Chapter 277 - 27: Surpassing a Wizard, Mo Ning Overturns the Artificial Soul’s Understanding

Chapter 277: Chapter 27: Surpassing a Wizard, Mo Ning Overturns the Artificial Soul’s Understanding

Great White Birch Forest.

The Cabin in the Woods.

Not long after Mo Ning closed his eyes, he fell into a bizarre nightmare.

Normally, during a ten-minute nap, the brain wouldn’t have enough time to weave a dream, even if one managed to fall asleep.

But he had encountered just such a strange occurrence.

Mo Ning dreamed that:

He walked out of the Cabin in the Woods, strolling through the Birch Forest in the bright morning light.

The forest floor should have been covered in lush vegetation, but in his dream, it was a barren wasteland. The ground was cracked with thick fissures, like a dried-up riverbed.

The surrounding birch trees were also bare. Not a single leaf could be seen in any direction, and their bark had taken on an eerie, deathly gray color.

The woods were desolate, as if they had been dead for a very long time.

Or perhaps... this wasn’t a forest, but a graveyard. Each birch tree was a towering tombstone.

But Mo Ning didn’t feel that anything was amiss.

He walked for a while, then suddenly glanced back and was horrified to discover that the Cabin in the Woods had fallen into ruin.

Holes of all sizes had appeared in the wooden walls, and even half of the roof had collapsed.

Only then did he realize something was wrong.

But he didn’t know where to go and could only stand there, his face filled with terror.

"CAW—CAW—"

The eerie cawing of crows suddenly surged from all directions.

Mo Ning looked up and was startled to realize that the dead birch trees around him were now covered in ravens.

They stared at him with scarlet eyes, their black beaks stained with a blood-like crimson, as if they regularly fed on corpses.

The next moment, the scene took a terrifying turn.

The birch trees began to tremble violently, and a dark red liquid started to flow from the cracks in their bark.

A faint black mist rose from the fissures in the ground, creating a scene like the coming of the apocalypse.

Roars filled with extreme agony echoed from all around.

"Death—"

"Is your fated end—"

"Fall—"

"Into your doom—"

Mo Ning felt like his scalp was about to explode. He turned and fled in a blind panic.

The instant he took his first step, the dark red blood flowing from the birch trees rapidly converged, forming into bright red monsters.

They looked as if their skin had been flayed, their muscles clearly visible. It was as if worms were writhing beneath the muscle tissue, a nauseating sight.

The number of monsters was staggering; a single glance revealed at least several hundred of them.

They let out frenzied roars and swarmed toward him, looking as if they intended to tear him to shreds.

At the critical moment, a jet-black Black Panther emerged from the black mist and crouched directly in front of him.

The Black Panther let out a short roar, then turned its head and nodded toward its back, clearly signaling for him to climb on.

Mo Ning mounted it without hesitation.

The Black Panther rose to its feet and began to sprint wildly.

「Back in the cabin.」

Flower, her face full of worry, noticed a trace of pain on her master’s face as he lay on his back. His brow was tightly furrowed.

The Artificial Soul immediately thought, ’This is bad.’

She understood, of course, that the Soul of Deathly Silence had taken advantage of her master’s sleep to launch a sudden counterattack, dragging the unprepared man into a nightmare.

This wisp of a remnant soul was cunning to the extreme. It had lain dormant for a full day and night, showing no signs of activity, only to reveal its sharp fangs like a viper at this very moment.

Worst of all, not only was her master unable to rest properly while trapped in the nightmare, but the corruption was also rapidly intensifying.

This would severely affect his continued digestion of the Soul Spirit Water’s Spiritual Power.

Flower immediately made a decision: she would forcefully wake her master to prevent the corruption from deepening further, and then find a way to help him cleanse it.

But before she could act, she witnessed a peculiar scene.

"CRACK—FZZZT—"

A wisp of a faint blue electric arc suddenly erupted from her master’s fingertip, flashing in mid-air.

Flower was stunned.

’What’s happening?’

Then, more arcs of electricity emerged from her master’s eyes, chest, and arms. They danced in mid-air, momentarily forming a blurry image before dissipating.

Although the image lasted for only an instant, Flower recognized what it was at a glance.

"The Thunder Shadow Leopard!"

The Artificial Soul blurted out, her pleasant voice filled with utter shock.

The scene unfolding before her was somewhat beyond Flower’s comprehension.

For the first time, she felt as if her master was shrouded in an impenetrable air of mystery.

「In the dreamscape.」

The Black Panther leaped into the air, using the trunk of a birch tree as a springboard to jump more than ten meters high, displaying incredible agility.

"BZZZT—"

It left behind an afterimage of a Black Panther formed from crackling electricity.

As the blood monsters closed in, the electric afterimage disintegrated, transforming into over a hundred Electric Snakes that slithered toward the horde.

The swarm of Electric Snakes attacked with extreme discipline. On average, three or four of them targeted a single monster—some striking the head, some biting the chest, and others ramming into the legs.

"CRACKLE—CRACKLE—"

When the Electric Snakes hit the monsters, they erupted in a blinding white light.

The parts of the monsters that were struck instantly dissolved into puffs of black smoke.

In the span of a single breath, dozens of the blood monsters were incapacitated.

They were either reduced to mangled corpses, completely lifeless, or were so severely maimed that they could only crawl pitifully on the ground.

Mo Ning could clearly see wisps of black mist being drawn into the Black Panther’s body, like iron filings to a magnet.

He glanced at the monsters further away and, as if awakening some deeply buried memory, a Thunder Spear naturally coalesced in his hand.

With a sharp cry, he forcefully threw the weapon.

"BOOM—"