The End
Chapter 722: The truth
“………”
The scene before them was so impactful that it stole everyone’s breath.
They stood rooted to the spot, their minds blank, scarcely able to believe their own eyes.
A dead silence descended around them—so quiet they could almost hear the sound of their own heartbeats.
How could this be?
The surrounding light dimmed, and the massive culture tank plunged back into darkness. Only Su Cheng remained standing before them. His projection was so lifelike that it felt as though what they had just seen was nothing more than a cruel joke.
His voice was very soft, like a sigh.
“Everything comes with a price.”
“…Nightmare planned this right from the very beginning.” Wen Jianyan closed his eyes, hearing his own voice ask hoarsely, “Right?”
“Right,” Su Cheng nodded, looking at him.
Ever since entering Nightmare, Oracle’s power had shadowed him constantly.
Whether it was the initial olive branch they extended, or the subsequent relentless harassment and targeting… Why would the number one guild launch an all-out siege against a newly arrived streamer who hadn’t even fully grown yet? Was it solely to maintain a monopoly?
No. Oracle was named “Oracle” because the very existence of the guild was nothing more than an extension of Nightmare’s will.
“The previous Captain’s body was too severely damaged. Even if Nightmare temporarily prolonged his life, it was only a matter of time before he could no longer carry on,” Su Cheng said softly, lowering his eyes. “Before entering the next world, it had to seek out a new proxy—a tool better suited for its use.”
And he was the chosen successor.
It pried open the weak points in his willpower, granted him the privilege of using his Talent within the streamer space, watched him step by step toward alienation, guided him into joining Oracle, and, upon his joining, generously bestowed upon him the title and status of Vice President.
Aboard the cruise ship, Nightmare continued to give him the green light.
Even though the Gentleman so desperately desired to become its next proxy, Nightmare still reserved the downward pass for Su Cheng.
None of this was ever a coincidence.
A dead silence hung in the air.
The heavy darkness pressed down on everyone’s chests, stuffed like wet cotton deep in their throats, making it impossible to breathe or speak. All they could do was stare fixedly at the figure before them.
He was so real, so stable, so convincingly lifelike—but they knew that if they reached out to touch him, everything would vanish in the blink of an eye, like a phantom bubble.
As if sensing the stagnant air, Su Cheng raised his head. He abruptly changed the subject, adopting a relaxed tone:
“However, losing my physical body and existing purely as a state of consciousness isn’t entirely without its benefits. Regardless of whether Nightmare likes it or not, a part of my consciousness is now tightly linked to it.”
In this state, he could see things he was blind to as a streamer; he could glimpse the grand picture that had previously been hidden from view.
“Though I imagine,” Su Cheng looked at Wen Jianyan, “you probably already know what Nightmare is and how it operates by now, don’t you?”
After all, Wen Jianyan had always been like this.
He was always one step ahead of everyone else.
“…” Wen Jianyan murmured, “Yeah.”
Nightmare was a vendor of malice, a highly efficient manufacturer.
It employed every possible means to squeeze, extract, and plunder everything from an entire world, establishing chain after chain of its foul industry—
The dilapidated Changsheng Building, originally meant to lay malicious spirits to rest in tombs, was corrupted into a facility that funneled them back into the living world. The towering Xingwang Hotel was erected to lure in the wandering souls of a town sealing the Gates of Hell, slowly loosening the barrier between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead. Yuying Comprehensive University, centered around the creation of a god, gradually transported the soil capable of burying tombs onto its campus, awakening more and more ghosts from their slumber. And the orphanage continuously manufactured lamp oil, keeping all these operations running smoothly.
The Lucky Cruise Ship served as the core of it all—the beginning, the blueprint. It contained the most direct, unabashed ghost-manufacturing factory in all of Nightmare.
It operated endlessly, churning out countless malicious spirits before funneling them into different instances.
Thus, a colossal, terrifying network was woven. It cast a dense shroud over the entire world, silently tightening the noose until it sucked the place dry, leaving behind nothing but tasteless, withered dregs. Once that time arrived, Nightmare would set sail once more, heading for the next pristine, unblemished world.
However, a few questions remained unanswered.
“There’s one more thing I need to confirm.”
Wen Jianyan paused, then looked at Su Cheng, slowly articulating his deduction:
“The ten croupiers on the cruise ship… they must be the top ten streamers who were preserved from the last world that Nightmare devoured. Right?”
Su Cheng stilled.
He gave Wen Jianyan a deep look and nodded. “Yes.”
At those words, everyone was startled.
“Wait… what?”
“Even though it’s sailing into the next world, it left rooms for us on the cruise ship in advance,” Wen Jianyan shrugged helplessly, trying to muster a smile but failing. “See? Isn’t it obvious?”
But that wasn’t the only thing that led him to this conclusion.
A long time ago, Wen Jianyan had realized something:
Those croupiers were far too human.
Their appearances, abilities, and personalities all varied. They felt fear, they harbored greed, they had likes and dislikes, and they acted on selfish motives. From every angle, they were worlds apart from the monsters generated by Nightmare within the instances—they weren’t born anomalies; they were monsters born from humans who had been corrupted and alienated.
Yet, Wen Jianyan had received an answer completely contrary to his hypothesis:
As far back as anyone could remember, they had always lived on the ship.
They weren’t human, nor were they streamers.
Nightmare’s top ten had always only consisted of nine people.
Out of the ten croupiers, only nine had ever truly made an appearance.
The empty, suspended position at the very top belonged to the Captain of the Lucky Cruise Ship—the loyal follower, proxy, believer, and accomplice who had sailed with Nightmare across countless worlds.
That was precisely why his codename was—
“Immortality.”
Every piece of information clicked into place, firm and airtight.
Wen Jianyan believed that if everything went “smoothly,” after discarding this world like chewed-up dregs, ten new croupiers would appear aboard Nightmare’s ship. That was exactly why Dan Zhu had fought tooth and nail to seize the sole position of “Captain.”
While the nine lower seats could leave this world alongside Nightmare, over the long term, they were still expendable consumables.
Because only by becoming Nightmare’s proxy could one guarantee they wouldn’t be swapped out, replaced, or discarded. If Zhang Yunsheng hadn’t suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of this world’s Wen Jianyan, having his body destroyed by the vengeful flames of the undead, he probably would have continued sailing with Nightmare, traveling from one world to the next.
Therefore, only by climbing to that position could she truly conquer her fear of death and loss of power.
“If that’s the case, then No. 8 was also…” Wen Ya stared blankly, murmuring, “Is that why he kept helping us…?”
“Yes.”
Su Cheng nodded.
“He had been thoroughly alienated by Nightmare. He had almost completely lost his memories of being human. But…” He paused. “Deep within his shell, some small remnant of his human emotions and cognition must have remained.”
The image of No. 8’s desperate struggle and plea for help as he was swallowed deep into the wall flashed through her mind once more. Wen Ya’s heart palpitated, and she instantly felt a dull, suffocating ache.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, forcing herself not to recall it.
“Don’t worry, he still ‘exists’ right now. And that’s all thanks to you… You killed Dan Zhu before he could be digested, allowing his consciousness to be preserved,” Su Cheng looked at Wen Ya and said. “He’s just too severely damaged to appear again right away. So, I have to stand in for him.”
Hearing this, Wen Ya’s eyes prickled with heat. She took a deep breath, nodded, and said:
“Good. That’s good.”
“If, like you said, the top ten of Nightmare board the ship and become part of Nightmare, what about everyone else?” Chen Cheng, standing nearby, frowned in confusion. “In those worlds that Nightmare drained dry, what happened to the people who weren’t in the top ten?”
“Them?”
Su Cheng paused, looking over.
His eyes were intensely dark—so dark they induced a strange sense of panic.
“Of course, they’re here too.”
Everyone froze at his words.
Here too?
What did that mean?
But before they could voice their questions, as Su Cheng’s words faded, the faint light surrounding them began to brighten. The growing illumination banished the darkness, illuminating the colossal space they were in—
The moment they clearly saw where they were, everyone shuddered. Shock and horror washed over their faces, their pupils contracting violently.
Under their feet, beside them, above them, in every direction.
Countless faces, bearing all kinds of expressions, were pressed tightly together, seamlessly connected. Some were smiling, some were angry, some looked expectant, others were sorrowful. But no matter their expression, their eyes were all tightly shut, as if they were lost in a dream from which they would never awaken.
No wonder the ground felt so soft and spongy, like treading on living flesh.
The last time they had witnessed a similar scene was when the Lucky Cruise Ship instance collapsed.
Between the pitch-black ocean and the sky fell a fine, freezing rain. Pale, bluish human faces slumbered within the ship’s hull. They seemed to belong to a different dimension, immune to any form of attack—until that god-slaying dagger plunged deep into them.
They had opened their eyes, screaming.
No!
I want to sleep!
Don’t make us wake up!!
And after that, the Nightmare Live Broadcast suffered a prolonged disconnection, entering a state of maintenance, while the instances remained shut down for an extended period.
In an instant, every lingering doubt became as clear as day.
Staring at this chilling scene, the group was left utterly speechless.
“They… they are…”
“The audience,” Wen Jianyan murmured, speaking the ultimate truth.
Those streamers who failed to reach Nightmare’s top ten, those ordinary people utterly ignorant of everything—they hadn’t vanished.
They were still on the ship.
They formed the keel, the deck, the hull. They had become an indispensable, indistinguishable part of this organic lifeform. Their cognition was tampered with, their minds paralyzed, their souls domesticated. They could only be corralled within the dreams woven for them, slumbering eternally. Even a single second of wakefulness would bring them unbearable agony.
Their eyes were used for observation, their souls forcefully quantified.
The points extracted from their bodies were used to fuel one instance after another.
To them, the life-and-death struggles, the love and hatred playing out on the screens, were nothing more than entertainment. In this dream from which they could never awake, they offered up grand applause and laughter to a performance that would never end.
Deep within this hell adorned as entertainment—
They could not wake up.
They did not want to wake up.
Author’s Note:
——
A small callback buried a long time ago.
When Wen Jianyan first entered the top ten, he was No. 8.
Their paths crossing was originally meant to be two worlds watching out for and helping each other.
