Boom! Boom!
The parched crust of earth suddenly exploded open, revealing two deep black tunnels.
Two cloaked figures emerged slowly from within. One of them threw back his hood and surveyed the surrounding land—still desolate, but at least showing a flicker of life. It wasn't a completely dead wasteland.
"But Bodak, why is it that every route you remember runs underground?"
Leilin glanced at the one-eyed dragon beside him, deeply suspicious of the other's racial heritage.
"Heh heh… Don't nitpick over little details! So? Was I wrong? If you take the underground Howling Corridor, you can completely bypass the Wasteland Lord territory on the surface…"
Bodak chuckled.
Leilin was the sort of person who only cared about results, not the process, so he didn't press the matter.
"Chip, scan!"
Covertly, he used the Chip to instantly obtain information about the surrounding environment, hydrology, and even the world's Primal Force. A flicker of surprise crossed his face.
"Not bad at all? Compared to other places, this could practically be called an oasis…"
Leilin looked around. On the gobi-like terrain, he still managed to spot several clusters of brown, stunted shrubs.
The presence of plants meant there was moisture and life—places where animals could survive. In the Dream World, where power was generally in decline, this was remarkably rare.
"But with so many races fighting over this scrap of habitable land, slaughter and death must be unavoidable…"
Leilin mused silently.
Survival and procreation were the two great primal desires of living beings. The power unleashed in pursuit of those goals was enough to astonish any entity. And survival ranked above procreation—since ancient times, wars fought over living space had always been the bloodiest and most brutal.
It was just that Leilin's gaze had already moved beyond this kind of tribal competition, advancing toward a higher plane.
"Why? How could such a peculiar environment form here? The decline of dream power should affect the entire world uniformly…"
Leilin felt a spark of curiosity.
His gaze pierced instantly through the sky, the mountains, the rivers… A formidable surge of True Spirit power radiated outward, so overwhelming that heaven and earth seemed to freeze for a moment.
"Hm? Where is the Calamity Lord of this territory?"
In an instant Leilin noticed something different. By all logic, the region where these natives lived should fall within a Calamity Lord's domain, yet Leilin could detect no trace of one.
Not only that—there was not a hint of Destruction Snow to be seen either, as though no lord presided over the area at all.
"You noticed it too?" The one-eyed dragon Bodak grinned and explained: "The Calamity Lord here is, in its true form, a Dream Demon. It chose the unique Ethereal Sealing talent to avoid the strike of Destruction Snow…"
"So that's how it is…" Leilin nodded. He understood now.
The Dream Demon was an exceedingly rare species even within the Dream World, possessing an extraordinarily high affinity with dream power. Legend held that an adult Dream Demon's body was as large as a continent.
A being of that magnitude, even after sealing itself, would still be large enough to cover an entire territory.
And the Ethereal Sealing talent was one of the Dream Demon's innate bloodline abilities—it could transform its True Spirit and seal it into the dreams of countless living beings.
"In other words… the vast territory we see before us is actually part of the Dream Demon's body… and its consciousness and will have been broken apart and sealed into the dreams of every creature living in this region, silently drawing nourishment to counteract the decline of dream power?"
Leilin felt his understanding broaden considerably.
The Dream Demon's strategy was quite clever. Through mass parasitism, it not only avoided the weakness of the sealing period but could also evade the attack of Destruction Snow altogether.
Thus the Dream Demon had formed a unique symbiotic relationship with the native inhabitants of its territory. It provided its own body and shelter of nourishment, and in return the inhabitants offered their soul energy, sustaining the Dream Demon's True Spirit against decay.
Once the Dream World's trough cycle passed, the Dream Demon would undoubtedly be among the Calamity Lords least weakened.
"However, this method requires a specific bloodline ability… and a pure-blooded Dream Demon might be the only one in the entire Dream World…"
The one-eyed dragon Bodak sighed from the side.
"Regardless of its motives, this Calamity Lord's actions have allowed many natives to survive…"
Leilin approved of this mutually beneficial arrangement.
"Moreover, given the nature of the Dream World, the natives who survive all of this could eventually grow into Evil God-level existences. Even if the odds are one in ten thousand, one in a hundred million—if it keeps persisting over such vast stretches of time, the connections and goodwill it accumulates in the end would be truly terrifying…"
In an instant, Leilin had mentally placed this Dream Demon firmly in the "not to be trifled with" category.
"Still… my purpose this time doesn't conflict with it. A Dream Demon lost in slumber probably wouldn't care about the disappearance of one or two natives. For it, that would be no different from plucking out one or two hairs…"
With that thought, Leilin led Bodak directly toward the area where life energy was densest and strongest.
According to Bodak, the last time it had caught the scent of a soul connected to Leilin had been in this very region. But at the time, it had been too busy scavenging for treasures to bother investigating more closely.
The hard-packed earth had solidified into slabs, so firm it felt like walking on steel plates, but Leilin still nodded in satisfaction.
This region was already far better than anywhere else in the Dream World. Elsewhere the ground was covered in grit, without the faintest trace of any other aura. By comparison, with the Dream Demon's body providing nourishment and feedback, the vitality here was at least comparable to the wastelands of some other worlds.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Two streaks of dark light shot out from the ground nearby, lunging at Leilin and Bodak.
"Hm? There are still creatures? Not bad."
Leilin reached out and grabbed. Two bristle-rat-like creatures were frozen mid-air, their soybean-sized eyes shifting from frenzy to terror—the transformation from hunter to hunted.
"Bristle rats? The resilience of this fur, and the contamination…"
A blue glow flickered in Leilin's eyes as the Chip instantly gathered all the information it needed.
"Physical strength and radiation comparable to a First-level
The one-eyed dragon Bodak snorted discontentedly from the side, unable to understand why Leilin was interested in a few insects.
"True enough! Creatures without self-awareness don't survive long!"
Leilin waved his hand dismissively. Crack! Crack!
Amid the grating sounds, the bristle rats' steel-hard bones shattered outright, the light fading from their eyes as they crumpled to the ground.
"Stay alert, Bodak. We have guests."
Leilin looked into the distance, his tone meaningfully calm.
"Guests?" Bodak glanced over, puzzled, then comprehension dawned on his face.
Two powerful presences had stopped advancing and now stood quietly in place, waiting. A soul aura somewhat stronger than that of the bristle rats was slowly approaching.
Rustle! Rustle!
The black grass nearby rustled, then suddenly froze—as if something had been spotted, bringing an abrupt halt that made Leilin sense the hesitation in its mind.
But in the end, the two bristle rat carcasses on the ground must have been too tempting. After a heavy breath, a thin, small figure slowly stepped out.
It only reached Leilin's shoulder—clearly a child, dressed in tanned leather hunter's garb that was torn in many places and patched with dense, haphazard stitching. Even so, much skin remained exposed. Through layers of grime, Leilin could still make out faint purple markings—patterns that instantly reminded him of Jillian and her tribe.
The young hunter's face was blackened with dirt, hiding whatever expression lay beneath. His eyes darted to the prey on the ground, then to Leilin and Bodak, clearly intimidated. Anyone wearing such intact and fine clothing was obviously not someone to provoke.
His Adam's apple bobbed. The boy seemed to wrestle with himself for a long time before finally pointing at the bristle rat corpses and saying: "…Those… mine…"
Thanks to Jillian, Leilin had studied the Dream World's language and understood it without difficulty.
Though it hardly mattered—after reaching the Demigod stage, one possessed an innate talent for mastering all languages and scripts. An entity of the Rules could even communicate directly through the soul to obtain any information.
"All yours."
Leilin made a welcoming gesture.
Following the boy's gaze, he naturally noticed the solidified purple markings on the hind legs of both bristle rats.
"To come all this way for two prey animals, even at the risk of offending us—the scarcity of food must be truly terrifying…"
Watching the boy cry out in delight and spring forward with astonishing speed, Leilin's mind stirred with a new thought.
The Dream World's natives had indeed been infused with dream power. Their average strength had risen significantly—by Leilin's estimation, reaching the level of a Second-level Wizard after adulthood would pose no problem whatsoever.
The boy was now kneeling on the ground, staring at the rat blood seeping across the dirt, a look of regret on his face.
Then he grabbed the rat, positioned it over the wound, and began sucking the blood directly.
The blood of these bristle rats smelled terribly fishy, reeking of rust. One glance told Leilin it was saturated with terrifying radiation contamination, yet to the boy it seemed like the finest delicacy.
"My, my… What strong teeth. Not a bit worse than our dragon race's Scavenger Dragons…"
The one-eyed dragon Bodak smacked his lips on the side.