Superhumans of the Dome City
Chapter 372 - 372 75 The End of the Nightmare

372: Chapter 75 The End of the Nightmare 372: Chapter 75 The End of the Nightmare Gongsun Ce had guessed that the Red Mage’s Creation Realm would lead to corruption, but he couldn’t guess how the Illusion Realm was effective.

For most people, corruption meant an endless beautiful dream, but for a very few…

Corruption was a nightmare with no end in sight.

·

Where was he?

The smell of rotten blood reached his nose; he wanted to lift his hand, but he had no strength.

He struggled to open his eyes, but still no light was visible, only darkness and intense pain.

His lens must have shattered.

It didn’t matter; after a while, they would always heal him.

Perhaps living as a blind man wouldn’t be so bad, able to see less of the ugliness.

Shiyu Lianyi slowly moved his hands, his overgrown nails carving a path through the filth.

Memories gradually returned to his mind; it had been a long time since he last saw Sister Ling.

So long that he had even forgotten the numbers that marked the dates.

After awakening Sister Ling’s memory, he fell into a deep sleep.

Upon waking up, his surroundings had changed drastically.

He could no longer see his other brothers and sisters, and physiological experiments were seldom carried out.

The torturous scarring continued, but he had long been numb to the pain, so he didn’t mind.

At this point, pain and shame had become things of no importance.

A person who eats white rice for three meals a day does not regard rice as a special food, and the same goes for replacing meals with torture.

The feeling of mental corruption was getting deeper than the physical injuries.

The corruption of the mind was insidious, not like sudden combustion, but like the clear and visible process of food spoilage.

Place a piece of bread in a corner and watch its crust dry and shrink bit by bit, the surface losing its luster, green mold spots appearing after a few days, turning into slender hyphae, then maggots hatching and wriggling through the fungus, spreading the stench in all directions.

It’s only when the smell invades your nostrils that you suddenly realize a piece of bread has gone bad…

So, you reluctantly put on gloves, pick up the tool, and carefully discard the thing into a trash bag.

But a corrupt mind can’t be discarded; it always lies in your chest, its throbbing sound like a dying struggle.

It sends the taste of decay through the blood to every part of your body, rotting you from the inside out.

The iron door opened, and there came a voice, today’s visitor was Pure.

“You…

brand…”

The smell of burning flesh reached him, today it was branding irons.

Think about something else.

Recollect the past.

Don’t want to listen to this person speak.

With that thought, the transition of emotions flowed like sewage in his brain.

It started with anger, the hatred of wanting to destroy everything.

Then he started killing, trying to escape, but every attempt ended in failure.

After countless tries, the anger turned to sadness.

Knowing it was meaningless, he gave up tangible actions and began to heal himself with fantasies.

Countless times, countless times, he dreamed beautiful dreams during the intervals of torment.

Would any brother or sister successfully break out and come to save him?

Would a passing heroic figure come to his rescue out of a sense of justice?

Would Sister Ling, now with awakened memories, become strong and come to save him?

Would the villain who caused all this have a change of heart and set him free?

Would his real parents burst into the laboratory to save him?

…

He fantasized about his parents the most, but sadly, he had never met them.

Shiyu Lianyi fantasized again and again, what would his parents look like?

Perhaps they were ordinary wage earners, maybe low-status commoners, maybe some remarkable figures…

or perhaps he came from a single-parent family…

but no matter what their background, his parents surely loved him very much.

They too were anxious at this very moment, thinking of ways to save him, so he had to hold on, maybe one day the dawn would come.

He imagined his parents’ occupations and appearances, trying all the combinations he could think of.

But strangely, they never came.

In contrast, the pain in reality deepened.

Finally, eventually, he could no longer sustain the fantasy about his relatives.

He had another thought—they had long forgotten or given up on him.

This guess seemed more real than any fantasy; the moment it surfaced in his mind, it felt as if a fire within him had been extinguished.

Unable to indulge in fantasy any longer, unable to deceive himself again, Shiyu Lianyi knew why; he was a Calamity Mage, he understood the workings of this world.

There was never love without reason.

Everything in this world was transactional; you couldn’t obtain anything without giving something in return.

Even if there were truly powerful people, such a strong person would not come to save him without reason.

And other than himself, he had no one else to offer for any transaction.

…No, there was.

At the end of the beautiful dream, he found a possibility.

He still possessed himself as a bargaining chip.

That night, Shiyu Lianyi stepped onto the path of Calamity, unprotected, as if lured, walking the misty road.

He shouted loudly to the power within the road.

I’ll make a deal with you.

I offer this life, all of myself to you.

It doesn’t matter if I turn into a monster, just give me power!

But no matter how loudly he pleaded, no sound came from the path of Calamity.

The power in the road did not alter his spirit; it merely surrounded him gently, making him drift off to sleep, and he had a beautiful dream.

On the second night, Shiyu Lianyi chose to try his luck on another path, trying to reach a malignant end more quickly by cultivating dual Mages.

This time, the power of Calamity finally responded: a sucking force came from the depths of the path, making him stand in place, unable to step forward.