Lord of Rot

’I can’t open new games I’ve never played, but old games I have played run just fine. What about a game I only played halfway through before I dropped it?’

Cyberpunk 2077. A game he’d bought back in the day just to follow the trend. He hadn’t played it for very long.

When he reached a new part of the story and the screen went blank and the sound cut out, Leech leaned back in his chair. He already had his answer.

’Anything I don’t know appears as a blank space. So this is still a dream. A lucid dream.’

’If I kill myself, will I actually die?’

He couldn’t be sure. It all felt too real. If he was wrong about this and stabbed himself, he’d really be dead.

Maybe he was Leech from Earth, having a dream about transmigrating to an Otherworld, going through a bunch of crazy stuff, and then waking up.

Or maybe he had really transmigrated, and for some reason, he was now dreaming that he had returned to Earth.

This wasn’t like Skyrim. That was a game, but life on Earth was incredibly real.

So Leech chose a more peaceful method. He took a knife and stabbed himself in the thigh.

”FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK! It hurts!”

The ambulance arrived promptly. He was taken by a young, beautiful nurse to a maternity hospital called ”Saint Julian Hospital.”

He looked at the doctor stitching his wound, then glanced at the pretty nurse assisting him. Leech’s eyes scanned the name tag on her chest.

Nise Ren.

”I knew it!” he exclaimed, ecstatic.

Neither his previous ”death” nor this excruciating pain could wake him. Someone was trying to trap him in this dream!

’No matter who’s pulling the strings, to control me, they have to build everything based on my own cognition. It’s my dream, and I’m in charge!’

He felt he had to teach the mastermind a lesson. Judging by how they’d taken the form of Odu before, the person creating this dream to trap him would definitely be disguised as a character in this world.

He didn’t know who it was, but they would surely come looking for trouble.

The surgery ended, and Leech’s leg was bandaged.

He lay on the hospital bed, watching the nurse as she turned to leave. He was very direct. ”Miss Nise Ren, you wouldn’t want anyone to find out about your boyfriend beating someone up, would you?”

Nise Ren stopped, tense. She looked at him. ”Wh-what do you want?”

She loved her boyfriend more than anyone and had no interest in other men. But if the incident with her boyfriend got out, his reputation would be tarnished... No, she would pay any price to prevent that.

Leech gave a wicked smile and said, ”Buy me one copy of every single math, physics, and chemistry textbook from elementary school through high school!”

’Making a hentai character do this... I’m so evil.’

”Oh, huh? Ah!” It wasn’t what she’d been thinking at all. Nise Ren was completely shocked.

”Hurry up and go!”

”Yes, I’ll go right away.”

He had thought it through clearly. Killing himself again wouldn’t necessarily let him escape the other’s control over the dream.

The dream could help him recall the past. It would be a total waste not to take advantage of this opportunity.

Leech had never read any professional academic papers, so even if he got them, they’d just be blank. It was better to get the elementary, middle, and high school math, physics, and chemistry books and cram them. He’d memorize as much as he could. It wasn’t easy to have a dream like this, and the knowledge would definitely be useful when he got back.

...

Malin the Dreamer dove deep into Leech’s dreamscape.

Her ability was to enter dreams. Although her combat power as a Transcendent was mediocre, her usefulness was something a few brawny Transcendents couldn’t compare to.

People always needed to sleep. As long as her target was asleep, Malin the Dreamer could enter and control their dreams.

Almost no one could guard against dream invasion. Sleep was when a person’s guard was at its lowest.

Dreams were constructed from the target’s subconscious and had different levels of depth.

There was little useful information to be gained from shallow dreams. Deeper dreams were more realistic, and from them, Malin could obtain more useful information, even uncovering the target’s deepest secrets.

The only problem was that the deeper she went, the more likely she was to get lost in the dream.

Malin had her own methods for reminding herself that she was in someone else’s dream and not the real world.

In a dream, Malin could relentlessly torture a person, destroying their spirit. After they woke up, the target would likely be so broken that they could never truly awaken again.

This time, she had been ordered to enter Leech’s dream not only to torture him mentally but also to obtain the secrets of muskets and cannons.

When she first entered Leech’s dream, Malin discovered a Giant Dragon. Ecstatic, she controlled the dragon, intending to imprison Leech and slowly interrogate and torture him. But she never expected Leech to suddenly say a few bizarre words and then kill himself.

Malin didn’t know where she had given herself away. ’Could it be that everything the dragon said and did was already scripted?’

’You’ve never even seen a Giant Dragon, Baron Porcupine, so how can you demand it speak according to your expectations!’

Fortunately, the dream continued, growing deeper.

As it deepened, there was more for her to explore.

”Where is this?” Malin asked, standing on a street corner.

The sun was scorching.

Strange, tall buildings stood everywhere.

”BEEP BEEP—!!”

A sharp sound suddenly blared from behind her. Malin jumped, whipping her head around to see an iron box on wheels. It looked a bit like a carriage, but there were no horses pulling it.

A man stuck his head out of the iron box. ”FUCK! Are you fucking crazy, standing in the middle of the road!”

Malin’s expression changed. She didn’t understand what he said, but from his expression and tone, she knew he was definitely cursing at her.

Malin rushed forward, but the iron box suddenly swerved, brushing past her as it fled.

’First, find Baron Porcupine!’

The streets were wide, with beautifully planned green lawns and no visible dirt.

Massive bridges were built overhead.

Coming and going were iron boxes that moved even faster than a running Transcendent.

The people spoke a language she couldn’t understand at all, yet it possessed its own clear, logical system.

At first, Malin thought these people were just fake constructs from Leech’s mind and that their words were gibberish. But when she tried to communicate with a passerby, she found she could actually learn a few phrases.

Worst of all, she seemed to have lost Leech’s trail.

’Just how terrifying is Baron Porcupine’s mind, to be able to create so many people!’

”Hello,” Malin said, approaching a group of youths. Her gaze fell on a boy with blond hair who reminded her of the rats in the capital’s Stinky Rat Alley.

If she wanted key information, she had to start with people like this.

Beside him were several other boys in strange clothes. They held small, burning paper rolls, blissfully puffing out clouds of smoke, just like nobles smoking ”Ji Lan.”

”Holy shit, a foreign chick!”

”Hey, Da Cheng, the foreign chick’s talking to you.”

The blond-haired boy smoothed his hair. ”Hello. I’m Da Cheng. How are you? I’m fine, thank you. And you?”

”Whoa, Da Cheng knows English!” the others hooted.

Malin’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t forget her objective. She smiled, her expression full of charm. ”I need your help.”

’The language barrier is no problem. With a little squeeze, anyone can understand the language of whiteness.’

About ten minutes later, Malin followed the boys to the front of a building.

She rode a thing called an ”elevator” that ascended rapidly.

Malin grew more and more alarmed. Baron Porcupine’s mind was truly terrifying. Everything here seemed illogical and completely different from the Lu Leiyi Continent, yet it was all reasonable in its own way.

A completely new linguistic system.

A brand-new mode of transportation.

Entirely new styles of clothing.

A person could adapt existing things, but it was impossible to create something that didn’t exist out of thin air.

’How in the world did he do it?!’