Martial Dao: Peace by Force

Chapter 324: Chapter 185: Meeting an Old Acquaintance in Huangliang! You Actually Hunted Me Down Here?

On the mountaintop, trees continued to grow wildly under the Red Moon. Their branches, like living things, stretched out in every direction, twisting together to form enormous nets.

The world-altering change was truly staggering.

Wan Ze stared, somewhat mesmerized.

This was something far beyond human capability. It was like the power of the world itself, or something even more incomprehensible.

Feng Jiuchen quickly grabbed Wan Ze’s arm and pulled him back two steps. They retreated to the base of a large tree, and Feng Jiuchen pressed his back against the trunk.

Wan Ze couldn’t help but stare. It was the first time he had ever seen Feng Jiuchen on such high alert.

Yet, his expression also seemed to hold a mix of shock and delight. The two emotions swirled together, creating a peculiar sight.

”Holy crap, we fucking hit the jackpot!” Feng Jiuchen’s voice was hushed, but the excitement in his tone was irrepressible. ”To think we’d run into something like this!”

Wan Ze glanced at him, his expression questioning. ”What’s going on?”

Feng Jiuchen took a deep breath, as if to steady his racing heart. He let go of Wan Ze’s arm and pointed toward the distant, wildly growing mountains. Tracing a large circle in the air with his finger, he whispered, ”A newcomer has arrived. This whole area has been forcibly dragged into their dream.”

”A dream?” Wan Ze’s expression faltered.

He knew that ordinary people perceived their arrival in Huangliang as a dream.

Many people entered this world by accident. After they woke up, their brains would automatically categorize everything they had seen, heard, and felt as just a dream.

But ’being pulled into a dream’ was different.

This meant that the person’s dream was changing the reality of Huangliang.

Those mountains didn’t grow from the ground; they grew out of that person’s dream.

These countless peaks emerging from the ground before them were all things from the dream, forcefully stuffed into Huangliang.

The mountain range rumbled endlessly as one majestic peak after another sprang from the earth.

It was like a giant game of Go, with pieces being placed on the board one by one.

With every piece that fell, the ground trembled.

Wan Ze stared, somewhat mesmerized.

He was profoundly shaken.

He had witnessed this level of Power only once before... when the Female Sword Immortal had unleashed a hundred-meter-long blade with a single slash, making the mountains tremble and the earth quake.

But the Female Sword Immortal was a real, tangible powerhouse. Her Power was something she had earned through her own Cultivation.

And yet, everything before him was just an ordinary person’s dream.

An ordinary person could do nothing more than have a passing thought in a dream and turn all of Huangliang upside down.

As Feng Jiuchen watched, his expression faltered. He cursed his rotten luck under his breath, swearing colorfully.

Because this change was even more terrifying than he had anticipated.

However, his expression quickly returned to normal. He took two deep breaths and forced himself to sound calm. ”No need to panic. Usually, when a newcomer arrives, they just think they’re dreaming. During that time, their perspective and Perception Power are weakened. They might not even see you if you’re standing right in front of them, and they probably wouldn’t hear you even if you screamed your lungs out. That’s because before their brains can process information from Huangliang, they apply a ’this is a dream’ filter that screens out anything illogical.”

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the surrounding mountains that were still taking shape, as if searching for a safe route.

”The easy way out is to find this person and force them out of this world.”

Wan Ze looked at him.

’Forcing out a person who’s dreaming... It sounds easy, but who knows how hard it’ll actually be.’

’You can’t exactly walk into their dream and tell them to get up.’

He waited to see what Feng Jiuchen would do.

Feng Jiuchen didn’t explain further. He waved, gesturing for Wan Ze to follow.

The two carefully navigated between the newly risen mountains, treading lightly to avoid being swallowed by the shifting earth.

The mountains’ growth had slowed but not stopped. Their frenzied surge had become a gradual crawl; every so often, they would lurch upward, pause, and then lurch up again.

Vast expanses of giant mountains appeared from thin air, like a dismantled labyrinth being pieced back together.

Overhead, the light of the Red Moon filtered down through the gaps between the mountains, casting a lattice of light and shadow on the ground.

”Then again, look at it this way...” Feng Jiuchen said in a low voice, never breaking stride as his eyes scanned the path ahead. ”Even if there were other people nearby, they’d know these changes mean a newcomer has arrived. Normally, everyone would be getting as far away as they can. In Huangliang, the most dangerous thing isn’t a Deceitful Beast or a Tomb—it’s people. But even more dangerous than people are the dreamers who pop up out of nowhere. You can never guess what they’ll dream up next. Maybe a planet exploding, maybe a monster invasion... it’s always something bizarre.”

Wan Ze nodded without a word.

He kept observing the new mountains, noticing their shapes growing more defined and distinct, as if someone were meticulously sketching their details with an invisible pen, stroke by stroke.

The texture of the mountainsides, the cracks in the rocks, the piles of rubble at the base—every single thing was becoming more real.

”This is a bit tricky, but where there’s risk, there’s opportunity. Stay close,” Feng Jiuchen instructed in a low voice. The two of them then moved quickly, weaving through the mountain range, which was now bathed in an iridescent, flowing light.

With the newcomer’s arrival, light had begun to flow within the mountains.

On the newly grown mountainsides, a faint fluorescent light was circulating. The light seeped out through cracks in the rock, making the entire mountain glow like a translucent lantern.

Moreover, the color of the light was constantly changing, sometimes silvery-white, sometimes pale gold, like a flowing river winding and coiling over the mountainside.