Chapter 582: Price for the Truth

    Never look at the Nightmare in the eye— that was an ironclad rule of the Nightmare Cycle. Hearsay you would see your worst fears and nightmares unfolding right before your eyes, pushing you to the brink of madness and then... death.

    The number one player, Harbinger of Doom, had inherited only a small fraction of the Nightmare’s power but that was already enough to shoot her right to the top of the leaderboard, her position unshakable for years.

    That being said, the Nightmare very seldom appeared inside the Cycles.

    Among the officers in the meeting room right now, only Ying had had the fortune – or maybe misfortune – to see the Nightmare once, and that was in the ’Chrono Junction Express’ right before it caused the whole Cycle to fall apart.

    One glance... just one glance was enough for the sheer terror to be engraved in her mind.

    She had no words to describe what kind of entity the Nightmare was. It was dark, formless, and matterless, and somehow evoked a strong sense of repulsion and disgust from the depths of her heart.

    It was said that the appearance of the Nightmare signified that the Cycle’s difficulty would increase leaps and bounds, but honestly the information they had was still very lacking. For example, they had no idea what would trigger its descent.

    But the fact that it had appeared in the Cycle where Sword of Heaven was, had to be taken into consideration. Song Yunshi wasn’t a reckless person, she was certain of it. He should have known from the start that he had no chance against the Nightmare, against that terrifying creature which defied all logic and reasons. So why did he still choose to attack? Why did he lift his sword without hesitation even when knowing he might perish right then and there?

    What exactly was the message he wanted to convey?

    "The Nightmare’s weakness? You’re asking me?" Xu Zhao pointed at his own nose with an incredulous expression before tossing his head back and barking out a disbelieving laughter. "Oh God, you’re truly asking me about the Nightmare’s weakness? What kind of a joke is it? If I could figure this out, do you think I would still be sitting here, talking to you? I would be the first to stab that motherfucker a few times, okay?!" he slapped the table repeatedly to express his annoyance, his spit flying all over the place.

    Ying remained unfazed in the face of the other person’s outbursts. Not only did she not cower, she even leveled him with a skeptical look.

    She had heard through a grapevine that the Divine Oracle enjoyed challenging the high-level Cycles, finding mid-level ones too dull to entertain him. He was the type of player who sought thrill and excitement in life, and only high-level Cycles could fulfill that for him. If he wasn’t working or resting or fucking around, nearly all of his time would be spent inside the Cycle.

    With his kind of temperament, Ying wouldn’t be surprised if he was the first player who did not wish for the Nightmare Cycle to disappear.

    So when he said he wanted to stab the Nightmare a few times— did he really mean it?

    Frowning, she tried to approach the topic from a different angle. "How much did you know about the Nightmare?"

    "How much..." he echoed, dragging out his words in a lazy drawl. A slow smirk spread across his face. His mood had changed so abruptly that it appeared more like he was doing theatrics instead. "It depends." His chuckle was low and ominous. "Are you ready to pay the price for the truth? The last time I did a divination on the Nightmare, I ended up like this."

    He tugged his glasses down a bit, just enough to reveal a pair of eyes stitched shut with horrendous black threads.

    The visual impact brought by this sudden revelation was just too shocking. Sharp gasps and low curses echoed throughout the room as the officers’ faces turned pale.

    Ying was similarly uncomfortable, though the stitched eyes did not spook her as much. She simply couldn’t imagine the circumstances under which this kind of wound was inflicted, and how the Divine Oracle continued to live on despite that.

    "What exactly happened...?" she whispered.

    Xu Zhao shrugged, pushing back his sunglasses to conceal his eyes. "As I said, a price..." he paused for a beat before adding with a humorless chuckle, "A heavy one, if I can say."

    A rigid hush descended upon the room as the officers exchanged hesitant glances with each other.

    They had so many questions to ask, so many doubts they wanted to clarify, yet they had no idea where to start. Mainly because they felt that digging through someone’s wound to satisfy their own curiosity was too inhumane. Moreover, they were unsure whether hearing the answer would leave some kind of irreparable damage on themselves, like it did on Xu Zhao.

    They certainly wouldn’t dare to underestimate the Nightmare at all, and seeing the price the Divine Oracle had to bear had thoroughly deterred them.

    Sure, they were all ready to sacrifice themselves. When they joined this team, they had been prepared to die at any time for the greater good. Which was why the other divisions had been calling them the ’suicide squad’. Alas, readiness to die was one thing, but being forced into a life worse than death was another thing altogether.

    They were not afraid of death— but that they couldn’t even die even when they wanted to.

    Ying’s frown deepened. She did not have as much reservations or hesitation as the other officers. She had always been more strong-willed and stubborn than others, and her experience in the Nightmare Cycle had only strengthened that aspect.

    Either way, she was already a Legendary player; if the Divine Oracle could still live well after that, why couldn’t she?

    She opened her mouth, wanting to express that she was ready to pay whatever damned consequences there were so long as she could bring the Nightmare down. But before she could do so, Captain Chen suddenly stood up, sending the swivel chair rolling across the floor.

    "It’s late. Let’s end the meeting here." He shot a sharp look at Ying, warning her not to act impulsively. He then shifted his gaze to the second-ranked player, "But before that, we have one last question. ’House of Evil’ or ’Battle of the Gods’, which one has the Sword of Heaven gone to? It should be okay to reveal something like this, shouldn’t it, Mr. Xu?"