42: Chapter 45 The Fearful Dragon, Depriving You of the Right to Sleep!

"Admiral!"

"The Artemis in outer space has completely lost contact!"

"Starship! Something major has happened!"

The young second lieutenant anxiously ran into the conference room.

The army general, who was about to open champagne to celebrate, froze, the smile vanishing from his face.

Just as everyone present fell into a standstill,

——

"Hahaha!"

"Good!"

Watching the live broadcast, the military bigwig slammed the table and laughed out loud.

Facts proved that smiles do not disappear; smiles only transfer!

The previous second,

he was still annoyed that America successfully sneaked a moon landing.

The next second,

a major problem occurred with the moon-landing starship.

The people inside, as if subjected to radiation, experienced varying degrees of mutation all over their bodies.

Some had discolored skin and grew scales.

Someone's right hand turned into a spindle.

Some grew a third leg.

...

These miscellaneous mutations did not even spare the astronauts wearing protective suits.

This directly caused a branch of the main ship to crash into a lunar crater, smashing it to pieces.

"Hehe~"

The military bigwig almost laughed out loud.

Gloating over misfortune?

So what if he was gloating!

Who told America to be up to no good, secretly hoarding technology and pulling such a shady stunt.

"Humph~"

"Perhaps the technology dropped from those black holes has hidden hazards!"

"I said pies don't fall from the sky."

"Extra-terrestrial technology might hide all sorts of hazards; it's very likely from some civilization that suffered a catastrophe. Otherwise, those epoch-making machines wouldn't appear in the form of ruins..."

The military bigwig was somewhat indignant.

He had always held deep-seated misgivings against these things of unknown origin.

If it really were a powerful civilization, it wouldn't keep dropping ruins and debris into black holes; they were all heavily damaged, combat-damaged versions. Suspecting that they contained contamination was not wrong at all!

Having experienced [Divine Remnant Toxicity].

It was completely normal to have a higher level of vigilance.

Just as the military bigwig nodded inwardly, feeling that the more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed,

"No!"

"It's not that simple!"

"The crisis..."

"Perhaps doesn't come from the starship's technology."

The bigwig sitting at the head pointed at a corner of the moon with a solemn expression, stating his guess, "Instead... it comes from the moon!"

On the scarred and devastated land of the moon,

filled with various craters left by meteorite impacts, desolate and abandoned.

These were all common sights on the moon.

However, the writhing shadows in the craters were definitely unusual!

Pitch-black shadows quietly emerged from the soil, spreading across the entire moon.

First were the wings.

Then the tail.

The ferocious spine and body.

...

The shadows gradually outlined themselves, forming a towering figure on the lunar soil.

If one looked up from the ground,

the picture was even clearer.

The darkened patches on the moon looked like some behemoth entrenched upon it, blocking the moonlight.

"This is... a dragon?!"

The bigwigs looked at each other and spoke their guess in unison.

It was not the five-clawed divine dragon serving as the totem of Daxia.

But rather the Western,

demon dragon regarded as the incarnation of evil!!

The guess needed no verification.

The Gear had already helped them provide proof.

Just as these few people were huddled in the conference room discussing it furtively,

the outside world had long since exploded into a frenzy!

The onlookers had yet to recover from the shadow on the moon,

when they saw the rotation of the Gear on electronic instruments.

[Fear Demon Dragon]

[Category: Sub-Void Creature]

[A sub-void entity existing in the dream realm, wandering through dreams in the form of nightmares, and feeding on fear within dreams. Lives whose dreams are devoured will transform into a Nightmare Entity, infected by the demon dragon.]

[Nightmare Entities are infectious. Humans killed or injured by them will be permanently deprived of the sleep attribute and complete conversion within twenty-four hours.]

[Depriving humans of the right to sleep, after devouring enough fear, the demon dragon will come from nothingness to reality. As long as anyone craves sleep, its power will be inexhaustible.]

[Countermeasure: Never sleep]

[...]

The disturbed demon dragon did not intentionally display its power; merely by passively devouring dreams, it turned all these uninvited guests who came from afar into mutated monsters!

——

"The demon dragon that deprives the right to sleep and devours fear?!"

"Hiss, could the mutations inside the starship have all been caused by it single-handedly?!"

"So terrifying? And it's still just a shadow? How terrifying would its true body's descent be? Could it be another divinity?!"

"Can't we raise our muzzle and blow this thing up? Entrenched on the moon, it's way too scary!"

"Blow it up? With what? Didn't you see the popular science saying this is a shadow? Can you shatter a shadow? Its true form hasn't even appeared yet!"

"..."

The live stream's bullet comments surged.

Netizens' expressions flickered between light and shadow.

Anyone who knew that a terrifying demon dragon was entrenched on the bright moon would not be in a good mood.

Especially... this Fear Demon Dragon.

also possessed the right to deprive humans of sleep.

"Does this sleep thing include naps, meditation, closing one's eyes to rest, and things like that?"

Just when the Netizens were wearing distressed faces,

someone was adding fuel to the fire.

Does it include them?

Of course it included them!

The payload capacity of the main star-landing ship was nearly one hundred thousand people.

If the demon dragon only deprived sleep and ignored meditation, naps, resting with eyes closed, and so on, it would be utterly impossible to cause such a huge impact, allowing the entire main ship to fall into mutation unknowingly.

Only a tiny fraction of active-duty army soldiers could barely hold on and remain unaffected.

However, under the sudden revolt of the surrounding Nightmare Entities,

they were also quickly infected, gradually demonized and mutated.

Racing toward the universe.

The giant star-landing ship that set sail toward the starry sea

turned around and became a living hell.

How hopeful their hearts were when they set off, was how desperate they were now.

Inside the starship was practically a living hell!

Only a tiny few who saw that the momentum was bad and hid in the upper areas of the starship maintained their sole remaining sobriety.

However, this sobriety obviously couldn't last long.

Fatigue and terror were intertwined.

There was no hope of life to be seen at all, only endless waiting and torment.

As time went on,

some could not endure three days and nights of dry suffering and couldn't help closing their eyes for a catnap, resulting in mutations appearing on their bodies and being killed by their companions.

Some snapped their tense nerves, couldn't bear the endless torment, and chose to commit suicide by swallowing gold.

Some...

As the survivors passed away and left one by one,

soon only Allen was left here.

This crew-cut, red-nosed American GI.

His eyes were half-open and half-closed.

His dazed expression seemed as if he would fall asleep the next moment.

Just as he too gave up struggling

and ended this hopeless resistance,

Swoosh~

Swoosh~

a shimmering Paper Kite suddenly burst into his line of sight.

On its thin streamers,

dots of radiance were scattered.

"Paper Kite?"

The dreamy and illusory scene made Allen think he was hallucinating. After a wave of relaxation in his expression, he could no longer hold on, narrowing his eyes directly and drifting into a light sleep.

Only those who had been deprived of sleep

knew how wonderful a thing sleeping was.

Even if he died from infection... it was better than endless torture...

Allen, whose eyes were bloodshot, thought this.

However, when he woke up from his sleep once again,

he was surprised to find that there were unexpectedly no mutation phenomena on his body.

Skin?

Hands and feet?

Body?

...

Everything was in its normal appearance.

"Is it... you?!"

After confirming it once more, Allen looked toward the Paper Kite as if waking from a dream.

He was very certain that he was just an ordinary person.

At most regarded as a tough guy because his willpower was somewhat strong.

Wanting to rely on himself to resist the demon dragon's power was absolute wishful thinking.

Then only one possibility remained.

It was this Paper Kite of unknown origin!