"Wait, what monster horde?"
Meng Chao was a little stunned. "There were only some deformed and weak experimental subjects in Hidden Fog. Forget about fighting power, they couldn't even survive on their own for more than forty-eight hours before they turned into skeletons and were devoured by the green tide. How could there be a monster horde that filled the entire area to attack you?
"Besides, a monster horde would definitely leave behind a lot of traces, but we didn't find any monster footprints or fur. Your camp at the edge of the sinkhole was also in perfect condition. The food packs on the portable crystal heating furnaces were not bitten by the monsters.
"Besides, even if you ran into a monster horde you couldn't stop, before your entire army was wiped out, you should have been able to leave behind some information. It's impossible for the exploration teams that were scattered all over the forest to disappear without a trace at the same time, right?"
"That's right. When I woke up in Peach Blossom Town, the people here told me that I was covered in wounds and drifted down Peach Blossom Creek. It was as if I had fought against a monster horde and was forced to jump into the sinkhole. But after I used a long time to remember and think about it, I realized that it wasn't the truth," Lu Siya said with certainty.
"Even though I do remember the moment I fell into the sinkhole, and that vivid scene seems to have been branded into my cerebral cortex, when I think about it carefully, the monster horde and the fierce battle are just memories from a long time ago," Lu Siya said with great certainty.
"Memories from a long time ago?" Meng Chao narrowed his eyes.
"Yes. The monster horde I saw at the edge of the sinkhole was the same as the monster horde I saw during the pitched battle at the borders of Dragon City half a year ago. Quite a number of monsters charged at me, and they were the ones that left the deepest impression on me in the countless battles I fought over the past few years," Lu Siya explained.
"What shocked me was a monster that was shot full of holes like a hornet's nest, but each hole had blood vessels and granulation tissue coming out of it. It was a monster that could make trypophobia sufferers have a heart attack on the spot.
"The problem is, I remember very clearly that this monster was shot by you with a large-caliber anti-aircraft machine gun at close range during the ambush on Noble Descent Hotel. That's why it ended up in this state. Then, with the help of the Blood Flowers, it turned into an undead.
"At that time, I even grumbled in my heart. Did you really have to turn the monster into such a pathetic state? It's practically a nightmare for me to see it for three days and three nights?
"It's impossible for the same monster to be killed twice. Besides, you didn't join the exploration mission in the beginning, so it was impossible for you to appear beside me.
"So, I immediately understood that I wasn't really attacked by a monster. I was attacked by a mind attack. I was hit by an illusion, and someone planted something similar to a virus in my retina, cerebral cortex, and central nervous system.
"The strange Hallucinogenic Spores or mind virus could extract memories that left a deep impression in my mind. Then, it. Then, they edited and pieced them together to create a new scene.
"It's like taking clips from different films and combining them into a brand new video."
"Demon Chao Demon horde.
"I was at the edge of the sinkhole, and I was also attacked by the UHV transmission tower with vines wrapped around it. We had no choice but to call for long-distance support. Then, I was sent flying by the impact and fell from the top of the sinkhole!
"Now that I think about it, this battle is really strange.
"First, all the UHV transmission towers should have been destroyed by the long-distance firepower we called for during the battle. Under the ravages of thousands of degrees Celsius and the shockwaves that are as strong as hurricanes, no matter how sturdy steel is, it's no different from plasticine. The steel bones of the UHV transmission towers have long since melted into scrap metal. It's impossible for the vines and fungi to repair them.
"Second, even if there are new green giants, they move with astonishing momentum. It's impossible for them to hide from all the eyes and ears we set on the way to follow us quietly to the edge of the sinkhole.
"Third, the new wave of long-distance firepower came too quickly. Almost at the moment we sent the signal through the Peregrine Falcons, the bombardment came like a meteor shower. That doesn't make sense!
"Big Sis Ya, now that you mention it, I noticed that quite a number of the fireballs and shockwaves from the two long-distance bombardments were the same. The destruction of the UHV transmission towers was also the same.
"So, the first battle and the long-distance bombardment were real. The destruction of the UHV transmission towers left a deep impression on me.
"The second fierce battle and the remote bombardment, on the other hand, were false. A certain mysterious force hidden deep inside the Hidden Fog Desolate Domain stimulated my brain and released the 'materials' that had just been 'stored', allowing me to piece together a reasonable explanation. I had no doubt, or at least no doubt, why I would appear in the most uncanny paradise out of the blue!
Their analysis was like two uneven jigsaw puzzles. When they were put together, they fit perfectly.
Aside from the scene of them falling into the sinkhole, which was copied from the material in their memories, Meng Chao and Lu Siya also found more suspicious points.
First, did Peach Blossom Town exist?
If Peach Blossom Town was just a dilapidated building covered by the green tide, it only had three to five streets, and it had a population of around eight hundred people. It might have been able to avoid being scanned by more than ten exploration teams above the sinkhole.
But the Peach Blossom Town they saw had at least dozens of skyscrapers that were more than one hundred meters tall. Some of them were even more than three hundred meters tall. It also had a population of thirty to fifty thousand, and it had a colorful, sparkling, and incredibly powerful mysterious creature like the Wisdom Tree.
No matter how thick the fog above the sinkhole was, it was impossible for all sorts of high-tech detection methods to not be able to detect the outline of the town.
There were only two possibilities.
Either Peach Blossom Town and Dragon City were not in the same dimension.
Hidden Fog Desolate Region was the most unstable place in Monster Mountain Range.
Since Dragon City was forcefully inserted into the Other World, it stirred up dimensional ripples, and the area was filled with dimensional folds that looked like valleys and hills.
When the Piranhas entered the area, they entered a dimensional fold and ran into a situation that was similar to a ghost hitting a wall.
If there was a subtle angle and deviation between Peach Blossom Town and the space above the sinkhole that could not be observed from above, then it would make sense.
But normally speaking, the area of the space folds wouldn't be too large, nor would they be too stable. They were merely narrow, winding paths that connected the two ends of the space that were hundreds of kilometers away from each other, or even longer, at a very short distance.
Monsters might be able to use the dimensional folds to descend to the suburbs of Dragon City from Hidden Fog Desolate Region.
But Meng Chao had never seen a city of a certain size that could be built in a dimensional fold.
At the very least, he had never seen one in this life.
So, it was the second possibility.
Everything in front of them was not real.
Peach Blossom Town was an illusory city. It was just a beautiful dream created by the Hallucinogenic Spores and the Mind Virus.
Meng Chao and Lu Siya leaned toward this possibility.
After all, it was impossible for there to be such a happy, beautiful, peaceful, harmonious, and natural place in the real world.
It was just like how there was no such thing as a heaven where everyone was equal and everything was perfect.
There was another piece of evidence, and that was time.
Lu Siya said that she had been living in Peach Blossom Town for half a month or even longer.
This did not make sense.
First of all, Lu Siya was a determined and had sharp senses. It was impossible for her to forget just how many days she had been living in a completely unfamiliar town that had a high chance of being controlled by the enemy.
Forget about the number of days, even if she had been awake for hours, minutes, or even seconds, she could do it. She had to do it.
But she could not remember it. Sometimes, she was awake, sometimes confused, and sometimes muddled. She did not know what day it was and where she was.
It was just like how a person in a dream would not be able to clearly remember just how many minutes and seconds they had been dreaming.
Besides, it had not been more than seventy-two hours since she went missing until Meng Chao arrived at the edge of the sinkhole.
With the stimulation from Kindling and contribution points, Meng Chao's cell activity and recovery abilities were far greater than those of superhumans in the same realm.
Based on the recovery of his wounds, even if he had really fallen into the sinkhole, he should not have been unconscious for too long. Otherwise, all the scabs should have fallen off, and his wounds should have healed perfectly.
In other words, from Lu Siya's perspective, she had been missing for at least half a month.
From Meng Chao's perspective, she had been missing for at most three to five days.
When he compared the two, he instantly saw a flaw.
"Peach Blossom Town is not reality. It's an illusory city. It's only in an illusion that the flow of time would be distorted to such a degree," Meng Chao said.
"By the looks of it, the exploration teams did not run into any monster horde attacks nor were they harassed by the UHV transmission towers that came back to life. Instead, all of them were unknowingly attacked by a mysterious existence in the depths of Hidden Fog. They sank into a large-scale group environment, and they could not get out of it!"
This made sense. It explained why the exploration teams could not send their last words or warn the outside world before they went missing.
After all, they did not run into any monsters or threats that could be seen with the naked eye.
Perhaps they had just breathed in the colorless, odorless, and invisible Hallucinogenic Spores and had their brains invaded by the Mind Virus. Then, they walked into the depths of the sinkhole in a daze.
As for everyone falling into the same dream and being able to communicate freely in the dream, was that even possible?
Of course it was.
Humans release brain waves all the time.
Brainwaves were a unique form of information. Logically speaking, there was a possibility to read them directly.
Early on on Earth, when humans' brainwaves affected each other, they could cause group hysteria, which made everyone see impossible existences like Fox Immortal at the same time.
Fox Immortal might just be an image that a person had formed in their mind, and through powerful brainwaves, it was transmitted to other people's minds.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
