I will burn books and slay gods.

A spider-like creature with an infant's face followed closely behind, its eight slender legs stomping on the pool wall, making a metallic scraping sound.

Even more frightening is that the "parts" that were not yet fully assembled also began to move.

A single arm emerged from the gelatinous substance, its palm open, its mouth split open; the torso crawled on the ground, pink mist gushing from its severed ends; dozens of vesicles with only heads floated up, their hollow eyes all turning toward the five-person group.

"Battle formation!"

Instructor Guildrat drew his broken blade from his waist, blue light patterns emanating from the edge—mist manifested from his spatial cutting ability. "Lin Su, clear out the minions! Chen Ye, support the cognitive defense! Wang Xiaoming, disrupt that compiler! Lu Yuan, find an opportunity to destroy the rune array!"

The moment the order was given, the battle erupted.

Lin Su's flames were fully unleashed.

A pale firestorm swept forward, engulfing the arms and heads of the first Mist Spirits to charge forward.

But this time, the effect of the flames was weaker—the pink gel seemed to be resistant, and the burned parts quickly absorbed new substances from the pool to regenerate.

"The colloidal pools are their energy source!"

Lin Su shouted, "The connection must be cut!"

Chen Ye acted immediately.

He tried to draw upon his knowledge to analyze the chemical structure of the colloidal pool, but as soon as his mind touched that concept, he felt a violent dizziness.

The "essence" of the colloidal pool is changing wildly—one second it is carbohydrates, the next it becomes proteins, and the next it becomes a completely unknown material structure.

It's the compiler who's causing the interference!

He is constantly rewriting the "definition" of the colloidal pool!

"Wang Xiaoming!" Chen Ye shouted.

Wang Xiaoming has already taken action.

His figure vanished completely into the air, with only faint ripples indicating his location.

He circled around to Xu Yan's side, attempting to disrupt the continuity of the opponent's abilities using causal lines.

But Xu Yan didn't even look at him, simply raising his hand and making a sweeping motion in the air.

Wang Xiaoming screamed and fell out of stealth mode.

He had a deep wound on his left arm, not cut, but "conceptually marked as injured".

The cause and effect have been directly altered.

"Low-level manipulation of causality."

Xu Yan shook his head. "You haven't even grasped the true meaning of 'existence' yet."

Taking advantage of this opportunity, the subject pounced on Wang Xiaoming.

Eight legs pierced down like spears.

Chen Ye had no time to think.

He grabbed the bookmark from his chest, squeezing it tightly, while extracting the simplest truth from his notebook: "Chen Ye is real. Wang Xiaoming's injury is real. The spider's attack is real."

He materialized these three "realities" as three glowing characters and shot them at the spider's body.

The spider's body froze the moment the text struck its target.

The expression on its baby face changed from cruelty to confusion, because it "recognized" a contradiction—if Chen Ye's statement was true, then its own "existence" seemed out of place within this logical framework.

Nightmares are irrational creations; when forcibly incorporated into a rational framework, they will disintegrate.

The spider's body began to disintegrate, but very slowly.

"Interesting." Xu Yan showed a serious expression for the first time. "Using fundamental truths to combat conceptual distortions... You are special, young man."

He turned to Chen Ye, his dark eyes locking onto him.

Chen Ye instantly felt like he was being "analyzed".

It's not a physical observation, but a conceptual deconstruction.

He felt that his memory, knowledge, and abilities were being examined by an invisible hand.

"Cognitive compatibility is still in its early stages of evolution..."

Xu Yan seemed thoughtful. "With proper guidance, you could become an excellent 'truth builder.' Unfortunately, you chose the wrong path."

He pointed a finger at Chen Ye: "Let me show you another use for rationality."

The space around Chen Ye began to change.

The floor turned into book pages, the walls into text, and mathematical formulas floated in the air.

But all of this is distorted—the formulas are wrong, the words are reversed, and the logic on the pages is self-contradictory.

This is a trap of knowledge.

The labyrinth, constructed with reason, is specifically designed for individuals like him who rely on cognitive abilities.

Chen Ye felt the karma monitoring device alarming wildly.

The gray mist surged, almost engulfing the soul fire.

All the philosophers and mathematicians in my mind began to scream, because their theories were being maliciously tampered with.

He gripped the bookmark tightly, trying to think of "the simplest facts".

But Xu Yan's interference was too strong.

Even the proposition that "Chen Ye is real" is beginning to waver—if all the logic in this space is reversed, then what is the definition of "real"?

Just then, Lin Su's flames arrived.

It wasn't attacking Xu Yan, but rather burning around Chen Ye.

The pale flames formed a protective circle, isolating it from external conceptual interference.

"Don't let him lead you into a logical trap!"

Lin Su's voice pierced through the flames, "In your own way! Not a debate, but a declaration!"

Announcement…

Chen Ye understood.

He doesn't need to prove himself right, nor does he need to play by the rules set by the other party.

All he needs to do is... speak his truth.

He closed his eyes, ignoring the distorted labyrinth of knowledge around him, and extracted the simplest sentences from his deepest memories.

My name is Chen Ye.

I am the Night's Watchman.

I choose to protect.

Lin Su was a companion.

Wang Xiaoming is a companion.

I will stop you.

Because this is the right choice.

He used these sentences not as weapons, but as simple statements about who he was, what he believed, and what he was going to do.

The distorted space began to vibrate.

The labyrinth of knowledge woven by Xu Yan began to crack in the face of these simplest and most unquestionable declarations.

Because the foundation of the labyrinth is "everything can be questioned", but Chen Ye's declaration disdains to participate in questioning at all - their knowledge exists, just as stones exist, just as flames burn.

"snort."

Xu Yan frowned, preparing to intensify the interference.

But the ruler instructor seized the opportunity.

In the split second that Chen Ye was distracted by the maze and Xu Yan was distracted, she finally broke through the conceptual lock.

The blue grid unfolded completely beneath her feet; it wasn't teleportation, but rather a spatial cutting.

She swung the broken blade in her hand.

The target is not Xu Yan, nor Wu Ling, but the connection point between the entire sewage treatment plant and the rune array.

The blade left a persistent blue crack in its wake.

That is a wound in space, a tear in the structure of reality.

The light from the purple rune array instantly became disordered.

The boiling of the pink gelatinous pool ceased, the regenerating Mist Spirit components began to dissolve, and the already formed stitches emitted painful hissing sounds.

The energy supply was cut off.

"Now!" the drill instructor shouted, "Lu Yuan!"

Lu Yuan was already prepared.

He took a metal cylinder from the equipment box, pressed a button, and threw it into the gelatinous pool.

The cylinder sank to the bottom of the pool and then exploded.

It wasn't an explosion, but rather a high-frequency conceptual shockwave.

All the vesicles ruptured simultaneously, and all the gelatinous material instantly "coagulated" into an inactive gray solid.

The entire hatchery was paralyzed.

Xu Yan's expression changed for the first time.

He looked at the destroyed pool, then at the five-person team that was regrouping.

"You've ruined three months' worth of work."

His voice finally betrayed emotion—anger. "Very well. Then, you will be the ones to make amends."

He put his hands together and began to chant.

The surrounding air temperature plummeted, the reality membrane fluctuated violently, and something much larger was being summoned.

"withdraw!"

Without hesitation, Instructor Judgment activated the teleportation beacon. "He's summoning a high-level Nightmare! Let's go!"

The five people were enveloped in a blue light.

Xu Yan finished reciting the poem at the last second.

A huge, eye-filled phantom began to coalesce above the pool.

But the transmission has already started.

The light engulfed everything.

In the abandoned warehouse, five people tumbled out of the blue aura, all pale-faced and wearing [illegible].

Wang Xiaoming's arm was still bleeding, Lu Yuan's eye was shattered, and Instructor Guichi had blood at the corner of his mouth—the backlash from forcibly breaking through the conceptual lock.

Lin Su's flames dimmed considerably, and Chen Ye's monitoring device showed that the concentration of karmic fog had risen to a dangerous threshold, but the soul fire still burned stubbornly.

They were silent for a few seconds.

"sample…"

Lu Yuan held up the collection tube in his hand, which was filled with a lot of pinkish gel. "Got it."

"We've obtained the intelligence as well."

Instructor Guildhall wiped away the blood. "The cult is indeed artificially cultivating Nightmares, and they've already mastered conceptual stitching. This is worse than we thought."

Chen Ye sat on the ground, still panting.

The battle he had just fought, especially the final conceptual confrontation with Xu Yan, felt like he had run a marathon.

But he was still alive, and his companions were still alive.

Moreover, he found a way to counter the concept makers—not with more complex knowledge, but with the simplest declarations of existence.

"The compiler said..."

Chen Ye recalled Xu Yan's words, "'Another use of reason'..."

"The cult's philosophy holds that reason is a tool that can be used to serve any purpose, including irrationality."

The instructor stood up and looked in the direction of the abandoned factory area. "They believe that they are the truly 'free'—unbound by morality, unrestricted by logic, and able to rewrite reality at will. We are the 'night watchmen,' and they are the 'weavers.'"

She looked away: "Let's go back first. This mission... can be considered a success, and a failure. We destroyed an incubator, but we also alerted them. The Order will strengthen its defenses, and now we know that one of us has the cognitive ability to shake the minds of their organizers."

She looked at Chen Ye: "You'll become a major target for them. You must be extra careful when you go out in the future."

Chen Ye nodded. He understood.

By the time the car returned to Morning Star, it was already dusk.

The sky was stained dark red, like dried blood.

Chen Ye returned to the ward, took out his notebook, and turned to the page filled with declarations.

He looked at it for a long time, then picked up his pen and added a sentence at the end:

No matter how many uses reason has, I choose to protect this one.

This was his choice.

It is also his fulcrum.

The sky outside the window had completely darkened.

The night is long, but the lights are already on.