Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Fear

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Soon the last corrupted character appeared on her iris.
Then all these words faded, one after another.
The next second, Chu Weiwei felt a burning sensation on her wrist.
Looking down, she discovered the faint mark of a closed eye had appeared on her left wrist.
She touched the mark. Abruptly, a magnificent voice sounded in her ears, “Welcome, adventurer in the game of Legend of Nightmare. From now on, you should give yourself a unique Nightmare name. This name will become your code name in the Realm of Nightmare.
“You can give yourself a Nightmare code name by chanting your desired name in silence.
“If you don’t give yourself a code name, the Realm will use your real name.
“The countdown begins…
“5, 4, 3…”
Unable to think fast enough, Chu Weiwei quickly said silently, “PrettyWeiWei”.
This was her nickname on the Internet.
“Naming is a success.” The magnificent voice continued, “From now on, 1,433, your Nightmare name shall be PrettyWeiWei. This name wields priority in the domain. Before your death or before you completely exit the Realm of Nightmare, the name will be made unavailable to all other players in the game of Legend of Nightmare.”
The mark on her wrist tingled.
Chu Weiwei lowered her head and saw a word written in ancient text appearing beside the mark.
It was the Nightmare name that she had just given herself: PrettyWeiWei.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
Then she thought of Zhang Yu.
After hesitating for a little while, Chu Weiwei picked up her phone and logged onto the Blackguard’s intranet.
Then she navigated to the local intelligence network.
Upon logging in, a pop-up window appeared at the bottom of Chu Weiwei’s phone screen.
It was an emergency notification that would only appear when the Blackguard had discovered a major incident.
Looking at the information in the pop-up window, Chu Weiwei slumped down onto her chair feebly.
Because what the pop-up window said was: Deputy Director of the Blackguard’s Guangnan Branch, Major Zhang Yu, has been found mutilated.
Underneath was a photo.
The photo showed the massive figure of a badly mutilated tiger.
“Weiwei…” Her door opened. Her captain’s figure appeared in the doorway. “Hurry up, something big has happened!
“Zhang Yu, the deputy director of the local Guangnan branch has died after having been found mutilated in the basement of his private house. From his corpse, they’ve found evidence that he was the Tiger Demon!
“This is a massive case, bigger than anything that the federation has encountered in over 100 years!
“A man-eating demon worming its way into the Blackguard…
“I’m afraid that the governor is really going to be pissed off this time!”
The Blackguard’s governor went by the surname Li. Nobody was aware of his full name.
Only a few people had ever seen him.
However, the whole world knew that the governor of the Federal Empire’s Blackguard wasn’t someone they could afford to mess with.
Because his existence itself was a synonym for the word invincible.
Chu Weiwei seemed a little distracted as she listened to her captain.
…
Holding the kitten, Ling PingAn walked downstairs.
It was almost noon.
On the street outside the door, the sun was scorching. Aside from some occasional passing vehicles, there was no one at all walking around.
Ling PingAn had already gotten used to this a very long time ago. He held the kitten, walked to the counter, sat down, and put the kitten aside.
Then he saw the screen on his phone. It appeared to have been turned off.
He picked it up, unlocked it, swiped it open, only to find the icon of a brand-new application appearing on the screen.
Underneath the icon of a closed eye, there were the words: Legend of Nightmare.
“Eh?” Ling PingAn was surprised. “It’s downloaded already?”
“Did I download it?” He scratched his head.
But he didn’t really care about such trivial problems.
He grabbed his phone and thought, “Since it’s already downloaded, I’ll give it go.
“I can just uninstall it if it sucks.
“Then I’ll call the Federal Authority of Electronic Games to make a report.
“I’m a law-abiding citizen after all.” Ling PingAn thought to himself as he tapped on the icon.
However, the game didn’t load.
Instead, a message popped up: Dear Nightmare Adventurer, there are still 24 hours until the next Nightmare. Please be patient until the Nightmare World opens.
A countdown appeared under the icon: 23:59:59.
“Yo!” Ling PingAn chuckled. “This game has some character!
“I’ll wait for one day then.”
He raised his head and looked at the clock. The time now was 12:25 in the afternoon.
He took note of the time.
If tomorrow, this so-called game turned out to be suckish…
Heh, heh…
Ling PingAn licked his lips. “I will let the developers know why roses are red and violets are blue.”
…
Chu Weiwei followed her captain through the many corridors of the Beizhou Kingdom’s Ministry of Home Affairs.
All of a sudden, she felt the mark on her wrist heating up.
She lowered her head and saw a countdown appearing underneath the mark: 23:59:59.
“What’s wrong, Weiwei?” Her captain turned around and looked at her.
“Nothing…” Chu Weiwei blushed. She wasn’t all that good at telling lies.
Fortunately, her captain didn’t seem to care. She only nodded, “Remember, tell me if there’s anything I can help you with.”
“Okay, thanks.” Chu Weiwei nodded her head.
She had now confirmed one thing. She was the only one who could see this so-called Mark of Nightmare on her wrist.
This made her feel agitated.
Because that would imply that the Realm of Nightmare had powers that were far beyond her understanding.
This power could seemingly distort and tamper with the rules of the world at will.
She couldn’t help but think about Zhang Yu, the Tiger Demon who had been determined to have died of unknown causes.
Zhang Yu himself had said that he had the capability of a lieutenant colonel.
What’s more, he’d said that he only needed to go through another two to three levels to reach colonel.
While she was just a mere lieutenant in the Blackguard.
Now, Zhang Yu was dead.
His body had been discovered in the basement of his private dwelling.
According to the Blackguard’s report, someone had found that the major’s apartment had collapsed, and the local Blackguards had hurried to his rescue.
In the end, Zhang Yu, who had turned into a massive tiger, was found in the basement.
Through DNA comparison, it had been confirmed that the Tiger Demon was the former deputy director of the Blackguard’s Guangnan branch, Major Zhang Yu.
So…
“How did I survive?” Chu Weiwei kept asking herself this question.
She thought of the balls of light that had fallen from the ceiling of the log cabin.
She thought of the unknown fog formed by the balls of light after they reached the ground.
She also thought of the stone pedestal, the door on it that appeared out of nowhere, and the Evil Eye on the door that opened.
She even thought of herself witnessing the masses of flesh and blood peeling off from Zhang Yu and the wolf-headed young man’s bodies.
The spooky mouths that were singing an inexplicable hymn.
Just thinking about it, Chu Weiwei’s body couldn’t help but shudder.
She was completely oblivious about how she had survived that terrifying and strange occasion.
She’d almost forgotten everything that had happened.
Aside from fear, everything else that had happened had been obliterated from Chu Weiwei’s mind.
This made her feel even more terrified.
The source of fear was the unknown.