I will burn books and slay gods.

These toys are "fear amplifiers".

Children’s fears of specific toys—such as being afraid of a doll’s eyes or a balloon suddenly bursting—are extracted and concentrated and delivered to nightmares through a conduit.

The toy's inherent "fear symbolism" amplifies the power of fear.

He needs to disconnect these connections.

But how can I do it without being detected?

With six guards and the Nightmare Core currently being nurtured, forcing our way in would be suicide.

Chen Ye observed the room's structure.

There are ventilation ducts on the ceiling, and the duct openings are about five meters away from the cocoon.

If we could get close from there...

He checked the time.

There is still one hour and ten minutes until the peak of the thunderstorm.

A slight vibration came from the communicator, a pre-set signal from the instructor: they had attracted most of the guards' attention and were ready to move.

Chen Ye made up his mind.

He retreated into the passageway, located the entrance grille of the ventilation duct, carefully pried it open with a tool, and crawled inside.

The passage was narrow, so one could only crawl forward.

The smell of dust and rust mixed with a cloying, pinkish-purple odor was nauseating.

Chen Ye tried to move as gently as possible, but the pipe still made a slight metallic squeaking sound.

Fortunately, the harmonies at the ceremony masked these noises.

After climbing about ten meters, he reached the bottom of the cocoon.

Through the grille, he could clearly see the scene below.

The six guards remained in their positions, but one of them suddenly looked up at the ceiling.

Chen Ye froze.

Beneath the guard's hood was a young face, but his eyes were cloudy yellow and had no pupils.

He stared at the vent for a few seconds, then lowered his head and continued the ceremony.

Was he not discovered? Or... was he deliberately let in?

Chen Ye suppressed his unease; there was no time to hesitate now.

He took out a small cutting tool, ready to cut through the grille, and then jumped down to sever the toy's connections.

But just before he made his move, the cocoon below suddenly throbbed violently.

The fetal shadow inside the cocoon stretched out, revealing a clearer outline—it was not a living being, but a monster pieced together from many twisted children's limbs.

It has five arms, three legs, and three heads, each with only one enormous eye.

Both eyes opened at the same time.

The deep red pupils turned and locked onto the location of the air vent.

Chen Ye felt a chilling fear creep up his spine.

That wasn't his fear; it was an external emotion, injected directly at the conceptual level.

The nightmare was "watching" him and instilling fear in him.

He gritted his teeth and activated the "Book" card and the "Bridge" card in his cognitive blueprint.

Knowledge is light, illuminating the darkness of the unknown.

Connection is a bridge, crossing the abyss of fear.

The two concepts form a protective layer, resisting the invasion of external fear.

But that wasn't enough; the fear transmission from the Nightmare Child was too strong.

The guards below looked up, their yellow eyes all fixed on the ventilation shaft.

"A mouse has slipped in," a guard said, his voice like sandpaper scraping.

"Get rid of it," another guard waved.

The two guards left the ceremony area and walked towards the area below the ventilation shaft.

They drew weapons from beneath their robes—not swords, but strange staves that looked like they were pieced together from bones and toy parts.

Chen Ye knew he couldn't wait any longer.

He kicked the grille open, and as he fell, he threw the cutting tool in his hand at the pile of toys.

The tool spun in the air, precisely severing the three conduits connecting the toys.

The broken conduit spewed out a pinkish-purple mist, and a sharp, child-like scream emanated from the pile of toys.

"Stop him!" the guard shouted.

Chen Ye landed and rolled, dodging a blow from a bone staff.

He quickly got up and pulled out another device Lu Yuan had given him from his backpack—a concept jammer.

The device starts up, emitting a high-frequency hum.

The surrounding conceptual field began to become disordered, and the flow of fear conduits became unstable.

"It's useless," a guard sneered. "The Nightmare Child is already formed; you're just feeding it more food."

Indeed, the pulsation of the cocoon of nightmares actually accelerated.

The fear energy released by the broken conduit did not dissipate, but was actively absorbed by the cocoon.

Cracks appeared on the surface of the cocoon, and the monster inside was hatching.

Chen Ye dodged the attacks while observing the situation.

He noticed that although the nightmare was absorbing fear, the absorption process was not stable—the newly input energy was in conflict with the existing energy.

It's like injecting a person with both a stimulant and a sedative at the same time.

He had a dangerous idea.

What if... he instilled contradictory fears into Tongyan?

Children are afraid of many things, but their fears are often contradictory: they are afraid of the dark, but also afraid of bright light; they are afraid of being alone, but also afraid of crowds; they are afraid of monsters, but also afraid of... the unknown when there are no monsters.

Conflicting fears can cancel each other out, or even cause internal friction at the conceptual level.

Chen Ye hid behind a large piece of equipment, thinking quickly.

His cognitive abilities can "weave" simple concepts, but weaving complex, contradictory fears requires time and focus, and the guards will not give him that time.

unless……

He looked at the pile of toys.

Dolls, soldiers, building blocks, balloons—each carries a specific type of fear.

If he could "rewrite" the fears these toys represent, transforming them into contradictory versions...

The guard's bone staff slammed into the equipment, denting the metal.

Chen Ye was jolted backward, his back slamming against the wall.

"Lin Su! I need backup!" he shouted into the communicator.

"We're trapped on the second floor!" Lin Su's voice was laced with the sounds of flames and fighting. "The cult has ambushed us! They've deployed guards on every floor!"

Where is Wang Xiaoming?

"Trying to interfere again, but the causal lines here are too tangled... Ah!"

Communication is interrupted.

Chen Ye's heart sank.

They fell into a trap.

The cult had anticipated their arrival and had laid a trap here.

As the two guards drew closer, dark purple energy began to condense on the bone staff.

"Subject 07," a guard said in a sandpaper-like voice, "The Order invested a great deal of effort in training you, yet you've sided with the enemy. Now, it's time to go home."

The bone staff swung down.

Chen Ye raised his arm to block, but the expected impact did not come.

A pale white wall of flames rose before him, blocking the bone staff.

Lin Su leaped out from the flames, kicking a guard away.

"Sorry we're late." She shook her hand, flames swirling in her palm. "The stairs were blown up; we climbed down through the window."

Instructor Gui and Wang Xiaoming also rushed in from another entrance.

With a wave of his hands, Instructor Jubilee created a spatial rift that forced the other two guards back.

Wang Xiaoming then began to set up causal interference nodes to disrupt the energy flow of the ritual array.

"Where are the others?" Chen Ye asked.

"The Shield Team is fighting hard at the sewage treatment plant, while the Weaving Team is being suppressed at the TV tower." Instructor Guild Leader's face was grim. "The cult has twice the manpower we anticipated. This is a full-scale offensive."

The cocoon of nightmares has developed more cracks.

A pale little hand emerged from the crack, with long, thin fingers and black nails.

"There's no time," Chen Ye said. "Give me three minutes. I need to rewrite the fear concepts associated with those toys."

"How do I do it?" Lin Su asked.

"I use my cognitive abilities to infuse each toy with contradictory fear attributes," Chen Ye explained.

Chen Ye rushed towards the pile of toys. "For example, this plush toy. Children are afraid of it because it 'moves.' So I added the concept of 'the curse of stillness' to it—the more it moves, the scarier it is, but it's even scarier if you don't understand it at all."

"This creates a self-contradictory fear within the toy."

Wang Xiaoming understood.