200: Echoes of Nightmares

Entertainment Center Zone C was a small, yet extremely luxurious private cinema.

Soft, automatically adjustable leather sofas, a surround sound system capable of simulating the most subtle sound vibrations, and an ultra-high-definition giant screen with perfect picture quality that occupied an entire wall.

Gu Nianqiu, clutching a large bucket of freshly popped, sweet, buttery popcorn, curled up in the middle of the sofa like a happy hamster.

Gu Zhixia ultimately couldn't refuse her sister and gave up watching a bloody war film, choosing instead a classic fantasy adventure movie from the old era.

Lin Mo sat in the outermost seat, separated from them by one seat. He didn't touch the snacks; he just watched the screen quietly, like a statue.

The movie began.

Grand symphonies, magnificent fantasy worlds, brave knights, beautiful princesses, evil dragons... everything was so classic, so... normal.

Gu Nianqiu watched with great relish, occasionally letting out a small gasp or grabbing a handful of popcorn and stuffing it into her mouth, making "crunch, crunch" sounds.

Gu Zhixia was also quite engrossed. Although old-era movies had crude special effects, the pure core of stories about courage and hope always easily moved people's hearts.

However, just as the movie was halfway through, and the protagonist's team entered a gloomy, ancient castle for an adventure, an anomaly quietly occurred.

On the castle walls, among the ancient frescoes depicting mythological stories, one fresco depicting a banquet scene seemed to subtly twist for a moment.

On the fresco, the faces of the originally laughing nobles instantly became blurred, elongated, and pieced together, as if... the monster made of countless twisted souls in Casper's collection hall.

The change lasted only a single frame.

It was so fast that it was almost imperceptible.

Gu Nianqiu was still diligently dealing with her popcorn.

Lin Mo's brow, however, furrowed almost imperceptibly.

His dynamic vision far surpassed ordinary people's; he caught that momentary abnormality.

Was it a system bug?

He remained calm, linking a thread of consciousness to the World Tree and rapidly scanning the cinema system's backend data.

Meanwhile, Gu Zhixia, sitting in the middle, suddenly stiffened.

She might not have clearly seen that single frame, but a cold, familiar, nauseating malice, following the eerie background music from the speakers, unexpectedly drilled into her mind.

It was just like the feeling when Casper whispered in her ear in the High-Dimensional Gallery.

Her breathing began to quicken.

The movie's plot continued.

The protagonists walked down a deep, deserted corridor.

On both sides of the corridor were rows of closed doors.

"Drip... drop..."

In the background, the sound of water droplets falling could be heard.

But in Gu Zhixia's ears, this sound transformed into another sound.

It was the sound of broth dripping onto a cold floor.

The scene before her eyes began to blur.

The deep corridor in the movie and the decaying corridor leading to the kitchen in her illusion, which she could never escape, slowly overlapped.

"Sister..."

A weak, tearful cry seemed to emanate simultaneously from the movie's speakers and from the deepest part of her memory.

It wasn't a movie line!

Gu Zhixia suddenly turned her head to look at her sister beside her.

Gu Nianqiu was looking at her with a bewildered expression, half a kernel of popcorn still in her mouth: "Sister, what's wrong?"

She was fine.

It was an illusion!

Gu Zhixia's back was instantly drenched in cold sweat.

She immediately realized that something was wrong.

Not the movie, but this place, this ship! That lingering bastard's power still remained here!

"Lin Mo!" she growled, her voice tinged with an uncontrollable tremor.

However, before Lin Mo could respond, the screen's image completely lost control.

The original fantasy movie, like a canvas splashed with concentrated sulfuric acid, wildly dissolved and twisted.

The brave knight's face transformed into Lin Mo's likeness, but his eyes were hollow, and a mocking curve played on his lips.

The beautiful princess became Gu Nianqiu, dressed in a cute Western-style dress, but her face was pale, and she cried silently.

The ancient castle collapsed with a roar, turning into an endless, deep dark background.

Countless crystal-clear, glowing bubbles slowly rose in the darkness.

The High-Dimensional Gallery!

The nightmare they had personally destroyed was, unbelievably, perfectly recreated in this small cinema!

"Welcome back, my dear... collection."

Casper's handsome yet twisted face filled the entire screen. He smiled, bowing elegantly, his eyes filled with the morbid ecstasy of something lost and then found again.

"No—!"

Gu Nianqiu let out a shrill scream, and the popcorn bucket in her hand dropped to the floor with a "thud." Her small face instantly lost all color; immense fear made her curl into a ball, trembling.

"Shut up!"

Gu Zhixia's reaction, however, was completely opposite.

Towering rage instantly overwhelmed her fear.

The humiliation of being toyed with, the regret of losing her sister, the anger of being repeatedly manipulated... all negative emotions, at this moment, transformed into violent, destructive power!

"Get... out!!!"

She let out an inhuman roar.

Boom—!

Dark purple "Annihilation" lightning burst from her body without warning!

That was not an illusion, but real, undeniable, law-level power capable of tearing reality apart!

The entire cinema violently shook under the impact of this power! The expensive leather sofas instantly decomposed into their most basic particles in the lightning! The lights on the ceiling flickered wildly, then burst one by one! Spiderweb-like cracks appeared on the walls!

She had, due to extreme anger, directly unleashed her power inside the battleship!

"Zhi Xia! Calm down!"

Lin Mo's voice, like a resounding bell, rang out amidst the chaos.

He instantly sprang from his seat, pulling the terrified Gu Nianqiu into his arms and shielding her with his body.

At the same time, his eyes glowed with brilliant, emerald green light.

"World Tree! Take over all permissions of the heart of nightmare! Forcefully cut off energy output!"

WARNING! The heart of nightmare shows signs of losing control! Its residual 'Casper' mental imprint has been activated and is attempting to corrupt the shipboard system! Corruption progress 17%!

WARNING! High-intensity law-level burst detected within the ship's hull! Zone C structural damage 41%! Energy is spreading!

So that's it!

Lin Mo understood the whole story in an instant.

Casper hadn't resurrected; rather, the heart of dreams they had obtained was itself a cursed weapon! It was like a piece of cheese tainted with deadly poison; though delicious, it constantly emitted a fatal toxin.

The movie just now was the trigger.

It stirred the "memories" of Casper's mental imprint, thereby activating the "negative effect" of this heart of the world, dragging the sisters, especially Gu Zhixia, whose mental state was the most unstable, back to the brink of nightmare.

"By my authority, I command you, stop!"

Lin Mo's will, like a sharp sword made of emerald green Life energy, fiercely pierced into the core of the chaotic mental storm created by the heart of nightmare!

In his spiritual world, he once again "saw" that handsome Casper with a mocking smile.

"It's useless, 'Captain,'" Casper's phantom smiled. "This is her own inner demon. The more you try to suppress it, the more violently she will rebound. Soon, she will be completely consumed by anger, turning into a beast that only knows destruction. Then, she will personally tear this ship, along with you and that cute little thing in your arms, into pieces."

"That will surely be an unprecedented, magnificent work of art."

"Is that so?"

Lin Mo's will-body looked at him expressionlessly.

"You seem to have forgotten one thing."

"This is my ship."

The moment his words fell, Lin Mo's will-body was no longer alone.

Behind him, a towering, emerald green, massive phantom of the World Tree slowly emerged.

Immediately after, another power was forcibly drawn by Lin Mo from the ship's energy core.

That was the power that controlled the authority of "Space"!

Blue spatial power and green Life power instantly fused together!

"I was able to smash your proud gallery."

Lin Mo's will-body reached out a hand towards Casper's phantom.

"On my own ship, what tricks do you think you can pull?"

"Mental pollution? Coincidentally, I can do that now too."

The Natural Selection unlocks a brand new combat form—Nightmare Form.

Note: The content of the illusion can be edited according to your will.

The next second, the environment around Casper's phantom suddenly changed.

It was no longer the High-Dimensional Gallery.

Instead, it was a gym.

A sunny, huge gym filled with the smell of sweat.

Countless burly, muscular men, wearing only shorts, were grunting philosophically while furiously lifting weights.

And Casper found himself wearing a pink, tight-fitting tracksuit, bound to a bench press, unable to move.

A man taller and stronger than everyone else, like a demon god, with an indistinct face, was looking down at him.

"Come on, baby, time for chest day. Today, we'll do three hundred sets."

Casper's handsome face, for the first time, showed an expression more terrifying than "fear" and "anger" combined, an expression called "bewilderment."

"No... what is this... this doesn't fit my aesthetic... release me! You vulgar, sweaty barbarians!"

His screams were drowned out by a chorus of "Oh-rah, oh-rah, oh-rah" shouts.

Lin Mo forcibly severed Casper's mental imprint's link with Gu Zhixia and, using his limited imagination, created what he believed to be the most terrifying, eternally looping nightmare for him.

Having done all this, he withdrew from the spiritual world.

In reality, the violent dark purple lightning, having lost its source, began to rapidly recede.

Gu Zhixia gasped for air, looking bewilderedly at the chaotic cinema and her sister, who was huddled in Lin Mo's arms, almost fainting from fright, her eyes filled with lingering fear and self-loathing.

She had almost destroyed everything with her own hands.

"I'm... sor..."

She wanted to apologize, but her throat was too dry to make a sound.

Lin Mo didn't look at her; he just gently patted Gu Nianqiu's back in his arms and said in as steady a tone as possible:

"It's alright now."

Then, he looked up at the giant screen, which had returned to static, his eyes cold and grave.

It seemed that before reaching Narcissus Plain, they would first have to resolve the biggest safety hazard on the ship, one that could explode at any moment.

That cursed trophy—the heart of nightmare.