Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

Kan Shaoni reached the meeting room while talking to Qiu Ren. Several heads of the Central Research Institute were already seated inside.

Qiu Ren also found his seat and sat down.

The atmosphere in the meeting room was a bit stressful. The Director of the Central Research Institute, the host of the meeting, was Mr. Lu. He supported the hawks when it came to the invasion of the foreign Lord of Nightmare.

So, when that Lord of Nightmare wanted to construct the dream project, “Dark Souls,” but couldn’t because it lost too much of its power, he still chose to support Qiu Ren.

He only did this so Qiu Ren could create a Nightmare Dungeon that could be used to fight. And yet, after this fighting Nightmare Dungeon was constructed, a dream invasion organization had already been onto it before it could develop in time.

It was Fengdu Prison that told the Central Research Institute about the invasion of the Dream Eaters in this Nightmare Dungeon. Tapir was in an isolated and helpless situation right now. After Qiu Ren went on this organization’s radar, the Central Research Institute set up a trap for them as a warning.

The trap worked. Two teams of the Dream Eaters were stuck in the Nightmare Dungeon of “Dark Souls.” They were tortured by Iudex Gundyr for a total of six hours before one of the teams left the Nightmare Dungeon when the invasion time was up.

The Central Research Institute believed that when the Dream Eaters realized it was a Level S Nightmare Dungeon, they would choose to give up the operation considering its difficulty and degree of risk.

But they didn’t… After torture and collective withdrawal of Team T of the Dream Eaters, they logically should rest again to recover from the trauma of the Nightmare Dungeon.

However, in less than three minutes, two of them entered the Nightmare Dungeon of Dark Souls again as invaders.

Weren’t they… scared of dying?

This was what everyone in the Central Research Institute was thinking.

Anyway, these two commanders of Team T of the Dream Eaters, Herring and Maine, didn’t seem to have a thought of giving up at all after seeing how dangerous the prey in front of them was! Not only did they not give up, but the two of them even seem to get addicted as they died more?

The heads of the researchers at the Central Research Institute were full of question marks when they saw the emotion fluctuation charts of Herring and Maine, which looked like electrocardiograms, as they explored the Dark Souls.

Were the two captains of the Dream Eaters into masochism?

However, Kan Shaoni could understand how these two Dream Eaters were feeling.

Especially when she saw Herring open the treasure chest and get swallowed by the treasure chest monster in one bite. “Pfft,” she couldn’t help but laugh.

She had to stifle her laughter because of the solemn atmosphere in the operation meeting room.

“Is it possible that they were forced to enter this Nightmare Dungeon again?”

Through the large monitoring screen, Director Lu looked at Herring, who was swallowed by the treasure chest monster, and Maine, who was crushed by a hammer after being frozen into an ice statue by the chilly air from the nightmare guardian, “Vordt of the Boreal Valley.”

These two ways of dying looked… terrifying in the eyes of the researchers. It made them tremble. Normal people would have chosen to run away from that damn Nightmare Dungeon after being killed several times by Iudex Gundyr.

However, the two of them seemed to be obsessed. They ran back there after being reborn from the bonfire and then died the same way again.

They had such a constant suicidal behavior either because they had been mentally affected or because their boss had issued an order saying that they must clear the levels of this Nightmare Dungeon.

“These two people are the elites among the management personnel of the Dream Eaters. I don’t think someone can give them such a suicide order. They should have chosen to do this voluntarily,” a researcher specialized in gathering intel about foreign invasion organizations said.

“Then… Why…”

Director Lu noticed something. While Herring was fighting with the treasure chest monster, her face was covered in blood, but she still put up an excited smile. He suddenly had an answer in his mind.

“Because they’re both powerhouses.” A Dream Explorer whispered this sentence, which made him sound like he was an “8th-grade student.”

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But nobody in the operation meeting room laughed at him.

Because on the monitoring screen, Maine had finally found a chance to stab his sword into the neck of “Vordt,” this knight in animal form, after being frozen to an ice statue for almost twenty times. He then shouted loudly as he stepped on the enormous war knight underneath his feet.

“Remember! I’m the first person to kill you! Maine Hustein!”

Meanwhile, after the seventh attempt, Herring directly pulled the slimy tongue of the treasure chest monster off and took out the treasure that belonged to her from its stomach!

“Next time, you should just spit it out to me directly!”

Hearing the two invaders’ cries of victory, Director Lu immediately said to the researchers under his command, “Tell me the amount of energy the Nightmare Seed has taken in since they invaded the Nightmare Dungeon!”

Once Director Lu issued this order, a burp… echoed in the entire operation meeting room.

This burp certainly didn’t come from anyone in the room but from the Nightmare Seed in the Central Research Institute.

“It said it’s very full, maybe not full… The souls and consciousness of these Dream Eaters are already way stronger than those of normal people. Besides, it can absorb energy from other dream worlds from their bodies. These invaders are all… great supplements for that Lord of Nightmare.”

Qiu Ren translated the meaning of this burp to everyone at the Central Research Institute.

The “food” for the Lords of Nightmare was also divided into different levels. When normal people died in the nightmare, the emotions produced that suited the appetite of the Lords of Nightmare were like a bowl of beef noodles.

As for the emotions produced after the Dream Eaters defeated Iudex Gundyr… Good Lord! They were like top delicacies, such as ginseng, lobsters, hairy crabs, edible bird’s nests, bear’s paws, and Buddha’s Temptation, being stuffed into the mouth of that Lord of Nightmare. Tapir in the next door was so hungry that she cried.

However, the appetite of the Lords of Nightmare was endless.

The one in the Central Research Institute already had thousands of gaping wounds due to stripping its children off. It belonged to a weaker group among the Lords of Nightmare. It was a severely ill patient even more worse off than Tapir.

This could be sensed in the world of Dark Souls as well. Herring and Maine should have noticed it too.

Some monsters they encountered were very weak, like the zombie soldiers, the skeletons, and even the Lothric Knight who wasn’t in a furious state… These were vulnerable compared to the other monsters they met.

These monsters were extended from this Lord of Nightmare. They were so weak that it wasn’t worth mentioning.

And the nightmare guardians they encountered, including Iudex Gundyr, Vordt of the Boreal Valley, the Lothric Knight in a furious state, the Angel Knight, the treasure chest monster, and even the group of zombie hounds in the game, were all played by its children.

Hm… Most dogs in the game were played by the grey wolf in Qiu Ren’s dungeon.

So, when Herring explored the high wall, she had already encountered the situation where those hounds came after her across a few maps several times.

Herring also noticed that these dogs seemed to hold a grudge against her, but she couldn’t scold them now, could she?

Anyway, the children of the Lord of Nightmare were paying full attention right now. They used all kinds of tactics to take those invaders down again and again.

Then, they could use the emotions the invaders released when they were defeated to heal the Lord of Nightmare they served.

However, this was far from enough. Qiu Ren swiped on his tablet and looked at the wounded Nightmare Seed. A hundred Dream Eaters still weren’t enough for this Lord of Nightmare to resist the invasion from other Lords of Nightmare overseas by itself.

So, Qiu Ren was thinking if he should take a risk…

“Since they aren’t planning to give up the invasion, they’ll be here sooner or later… Then, maybe we can release some news to attract those organizations to come here to be food… bah… to challenge? Isn’t the original purpose of constructing the Nightmare Dungeon of Dark Souls to establish power?”

Qiu Ren voiced his thoughts to the others. This Lord of Nightmare was different from Tapir. Tapir was alone. She could only deal with it by herself when she encountered a powerful foreign enemy.

However, this Lord of Nightmare had quite a number of mature children. If the Lords of Nightmare overseas wanted to fully invade it, its children would step up and become the invincible bosses in Dark Souls to fight with the invaders.

Director Lu discussed with the other relevant persons about Qiu Ren’s suggestion. They seemed to consider it a viable option.

Even if someone really completed all the levels in the entire Dark Souls world successfully, the energy he fed to that Lord of Nightmare along the way and the help he gave for purifying the nightmare would be enough for the Central Research Institute to award him a platinum trophy.

“…How many dream invasion organizations can we inform with our channels?” Director Lu asked a Dream Explorer next to him.

“The Gray Snake and the Cherry Blossoms. If we release the news to them, the invasion organizations around the world with the intention to challenge us will all gather here,” that Dream Explorer said.

Dream invasion organizations were mostly semi-official. They were terrorist organizations that needed to be eliminated in the eyes of the Central Research Institute and the Dream Exploration Bureau.

As Counter Terrorism Commissioners, they certainly had an intelligence network of the terrorist organizations.

“This is a war we must fight. It’s just a matter of time before those invaders arrive. Spread the news, and prepare to fight. I hope they have fun in this Nightmare Dungeon,” said Director Lu.