YinKong, Zero, Heng, ChengXiao, WangXia, TengYi, and LiuYu opened their eyes. Everyone looked around in panic. They were stunned to see the scene suddenly changed.
A while later, LiuYu screamed because the three girls next to him had turned into corpses. One girl barely had any skin left and the other two had wound from a gunshot.
All seven people found themselves on a taxi. The change was so drastic from a few moments ago that their minds stopped for several seconds. They were waiting for the missiles to hit in the broken house and the next time they opened their eyes, they were inside a taxi.
The taxi LiuYu was in swayed as though something struck it then crashed into the guard rail. The crash deformed the guard rail into a concave. Both the driver and LiuYu banged their heads from the collision.
The other three taxis stopped. A driver from a car to the side screamed because he also noticed a dead body in his car. The whole road was in a chaos. With four taxis stopping on the road, all the traffic came to a halt despite no other accidents.
Zheng was sitting beside Xuan. When the other team members opened their eyes, blood burst out from his body. Numerous wounds appeared as if he was cut by a blade all over. The force from the sudden brake of the taxis shattered him to pieces. Strangely, his clothes remained intact despite his body being destroyed. Blood and pieces of flesh and bones splatter seat of the taxi under his clothes.
A seemingly anger expression crept up Xuan’s face as he watched Zheng shattered. Two Gauss pistols appeared in his hands the next instant. One pointed at the driver and the other at Heng.
Xuan said, “Heng? Are you injured?”
Heng was still staring at Zheng’s corpse in shock. He couldn’t respond at once when Xuan questioned until a light radiating from the pistol woke him up. Xuan had activated the Lambda Driver, a power that was vividly fresh in his memory.
Heng cried, “My legs! Right, my legs are cut off!” He tore off his pants. His legs fell apart from the points where he was feeling pain. The fresh blood seemed like he had just suffered this damage.
Xuan shot the terrified driver without another word, crushing his head. He then opened the door and jumped off the taxi. The two pistols crossed in front of his body in the position of the gun-kata. Using gun-kata in a highway where numerous cars were stuck meant that he planned to go on a massacre.
Heng wanted to say something but the sight of Zheng’s corpse stopped any words from coming out. He finally realized the situation they were in. This was the taxi they were riding to the city and where they fell into the dream world. No matter how long it had passed in the dream world, it was merely an instant’s time in the real world.
(Then this is the real Xuan? He won’t do anything unnecessary. I should watch and wait… Zheng really did…)
Outside the taxi, Xuan was massacring all the people on the highway. Only when he turned to his team members would he ask, “Are you injured anywhere?” The pistols would light up if the responses were slow. ChengXiao and the rest would quickly display their wounds like showing off their prizes.
YinKong woke up at the same time with the others but quickly fell unconscious again. Those who did not come back to the safe dream never woke up.
The Gauss pistols and gun-kata had no difficulty killing normal people without the use of the Lambda Driver. No matter where someone was standing, even behind a car, the bullets would pierce through steel and kill him. In just ten seconds, Xuan had killed over a hundred people. Few who survived ran in terror but soon got shot.
The rest of the team members got out of the taxis and also carried LiuYu out. His head was bleeding from the collision but his life was not in danger.
ChengXiao asked, “What is he doing? Why is he killing all these people?”
Heng hesitated for a moment before replying, “Zheng’s dead. His whole body shattered… A terrible death.”
Their eyes twitched as they all looked to Heng. Zero and Kampa rushed to the taxi Zheng was on and found the shattered flesh and bones of his body. The only things still in whole were his clothes and the Na ring, which contained the Book of the Dead and Book of Amun-Ra. They were the key to reviving Zheng.
Zero picked up the ring then he and WangXia let out a sigh of relief. Zheng could still be revived as long as they had the books, since he had not used the revival.
However, they wondered why would Xuan massacre people knowing Zheng could be revived? Did he feel anger? Did he lost his mind? Did he know what anger felt like?
As they were wondering, a notification sounded in their heads.
“Killed Freddy. Each member awarded 5000 points and a rank B reward.”
Xuan finally stopped and slid the pistols back into his sleeves. He walked over to the group and said, “Search and take everything from Zheng. Carry everyone who is still asleep. We will detonate this place… WangXia, do you still have demon energy to use?”
WangXia nodded. He activated his demon energy. Several plasma bombs floated. Once they took all of Zheng’s items and carried the asleep members a hundred meters away on their backs, the plasma bombs flew to the highway. A blue field devoured a section of the highway. Cars melted under the heat and explosions occurred one after another.
“… That’s our situation.” Xuan glanced over the people lying on the ground then turned to the rest of the team. “Judging from what you have said, it was indeed a dream world and HongLu’s analysis was correct. The world was built around Zheng’s consciousness because he was the only one who knew of everyone’s weaknesses. Then Freddy triggered your weaknesses and put your mind into a battle. As long as you don’t overcome yourself, you will not wake up even after killing Freddy just like them.”
“But why?” Heng asked, “Aren’t we out of the dream world already? Zheng, who is the foundation of the dream world is dead. Freddy is killed. Why won’t they wake up?”
Xuan frowned, “To give an analogy, computer programs are coded with 0s and 1s, which are Yes and No. Assuming the computer has a mind and you ask it a question that’s not a Yes and No question, it will loop in a logic error trying to calculate the answer beyond 0s and 1s until its codes make a breakthrough. There is only one other way to wake someone trapped in this battle of the mind.”
“What is it?” Everyone asked.
“Format.”
There were no words in response. Everyone knew the meaning of formatting but that only applied to computers and not humans.
Over ten hours passed after the massacre on the highway. The team set up a camp in a forest far away from the highway. They finally got the chance to ask Xuan their questions regarding this movie.
ChengXiao asked, “How did you end up killing Freddy when you killed those people around us? Could you kill a person in the dream?”
“HongLu and I were wrong.” Xuan shook his head. “Freddy is merely a human.”
