Chapter 676: Red Hell

In the darkness, Xiao Cheng tightly closed his eyes.

He felt that he had already invaded Qi Xia's dream.

A strange breeze brushed against his skin all around, feeling warm.

Although he couldn't smell anything in the dream, Xiao Cheng still sensed his nostrils filled with a spicy, hot gas.

This sensation was incredibly odd, as if he were breathing not air, but some eerie substance.

Every cell in his body was sending out danger signals, and his subconscious urged him to flee and absolutely not open his eyes.

It was as if he had invaded not a person's dream, but a hell teeming with Luo Sha.

Even without seeing anything, deep in his brain, instinctive reactions kept surging; before he even opened his eyes, the hairs on his body stood on end, and chills ran down his back.

Xiao Cheng had invaded dreams a few times before, but he had never encountered anything like this. It seemed this person's dream wasn't just fortified with an extremely strong psychological defense; it was completely deranged.

"Qi Ge... you helped me once... now I'm helping you... you won't harm me, right?"

Xiao Cheng slowly opened his eyes, facing Qi Xia's dream head-on, but just that single glance nearly terrified him out of his wits.

He had seen the dreams of about seven or eight people, and whether they were ordinary dreams or nightmares, none struck his soul as deeply as the scene before him.

Was this really a dream?

The first thing that caught Xiao Cheng's eye was vast expanses of blood-red color. It was an incredibly vast space, roughly like a corner of a mid-sized city at first glance, but upon closer inspection, everything—from the roads underfoot to the buildings in view—was constructed from pulsing, dark-red flesh.

This flesh was vividly red and rhythmically throbbing with pulses. A layer of red blood mist hung above it, making it not quite accurate to call it "Wu Jian Hell"; it felt more like being swallowed into the belly of a massive beast.

On this red street stood countless silent figures, each one faceless.

Their faces were like smooth planes, with all facial features completely absent, and they stood dumbly in place, their facial muscles twitching as if making expressions or trying to speak.

Xiao Cheng's blood turned ice-cold in that moment.

He noticed that none of these faceless people were moving; they just stood there like scarecrows, which allowed him to relax a bit and repeatedly tell himself, "This is just a dream."

Then, in a daze, he looked up at the sky, only to find that it too was a massive expanse of flesh, with numerous pulses faintly throbbing, as if this place were inside some living thing, and the blood-red sky was the wall of a giant monster's stomach.

Thankfully, smells didn't exist in dreams; otherwise, Xiao Cheng could imagine the unbearable stench that would fill the air.

He swallowed hard, his movements sluggish as he scanned the blood-red "sky" from left to right. A few seconds later, he froze again.

On this enormous flesh that resembled the sky, a massive, moving eyeball was scanning around. The moment Xiao Cheng saw it, it instantly shifted its gaze, locking onto his terrified eyes.

With just that one look, Xiao Cheng felt his soul being ripped from his body; the hairs on his back stood straight, rubbing against his clothes.

Why was there such a huge eyeball in this world?

The giant eyeball's pupil quivered slightly, as if scrutinizing him from top to bottom.

This eyeball was embedded in the flesh that formed the sky... Could this flesh really be part of a living creature?

If it was alive, what on earth was it...?

"It probably can't see me..." Xiao Cheng muttered to himself, as if trying to muster courage or find some comfort. "After all, I'm just an intruder... My abilities are weak; it can't see me..."

Even as he said this, the eyeball continued to stare fixedly at him, forcing Xiao Cheng to avert his gaze and try not to let it affect him.

They say "thoughts during the day become dreams at night," so what must Qi Xia be pondering every day to have such a bizarre nightmare?

As he stood there in a stupor, the sound of gurgling water reached his ears. He turned his head and followed the noise, seeing a tumbling "stream" cutting through the center of the city.

The stream was some distance away, and to make it easier for people to cross, a small arched bridge had been built over it.

Xiao Cheng blinked and slowly walked toward the "stream."

Standing on the arched bridge, he steeled himself and looked down. Sticky blood churned and roiled, splashing up countless droplets as it flowed onward.

Looking closer, he saw large, pitch-black fish in the stream, leaping out with the turbulent water, nearly jumping onto his face.

Xiao Cheng realized that these fish, like the people on the street, had no features at all.

They had no mouths, no eyes—just bare bodies like shuttles, darting in front of him before plunging back into the stream and sending up sprays of blood.

It seemed they were leaping not to greet the person on the bank, but out of oxygen deprivation.

They struggled in the blood river; they wanted to live, but they couldn't breathe—they didn't even have gills. How could they survive in the water?

No... even if they had gills, this wasn't water; it was a dark, viscous river of blood.

Was this just a "nightmare"?

This was true hell.

Xiao Cheng couldn't stop shaking all over, and soon he dropped to his knees, clutching the bridge's railing and dry-heaving repeatedly.

He had met Qi Xia and even had a simple conversation with him; the man seemed mentally stable. But how could his inner world be like this hell?

Did he see a world like this every time he closed his eyes...?

Although Xiao Cheng had entered few dreams, he felt that only an antisocial madman could have such a terrifying psychological landscape.

"What the heck..." Xiao Cheng dry-heaved for a while, then wiped his mouth with his hand, still trembling uncontrollably.

Even though he knew it was a dream, everything in it felt too real.

He knelt on the ground and reached out to touch the arched bridge beneath him, only to find it truly seemed made of flesh— not just red in color, but with a slight elasticity.

Placing his palm gently on it, he could feel the heartbeat of the entire city.

Xiao Cheng thought to himself that if he had nightmares like this, he would rather never sleep again; otherwise, he would go mad in no time.

"I can't handle this 'dream'..."

In terms of strangeness and scale, this "nightmare" far exceeded what Xiao Cheng could interfere with. Most people's dreams occurred in a single room or a fixed small area, but here he was in an entire city of blood.

In this city, forget about finding and repairing Qi Xia's disturbed state of mind—it would be hard enough just to locate Qi Xia himself.

Xiao Cheng slowly closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and prepared to sever his "dream entry" right there. If he stayed longer, death was the only outcome.

A few seconds later, Xiao Cheng slightly opened his eyes.

But instead of returning to the real world, he was still in this red hell.