Kan Shaoni couldn't return to Fengdu Prison. She was kept in the Central Research Institute to discuss future countermeasures with the Dream Exploration Bureau.
It was already a known fact that the Level S Nightmare Seed in Fengdu Prison was attacked.
Right now, everyone in the Celestial Empire was arguing with the departments monitoring the Nightmare Seeds about the feasibility of opening the Level S Nightmare Dungeon to the public.
Opening it… The Lords of Nightmare weren't easy to deal with. They were fed on human lives. Besides, when they were full, they might turn around and swallow people who monitored them one day, breaking through the seal and becoming a real disaster.
If they didn't open it… the Lords of Nightmare would definitely not just wait to die in peace. They would think of ways to save themselves.
So, the Dream Exploration Bureau and the Nightmare Regulation Department were in a wrangle on whether they should fight or make peace.
If they chose to fight, they would release their Lords of Nightmare to resist the enemies.
The source of all the problems was the Lords of Nightmare overseas. They believed the Lords of Nightmare in the Celestial Empire were pushovers. So, the Celestial Empire should let out a couple Lords of Nightmare to beat those in foreign countries and let them know their own nuclear power plants couldn't be provoked.
Then, they certainly wouldn't have any evil thoughts towards the Level S Nightmare Seeds in the Celestial Empire again.
But the problem was… who should they send out to fight?
The design concept of the Level S Nightmare Dungeons in the Celestial Empire had always been durable and safe. It satisfied the needs of the Lords of Nightmare at the cost of sacrificing the least people.
The degree of danger of the Lords of Nightmare was indeed lower, but the power they could exert was also suppressed.
As for the acquisition and production of secondary Dream Seeds, the Celestial Empire could only rely on purifying the less dangerous secondary Nightmare Seeds to achieve a balance between supply and demand.
As a result, the competitiveness of most Level S Nightmare Dungeons in the Celestial Empire was almost zero in overseas markets.
The only one with some combat power at the moment—Tapir—was already in a tug of war with the enemies.
Although she had the advantage at the moment, she was all alone. If other Lords of Nightmare overseas joined the battle, the situation would become knotty again.
Tapir needed reinforcement—no, not reinforcements but a vanguard… a vanguard that could break through the defense of the enemies.
The Nightmare Dungeon, "Battle Royale," could only serve as a supply station for the energy source of the Lord of Nightmare.
Unless Tapir took action in person, it would have no combat power at all during the invasion of the Dream Dungeon.
Since Battle Royale was a player-to-player battle game that didn't even have NPC, the combat power level of the dungeon depended on the normal technological level of firearms.
So, if the Celestial Empire really wanted to beat the Lords of Nightmare overseas, they needed a Nightmare Dungeon that either had strong NPC combat power or player combat power.
And yet, whether it was super strong NPC combat power or the latter player combat power, it was hard to make it happen… under the requirements for Level S Nightmare Dungeons in the Celestial Empire.
The former might lead to a large number of deaths of Dream Explorers, while for the latter… very few Lords of Nightmare would accept it.
So, the voices of the doves still prevailed in this controversy. The doves thought that the Lords of Nightmare weren't standing on the human's side. Letting them out was easy, but it was difficult to get them back!
After Tapir tasted the emotions and vitality of humans all around the world, she would never be willing to remain cooped up in Fengdu Prison and be satisfied with the desserts offered by the death row prisoners and Dream Explorers.
So, the right way was to increase the power of the country's major Dream Dungeons to deter the enemies.
In fact, since the Celestial Empire had the Level SS Great Sage and was protected by other Gods extended from the prehistoric world in the Level SS Journey to the West, the Lords of Nightmare overseas wouldn't dare to start a full-blown war.
That was why they had resorted to these insidious tricks. They couldn't threaten the Dream Seeds, so they aimed at the Nightmare Seeds, which were equally important to the Celestial Empire and were also their enemies.
The hawks were also frustrated, and they had nothing to say.
This was like finding out their enemies weren't attacking from the sea, land, and air, which they were good at. Instead, they directly went to outer space to eat the little monsters they kept there.
These little monsters that could produce resources didn't have enough power to resist and couldn't fight back against the others fully either. Since monsters were common enemies of mankind, it was either you being eliminated or me.
So, the frustration of being only able to watch someone else swallow their monsters wasn't something that could be described with words.
And now, Qiu Ren was here. The only little monster that could fight back was tamed by him.
However, when Qiu Ren was brought to the Central Research Institute, he felt like he was a child that was being sacrificed to that monster…
"Qiu Ren, are you really not using our plan?"
Kan Shaoni now had a sense of helplessness. She thought to herself, What exactly have I protected?
She had promised Qiu Ren before that she would ensure his safety. However, a human seemed extremely small in front of a Lord of Nightmare.
The Lord of Nightmare in the Central Research Institute risked its life and planned to die with them if it couldn't see Qiu Ren. In the end, the Central Research Institute could only take him to that dangerous Lord of Nightmare.
This was something Kan Shaoni couldn't stop, no matter how she refuted it.
"Your plan?"
Qiu Ren could also understand the worried and extremely unwilling expression on the faces of Kan Shaoni and the researchers around her.
Perhaps, in their perspective, they were really sacrificing Qiu Ren to the Lord of Nightmare.
Qiu Ren's life wouldn't be threatened with the Great Sage here, though. Still, once his consciousness was sucked into a Level S Nightmare Seed, it would truly be too difficult for him to come out intact if he pissed it off.
"Yes, this is a nightmare plan I got from a very impressive dream-making team in the country. Although it's a rejected plan… it should be able to comfort that Lord of Nightmare."
Kan Shaoni still cared about Qiu Ren. She had heard the reason why the consciousness of this Lord of Nightmare lost control before; it wanted Qiu Ren to create a Nightmare Dungeon for it.
Kan Shaoni and most people believed Qiu Ren had created Battle Royale by an outburst of inspiration. After all, the dungeon, Battle Royale, really didn't have any technical content in other aspects, apart from gameplay.
So, she thought it would be hard for Qiu Ren to create… a Nightmare Dungeon that satisfied a dangerous Lord of Nightmare, again. That was why Kan Shaoni gave Qiu Ren an emergency plan.
"Thank you, Miss Kan. However, I'm not here to comfort the Lord of Nightmare today." Qiu Ren raised the super thick pile of scripts in his hand.
That Lord of Nightmare still hadn't connected to the Internet, so Qiu Ren couldn't send the plan to it on his laptop. He could only bring a printed copy.
"If you're not here to comfort it, the—" Kan Shaoni wanted to say, Are you here to provoke it?
But before she could speak… the alarms in the entire Central Research Institute started blaring. That Lord of Nightmare was getting restless again.
It could sense that Qiu Ren was nearby!
"Qiu Ren, please put on the protective suit. We'll take you to the dream-entering room on the bottom floor," a Dream Explorer came up to Qiu Ren and said while saluting.
Perhaps in their eyes, Qiu Ren was like a sacrifice who had stepped up voluntarily. Before coming here, Qiu Ren had signed various agreements, including where he would be buried after he died and the handover of his property and Nightmare Dungeons.
However, Qiu Ren had no plans to die. He was here to adopt the Level S Nightmare Seed and bring it home!
It was very urgent. The Central Research Institute had no time to read through Qiu Ren's plan.
They could only send him into that Nightmare Dungeon first and pray that the plan could satisfy the Lord of Nightmare.
Qiu Ren was taken all the way to the dream-entering room at the bottom. He saw the body of that Level S Nightmare Seed here. The Nightmare Seed was a rhombus stone pillar as tall as four men.
Its surface wasn't smooth, with many traces of fallen pieces. The stone pillar was also split in half. This probably meant that a lot of its own power had vanished.
When Qiu Ren looked at it, an eye opened on the surface of the stone pillar.
Seeing this Nightmare Seed again, fear spread in Qiu Ren's mind. After all, this thing could eat him with a thought, even though he was protected by Tapir and the Great Sage behind him.
However, Qiu Ren gently took a deep breath. The project plan for the Dark Souls series in his hands gave him enough courage.
After that, Qiu Ren said something that made the two Dream Explorers on his sides tremble.
"I've brought the things. Open the door! Let me in!"
Once Qiu Ren finished speaking, the eye on the Level S Nightmare Seed narrowed slightly. A huge amount of blood flooded the entire dream-entering room and devoured Qiu Ren.
When he opened his eyes, the feeling of suffocation being drowned by blood disappeared. The plans in his hand hadn't gotten wet at all. He lifted his head and looked around again, finding himself in a dark space.
In this dimension, the Lord of Nightmare in armor was sitting on its throne, waiting for Qiu Ren to come.