Chapter 285: Chapter 281: Little Thing, I’ve Found You (1)

Overlapping Nightmares were anything but a simple matter of one plus one.

When the powers of multiple Nightmares merged, the inherent power of the Nightmares themselves, as well as the strength of the monsters lurking within, would compound accordingly.

As a result, the difficulty of resolving this tricky situation would undoubtedly increase exponentially.

However, for Wei Fan, it was too late for regrets.

He was now trapped deep within this overlapping Nightmare. Escape was impossible. The only path before him was to find a way to resolve it.

Besides, Wei Fan was determined to obtain that Dream Eye.

That item was very special. If he could get his hands on it, it would undoubtedly be a huge help to his future plans.

Therefore, he was unwilling to give up so easily.

Fortunately, there was a silver lining: this kind of overlapping Nightmare was not entirely impossible to break.

After all, this was just two Nightmares overlapping; it hadn’t yet reached the point of being an inescapable, hopeless death trap.

Moreover, the Early Stage, right after an overlapping Nightmare formed, was actually the most hopeful and easiest time to resolve it.

As long as he could successfully resolve one of the Nightmares before the two fused completely, he could break this bizarre overlapping state.

Wei Fan considered this, yet he chose not to rush out the door immediately.

Previously, when he’d first sensed the Nightmare’s aura, he had planned to go out and face it. That was because, thanks to his memories from a past life, he knew information about the Nightmare called the "Rain Butcher."

Furthermore, he had already prepared all the necessary items in his backpack, so dealing with that Nightmare hadn’t seemed difficult at the time.

But things were different now. A completely new and unknown Nightmare had appeared.

With no knowledge of this unknown Nightmare’s killing pattern, rushing out rashly would very likely lead to unexpected danger.

Although he possessed an incredibly powerful Dream Eye, the problem was that despite his recent attempts, he could only unleash a small fraction of its Nightmare Power. He was completely unable to control it fully.

Given the situation, Wei Fan ultimately chose to stay in his room.

He could already hear the strange sound of a bouncing ball drawing closer.

The sound was dull and rhythmic, like a heavy drumbeat pounding against one’s heart.

The sound grew clearer and clearer, as if its source had a specific target: this very floor, the thirty-third.

In the dim hallway, the lights flickered erratically, as if they might go out completely at any second.

The thing moved with astonishing speed. In just a few short seconds,

a flash of vibrant red—the corner of a dress—appeared from the stairwell at one end of the hall.

The next moment,

a woman in a red dress came into view.

Her red dress was so vibrant it was almost blinding, as if it had been soaked in fresh blood many times. The hem swayed gently with her movements, adding to her bizarre appearance.

The woman’s legs were long and slender, yet completely bloodless, as pale as frost-bitten branches in winter. They were held together, raised high, and suspended stiffly in the air.

Her head, however, was not where it should be. It slammed into the ground again and again, each impact producing a hair-raising thud.

Her once-beautiful face had become twisted and hideous as a result. A few stray strands of long, black hair were stuck to her cheeks, swaying with the rise and fall of her head.

She advanced by bouncing on her head. With every leap and fall, her body moved as if controlled by an invisible force—mechanical, yet exuding an indescribable strangeness.

Shallow craters were smashed into the floor along her path, and dark red blood slowly seeped from the points of impact, leaving a trail of shocking, bloody streaks on the ground.

Under the force of such powerful impacts, strands of black hair and splatters of blood were scattered in her wake. One could even faintly make out bits of white brain matter mixed in.

Merely witnessing such a scene was enough to send a chill shooting up one’s spine to the top of their skull, creating an utterly terrifying sensation.

Fortunately, Wei Fan was no ordinary person. Although his expression shifted slightly at the horrifying sight before him, he ultimately showed no signs of panic.

However, he was well aware of a critical taboo: he must not look at it directly.

He recalled his past life. A decade after the Nightmares began descending upon the real world, various nations had, of course, launched extensive, in-depth research into this mysterious and terrifying phenomenon.

In the process, countless lives were sacrificed to painstakingly summarize and compile a great deal of precious knowledge.

Among their findings was one crucial piece of advice: when encountering a monster from a Nightmare, it was best not to look at it directly. Doing so would very likely attract the monster’s attention and provoke an attack.

Wei Fan had long anticipated this and had prepared accordingly.

He averted his gaze, smoothly pulled his phone from his pocket, quickly opened the camera app, and aimed the lens at the peephole on his door. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

He then fixed his eyes on the phone screen to observe the situation outside.

According to the research, a direct human gaze would attract the attention of these things. However, using a mirror, a camera, or any other reflective surface would not unduly disturb the monsters from the Nightmares.

Things unfolded just as Wei Fan had expected. After appearing in the hallway, the woman in red did not head in his direction.

Instead, she moved toward the door at the opposite end of the hallway.

’Fang Xi? Could it be that what they encountered in the elevator last time was a precursor to this Nightmare!’

Watching the scene unfold, Wei Fan’s eyes flickered. In an instant, he understood the reason why.

There was another apartment right across from the stairwell where the monster had appeared, yet it didn’t choose the closer target. Instead, it went straight for Fang Xi’s apartment, the one farthest from Wei Fan.

The only explanation for this was that Fang Xi had already encountered this Nightmare before.

Typically, in such situations, monsters from a Nightmare would first kill those they had previously marked. Only after completing this ’task’ would they begin to kill indiscriminately.

Furthermore, if the marked person were to die beforehand, there was a certain chance that the Nightmare’s arrival could be interrupted.

At this thought, Wei Fan’s expression darkened.

He secretly regretted his inaction. Had he known things would turn out this way, he should have eliminated Fang Xi beforehand.

He stared coldly at the screen, silently watching the red-dressed woman bounce on her head, moving one hop at a time toward Fang Xi’s apartment.

Wei Fan had no intention of intervening. Since Fang Xi had brought this disaster upon them, he could use this as an opportunity to carefully observe the Nightmare monster’s killing pattern and better prepare for the dangers that might follow.

However, something unexpected happened. Just as the inverted woman in red reached the door of 3310, her mechanical bouncing came to a sudden, unannounced halt. The entire hallway instantly fell into a dead silence.

The THUMP, THUMP, THUMP that had just been echoing through the hall vanished completely, making the silence all the more horrifying.

Then, a chilling scene unfolded.

The red-dressed woman’s stiff neck, as if seized and violently twisted by an invisible hand, suddenly rotated a full one hundred and eighty degrees.

Accompanying the violent motion was an overloaded CRACK from her neck. The sound was piercing in the silence, like the groan of an old wooden door being forced open—enough to make one’s skin crawl.

Her face, already mangled from the previous impacts, now looked even more hideously bizarre.

Her skin, like cracked earth, was covered in fissures and bloodstains. One eye drooped half-shut while the other was wide open, its white shot through with blood vessels, staring fixedly in Wei Fan’s direction.

Her gaze seemed to hold an endless, icy malice. A single glance was enough to send a chill racing up the spine.

And then her mouth slowly, unnervingly, curled upward into a strange and terrifying smile.

It was as if she had sensed Wei Fan hiding behind the door.

—THUMP THUMP THUMP!

A rapid, frantic series of impacts, like a drumroll, suddenly shattered the chilling silence.

The inverted woman in red charged toward Wei Fan’s door at an incredible speed, and a moment later, her body slammed violently against it.

With a deafening "BANG!", the force of the impact was far greater than imaginable. The entire doorframe began to shake violently.

The security door on the outside, unable to withstand the force, rapidly caved in and warped. Dust shook loose from the walls, filling the air in a swirling cloud.

"Fuck!" Seeing this, Wei Fan’s face turned pale in an instant, and he was shocked to his core.

This sudden Mutation startled him despite his composure, and he couldn’t help but curse out loud.

He couldn’t for the life of him figure out why it had suddenly changed targets and attacked him.

But the situation gave him no time to think. Gritting his teeth, his eyes flew wide open, and the bizarre pupil hidden within his eye instantly dilated.

Immediately after, a cold, dark power belonging to the Nightmare emanated from his palm and swiftly enveloped the door before him.

In an instant, the tremendous commotion ceased.

However, looking at his phone’s screen, he could see that the pair of slender legs was still standing there.

It showed no intention of leaving.

Just then, Wei Fan seemed to sense something else amiss, and his expression changed once again.

He had sensed a third Nightmare aura! And this one was very close—it was inside the room.

Wei Fan’s gaze hastily swept across the room, and he quickly spotted something unusual.

A figure had appeared on the glass window leading to the balcony.

Thanks to the special ability of the Clock Dream Eye in his eye, his vision had reached an extremely high level. Even though the room was very dim, he could still clearly make out the figure’s appearance.

When he saw it clearly, his heart jolted. The figure was none other than himself!

The strange thing was, he himself was standing sideways. Logically, his reflection should also be sideways.

But the figure in the glass was facing him directly, its head bowed low.