Chapter 108: Nightmare
As the Tiger Demon continued downward, after passing through the stratum representing the Central Urban Area, the density of underground passages increased dramatically, and along the tunnels, ventilation pipes of varying thicknesses were dug out one after another, with fresh air continuously flowing in or out, maintaining the oxygen content in the underground space.
If the Upper City District is like endless subway tunnels and car tunnels; then the Central Urban Area becomes a complex and bustling underground labyrinth.
Bustling areas resemble underground commercial streets and pedestrian streets; while in quieter areas, there are one empty cave after another dug out on both sides of the passages, similar to rooms in the surface world.
Unlike the surface world with its neatly planned streets and buildings of varying heights along the way, the underground world consists only of complex, interwoven underground tunnels with limited height.
On the surface, one can look into the distance to see distant scenes and judge the direction and distance of different streets. A single glance reveals a vast expanse, and climbing a tall building provides an even better and broader view.
But underground, it’s completely different—oppressive, narrow, and low-ceilinged. One glance pierces everything, with only cave entrances fitted with doors on both sides. Without entering them, nothing inside can be seen. It’s even harder to figure out the underground layout structure beyond this passage.
According to the brother and sister’s introduction, if the Insectoid Race is traveling underground, they can use pheromones permeating the air to quickly understand the layout structure of the underground caves. It’s equivalent to using eyes on the surface to judge the terrain structure of street blocks and go straight to the destination.
In the Central Urban Area, the Tiger Demon felt a sense of helplessness like being blind with eyes open. Even though it could spread out Shadow Perception, it could only illuminate a small patch of fog on the map.
Fortunately, the Great Desolation Immortal Scripture has a map editing function. Just by traversing the underground world once, it can create a corresponding model to prevent getting lost.
“Exploring the underground world is really too uncomfortable.”
Little Spicy Stick: “I heard that the Lower Urban Area has opened up even more vast underground karst cave spaces. No longer a tunnel labyrinth structure, but a real genuine underground city!”
Along the way, the Tiger Demon found the excessive density of cavities and tunnels in the Central Urban Area absurd.
To be reasonable, this high-density underground passage network with a large number of hollowed-out cave cavities has long violated the laws of physics. Especially at a depth of 30km underground, without sufficient mechanical support, it should have collapsed long ago under gravitational pressure.
But the appearance of Immortal World Tree Root Tendrils directly defied the heavens and altered the physical rules, ensuring that the underground world wouldn’t collapse even if hollowed out. Around the dense underground cavities, just drawing in a few thick root tendrils as supports would suffice.
Of course, while secretly observing, the Tiger Demon continuously used shadows to penetrate the walls, discovering that deep within the walls, ceilings, and floors of the underground tunnels were large amounts of incomprehensible runes. Special energy linked and flowed within them, forming a massive force field system.
He guessed that this might be some kind of array?
The natives use Immortal World Tree Root Tendrils as raw materials, layering on array crafting and setup techniques to stimulate the spiritual energy contained in the Immortal World Tree Root Tendrils, allowing the array’s power to circulate and operate, further supporting and reinforcing the underground space structure of the Central Urban Area; and also setting up a complex ventilation system to allow a large number of natives to live densely.
It seems that building an Insect City requires more than just population and digging holes; it also needs technical support like arrays… which is quite reasonable. Landmark buildings need professional design, and underground Insect Cities also require array support and planning.
Seeing more and more natives coming and going in the underground passages, the Tiger Demon’s massive body could no longer hide, so it simply escaped into the shadows, lurking into the darkness, moving slowly while curiously observing the outside world.
…
Ever since entering the Bubble World, Yuan Zhu felt like he had become capable again.
In Running, he couldn’t escape into shadows because Du Ling Star’s suppressive force was too strong, with strict laws oppressing all supernatural powers, and exceeding the limit would result in rejection and ascension.
In Running, the Tiger Demon could only use shadows on a shallow level. However, after entering the Bubble World, the Shadow Layer reconnected with him.
However, this world’s specifications and level far exceeded the Little Xihong Realm by a large margin. He still couldn’t directly open the passage entrance to the Shadow World. But he could stay for a long time in the interlayer between the Shadow Dimension and the Underground World, continuously drawing shadow power to replenish the Tiger Demon.
Thus achieving infinite endurance shadow stealth, even daring to simply stay in the shadow interlayer for a long time to “kitten sleep,” passively cultivating and continuously enhancing the strength of the BOSS Template.
Although unable to escape into the Shadow World, an intangible connection had already been established between them. The Tiger Demon had a premonition that, if necessary, just one full-force strike, exhausting all of its mana bar, would definitely punch through the Shadow Dimension and forcibly drill in to investigate.
However, in an “empty blue” state, wandering into the unknown Shadow World carried some danger. So it held back and didn’t act rashly.
As long as it hides in the shadow interlayer to cultivate for a few days, absorbing a couple more breaths of shadow power, it can expand the mana bar upper limit again. Then entering the Shadow Dimension wouldn’t be too late.
…
Following the rudimentary map provided by the siblings, the Tiger Demon stealthily made its way to a more bustling area in the Central Urban Area, then released four Eggplant Head Ghosts to observe Cicada City’s living conditions from multiple angles.
The residents here, whether in appearance or clothing style, leaned toward Earth’s Eastern civilization. But their clothing was even more rudimentary, favoring short outfits, and they had no habit of growing long hair, as if it were a world of universal martial artists.
Here indeed “everyone practices skills, everyone eats bugs.”
Local residents, aside from various insect-related ornaments, pendants, necklaces, and daily tools, showed no insectoid characteristics on their bodies.
They call themselves the Insectoid Race, but their eyes are perfectly normal human pupils, not even compound eyes—pure-blooded humans no matter how you look at it.
Only within their bodies, due to the Qi Refining Technique, there is a strange polluted aura. Living long-term in a high-pollution environment, their deviation is abnormally high, like walking pollution sources.
In the Central Urban Area, besides hurried humans, there are all sorts of bizarre polluted bugs displayed on stalls for sale.
Among them, cicada types are the most numerous. There are larvae with sturdy shells, adults with wings, and various insect eggs. Some alive, some dead. Small ones indistinguishable from normal insects, large ones from fist-sized to ball-sized… all sizes available.
Besides a large number of insect products being sold, there are also various mushrooms, moss… and very rare plants. Underground world plants are strange, with green being very scarce, mostly purple, blue, red… as the main colors.
On many stalls, he even saw human limbs, cut up and displayed for sale. Not for eating, but for cultivating medicinal herbs, with some already sprouting seedlings breaking through, and runes drawn on the skin.
All flesh resources in this barren underground world have been developed and utilized to an unprecedented degree. Especially cultivators who practiced the Qi Refining Technique in life—their bodies after death are precious resources that must be recycled and reused.
These bizarre and grotesque scenes opened the Tiger Demon’s eyes; this was ultimately not a normal world, even more absurd than the Xihong Realm.
…
The Tiger Demon continued downward stealthily; the closer it got to the lower half of the Central Urban Area, the greater the pressure it felt.
The Tiger Demon itself was fine, always hiding in the interlayer, quite stable. But the Ghost Companions it sent out to explore Cicada City, occasionally pilfering products from stalls and sending them into the shadow interlayer, had already multiple times aroused suspicion from Qi Refining experts among the natives, causing them to turn their heads.
Those natives clearly superior in clothing, mental state, and social status would occasionally look suspiciously toward the positions where the Ghost Companions lingered.
Though discovering nothing, on a spiritual perception level they sensed something, wearing confused expressions as if their senses had glitched, then turning away.
“Impressive, these Qi Refining System cultivators are extremely sensitive in perception.”
The closer to the Lower Urban Area, the wider the passages, the better the environment, and the more experts there were. Besides having denser and purer polluted aura, they also wore special insect system supernatural weapons.
A small portion of the experts had arms, legs, or chests and abdomens adorned with scattered Metal Insect Armors. The Tiger Demon clearly perceived that these scattered armor components were extraordinary, resonating with the True Qi in their bodies, as if possessing life.
Especially one expert wearing an insect mask on the face gave him the illusion of seeing a wuxia version of a Kamen Rider.
“Why is the art style so off? The upper and middle layers are still wuxia style, but the middle-lower layers jump straight to Kamen Rider?”
Filled with curiosity, the Tiger Demon circumvented a patrolling squad of cultivators and found the road leading to the Lower Urban Area.
Upon reaching the area near the Lower Urban Area, the originally dense and bustling tunnel network instead began to thin out, leaving only a few necessary downward paths.
These passages were even wider, with good environments, yet no one dared linger nearby. Only guards stationed at intervals along the way, all wearing scattered armor pieces and weapons.
Along this path, several more guards repeatedly locked onto the Ghost Companions in the shadows, even proactively approaching to check. Forcing the Tiger Demon to recall this group of useless ones and personally stealth explore.
At this point, the Tiger Demon hiding in the interlayer had already filled a backpack with spoils of war, all research materials deftly lifted from one resident after another.
After passing through a passage with an extremely steep incline, massive spiritual energy hit its face, and the Tiger Demon’s view suddenly opened up.
Unsure how deep it had descended, it finally arrived at the core Lower Urban Area of Cicada City. No longer a dense tunnel labyrinth, but a several-kilometers-high underground space, with numerous anthill-like columnar giant buildings rising from the ground; thick trunks falling from the sky, growing upside down, branches and leaves spreading out into Reverse Life Trees covered with purple leaves.
Surface anthill buildings and the upside-down growing purple trees interwove in mid-air without interfering. Dense spiritual energy and fresh oxygen diffused from the branches and leaves of these trees.
“This is somewhat spectacular!”
Originally, it had intended to conquer Cicada City by strength and claim king; at worst, force the local nobles into submission with strength—the Tiger Demon King now obediently dispelled the idea of overpowering with momentum.
He felt that the Tiger Demon probably couldn’t beat the nobles entrenched in Cicada City; the oppressive feeling from those purple leaf Reverse Life Trees was no less than the rampaging Buddha Tomato spreading toward the starry sky.
“Boss, quick, look at the sky in the southwest direction, the place hidden between the purple tree groves—there’s a bunch of holes in the sky!”
Yuan Zhu looked in the direction Little Spicy Stick pointed: in that direction was a hemispherical special building with a long chimney pipe above, spewing endless black smoke.
The black smoke gave him a very disgusting and repulsive feeling—extremely high-concentration pollution mixed with rolling heat waves, constantly twisting and deforming as it rose, forming one screaming and roaring insect phantom after another, seemingly trying to struggle free from the black smoke?
But no matter how they impacted or escaped, they were ultimately wrapped by the black smoke and drilled into the black holes among the branches of the purple Reverse Life Trees.
In the high air, at the interwoven positions of the Reverse Life Trees, dense black holes appeared. Hard to estimate their size, but packed like a honeycomb; the rolling black smoke was sucked and pulled into these black holes, vanishing.
Seeing those holes, the Tiger Demon hiding in the shadow interlayer suddenly had an enlightenment. Just by “seeing” them, some knowledge drilled into its brain in the void, informing it of the truth.
Dream Hole: Entrance to the Nightmare World, secret passage escaping into the Dream World.
Not only that, his connection with the Shadow Layer also fluctuated violently. The “shadow” told it that if it fully impacted the Shadow Dimension, it could also open a Dream Hole to the nightmare, gaining its own “entrance,” and tempted it to hurry and impact to open its own Dream Hole.
Tiger Demon: “???”
So, why would opening the Shadow Dimension drop me into a nightmare? With this exclusive Dream Hole, wouldn’t that be equivalent to stepping into the Nightmare School?
“Hey, Snake Snake, what do you think? These Dream Holes give me a strange yet somewhat familiar feeling… and an inexplicable urge?”
The Tiger Demon suppressed the surging impulse to “open a Dream Hole” from the bottom of its heart. The more it observed the scene in the sky of black smoke being plundered and drawn by the Dream Holes, the stronger the idea of opening a nightmare hole and throwing itself into it.
Little Spicy Stick searched through the intelligence gathered recently and suddenly spoke: “I have a bold guess! Could this Dream Hole be Du Ling’s second realm, the Gate?”
Pollution systems vary, so realm divisions are judged by the “natural phenomena” triggered in Du Ling by the cultivator. The first realm is Seed, essentially condensing one’s own supernatural pollution core. The next realm is called Gate.
“Boss, do you think this Dream Hole looks like a Gate to the Nightmare World? Your Boss Template has infinite potential, and after sleeping and resting in the Garden World for this period, your strength has greatly improved. Could it be that the Tiger Demon has become powerful enough to qualify for contact with the Gate?”
Little Spicy Stick offered an unreliable opinion, and Yuan Zhu thought along her lines: “By your reasoning, those holes are all Gates? Then how many experts does Cicada City have?”
The Dream Hole black holes in the sky numbered at least a dozen. By this ratio, Cicada City has no fewer than a dozen cultivators matching the Tiger Demon?!
And this is just one Insect City; the underground world has at least dozens of Insect Cities.
Spicy Stick: “Get closer and take a look? I feel we can gather some useful info, perhaps… we can send in a Ghost Companion to probe?”
“Getting closer to look is fine, but Ghost Companions are precious. Instead of probing, why not find a safe spot, use shadows to open a nightmare hole, and toss something in to test?”
“Agreed!”
