Infinite Nightmares

Chapter 308: Chapter 305: Yellow

Looking at the mountain of corpses before him, Zhang Wenda’s mind went momentarily blank.

‘Just a moment ago, they were all talking to me. But now… they’re all dead? Just like that?’

The sudden, monumental shift was too much for Zhang Wenda to accept. For a moment, it seemed as if they were all still alive, merely sleeping.

“You…” On the verge of a breakdown, Zhang Wenda’s voice trembled. “All of you, get up!”

“You’re the Third Line! Weren’t you supposed to save all of humanity? Aren’t you the hope of all mankind? How could you lose? You can’t possibly have lost!!”

The Third Line was a fundamental part of this bizarre world. Zhang Wenda had never imagined an organization of its sheer scale could one day simply disappear.

Amid Zhang Wenda’s hysterical roars, the mountain of corpses before him suddenly collapsed. The bodies tumbled down, almost burying him completely.

As the corpse mountain collapsed, the view it had been blocking was revealed. He saw more mountains of corpses, stretching out endlessly before him.

All the corpses wore the Third Line’s shoulder insignia. They were all from the Third Line.

Zhang Wenda finally understood. This wasn’t some random pile of discarded bodies. It was a *jingguan*—a victory mound of corpses built to terrorize enemies!

THUMP. Zhang Wenda’s legs gave out, and he collapsed onto a corpse.

Foul-smelling blood seeped from the body beneath him. The coppery stench washed over him, and he began to retch uncontrollably. He gagged until his face was flushed, veins bulging on his forehead, his eyes filled with tears.

‘He’d never felt much affection for the Third Line. In fact, he didn’t approve of much of what they did, always feeling their slogans were nothing but empty promises. He had only joined them to get his revenge.’

‘But somewhere along the way, the Third Line had become a wall, shielding him from this grotesque world.’

‘As long as that wall stood, nothing that happened in this world concerned him. But now that the wall was gone, the crushing, unfiltered reality was suffocating.’

‘So the Third Line *could* be destroyed. The fragile peace of the world before wasn’t permanent. If no one protected this world, it really would fall apart, and countless people would die.’

“No. I don’t believe it.” His eyes bloodshot, Zhang Wenda gritted his teeth and staggered to his feet. “I refuse to believe Tan Yougen was fucking useless! I refuse to believe that after all his plotting, after roping me into his schemes, this is the only result he could manage! I don’t believe it!!”

Zhang Wenda had despised Tan Yougen, but he had to admit the man was damn capable.

But the idea that all his plotting and scheming had led to *this*? Zhang Wenda wouldn’t believe it in a million years. Old Tan had to have an ace up his sleeve!

Zhang Wenda turned, raised the radar in his hand, and after quickly getting his bearings, charged without hesitation toward the golden sun rising behind him.

As he drew nearer, the numbers on his radar began to drop. That peculiar visual filter reappeared, and under its wash of light, the entirety of Thought Wave Two started to become… abnormal.

Elements unique to Thought Wave One and Thought Wave Six began to overlap with his surroundings. Time itself seemed to slip out of joint, and he saw a flood of visions.

He saw Uncle Niu, whom he hadn’t seen in ages, being pulled from the seams of the past and thrust back into this cruel reality. He saw Pan Dongzi, in the middle of eating at a street-side stall, being violently yanked back into Thought Wave Six.

Near the Golden Ball, it seemed as if all the Thought Waves were beginning to merge. A television draped in meat fused with a projector to become a living mural on a wall. A giant, inverted water tower spun rapidly, transforming into a flying saucer before zipping away. A factory of flesh and organs became a children’s playground.

Under the high-saturation filter of the Golden Ball, asphalt roads fused with paths made of prefabricated people. Refrigerators dissolved into computers bristling with pagers, and the fusions were still ongoing.

There were countless other such phenomena, involving not just inanimate objects but living creatures as well. Some humans, fused with other objects, were still twitching.

The closer he got to the Golden Ball, the worse it became. These amalgamations stretched as far as he could see.

The rules of yesterday had been shattered. Under the influence of “1999,” the entire world seemed to be undergoing an unpredictable transformation.

He felt as if he had stepped into a chaotic painting by Cthulhu. Everything happening around him defied human comprehension.

But Zhang Wenda ignored it all. He had only one thought: he had to see what became of Tan Yougen’s battle. He needed to see him, alive or dead.

As he drew ever closer to the Golden Ball, the surrounding gravity lessened again. Suddenly, Zhang Wenda froze. He saw a grotesque corpse lying a short distance away.

There were many corpses nearby, and he hadn’t noticed this one at first. But then a crushed tinfoil helmet rolled limply to one side, its reflection catching his eye. It was Hu Maomao’s tinfoil hat.

A jagged concrete pillar was fused with one half of her body, leaving her dangling in mid-air like a broken ragdoll.

Two trails of bloody tears stained her cheeks. Her expression was one of pure despair, as if she had witnessed something horrifying in her final moments.

Zhang Wenda reached out a trembling hand, then snatched it back as if burned. “No, no, no…”

But then, something else happened.

Light footsteps sounded in front of him. It was Qianxi. She was still dressed in her white suit, but the screen of her computer-head now carried a golden sheen—the gold of “1999.”

“There you are. The world has changed so much, it wasn’t easy finding you.”

Zhang Wenda ignored Qianxi, his eyes still fixed on Hu Maomao as memories of their time together flooded his mind.

‘No matter how manic or irrational he had been, she had always been there, helping him like a caring elder. No matter what happened, she always did everything in her power to help.’

‘But now she was gone. Everything was gone. The person who had pulled him from the darkness was gone!’

With trembling hands, he reached out and pulled Hu Maomao’s body into a tight embrace. He tried with all his might to take her death upon himself, but it was useless.

“No, it’s not supposed to be like this! It’s not supposed to be like this!” Zhang Wenda stared at the world, at everything, all of it twisted beyond recognition. His breathing grew ragged.

Hearing this, Qianxi looked delighted. “And why shouldn’t it be like this? I think it’s wonderful. Just look around! The ultimate goal of the Big Circle has been achieved!”

The more despair Zhang Wenda felt, the happier she became, as if she were venting some pent-up emotion. “Come on, now. I’m going to take you to Tan Yougen and kill you right in front of his face.”

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to be! The world isn’t supposed to be like this!” Zhang Wenda roared, his voice thick with rage.

Just then, a yellow arc streaked through the distant golden light.

When it came around again, Zhang Wenda didn’t even think. He instinctively thrust out his right hand. “Here!”

When the yellow light reached him, it coalesced into a small, yellow version of Zhang Wenda.

It smiled and gave Zhang Wenda a firm nod, then raised its hands high to present him with a piece of glowing chalk. A yellow one.

Sensing something was amiss, Qianxi glanced over but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Suddenly, Zhang Wenda sensed something else. He turned to his left and saw a crimson, scythe-wielding monster. Then he looked to his right and saw a blue rabbit.

They approached and stood beside him, opening their clasped hands to reveal more glowing chalk—one red, and one blue.

As Zhang Wenda reached out and took them, the final piece of a puzzle seemed to click into place within his mind. He had finally passed the yellow trial.

Zhang Wenda gripped the three pieces of chalk and looked around once more at the chaos and darkness that had consumed everything.

His right hand squeezed the three chalks tighter. Taking a deep breath, he roared the words that were bursting to get out.

“This world isn’t supposed to be like this! It’s supposed to be like *this*!”

As Zhang Wenda raised his right hand, the three pieces of chalk sketched a rainbow in the air. He drew a brilliant arc of light that illuminated his surroundings, dispelling the filter cast by the Golden Ball.

Gripping the tri-colored chalks, Zhang Wenda drew with all his might. With him at the epicenter, his own personal Thought Wave was redrawn into existence.

Under the influence of his Thought Wave, the grotesque chaos of his surroundings began to reform. Overlapping objects separated, transforming back to their proper forms. That included Hu Maomao.

Bathed in the rainbow’s light, the huge concrete pillar gradually separated from her, sliding out of her body.

Her dark eyelashes fluttered. Her eyes opened. Hu Maomao, who should have been dead, was alive again, staring blankly at her surroundings.

Zhang Wenda, however, didn’t notice. With a final, powerful stroke, a brand new world materialized before him.

A new personal Thought Wave. A world he created, with rules he defined.

After finishing, Zhang Wenda looked up, his gaze fixed on Qianxi with a resolve he had never possessed before.

“This chaotic mess of a world isn’t how things are supposed to be! If the Third Line couldn’t fix it, then I will! I, Zhang Wenda, will see it done!”