Chapter 336: Darkness

“Maomao?” Zhang Wenda stared in disbelief at the inflatable figure before him. No matter how many times he called out to her, the thing merely maintained a crude likeness of Hu Maomao, completely unresponsive.

He reached out and touched its face—the feel of cheap leather sent a chill to his core. ‘How did she become like this? What in the world happened?’

Muttering to himself, he tried to help her down, only to find her feet had fused with the inflatable castle, rendering her completely immobile.

Just as he was beginning to doubt if this thing was truly Hu Maomao, its body began to change from an inflatable toy into that of a real person, its skin and facial features growing increasingly lifelike.

‘Is she changing back?’ A sliver of hope rose in Zhang Wenda’s heart. He quickly called out, “Maomao? Can you hear me? Why are you here? What happened?”

But despite Zhang Wenda’s questions, she remained completely unresponsive, as if she were merely an exquisite but empty shell.

Zhang Wenda hesitated. ‘Should I try to take her away by force and figure something else out? But what if the connection at her feet tears and she starts leaking air?’

As he hesitated, a window suddenly opened beside him. Several Little Black Cats poked their heads out in a panic, all shouting at once:

“Entity! This is bad! There’s a problem in the Prefrontal Strait!”

“Your memories are being tampered with! Someone is peeking into them!”

“It’s all the memories about Maomao—someone is altering them!”

‘Maomao? Memories?’ Zhang Wenda’s head snapped toward the silent Hu Maomao, his gaze then dropping to her legs, which were connected to the castle.

The soccer ball, the children’s slide, this giant inflatable castle… and the chaotic memories of that one-eyed man he’d encountered earlier.

The details began to converge, and a terrifying theory exploded in Zhang Wenda’s mind. ‘This thing… could it be a trap fabricated from my own memories?’

‘The more I think about it, the more it makes sense,’ Zhang Wenda realized. ‘Besides, Hu Maomao already made it to shore. If this was really her, there’s no reason she would be here!’

‘Run!’ The realization hit him, and Zhang Wenda spun around without a second’s hesitation, bolting for the outside of the castle. But the entire structure suddenly lurched violently, as if it had come alive, nearly throwing him off his feet.

The once-lifelike Hu Maomao rapidly reverted to her shoddy appearance, confirming his suspicion. The “Hu Maomao” before him was a fake. ‘The trap has been sprung! The net is closing!’

He tried to retreat the way he came, but the shaking was so intense he could barely stay on his feet.

Zhang Wenda decided to try a different route. He would escape through the air—after all, the inflatable castle was open-topped.

But when he jerked his head up, he saw the ceiling above him descending rapidly, fusing with the inflatable castle.

With a piercing, synthetic screech, inflatable shapes on all sides began to swell manically, closing in on him. In the blink of an eye, the ceiling was almost completely obscured.

‘Up is no good… so I’ll go down!’ Zhang Wenda’s eyes darted to the soft, swelling floor.

A sharp scythe materialized with a flash of light, and Zhang Wenda began frantically slashing and tearing at the inflatable floor beneath his feet.

As air HISSSED from the gashes, a pale green liquid began to ooze out. His eyes lit up at the sight.

At first, Zhang Wenda thought everything was going according to plan.

But his underwater escape never materialized. As the structure deflated, it began to collapse rapidly, wrapping around him and dragging him down into the liquid below.

The cold liquid and cheap, leathery plastic enveloped Zhang Wenda. By the time he managed to cut himself free of the wreckage with his scythe, he was surrounded by absolute darkness. This was no longer the same body of water.

Zhang Wenda’s heart sank. ‘What’s going on? Wasn’t I in the Shallow Water Area? Why am I in deep water now?’

He stretched out his right hand. A slit opened in midair, and a Third Line flashlight emerged. He was about to find out just where he was.

But the instant the light cut through the darkness, he froze solid.

Directly in front of him was a multi-pupiled eyeball, nearly the size of a town square, staring fixedly at him.

The instant its giant pupils contracted, innumerable tentacles shot out from the deep darkness. Dangling from the tip of each one was an object: toys, food, beautiful women… but mostly food, all different kinds of food.

As the objects swayed back and forth, he even saw another Zhang Wenda, identical to himself in every way.

In that moment, he suddenly understood. He finally knew why Hu Maomao had been soaking wet and heartbroken when she left him earlier.

It was because she, too, had been tempted by this thing. She had almost died here trying to find him!

“You motherfucker—” With a roar of fury, he drew a long, red, scar-like weapon and hacked forward with all his strength!

A gash opened on the giant eyeball, but nothing physical flowed out. Instead, a dense torrent of text and images erupted inside his mind, like a swarm of out-of-control flying swords.

It was as if some kind of psychic blood had splattered inside Zhang Wenda’s head.

Zhang Wenda realized the protagonist of each image was different. Some were human, others were monsters from the water! After a few seconds of rapid thought, it hit him: these were all memory fragments the creature had collected!

This thing was stealing memories and using them as bait to hook more victims!

Struggling, Zhang Wenda transformed into his scythe-monster form. He gripped his massive scar-like blade and charged unhesitatingly toward the giant eye.

But in that same instant, tentacles swarmed him from all sides, enveloping him and dragging him swiftly into the depths.

Zhang Wenda continuously sliced the tentacles to pieces, but they seemed endless, descending upon him in a relentless swarm.

The beam of his flashlight was blotted out, plunging his surroundings into pitch-black darkness.

But it didn’t matter. Zhang Wenda could still locate his opponent by the brilliant red glow of his weapon.

‘Whatever this thing is, it dies here today!’

But just as Zhang Wenda prepared to unleash his full power against this unknown entity, he suddenly saw other red lights appear in the darkness.

No, it wasn’t just red. There was a sickly yellow, a deep violet, a filthy gray… a bizarre array of colors, like a rotting rainbow, churned and surged through the dark ocean.

Zhang Wenda’s limited imagination couldn’t even begin to guess what these colors represented.

It was hard to say if these things from the bottom of the depths were even living creatures as he understood them.

All Zhang Wenda could surmise was that his fight with the monster had disturbed them. He could only watch helplessly as they closed in from all sides like corrupted fireflies in the dead of night.