Chapter 108: Blurred Dream
“Daohong!” Night God Sun yelled as he lifted Li Daohong back up.
Li Daohong sat there for some time with a dumb expression before replying with a simple “Ah.”
“What happened?” Night God Sun asked.
What happened?
Li Daohong opened his mouth a few times but didn’t know what to say.
Because he himself wasn’t really clear what had happened either.
He had been in the process of creating a large number of nightmares and sending them to attack his opponent, when all of a sudden his consciousness connection was severed.
That wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but creating nightmares expended consciousness energy.
Now, he had left behind a lot of consciousness energy to his opponent. This affected him significantly, causing his consciousness power to decline.
What happened?
Li Daohong cared a lot about his face. Before he could figure out what had happened, there was no way that he would admit that he had just lost consciousness power to his opponent.
After a moment’s thought, he blinked and said, “Nothing. Let me try again.”
He entered the dream realm again.
This time, he was able to pull Su Chen into the dream realm even more rapidly.
Because Su Chen hadn’t left the dream realm yet.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t, but that he didn’t want to.
Once he had severed Li Daohong’s consciousness, the nightmares were left behind in his world and were no longer being controlled. Next, Su Chen was able to turn these nightmares back into consciousness energy with but a thought, claiming them for himself.
“Hm?” Su Chen was surprised to find that his consciousness energy was increasing.
Even though the increase wasn’t very much, it was representative of an exciting future – perhaps he would be able to increase his consciousness power like this in the future.
More importantly, however, Su Chen learned how to use the nightmares.
After absorbing them, he was able to dissect them, and his consciousness crystal was able to produce a method for controlling these nightmares.
Of course, he was still far from being able to storm someone else’s dream realm and construct these nightmares, but he was at least more than capable of defending himself.
A moment later, a large wave of nightmares appeared yet again.
This time, however, they were under Su Chen’s control.
“How ugly. Let’s change the way they look.” Su Chen wasn’t a big fan of how these nightmares looked. With but a thought, the nightmares changed form, wearing black clothes and wielding razor-sharp blades in their hands. This way, the nightmares had become Su Chen’s dream guards.
Only their outward appearance had changed, however; their essence was still the same, and they were still meant for attacking. Because they had been created inside a dream realm belonging to Su Chen, however, the consciousness energy he had used to make them would return to him when they were destroyed.
Just as Su Chen was reveling in this new sensation, Li Daohong suddenly barged in again.
“Again?” Su Chen was a bit surprised.
This was his first time sensing that Li Daohong was infiltrating his mind..
Since this guy wanted to come at him, then there was no point in being polite.
Su Chen ordered his dream guards to retreat, allowing Li Daohong’s consciousness to enter.
Li Daohong found it incredibly easy to enter. He had originally thought that it would take some time to take down the consciousness walls, saving him a lot of time and effort.
That must have been an accident, Li Daohong thought to himself.
He didn’t believe that a weak Harpy could possibly have a stronger consciousness than him or see through the tactic he had used so easily, turning the situation around on him.
This sounded incredibly simple, but it was actually quite difficult.
Li Daohong didn’t believe that it could possibly happen to him, so he was more willing to believe that it was some kind of accident. Perhaps it was some kind of strange consciousness fluctuation that had severed his connection in the first place.
He wanted to get a better grip on the situation. Perhaps he would also be able to regain the consciousness power he had lost.
Li Daohong charged into the realm with this kind of a thought in his mind.
This time, however, he was much more careful.
Instead of using the nightmares to sneak in, he chose a different tactic.
A poetic, picturesque scene appeared before Su Chen’s eyes.
Su Chen watched as the empty space that he had originally occupied suddenly became much richer and filled with content.
Mountains, rivers, the sky, and the earth all appeared.
The appearance of such beautiful scenery almost felt like it was real.
Unfortunately, almost was the same as not at all.
This time, Li Daohong had chosen to use the Blurred Dream.
The Blurred Dream didn’t really pose a killing threat, but it could alter a person’s perception, allowing the user to then plant the seed that they desired.
However, the prerequisite to the success of this technique was that the opponent was unaware that they were in a dream realm.
Normally, this Blurred Dream would have somewhat of a bewitching effect on its target when used, causing that person to sink into a reverie. Actually, most dream realms had this effect, but Blurred Dream did this to a greater extent.
Unfortunately, Li Daohong’s opponent was Su Chen.
Li Daohong had no idea how powerful Su Chen’s consciousness was.
The gap in consciousness power between the two of them was the foundation of the battle. When two people wrestled, strength was always the basis no matter how skilled they were. If a person had no strength to speak of, there was nothing they could do no matter how agile or nimble they were.
Even though Su Chen didn’t have a particularly deep grasp of dream techniques, his powerful consciousness gave him the ability to preserve his alertness even in the face of Blurred Dream.
As such, he was completely unaffected.
Most importantly, Su Chen hadn’t counterattacked.
Without counterattacking, Li Daohong would have no way of knowing whether he had managed to bewitch Su Chen or not.
In fact, he made the opposite conclusion, which was that he had succeeded.
As such, he proceeded with the next step.
Su Chen watched as a Harpy village appeared, nestled in between the mountains and the rivers.
The village was not very large, but it seemed to be bustling with noise and excitement.
A few beautiful Harpy women floated around him, attending to his needs.
One of them looked a bit like Zhu Xianyao. It appeared that Li Daohong had modeled the Harpy’s appearance based on her…… This bastard truly hadn’t given up on Zhu Xianyao yet.
Su Chen glanced a bit longer at Zhu Xianyao. Li Daohong seemed to take that as feedback and thought that Su Chen was particularly attracted by this female. He then decided to use this Harpy to try and entice Su Chen.
“Oh, he’s trying to plant the seed of love in me. If he activates this seed in the future, will I lose control of my passions?” Su Chen seemed to understand.
But Li Daohong was a male. How would he activate this seed of love in the future?
Would he have someone else activate it? Or would Su Chen see him as a woman? Or would the seed take effect regardless?
Su Chen didn’t want to think about this any further.
He watched the Harpy female fly enticingly around him momentarily before activating his microscopic eyes, working hard to dissect this Blurred Dream.
Given that he had already managed to succeed once, Su Chen found his continued efforts much easier.
He very quickly reverse-engineered the Blurred Dream, then honed his consciousness energy into a blade, once again severing Li Daohong’s connection with this dream realm.
Li Daohong suddenly felt a wave of dizziness overcome him as he toppled over.
This time, Night God Sun was much more prepared.
Upon seeing him awaken, Night God Sun said, “Brother, are you alright?”
“I……” Li Daohong stared at Night God Sun.
Damn, how come the connection was severed again?
And what about my consciousness energy?
Constructing a Blurred Dream was much costlier than constructing a Soul Departing Dream. This time, he had lost nearly a hundred units of consciousness energy.
Li Daohong almost spat out a mouthful of blood.
What was happening?
Why was it happening?
Night God Sun was still staring at him with concern.
He stared at Night God Sun and forcefully suppressed the complaints in his heart as he said, “I, I’m fine.”
“That’s good to hear.” Night God Sun nodded.
After a moment’s thought, he asked, “Then are you planning on continuing?”
Li Daohong’s vein pulsed momentarily before he gritted his teeth and said, “Damn!”
Li Daohong hadn’t given up yet.
He wanted to take another look at why the situation had turned out like this.
Su Chen had only just finished analyzing the Blurred Dream when he suddenly felt his consciousness tremble momentarily.
Hm?
He was back?
He had actually come back?
Su Chen was incredibly surprised, but he still welcomed it.
Next, he watched as the scenery around him morphed, this time taking the shape of an imperial palace.
Su Chen was sitting on the seat of power in Sky City. Countless important Harpies surrounded him, bowing to him as his loyal subjects.
“So now he’s trying to entice me with power?” Su Chen muttered.
It was still the Blurred Dream, but with a different kind of seed.
On the other hand, Li Daohong had also changed things up.
This time, he was no longer using his own consciousness energy. Instead, he was leading Su Chen’s consciousness energy to construct this brand new world.
“What kind of skill is that?” Su Chen’s interest was greatly piqued.
Using the opponent’s consciousness power to construct a dream realm? That was quite the skill. Even if Li Daohong failed, he wouldn’t have to worry about the consciousness backlash.
But it probably wasn’t that easy, right?
So why didn’t Li Daohong use it from the very beginning?
It was clear that this skill had some other flaws to it.
Regardless, Su Chen’s attention had been captured.
He began to dissect it again.
Because this was still the Blurred Dream, there wasn’t much to dissect. After all, Su Chen could remember something forever with the help of the consciousness crystal. But in order for Su Chen to further understand what Li Daohong had done, he would need to compare the differences.
He was very quickly able to discover what these differences were.
So Li Daohong had first constructed a complete thought before infusing it into Su Chen’s mind, baiting his will into following along the path that Li Daohong had carefully laid out before it.
Li Daohong was basically playing the role of a kind and gentle mentor, leading Su Chen’s consciousness power in the direction that he wanted to.
The reason this was possible was because Su Chen’s consciousness power was simply too great, making it impossible for Li Daohong to really control him.
But this placed quite a high burden on Li Daohong himself as well.
Instead of barging his way into Su Chen’s dream realm, he seemed to be circling around the walls this time, using all kinds of secret techniques to influence Su Chen from the shadows. Of course, this would require even more consciousness energy to do.
Li Daohong seemed to have been thoroughly scared off by Su Chen. He was willing to expend quite a bit more Origin Energy in order to avoid having to infiltrate Su Chen’s mind.
He would be able to recover this expenditure, but anything that Su Chen had forcefully seized was forfeit.
When he saw this, Su Chen was delighted.
Did you think there was nothing I could do to you if you stayed outside the walls?
If you won’t come in, then I’ll open the front door and drag you in.
Before this, Su Chen didn’t even know how to open this door.
But Li Daohong’s infiltration was teaching Su Chen how to better use and control his consciousness power.
At this point, opening a door was incredibly simple.
If nothing else worked, he could even knock down the walls.
Li Daohong never would have even dreamed that he had run into such a prodigy of an opponent.
He was still carefully circling the walls of Su Chen’s consciousness, constantly expending consciousness energy to direct Su Chen’s will, when all of a sudden the front door to Su Chen’s consciousness opened wide.
Li Daohong’s mind was forcefully pulled into Su Chen’s dream realm.
The last thing Li Daohong saw was Su Chen’s smiling expression.
He said, “Hello.”
A sudden jolt of pain shot through Li Daohong’s head as the consciousness connection was severed yet again.
