Nightmare Despair

Chapter 95 Wolf Hair
Lightning ripped through the night.

The putrid, foul-smelling blood, washed away by the torrential rain, spread out in concentric circles of dark red.

The mutated monsters, hiding in the dark corners, lay in wait, even their breathing becoming cautious.

They feared the ever-burning flames of sin... and perhaps, they also feared the brutal hunter who was dragging his prey back to his den.

The scorching heat, which even Zhou Kai found somewhat unbearable, was enough to keep the surrounding nightmare creatures from crossing the line. The journey back was uneventful.

Zhou Kai only needed to exert some effort to safely drag the carcass of the Hateful Wolf back to the shelter.

The mutated she-wolf that Elizabeth transformed into was much larger than a human, but when actually dragged, it wasn't as heavy as one might expect, probably less than a ton... This might be related to its state before and after its death.

Zhou Kai, who had faced it head-on, knew very well how terrifying the monster's power was at its peak.

In terms of weight alone, it is probably no less than that of an adult rhinoceros or hippopotamus.

"Was the missing mass absorbed by the ground?"

Zhou Kai recalled that when he hunted down that swordsman before, a part of the swordsman's body was also mysteriously sucked into the ground.

He had a vague understanding of what was going on.

"Nightmare itself... is also alive."

The act of absorbing nightmare creations can perhaps be understood as a recycling mechanism.

“Originating from her, returning to her… Does this ‘she’ refer to the earth, or to the nightmare itself?”

Zhou Kai's lips moved slightly as he softly repeated the words he had seen on the stone tablet in the nursery.

He watched the flames of the burning incense gradually fade into the distance, frowned, and closed the heavy door of the shelter.

……

The Willow Man paused briefly in front of house number 777 before walking away without looking back towards the other end of town.

It first moved towards the low-lying area, then crossed the lake as if walking on flat ground... step by step slowly disappearing into the thin mist on the opposite shore... the firelight grew dimmer and dimmer until it was completely swallowed by darkness.

"It's gone."

Zhou Kai, who witnessed this scene from the second-floor balcony, felt a slight unease in his heart. He then turned around and went downstairs to begin processing the trophy's body.

The departure of the Willow Man took with him a great potential danger, as well as light and that sense of security that came at a price.

Afterwards, the town will return to darkness, dampness, and a deathly silence filled with wandering monsters.

However, this can be considered a good thing.

After all, Zhou Kai is no longer as frail as he was at the beginning.

No hunter ever complains about having too much prey in his hunting grounds.

Of course, all of this is based on one premise.

Nightmare will no longer produce any ghostly things beyond his control.

Zhou Kai skillfully dismantled the corpses of the Hateful Wolves with his two-handed sword, then tried to stuff them all into the fireplace.

The furnace, which appeared to be full, turned out to be a bottomless pit when it was actually filled with fuel.

No matter how much Zhou Kai stuffed in at once, it could accept it all and swallow it all.

When Zhou Kai filled the fireplace with the entire Hateful Wolf and burned it for a while, the remaining burning time became clearly visible.

General experience points also pop up.

【81h】

[General Experience Points +6]

Seeing his experience points, which had just been depleted, quickly recover to 47 points, Zhou Kai was very satisfied.

"The more you use it, the more experience points you accumulate, which is not bad."

Whether he invests his experience points in items or skills, it's a sure-fire way to make money for him.

The blood tide had barely subsided, and the next one wouldn't arrive for at least seven or eight hours. The heavy rain outside the window was still pouring down.

Zhou Kai, who had been sitting in the fireplace for 81 hours, suddenly felt a long-lost sense of peace.

Perhaps in the future, he will treat the Nightmare World as his second home...

But not long after this thought popped into his head, Zhou Kai realized something was wrong.

This time, upon returning to the shelter, the chill within him hadn't dissipated as usual. Thinking about it carefully, the last cleansing didn't seem to have been thorough either…

He didn't know when it started, but the flames in the fireplace could no longer dispel the chill within him.

The chilling cold that would have vanished the moment it was exposed to the firelight was now slowly and steadily intensifying, even as he leaned close to the fireplace…

Although the increase is very small, it adds up, and after a dozen hours, it will inevitably accumulate to a point that he cannot bear.

"Even if you don't die in the nightmare, is this kind of erosion irreversible? No wonder... the longest that the official Nightmare Walkers from the Bureau of Extraordinary Events can live is only three or four years."

He stretched out his palm, his five fingers slowly opening and closing; the chill was far from affecting his movements.

Moreover, as he becomes stronger, his resistance to this kind of external erosion will also increase.

But... it still hung over his heart like a dark cloud.

According to Lin Sheng's intelligence, that three or four years of survival time was an ideal situation under the superposition of various optimal conditions.

For example, the nightmare's intensity is very weak, and the traveler himself has never died in a nightmare, etc.

But what about Zhou Kai? His start was like a bloody hell in the depths of hell.

The mere existence of the Blood Tide was enough to raise the Nightmare level of Soraka Town to above B, and he had already died four times inexplicably before he had a clear understanding of Nightmares.

Even now, he feels that he still knows very little, at least not as much as Chenxing.

He still has a long way to go.

The bad news dampened the joy of the achievement and instantly calmed Zhou Kai down.

He was acutely aware of his current situation.

Indeed, compared to most Nightmare Walkers, his luck was extremely bad.

However, Zhou Kai also has his own unique advantage, which is his face.

Zhou Kai sat down on the ground expressionlessly, feeling the firelight that no longer seemed warm enough, and began to carefully examine his harvest.

He conjured the letter and the eerie fur from his inventory and examined them for a moment in the firelight.

Zhou Kai seemed to be deep in thought, and then he made a decision to upgrade one of his skills.

"Add some mysticism and level up to level three."

With a thought, his general experience points plummeted.

[You have consumed 21 Universal Experience Points, and your Mysticism skill has leveled up!]

【Mysticism Lv3 (0/50)】

You try to extract more from the nightmare...

"The more you gaze, the more you become captivated; the closer you get, the more similar they become..."

An improvement in occult skills means that the person will be more susceptible to the effects of nightmares.

Zhou Kai even suspected that the gradually dimming fireplace flame might be related to the advancement of mysticism.

But the higher the risk, the greater the reward.

A higher level of mysticism would allow him to extract more from nightmares or make better use of certain things.

For example, on the wolf skin, there's that tuft of exceptionally coarse, stiff, and sharp gray-white wolf hair.

[Item: Mutated Wolf Hair Brush]

[Effect: Pierces into flesh and blood, undergoing mutation (the effect is enhanced by increasing the level of mysticism)]

Under the influence of mysticism.

Zhou Kai had already figured out how to use the wolf-hair brush.

By simply piercing the wolf hair into flesh, one can temporarily transform into a vengeful wolf... and as one's level of mysticism increases, this transformation will gradually become controllable.

Zhou Kai pulled a wolf hair hair from the skin; it was hard, like a needle.

There are twenty-three such thorns, and each one has the same effect.

Besides being used by oneself, it can also be used by others.

Zhou Kai twirled the wolf-hair brush in his hand, a cold glint flashing in his eyes, lost in thought.

(End of this chapter)