Chapter 1155: Delving into the Dreamscape
All the necessary tests were completed, and Wen Wen rubbed his hands together, ready to start investigating the sleep case.
He first found Moyadi to borrow his Illusory Desire Heavenly Garment, gaining some defensive ability against illusion techniques, and then returned to the Sanctuary to be by Delia's side, preparing to enter her dreamscape.
According to the theories of Mefna and Moyadi, as long as Wen Wen continuously delves deeper into Delia's dreamscape, he should reach the true location of Delia's consciousness and thus truly touch the core of the sleep case.
Taking a deep breath, Wen Wen transformed into a wisp of smoke and slipped into Delia's dreamscape.
The shallow dreamscape of Delia was her room, where Delia sat in a chair, happily copying knowledge from another world.
Wen Wen shrugged his shoulders; after using his Nightmare physique, he could immediately see that this scene before him was a false dreamscape.
So, he entered her deeper dreamscape, which had become much darker because Delia's consciousness was not there.
In Delia's subconscious dreamscape, the world was full of chaotic color blocks, but it was just a barren world, and Delia was nowhere to be found.
Wen Wen took a deep breath and continued diving down.
He did not know what to call this layer of the dreamscape, but it gave him a very unsettling feeling.
The scene here was where Delia had given her speech, but all the buildings were covered with fleshy tendrils, and the streetlamps were crawling with tongues and eyes, with dozens of faces crammed onto the stage.
The audience listening around had numb and frightening expressions, with various degrees of deformities on each person's body.
Upon closer inspection, one could notice a silvery-gray substance secretly writhing in the corners of their bodies.
All the crowd present were Dream Monsters!
A normal Dream Speaker entering here would likely be torn apart by these Dream Monsters within minutes!
Dream Monsters are different from Nightmares; they are like savage wild beasts, and without Nightmare control, they struggle to manage their behavior and will use the most brutal methods to torture any creature entering their sight to death.
Nonetheless, while Dream Monsters are dangerous, they typically remain in the deeper layers of the dreamscape and generally cannot contact dreamers without a Nightmare's instigation.
Upon realizing Wen Wen was a Nightmare, the Dream Monsters present shook their heads in disappointment and dispersed from the venue to roam elsewhere.
Wen Wen searched here for quite a while but found no trace of Delia's consciousness. She was just an ordinary person; if her consciousness were here, it would have been torn apart by these Dream Monsters long ago.
"So, she's not here either, which means she's in an even deeper layer."
Taking a deep breath, Wen Wen noted that this layer of the dreamscape was already dangerous enough. If Delia were in an even deeper layer of the dreamscape, how was she surviving?
Filled with curiosity, Wen Wen stepped into an even deeper dreamscape once more.
Compared to the previous layer, this dreamscape seemed much more normal. It was still Delia's house, except everything had turned gray.
Wen Wen stepped out of the room and noticed that nothing had changed around him; everything was merely exceptionally silent, with no living creatures in sight.
He soared into the sky and gazed into the distance, his brows deeply furrowed.
This dreamscape was unreasonably huge; he hadn't even found its boundaries, and its structure was identical to reality. Additionally, even as a Nightmare, Wen Wen couldn't distort the buildings here.
Following a direction, Wen Wen flew full speed ahead. In the dreamscape, his flying speed was much faster than normal, as simply thinking transformed all resistance encountered during flight into thrust, greatly enhancing his speed.
After flying over several cities, Wen Wen still didn't encounter any boundaries, ultimately confirming that the dreamscape was identical in size to the real world.
Wen Wen halted, frowning: "If Delia's consciousness is trapped here, finding her might not be an easy task."
However, the journey wasn't entirely fruitless; Wen Wen finally encountered the first movable object here.
It was a black horse with spiral horns atop its head and black flames burning on its hooves, feet, and tail.
This creature was also a Nightmare, but its appearance was vastly different from Menglan.
Wen Wen flew over and landed in front of the black horse, which instantly retreated two steps.
The hierarchy among Nightmares was incredibly strict; Menglan was the highest Nightmare, exerting absolute level suppression on this small Nightmare.
"What is this place?"
The black horse froze for a moment; was this powerful Nightmare having amnesia? However, with a high Nightmare asking, he dared not avoid answering, a fawning expression appearing on his horse face:
"Sir, this is the boundary dreamscape, the deepest layer of all dreamscapes."
"This is the root of all dreamscapes; all who delve into dreamscapes ultimately arrive here. This layer is shared by everyone, but besides us Nightmares, others find it quite difficult to come here, so this is our Nightmare territory."
Wen Wen nodded, then continued to ask, "Recently, have there been a large number of ordinary people—well, perhaps nearly ten thousand—entering this layer of dreamscape?"
The black horse showed a puzzled expression: "That is impossible, sir. Ordinary people can only accidentally enter the boundary dreamscape; only a few dozen enter worldwide in a year."
"Trying to enter by any other means is impossible. Even superpower users, 'Dream Speakers,' who inherit Remnant Spirits of Nightmares, find it nearly impossible to delve into the boundary dreamscape."
"Though the boundary dreamscape is vast, if ten thousand different people visited, it would have erupted in chaos long ago."
After listening, Wen Wen chuckled wryly. This was already the deepest dreamscape layer. If Delia's consciousness couldn't be found here, where should he search?
After leaving the black horse, Wen Wen tested a few places, discovering he couldn't delve deeper, indicating this was indeed the bottommost dreamscape layer.
"The mightiest Nightmare is only at the True Order Rank. That entity is a Catastrophe Level being; it's possible it could delve deeper than the boundary dreamscape."
"Better head back and take a look..."
Wen Wen sighed, flew a certain distance, and returned to Delia's home to search carefully.
He believed that even though that mysterious Catastrophe could draw people into deeper dreamscapes, some traces would remain.
After all, it wasn't as though the entity personally took people down; it used powers to bring people down in batches, and it had to disguise the upper layers of the dreamscape as well.
Wen Wen turned everything in Delia's house upside down and finally discovered something unusual under Delia's bed.