched on her soul; every touch brought a burning pain.

A cruel yet alluring smile curled at the corners of Hei Yan's mouth.

"It seems so. Then, let me, in my mercy, draw back the curtain of memories for you. Let us revisit this place together, back to a year ago, to that lovely place called 'The Ruins of Eternal Silence'... Let us savor the memories, my dear Little White Language, of how we crawled out of that hell where even 'existence' was erased, like two elegant but crippled dogs, supporting each other."

……

One year ago, on a rainy night, the highest-level conference room in the Central Building of the Investigation Bureau was brightly lit. As the undisputed ace of Investigation Team One, Bai Yu stood in front of the holographic projection, his expression confident and composed, like a chief conductor about to take the stage.

"Target: Primal Concept Nightmare, codenamed 'Silent Ruins'. Its core concepts are 'forgetting' and 'nothingness'. According to current intelligence, this Nightmare has infected the abandoned library in the west of the city, and any matter or information that enters it will be gradually erased. Danger level: Highest."

"The concept of 'nothingness'? Heh, what an...empty work of art." Hei Yan's voice echoed in Bai Yu's mind, carrying the arrogance of a connoisseur looking down on the world. "Let's see for ourselves what it's really made of, little Bai Yu."

At that time, Baiyu was used to Heiyan's arrogance and even regarded it as proof of his power. He believed that no matter what kind of enemy they faced, as long as Heiyan was there, they would be invincible.

When they stepped into the abandoned library shrouded in rain, everything seemed too normal, even too quiet.

The sound of rain stopped abruptly the moment I stepped through the door, as if the entire world had been muted. The air was thick with the musty smell of old pages and dust, but apart from that, there was no other sound. No howling monsters, no distorted illusions, only deathly silence.

This silence was not simply the absence of sound, but rather the fact that even the sounds they made as they moved—footsteps, breathing, the rustling of clothes—were being rapidly absorbed by an invisible force, as if thrown into a black hole, leaving no ripples.

Terror arrives without warning.

"Captain, what... what are we doing here?" a young team member suddenly asked blankly, his eyes filled with confusion.

An Mu was taken aback, about to reprimand him, but found that even with his mouth open, he couldn't recall the specific code name for this mission. A chill ran down his spine.

"It's the 'Silent Ruins'!" Bai Yu immediately warned, his heart pounding uncontrollably. "Everyone, be careful! This nightmare is stripping away our memories! Concentrate and keep repeating the mission objective and your identity information in your mind!"

However, this did not help at all.

The concept of "forgetting" is like a gentle poison, silently eroding everyone. They begin to forget common sense, how to use weapons, and even the names of their comrades who have fought alongside them for years.

"Who...who are you? Why are you pointing a gun at me?" Mo Fei looked at Lan Ce beside him warily, his eyes filled with unfamiliarity.

"I...I don't know..." Lan Ce's face was pale, and his hand holding the gun was trembling uncontrollably.

Panic spread like wildfire. The team began to fall apart, not because of infighting, but because the very concept of a "team" was being erased from their minds.

“Little Baiyu… something… is wrong…” Heiyan’s voice rippled in Baiyu’s mind for the first time, its elegant tone turning sharp and urgent, “My power… is being… devoured! No, not devoured, it’s being erased! This damned place is erasing my 'existence'! It’s denying me!”

Bai Yu's heart sank to the bottom. Even a powerful nightmare like Hei Yan, which originated from the concept itself, could not resist this kind of erasure at the level of existence.

He looked at the faces before him, now filled with unfamiliarity and terror, and he knew they had failed. Overcoming this nightmare was utterly impossible; their only goal now was to escape.

"Retreat! Everyone follow me, we're retreating through the gate!" he shouted, trying to rouse his men.

But when he turned and rushed back the way he came, the magnificent bronze gate had vanished. In its place were endless rows of bookshelves stretching to the horizon, as if they had always been at the heart of this library, without ever having an entrance. Even the concept of an "exit" had been forgotten.

Despair, like icy seawater, engulfed everyone. They were trapped in this forgotten tomb, waiting to be completely erased, like the dusty, blank books on the bookshelf, ultimately returning to nothingness.

"It's over... Baiyu! You foolish human, you've led us into a slaughterhouse!" Heiyan's gentlemanly demeanor shattered completely, his voice filled with violence and rage. "Soon, even the connection between us will be erased. Then, you'll forget me, I'll forget you, and we'll both become a speck of dust here, or even less than dust!" "There must be a way!" Baiyu leaned against a bookshelf, panting heavily. He forced himself to think, trying his best to fight against the blankness constantly flooding his mind. "Since 'forgetting' is its power, then conversely, with sufficiently profound 'memory,' with sufficiently powerful 'existence,' can we fight against it?"

"It's useless! Any 'existence' here will be assimilated!"

“What if…we create an ‘existence’ that it cannot understand or assimilate?” A glint of madness flashed in Bai Yu’s eyes.

Hei Yan's roar abruptly ceased. He instantly understood Bai Yu's meaning, and his illusory form trembled violently. Then, he let out a morbid and insane low laugh.

"Heh...heh...to use the collision of soul and origin to compose a magnificent funeral dirge for 'nothingness'? Oh, my dear Little White Whisper, it's truly...a pleasant surprise that you can occasionally come up with such creative ideas." His voice regained its eerie elegance, but the madness it contained was chilling, and even his own voice trembled. "The complete fusion of a mortal's soul and the origin of nightmares? Do you know what that means? It means that your body and soul will be burst open in an instant, leaving not even the smallest fragment. A grand but brief fireworks display, nothing more."

"That's better than being slowly forgotten here, disappearing as if it never existed!" Bai Yu's voice wasn't loud, but it carried an unwavering resolve. "We'll merge, using our combined power to forcibly tear open an 'exit' here that doesn't belong to us! This is the only way!"

"...Even if the price is your certain death? To save those mortals who are about to forget who you are?"

“At least they can survive.” Bai Yu glanced at his teammates behind him, whose eyes were already glazed over and who were about to completely lose themselves. “Even if they forget me, as long as they’re alive… that’s… that’s enough…”

After a long silence, Hei Yan let out a complex whisper.

"...Madman. You are truly the most beautiful, the most foolish, the most insane human being I have ever seen. Very well, since you are so eager to stage this magnificent tragedy, then I will be your conductor. Let us begin! Let this dull world witness the grandest, most dazzling...decay!"

The next second, an indescribable pain swept over Bai Yu's entire body. It wasn't physical pain, but a tearing and rebuilding originating from the depths of his soul.

The immense, ancient, chaotic, and insane primal power of Hei Yan surged into Bai Yu's soul like a burst dam. His consciousness felt as if it had been thrown into a meat grinder of countless negative emotions and ancient memories, being crushed and reshaped billions of times every second. His body began to crumble. Black cracks appeared on his skin, like porcelain about to shatter, blood seeping from the cracks only to be instantly swallowed by the dark energy. His eyes lost focus, his pupils transforming into abysses burning with crimson flames, just like Hei Yan's.

The entire library began to shake violently. The "monster" that was a fusion of humanity and nightmares exuded an aura of "existence" that was full of contradictions and rage, which even the "Silent Ruins" could not immediately erase.

"Now!" The fused entity roared, its white and black words overlapping. It stretched out its half-energy-transformed arm and clenched it tightly into the void before it!
"Open the ceremony for me!!!"

Space, like fragile glass, was forcibly ripped open with a piercing scream! Beyond the rift lay the familiar rainy night of the real world. An exit had been forcibly created!

"Come on!"

The fused entity used its last strength to push its dazed teammates behind it into the rift, one by one.

As the last figure disappeared into the rift, his body, already pushed to its limits, could no longer hold on. The fusion began to forcibly dissolve. The immense power that did not belong to him receded like a tide, leaving only a desolate ruin.

The moment Bai Yu's power faded, his body collapsed completely, like a sand sculpture stripped of its skeleton. His flesh, bones, and internal organs disintegrated, turning into primordial particles. His soul, like a mirror shattered by a hammer, broke into countless shimmering fragments. In the final moment before his consciousness sank into darkness, he saw the spatial rift slowly closing, and his own fragmented, mangled body falling into the cold rain in front of the Investigation Bureau's central building.

"Now, do you remember? My dear Xiaobaiyu, what a... ridiculous farce your so-called 'miraculous recovery' really was." Hei Yan's cold and elegant voice pulled Baiyu back to reality from her painful memories.

The streetlights were still warm, but Bai Yu couldn't feel any warmth at all; she only felt cold all over.

"After that, you ceased to exist. You became a handful of dazzling dust, the dust of the soul, beautiful, yet utterly useless." The illusory image of Hei Yan floated before him, its scarlet eyes filled with a morbid infatuation. "But unfortunately, you foolish mortal, in your self-destruction, you bound my very essence along with you. If you vanish, my great existence will also be tarnished. This is something I cannot tolerate."

He extended an illusory finger and gently touched Bai Yu's brow. The gesture was gentle, but his words were extremely cruel.

"So I, your humble symbiotic, had no choice but to play the role of craftsman. I spent a long time, using my precious essence, like piecing together a broken piece of porcelain, to retrieve your fragmented soul pieces, one by one, from the edge of nothingness. Then, using my power as adhesive, I pieced them back together and stuffed them back into your worthless pile of rotten flesh."

He withdrew his finger, took a step back, and looked at Bai Yu with the gaze of someone examining a masterpiece.

"So stop naively thinking you're still the invincible ace you used to be. You're now just my most prized creation. A unique work of art, patched up with the essence of nightmares, riddled with cracks. Every time I use my power, I'm exacerbating those invisible cracks. One day, you'll shatter completely, and then even the most skilled craftsman won't be able to repair a pile of real dust."

"As for me," Hei Yan's tone carried a hint of self-mockery, as if complaining about the flaws in his own work, "my essence is no longer complete because of repairing this 'work of art' of yours. Therefore, some low-level and insignificant rule-distorting nightmares can temporarily interfere with me under certain circumstances. Is this the answer you wanted, my dear Xiaobaiyu? Are you satisfied now?"

The truth was revealed in a cruel way.

Bai Yu stood silently in place, the streetlights casting long, thin shadows that made him appear exceptionally lonely. He slowly raised his hand, looking at his seemingly intact palm. Beneath this skin lay a soul already riddled with wounds and a body barely held together by the power of nightmares.

He felt neither fear nor regret. There was only a deep-seated weariness and a heavy sense of destiny, as if he were dancing with demons.

He took out the eyeball-shaped glass marble he had brought from the "Dream Cafe" from his pocket. Under the light, the marble refracted a dazzling light from the inside, like a miniature, pure world.

"I understand," he said softly, then clenched the marble tightly in his hand.

Even walking on the edge of destruction, even with an elegant yet tyrannical demon as his symbiotic partner, as long as he can move, as long as he can fight, he must keep going. Because in this world corrupted by nightmares, every small victory is hard-won. And he has already paid the full price, becoming this unique and fragile work of art.

(End of this chapter)