Infinite Nightmares

Chapter 317: Chapter 314: Chess Piece

Zhang Wenda just watched. He watched as Qianxi’s nails tore the back of Tan Yougen’s hand to a bloody pulp. He watched as her hands finally fell, swinging lifelessly.

Bathed in the golden light, it was as if everything had fallen silent.

Perhaps before, Zhang Wenda would have felt the satisfaction of a great revenge fulfilled. But not this time. Right now, he felt nothing at all, only a strange, searing heat in the air he breathed into his lungs.

With a soft THUD, Qianxi’s body crumpled lifelessly to the ground. Tan Yougen swayed, about to fall backward, but Zhang Wenda rushed forward and caught him.

“It’s all over. It’s finally over. Let’s go. Let’s go back. As long as you—the brain of the Third Line—are still here, we haven’t lost,” Zhang Wenda said, starting to guide Tan Yougen toward the exit.

But after just two steps, Tan Yougen shook his head and stopped. He looked up at the Golden Ball with his clouded eyes. “No, this is far from over. This is only the beginning.”

Zhang Wenda followed his gaze to the Golden Ball overhead. “What? What are you talking about?”

Tan Yougen’s aged voice rasped. “Qianqian’s business… it was just a trifle. Compared to what’s coming, it’s utterly insignificant.”

“More important than Qianxi? This… 1999?”

Tan Yougen didn’t answer, muttering to himself instead. “It’s time. This general… it’s time to trade for their king.”

“Have you gone senile? This is no time for your damned plans! Can you stop talking in riddles?!” Zhang Wenda grabbed him, trying to pull him away. “As long as there’s life, there’s hope! Let’s go back! We can still figure something out if we’re alive!”

“Go back? Go back where? You tell me, where can we possibly go now! Do you think it’s just hanging in the sky pretending to be the sun? Look over there!”

Following Old Tan’s pointing finger, Zhang Wenda saw everything in the distance being gradually consumed by the golden light. Wherever the light touched, bizarre objects—fusions of various ideological tides—materialized.

He had seen this before, but what he didn’t realize was that as the golden light intensified, the transformations were accelerating.

On the distant horizon, rocks erupted from the earth and fused rapidly with a skyscraper and a factory of flesh and blood. The resulting structure loomed against the skyline like some abstract painter’s unholy masterpiece.

This was not an isolated incident. As the golden light spread, the products of these ideological fusions multiplied. The amalgamations didn’t just involve other great ideological tides; they incorporated incomprehensible, indescribable substances. And worst of all, they incorporated people—their wails of agony echoing as they were absorbed into the monstrosities.

The creations multiplied, spreading endlessly, as if determined to stretch their grotesquerie to the very ends of the earth.

The sight left Zhang Wenda frozen in place, utterly horrified, a profound chill crawling up his spine.

At that moment, Tan Yougen’s voice rang in Zhang Wenda’s ear like a death knell.

“Wenda… 1999 is the apocalypse. If we don’t find a way to stop it, it won’t just be the Third Line that’s finished. The entire world will be.”

Zhang Wenda swallowed hard. “So… so that’s why you were in such a rush? Why you were willing to use yourself as bait? You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you?”

Tan Yougen gave a bitter smile. “I couldn’t have guessed. I ran through the scenarios countless times. I factored in the Big Circle, Freemasonry… I even took every major power in the world into account. But it wasn’t until I truly came into contact with 1999 that I realized… it was the one thing I’d missed.”

“But how could I have planned for it? How can humanity plan for something it has never seen before?”

“Then what is this thing?! What does it want to do to our world?!” Zhang Wenda yelled, staring up at the orb that seemed to be constantly expanding above them.

“1999 is completely different from us. It has no life, no thoughts, but it can interact with the outside world in other ways.”

“You might think the Lizard People were using it, or that Qianqian was controlling it, but that was just its unique method of movement and attack. It has no hands or feet. Instead, it uses the cause and effect of events as its limbs to move and act. The very existence of 1999 is beyond human comprehension.”

Hearing this, Zhang Wenda’s pupils constricted. He instantly recalled how the emergence of a single ideological tide had different root causes within each faction.

“Wenda, listen to me. Our enemy was never Qianxi, nor the Big Circle, and certainly not the Lizard People! It’s 1999!” The moment Tan Yougen finished speaking, the golden light overhead intensified, its glare so sharp that it made Zhang Wenda’s skin prickle with pain.

“Damn it! Why didn’t you tell me something this important before?!” Zhang Wenda’s heart hammered in his chest, and he felt a rush of blood to his head.

A complex mix of emotions colored Tan Yougen’s voice, which dropped from its excited pitch to a low rumble. “Because before, you were just a reckless child who thought he was a man. But that’s changed. Now, you’ve finally grown up.”

Zhang Wenda turned to face him, to face the Tan Yougen of old. He no longer cared about the ‘why’. He only wanted to know what came next. “So, how are you planning to stop it? I’ll help you!”