Transforming Succubus: Almost Doomsday

Zhou Baiyu stopped talking and gulped down a handful of sleeping pills.

He was very aware that this dose wasn't lethal, but what he needed now was not to wake up but to become incapable of waking up.

He wasn't even sure if the erratic spirit channeling in a lucid dream would work a second time. But this had already become the relatively safest way to explore the Black Lotus area.

The drug took effect quickly. After feeling groggy for a moment, he entered the dream once again.

...

...

A long, dim corridor appeared.

The sky was overcast, as if the sunlight was blocked by the black lotus, leaving only remnants of light that made the darkness less absolute.

The corridor was like a solitary bridge.

On both sides of the bridge rolled thick black fog, impenetrable to sight.

After taking a few steps, Zhou Baiyu saw memories from when he was five years old.

That should have been the day Mr. Zhou Zeshui and Mrs. Wang Shufen took him to the Linxiang amusement park to play.

He was extremely happy that day, riding the carousel and bumper cars that best represented his childhood. He played until the sky turned a dark yellow before going back.

Although not particularly wealthy from a young age, what other children had, Zhou Zeshui and Wang Shufen had never let him go without.

But in this dream, the carousel turned into wild beasts, and the children driving in the tire-stacked lot, one by one, had hateful faces, with sinister and resentful smiles that sent chills down one's spine.

Most importantly, all images of Wang Shufen after this were extremely bizarre—

In the position of her abdomen grew a giant tumor connected to the heart, which even had a face on it, constantly emitting a mocking laugh.

That rotten seed, transformed from his mother but no longer recognizable, was covered in "fragments" from head to toe.

Glass shards, like a beer bottle had shattered.

Zhou Baiyu didn't stop.

He didn't know how long he had persisted. It seemed as if he had just entered the dream, yet as if he had also gone through a long time.

He began to walk forward frantically, echoes of Ling Hansu's elusive voice around his ears.

But at this moment, he couldn't hear her clearly. He had moved on from being five and had entered his fifteenth year.

The little girl was terrified but still remembered one thing—whatever Big Brother Zhou said, she would follow suit.

Dreamscapes are actually very susceptible to external influence.

When people are dreaming, they might even engage in what seems like a genuine conversation with someone who's awake under deep dream conditions.

Ling Hansu kept repeating: Big Brother Zhou, this is just a dream, all of this is just a dream!

She wasn't sure if she should wake Big Brother Zhou, but it seemed instinctive that she still trusted this man.

In the midst of the dreamscape, Zhou Baiyu continued moving forward.

His father, Zhou Zeshui's laughter came from the heavens as sharp-edged beer bottles continuously fell from the sky, bang bang bang bang!

With each shattering bottle came fleeting memories of Zhang Haoyun,

From these memories, Zhou Baiyu learned that this girl, never loved by anyone, had such a sorrowful past.

Not long after leaving that village, she sent money to her younger brother, scraped together from her meager savings, but she still sent it because her mother asked.

The day after she sent the money, she saw her father, hoping to finally receive some recognition, only for him to bring up a marriage arrangement, hoping to sell her for 1500 yuan to a man from the neighboring county.

That day her father smiled at her, a rarity, but that smile was more painful to her than if the beer bottle had struck her head.

It wasn't the first time she realized something, but it was the first attempt at using her own value to change that something.

But at that moment, in Zhang Haoyun's mind, there was only one voice—

"They... don't love me."

From then on, she desperately tried to escape, but she couldn't shake off that kind of life.

Despair made Zhou Baiyu's footsteps as heavy as if they weighed a thousand pounds.

The relentless sounds of shattering surrounded him. He was injured both by those in his memories warped into loved ones and by the painful past in Zhang Haoyun's memories.

But despair also strengthened Zhou Baiyu's resolve. He started to run forward madly.

It seemed as if the survival instinct, the nerves of the brain, deemed this almost suicidal action. At this moment, all Zhou Baiyu's senses were heightened.

It was as if it was his last hurrah.

But because of this… he heard it!

He heard Ling Hansu's hint—that everything was just a dream!

Once a person realizes they're dreaming, the dream has to collapse!

The dim world turned pitch black, and the black cocoon began to undulate irregularly from its original oval shape!

As a result, Zhou Baiyu turned misfortune into a blessing. His spatial distance from the twisted monsters in those memories oscillated, and he got a brief respite!

Once a dream is about to end, people always think, "Since this is a dream, can't I do whatever I want?"

Obviously, he couldn't. He was unable to erase those monsters, unaware of his guest status in the dream.

He was ultimately just a visitor in a dream.

However, Ling Hansu's hints had already greatly diminished the stability of the dream.

The space around began to disintegrate... The formerly long corridor shattered into countless boulders, and the singular path became manifold.

And once there were more complex choices, there was also more room for flexible maneuvers. Among the many shattered boulders, Zhou Baiyu kept leaping, as if the only thing he could change in the dream... was himself.