Chapter 144: Dream Infiltration

Fan Li opened his eyes. The commotion outside the window made it impossible for him to achieve any effective sleep.

Feeling somewhat irritable, he stood up, pushed open the window, and saw seven or eight children skipping rope in the field of view. They were wearing white clothes or skirts, their faces beaming with joyful smiles, and they muttered words as they laughed.

It sounded somewhat like a nursery rhyme, yet the sentences within it were slightly bizarre.

Fan Li’s eyes narrowed gradually. He seemed to have noticed something amiss. Though he was quite far from the children, the sound of the nursery rhyme was exceptionally clear, as if it were being chanted directly beside his ears.

Furthermore, given how busy times currently were, where were the adults? Why were there only children left, and judging by their demeanor, they were entirely unaffected by the disaster, even bursting into a series of laughs?

At that moment, the children seemed to sense someone peering at them. They suddenly stopped what they were doing, turned their heads in unison, and looked straight at Fan Li.

Visible to the naked eye, hideous scars emerged across their faces, as if intentionally slashed by a knife. The blood had not even dried, dripping down onto the ground one drop at a time.

In the previous second, they still possessed human countenances, but in this instant, their skin began to rot, transforming into monsters uglier than zombies.

They did not take a single step forward; they simply stared fixedly at Fan Li, generating an intense wave of oppression.

"Hello..."

A hoarse voice suddenly echoed from behind Fan Li. When he turned around, what met his eyes was a horribly distorted, grotesque, and disfigured face.

The entity wore a brownish-black fedora and a red-and-green horizontally striped sweater. Its right hand was a sharp iron claw made of metal, and its entire body was extremely emaciated and scrawny from severe malnutrition.

As for its cheeks, they were crisscrossed with torn scars. A fire had stolen its visage, turning it into the hideous appearance it wore now.

"Another monster visit?"

Upon seeing the entity, Fan Li seemed to understand something. He had conquered the Boundary Gate Mansion and obtained 30 prestige points. The Monster Manual had previously given hints that he had once again become a subject of heated discussion among monsters.

And the monster before him was undoubtedly one of those heatedly discussed figures.

Monsters were not to be trifled with. Even when they came out of admiration, their inherent personalities made them fatally dangerous.

Fan Li still remembered the woman wielding the scissors. Originally, everything had been proceeding on track, but at the very last step, she actually wanted to slash his cheeks open with her scissors, and her reason was purely wanting them to look alike.

The mindset of a monster was hard to fathom, and receiving a monster's visit was an event where misfortune far outweighed luck. Because aside from a minuscule chance of subjugating the other party, there was a high probability of being killed by them instead.

Outside the door was Ellie; in the real world, it would have been entirely impossible for this entity to swagger right up to him.

Before hearing the nursery rhyme, Fan Li remembered dozing off on the bed, which meant he was very likely currently immersed in a dream, encountering this visitor right here.

A monster capable of manipulating dreams—truly an astonishing ability. As expected, every monster possessed its own unique and exclusive special capability.

Fan Li sat down on the bed, having explored several key points. He did not show any panic; instead, he looked the entity up and down.

Ever since it appeared before him, that monster had stood motionless in place, its face maintaining an absurd, uninhibited smile from beginning to end. It felt as though a raging fire had fused its muscles together, fixing that grin permanently onto its face.

"Hello..."

The entity spoke once more.

Fan Li had encountered some intelligent monsters before, so he felt no surprise upon hearing the greeting and merely nodded, though his heart was far from as calm as his outward appearance suggested.

The Monster Manual was not by his side; Ellie, the Xenomorph, the button, and the whistle were equally nowhere to be found.

The pendant around his neck!

Fan Li feigned twisting his neck and felt the texture against his skin. Compared to the other mediums, the upside-down crucifix could actually be carried along with him.

What was the reason for this?

Was it because the Butcher was also an entity materialized from the dark side of humanity?

"I have heard your name."

"In fact, quite a few fellows similar to me have all heard your name."

"We gathered to discuss you, debating what kind of human you could possibly be to make our kind feel such terror? So, I came here. I want to test just how terrifying you truly are. I will find a way to kill you, or... be killed by you!"

The atmosphere within the bedroom abruptly froze. The monster with the steel-gloved right hand gently grazed the door frame, and the entire wooden door instantly disintegrated, collapsing onto the floor into a pile of debris.

Its voice was not loud; it spoke not like an intruder, but like a visitor, even inviting him to engage in a battle in a consultative tone.

Before it could finish speaking, it suddenly stopped. Fan Li swiftly retrieved an upside-down crucifix from around his neck. Upon seeing the crucifix, the monster visibly took a step back, and the fury in its eyes instantly escalated.

It abhorred the crucifix, or perhaps, it feared the crucifix?

Fan Li’s eyes flashed as he caught onto the clue.

The blood in the dream was not physical substance, and if the Butcher truly existed, it would directly materialize within the dream without needing any extra summoning methods.

"The Butcher!"

Fan Li chanted silently in his heart. Immediately, a thick fog emerged before him, followed by the appearance of a muscular monster with a tumor-like growth swelling on the back of its neck.

The Butcher!

As expected, this entity belonged to the manifestation of some evil consciousness, not a pure flesh-and-blood body; it wasn't like Ellie or the Xenomorph, and even its medium had vanished from before his eyes.

The monster before him did not rush to strike. The steel glove on its hand gently scraped against itself, emitting a series of harsh, grating sounds, while the corner of its mouth curved into a smile:

"How did you do that? This is a world I created; never before have similar troubles arisen here."

"The fellow in front of us doesn't seem weak. Killing it will inevitably consume some time, so what is your purpose in summoning it? Do you want to join forces, or is it purely to run away?"

The entity seemed somewhat talkative, chattering away to itself from start to finish without stopping for even a single moment.

"Kill it!"

Fan Li had no intention of engaging in idle banter. The abilities displayed by this entity were no less formidable than the scissor-wielding woman from before. Having learned his lesson last time, Fan Li had no intention of playing the emotional card; he purely wanted to use brute force to crush the enemy!

Snap!

Hearing the command, the Butcher stepped forward, raising its broad cleaver at the same time. Without hesitation, the cleaver instantly came down, hacking directly toward the monster's face!