Infinite Nightmares

"Oh, really? Is the moon just bigger somewhere else?" Zhang Wenda asked, confused, as he took a sip of sugarcane juice. He quickly finished his dinner, gathering his strength for what was to come.

"It's absurd, isn't it?" 2826 put down his food and looked up at the sky, at the pink elephants that were dissipating now that their task was complete.

"This world wasn't supposed to be this weird and absurd. To make the world normal again—that's the reason the Third Line exists. That's our life's goal, what we fight for."

Zhang Wenda ignored him. The guy was always trying to be motivational, and he was used to it.

"Tch." A soft but very clear sound of utter contempt cut through the air.

The lively dinner table instantly fell silent. Everyone looked toward the source of the sound: Hu Maomao.

"Senior, what do you mean by that? Did I say something wrong?" Although 2826's tone was very calm, everyone present could hear the dissatisfaction in his voice.

"Kid, you haven't been with the Third Line for long, have you? So full of drive," Hu Maomao said without looking up.

"It's true I haven't been working as long as you, Senior. After all, you're so much older than me. But the core principles of the Third Line shouldn't change with seniority, right?"

Sensing the tense atmosphere, Zhang Wenda had the Wai Rabbit secretly tug on 2826's pants under the table to get him to stop talking, but the guy paid him no mind.

"Senior, why do you seem to look down on the Third Line's ideals? If you look down on them, why do you continue to work for the Bureau?"

Hu Maomao put down the thin corn tortilla in her hand and looked up at 2826. "It's good for a young man to be passionate, but you should save some of that passion for your own life. Don't always devote everything to someone else's ideals."

Seeing the situation growing more explosive, Zhang Wenda quickly tried to smooth things over. "Alright, alright, let's just eat. Do me a favor, we've got a busy night ahead of us."

'He really hadn't expected these two to start fighting over something like this.'

To change the subject, Zhang Wenda turned to Ahava, who was enjoying the show, and asked, "Even if the moon isn't hot tonight, how are we supposed to get up there?"

Ahava replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "By plane, of course. But flights only run on the night of a full moon. There aren't any at other times."

"Are you kidding me? You're only telling me this now!?"

"I'm not! The followers of Ishchel only go to the moon to worship and make sacrifices during a full moon!"

Although time was tight, they had brought a full team this time, and in the end, Zhang Wenda did find another way.

As 2826 raised a flashlight and shone it at the moon, a pathway formed from a pillar of light appeared before them.

'Zhang Wenda had seen the guy use this trick before, but he never expected it to be used here. Now, all they had to do was walk forward.'

"I'll stand guard down here. When you're ready to come down, I'll shoot another beam up," 2826 said.

"Okay. Thanks for holding down the fort. We'll call you when we're done." Zhang Wenda led Maomao and Song Jianguo into the pillar of light.

Ahava, their guide, went with them as well, so they wouldn't have trouble finding the altar once they got to the moon.

Walking on the beam of light, Zhang Wenda and the others gradually ascended toward the crescent moon in the sky. As they got higher, their surroundings became more and more empty.

Zhang Wenda felt the temperature dropping and his own weight gradually decreasing.

In any case, despite a few setbacks, things were still moving in the right direction. Zhang Wenda felt some of the anxiety lift from his chest.

Noticing Hu Maomao walking silently beside him, Zhang Wenda thought back to the argument at the dinner table. With his breath fogging in the cold, he said to her, "2826 can be a bit stubborn, but he's a good person."

"You don't have to speak up for him. I don't dislike him, I just think the kid's ideas are naive," Hu Maomao replied, now floating slightly.

Zhang Wenda kept talking as he walked. "I'm a little curious, though. I thought everyone who worked for the Third Line bought into that stuff. Did you join to turn this chaotic world back into the 'right' one, too?"

"What is the 'right' world? Who gets to define it?" Hu Maomao shot back.

"Does that even need defining? Isn't it obvious—" Zhang Wenda stopped himself, not wanting Hu Maomao to suspect his true identity.

Hu Maomao continued, "For the Mayans, a world with gods, a world where all things have spirits—that is their 'right' world. If we really go along with the Third Line's plan and make it all disappear, do you think they'll be better off?"

"I'm trying to talk about a person, and you're hitting me with philosophy?"

"What about you? What do you think?" Hu Maomao looked at Zhang Wenda.

"What the hell does it have to do with me? Does a small fry like me get a say in how the world changes? I don't care about any of that. I only care if my people are doing okay. I just want to protect them." Zhang Wenda reached out and patted Song Jianguo on the head, who pushed his hand away in annoyance.

Hu Maomao was silent for a moment, then chuckled softly. "Your old uncle said the same thing. But in the end…"

"What happened in the end?"

"In the end, he was forced to get involved because he was chasing after Tang Xingxiong."

The moment he heard that woman's name, Zhang Wenda's expression darkened instantly. His fists clenched so tightly they audibly cracked.

"Human thoughts are strange things, aren't they? Just because of a difference in opinion, family will kill each other and lovers will turn against one another."

"One of the original goals of creating the ideological tide was to make everyone think the same way, to rid the world of conflict. But in the end, it only created more and bigger conflicts," Hu Maomao said with a sigh.

"I don't care about any of that. Leave the grand principles to people like 2826. Let's pick up the pace; the pillar of light is starting to tilt." As Zhang Wenda quickened his steps, the group hurried toward the moon, which now almost filled their entire field of vision.

In the blackness of the night behind them, unseen, a few scattered crows were also gradually flying toward the moon.

As the moon rose higher and higher, the final stretch of their journey began to grow incredibly steep.

Zhang Wenda brought out his scythe and transformed it into a climbing pick, which was just enough to get them through this section.

When the group arrived on the moon, they were stunned by the sight before them. They had come to a world of silver.

This world had only black and silver, with no other colors, as if they had stepped into a cartoon on a black-and-white television.

The moon should have had very low gravity, but the gravity on the Mayan moon hadn't changed at all.

"Look, the altar!" Ahava, sweating profusely from the exertion, pointed to a silver, pyramid-shaped structure in the distance.

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