Infinite Nightmares

"How cute. It would have been so fun to keep as a pet," Song Jianguo said regretfully, following Zhang Wenda out of the Lotus Hall.

"Didn’t I give you a little wind-sprite as a pet before?" Zhang Wenda asked, walking cautiously toward the exit.

"I played with it ’til it died long ago," Song Jianguo said nonchalantly.

When Zhang Wenda emerged, he saw no other dangers besides the giant footprints and breathed a small sigh of relief.

Whatever had made them, at least they hadn’t run into it.

"Let’s go. This place is too dangerous. We have to find Wang Xiaohua and the others as soon as possible. There’s strength in numbers."

With that, Zhang Wenda didn’t dare linger in the bizarre temple. He quickly left through a side door of the main hall and went around to the back.

What was even stranger, however, was the Daoist monastery standing behind the temple. It left Zhang Wenda completely baffled.

The big black dog sniffed the air and barked at Song Jianguo, who then translated for Zhang Wenda, "Their scent leads inside. Should we follow?"

Zhang Wenda gritted his teeth. "Follow. Sticking to the path they’ve already cleared is safer than running around aimlessly."

As they approached the Daoist monastery, they unsurprisingly saw the floor covered with corpses. The facial features of these Daoists in their Daoist Robes had been sewn shut, and a crooked purple talisman was stuck to each of their foreheads.

’Could it be...?’ Zhang Wenda walked into the main hall of the Daoist monastery. It was a complete mess inside, and the statue that should have been on the dharma throne had vanished.

"Xiaozhang! Xiaozhang!" Zhang Wenda’s body tensed, and he spun around. On the ground, he saw three animals dressed in Daoist Robes—one with a deer’s head, one with a tiger’s head, and one with a sheep’s head.

They looked tiny, like cubs, only a dozen or so centimeters tall. The Little Maitreya Buddha from before stood beside them, but the smile on its face had faded considerably.

"Xiaozhang, we’ve waited for you for five years. Why didn’t you come back?" the little deer in the Daoist Robe said, its face full of sorrow.

At that moment, the little tiger beside it patted the deer’s shoulder with its paw. "Don’t worry. Xiaozhang promised us. He’ll definitely come save us."

From their words, Zhang Wenda gathered that these little creatures were waiting for someone named Xiaozhang to save them. But honest to god, Zhang Wenda didn’t know them, let alone how he was supposed to save them.

It was obvious these residual images were only meant to leave a message; they couldn’t actually communicate.

Zhang Wenda didn’t want to listen to these words that had nothing to do with him anymore. He continued toward the back of the monastery. "Let’s go. We should be catching up to them soon."

Just as Zhang Wenda had taken a few steps, the little sheep behind him spoke again, its voice filled with an almost desperate plea.

"Xiaozhang, you have to come! If no one believes we exist anymore, we’ll really disappear. We don’t want to disappear!"

Song Jianguo, who was jogging along, wasn’t paying attention and ran right into Zhang Wenda, who had frozen in place. "What’s wrong with you? Why’d you stop again?!"

Zhang Wenda ignored her, turning around to stare at the small creatures on the ground in disbelief. "I know what these little things are!"

"They’re residual images. No need to repeat yourself."

"The point isn’t that they’re residual images, but *what* left them!"

An image flashed through Zhang Wenda’s mind: the giant Feathered Serpent God of the Maya Federal Republic emerging from the clouds, and the immensely powerful Moon God in the sky. A theory popped into his head.

"They’re gods! Our own country’s gods!"

"Within Thought Wave Two! Their existence is based on human belief. The more people who believe, the stronger they become."

As Zhang Wenda watched the little gods gradually dissipate into the air, he finally understood why they were asking for help.

"If no one believes they exist, they’ll get smaller! They’ll really disappear!"

He recalled the skyscrapers formed by the prefabricated people and the crowds staring at their phones with various expressions. It was obvious that no one—or rather, practically no one—believed in their existence anymore.

"Then what’s this all about? Didn’t these people believe in them?" Song Jianguo asked, pointing at the corpses covering the floor.

His expression complicated, Zhang Wenda shook his head. "I don’t know. Perhaps this is how Xiaozhang helped them in the past."

Looking at all this, Zhang Wenda could only make a few rough guesses for now. ’So, is Xiaozhang part of the Big Circle? Is he trying to save these local gods? And why did Wang Xiaohua and her team receive orders from the Bureau to come and completely destroy them?’

Within Thought Wave Two, there was indeed no longer a need for local gods. But seeing their desperate pleas, Zhang Wenda felt a pang of pity.

’If the local gods could exist without affecting anyone else, it should be fine. There was no need to send a combat team to completely wipe them out, was there?’

"Hey, are we going or not?" the heartless Song Jianguo urged impatiently.

Quickly crushing the compassion in his heart with red, Zhang Wenda cleared his mind of distracting thoughts and continued the chase with Song Jianguo. He had a premonition that the truth—about this place, about Wang Xiaohua’s objective—was about to be revealed.

After leaving the Daoist monastery was a new temple. A statue of a Bodhisattva holding a Jade Bottle stood right outside.

Before the big black dog could even lower its head to sniff the ground, a gunshot rang out. Zhang Wenda’s rabbit ears twitched, and he immediately rushed into the temple.

The moment he burst inside, he saw a giant, seven-to-eight-meter-tall white Jade Bodhisattva locked in a fight with Wang Xiaohua and another male teammate of hers.

As more gunshots rang out, bullets carrying black death repeatedly struck the white Jade Bodhisattva. The white jade fractured, making the Bodhisattva’s appearance incredibly menacing.

But the black death had no effect on the statue at all. Other than creating a few more cracks on the Bodhisattva, it didn’t do much.

"Cover me!" Retreating quickly, Wang Xiaohua glared fiercely with her white eye. As the white pupil turned gold, there was a sharp CRACK, but it was as if nothing had changed.

However, when the giant white Jade Bodhisattva turned around, Zhang Wenda saw that half of its body had been compressed inward.

There was no blood and no wounds, as if the Jade Bodhisattva’s body had instantly been reduced to half its thickness.

But even so, the now-slender Bodhisattva statue didn’t stop its attack. Instead, it went berserk, dragging its cracked body as it charged toward Wang Xiaohua.

Its crack-covered body was now extremely long and thin, making it look even more terrifying.

Zhang Wenda didn’t dare to delay. He revealed his scythe-like claws, about to join the battle, but before he could even get close, the entire Bodhisattva Hall began to shake violently.

"Get out! This place is going to collapse!" Zhang Wenda shouted.

But it was too late. Amidst billowing dust, the entire hall ceiling came crashing down on everyone inside.

"Jianguo!" Zhang Wenda yelled, reaching a hand behind him without turning his head.

"Coming!" Song Jianguo leaped into Zhang Wenda’s arms with the big black dog. Just as rubble and beams were about to crash down on them, the big black dog transformed into a black shield, protecting them tightly beneath it.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!