Chapter 1724 Brain vs. Nagging

Almost as soon as the offensive began, the entire Nightmare Nest echoed with a strange, low rumble—as if countless tons of seawater were surging and crashing against the heavy flesh walls. The rumbling came from all directions, growing louder and louder.

Then Hao Ren saw the flesh walls truly begin to surge. Clumps of protrusions squeezed out from between the layers of connective tissue and thick skin, rapidly changing shape as they emerged, gradually transforming into hideous, grotesque monsters.

These newly born monsters had clear targets. As soon as they appeared, they roared and charged at the uninvited guests in the nest, greeted by rapid-fire from the autonomous machines and guardian drones.

Hao Ren released the "guards" he had prepared in his dimensional pocket, swift units that excelled at close-quarters, fast-reaction combat, to deal with the mutated monsters. These were clearly cannon fodder units just differentiated from the flesh, and it wasn't necessary to waste time on monsters with nothing but numbers on their side.

In fact, the instant he saw the mutated monsters, Hao Ren felt a sense of relief.

Just as the fairies had reported, the defensive strength of the Nightmare Nest was actually quite limited. Awake guards who weren't dreaming would affect the operation of the giant brain, so the entire interior of the nest was guarded only by mutated monsters without even the most basic thinking ability. Not having to deal with powerful corrupted giants and Mad Whispers spawn gave everyone a great deal of confidence in the upcoming operation.

However, the weakness of the defensive forces didn't mean that Hao Ren's group could easily destroy the giant brain at the center of the nest. Although there weren't many guards around the giant brain, it was surrounded by layers of protective force fields, and these sturdy force fields were the assassins' biggest trouble.

"Boom!"

Another white energy blast tore through space and struck the shield around the giant brain. The fierce energy eruption even caused the space around the shield to show signs of distortion and compression, but after the energy of the blast dissipated, most of the hundreds of layers of shields remained intact. The few outer shields that had been penetrated began to regenerate rapidly.

However, Hao Ren quickly realized that the regeneration rate of those shields didn't exceed his expectations.

"Concentrate fire, don't stop!" he immediately shouted. "The recharge rate of those shields can't keep up with our destruction speed!"

Continuous explosions began to erupt throughout the Nightmare Nest. Guardian drones and autonomous machines resisted the tide of mutated monsters on the periphery, while the elite squad led by Hao Ren unleashed a furious bombardment on the platform at the center of the nest where the giant brain was located. At the same time, the continuous disasters caused by the collapse of the crystal pillars beneath the earth's crust were still spreading. The shockwaves in the planetary cavity had pushed the armor refitter to its limit, and the entire Nightmare Nest and the surrounding strata were as if thrown into a storm, shaking violently, as if on the verge of a cataclysmic disaster!

However, the Nightmare Nest itself remained stable. Although this space twisted by the power of chaos was impacted by the collapse of the crystal pillar layer, it maintained its own stability. And now, the master of this nest had realized the crisis in the real world and was beginning to try to wake up.

Obvious red light appeared on the surface of the giant brain protected by layered shields. The entire biological tissue began to contract and tremble continuously, as if in spasm, and an unspeakable mental pressure enveloped everyone.

The giant brain sensed the coming crisis in its sleep. It was struggling in the dream, trying to wake up immediately. But as the fairies said, this dream-weaving monster was deeply immersed in the depths of the dream. Its connection to the Nightmare World was too close, so it couldn't return to reality in a short time.

But the monster's struggle in the dream still caused some feedback in the real world. Hao Ren noticed unnatural fluctuations appearing in the shadows of the surrounding giant stone pillars and crystal clusters, and something between illusion and reality was gradually taking shape in those fluctuations. Having faced Lockmarton head-on in the Koro world, he immediately realized what those things were.

"Watch the shadows around you!" he shouted. "The Nightmare World has begun to leak—monsters will emerge from the shadows!"

After releasing the remaining autonomous machines and drones from his dimensional pocket, he shouted loudly, "Vivian, Big Guy, the three of us will cooperate with Lily to attack that brain, and the others will deal with those Nightmare creatures—be careful not to be misled by illusions!"

"Awoo—" A clear howl came from behind, followed by another powerful energy blast striking the shields around the giant brain. However, this energy blast had a noticeable deviation, and the second half of the howl seemed to be mixed with shaking and confusion. Hao Ren quickly looked in Lily's direction and saw the giant silver-white husky twisting its body in the distance, as if trying to shake off some dirty thing sticking to it.

But in fact, there was nothing on her at all.

No, there was something—almost the moment Hao Ren began to wonder "what was on Lily," he saw some translucent gray-black mist suddenly appear out of nowhere, entangling Lily's limbs and even wrapping around her neck. The giant husky form of Lily had insane physical qualities, so the energy lassoes formed by these mists couldn't do too much damage to her for the time being. However, being in the form of a big dog also had natural limitations. Lily couldn't easily remove the entangled mists from her body like a human.

A chaotic, low, repressed voice, like a mumble or a malicious whisper, rang in everyone's minds. The words were full of obscure tremors and illogical vocabulary, but their meaning seemed to be directly imprinted in people's brains so that they could be understood: "Insignificant...humble...meaningless...I will eventually wake up, and you will eventually sink, the brief struggle can only become your eternal nightmare..."

Hao Ren's heart shook. This was the second stage of the attack: the Dream-Weaving Brain couldn't wake up immediately, but its thoughts could cross the boundaries of reality and nightmare. This force could be directly projected into the real world and even penetrate into the depths of everyone's spirit. When it entered a half-dreaming, half-waking state, everyone would continuously hear the monster's whispers in the depths of their patience, and hallucinations would become more frequent and obvious as the whispers continued.

However, this was all anticipated when making the plan: after all, this wasn't the first time Hao Ren had confronted a monster wielding the power of nightmare. Compared to Lockmarton back then, the brain in front of him wasn't much better.

"Big Guy! Use the soul chains!" Vivian slapped two lightning balls on Lily's head to wake her up and shouted at Izhaks, "Link them all to Hao Ren!"

Izhaks "heh"ed. Countless green fel energy patterns suddenly appeared on the surface of his demonized body, and then he raised his hand to release a powerful spell that demons were best at and that was considered most evil.

One after another, tangible green chains appeared between everyone on the field. Because everyone was prepared, the soul chains locked onto everyone's souls without delay. The meeting point of the chains wasn't Izhaks, the caster, but Hao Ren, who was switching weapons.

The moment the soul chains connected with himself, Hao Ren put away the Gungnir and the Inspector pistol and took out two black swords that looked like fragments of the universe from his dimensional pocket at the same time.

A de ba de ba sound appeared in everyone's mind at the same time:

"Hey, hey, long time no see, long time no see. This sword hasn't shown its face for a while... Eh, Mom, why are you fighting again! This flying flesh and blood and shocking killing sound, aren't you afraid of fighting into the Mad Whispers' lair! How many times has this sword said that fighting can't solve the problem - of course, it can solve the people who cause the problem, but can't we think of a more civilized and gentle way? And what the hell is this place, it looks disgusting and there are monsters and blood clots everywhere, if this were on the screen, wouldn't it be directly cut, leaving only the cast list... Hey? My brother is here too this time! It's rare to see you, Hao Ren, draw both swords at the same time. Hey, hey, brother, why aren't you talking? It's rare for us to come out for some fresh air, look how lively it is here..."

"Oh."

The Godslaying Sword's endless chattering echoed in everyone's mind, directly covering up the giant brain's whispers, and the hallucinations that were constantly strengthening with the whispers disappeared.

Hao Ren held the two swords and gave the giant brain a provocative look.

To deal with a nagging psychopath, the best way is to find another nagging psychopath to argue with it. This tactic can be simply summarized as nagging against nagging. It seems that this response plan is very effective.

Of course, the deeper mechanism of its effectiveness is much more high-end. Simply put, the Godslaying Sword has chopped up Mad Whispers, stabbed the Goddess, and created more than one epic event, and it was also bitten by another Goddess. It's very vulgar when it nags, but this doesn't affect its amazing level - so in the fair competition of the mind battlefield, this thing can kill more than forty giant brain monsters and two crosstalk comedians with just rapping...

After all, the giant brain hasn't completely woken up, and its strength has been greatly reduced.

Lily had already escaped from the hallucinations, and energy blasts were continuously bombarding the barriers around the giant brain, while Vivian's and Izhaks' powerful magic bombardments closely followed the position of the energy blasts for continuous supplementary attacks. Hao Ren couldn't personally participate in the attack for the time being because he had to maintain the effect of the Godslaying Sword and the stability of the soul link, but the turrets he summoned were automatically attacking the pre-set target.

In this continuous attack, the barrier around the giant brain couldn't regenerate at all.

It didn't have much time left.