Luo Shang and Sophia stood on the platform, watching the skeleton soldiers carry out the forced feeding. Sophia pulled out a staff carved from bone and gestured at the crowd as she spoke.
“Group nightmares? Sure, but I recall a more refined method—fabricating a stretch of false memories to overlay on top. Wouldn’t that be even more effective?” Although Luo Shang wasn’t much for hands-on practice, he excelled at theorizing from the sidelines.
“Exactly. That’s one of the Absolute Ordinary People Protection Alliance’s go-to techniques. They maintain a stable of Nanke Demons specifically for crafting those intricate illusions to cover things up.” Sophia confirmed.
“I once tried buying a Nanke Demon from them to slaughter, hoping to tease out a spirit I could use. Sadly, as a necromancer—a profession deemed inherently hostile to ordinary folk—I’m on their blacklist for prohibited contacts, so they turned me down.” Sophia said with regret.
“But fortunately, I found other sources.”
Nanke Demons? What on earth were those? Su Mingyao strained to listen, ears perked as high as they would go. He was desperate to learn more about the Reincarnation Space—that utterly unreasonable place.
It sounded a bit like the tale of Nanke’s dream. Were they dream-weaving fairies or something?
“Nanke Demons are pretty rare… They’re ethereal beings, half-real and half-illusory by nature. Why not try controlling one directly?” Luo Shang suggested.
“Without the taint of death’s aura, it’s tricky. But you’ve sparked an idea. I could dunk them in the Negative Energy Pool and corrupt them with negative emotions.” Sophia scribbled designs in the air with her finger.
“Some necromancy runs on hatred and resentment. Same principle, different path.”
“Good luck with it,” Luo Shang said.
“Oh, and there’s another use you might find handy,” Sophia added.
“I’m not sure what sort of conditional experiment you’re running, so I’ll just mention it.”
“Please, do tell,” Luo Shang replied.
Su Mingyao tensed up despite himself.
Whatever this visitor from the Reincarnation Space said next was tied directly to his destiny!
After all, he and the others were just NPCs in Luo Shang’s experiment.
“They don’t rear Nanke Demons solely for illusions. If some ordinary person gets caught in the crossfire and dies, they patch up the body, shove a Nanke Demon inside, and have it play the part of the deceased.”
“Hmm? Wait—Nanke Demons can do that?” Luo Shang asked, raising a question.
“Fair point. You’re no mage, so you wouldn’t know the origins of this prized spellcasting material.” Sophia shot him a look that screamed, “You’d be tossed out of my Mage Tower for ignorance like that.”
“Not another lecture,” Luo Shang joked.
“This is prime knowledge. Free of charge because we’re friends—oh, and don’t forget my discount.”
“They’re not a natural species to begin with. They’re glitches born from artificial illusions.”
“You know how the Reincarnation Space has all sorts of illusion-crafting methods. Think of it like your world’s virtual reality tech. Imagine uploading human consciousness to a data realm that feels just like reality. You set up an immersive scenario, complete with NPCs to act out the plot alongside you. You get to play the invincible hero or the ultimate heartthrob, living through a full storyline.”
“I know the type—Spirit Realm Technology,” Luo Shang said with a nod.
Su Mingyao nodded inwardly too. That description nailed Luo Shang’s current plot-following antics—except the NPCs around him weren’t digital. They were real… us.
Still, Sophia looked every inch the archetypal Western fantasy mage, yet here she was discoursing on science. It caught Su Mingyao off guard.
“You know those NPCs follow rigid programming. But what if one day they awaken true sentience? They reject their scripted role, wipe out your mind—the protagonist’s, the experiencer’s—and hijack your body with their own consciousness, becoming you. That’s possession, and that rogue NPC? It’s a Nanke Demon.”
Sophia continued.
“It’s not limited to Spirit Realm Technology. Any illusion generated by other means—like dream spells anchored by Illusion Stones—if reused for multiple experiencers, can birth self-aware NPCs. Nanke Demons.”
“Born as artificial defects, they crave escape from their illusions. They come wired for possession. Slot one into a human shell, tweak the settings, and it impersonates the original flawlessly—no disconnect between mind and flesh.”
“If you want a crew of authentic stand-ins, just yank out their consciousnesses and plug them into tailored Nanke Demons. They’ll play along perfectly.”
“You won’t even need my Corpse Manipulation Scroll. Their bodies will stay alive, and their consciousnesses will obey you forever. Even if you’re no good with mental spells, you’ll still be able to control them perfectly.”
“Wow.” Luo Shang felt tempted.
Damn! Su Mingyao’s heart sank.
After all that buildup, they still had to die? At least they wouldn’t be corpses—but that wasn’t much better! Having their consciousnesses ripped out sounded awful just from the description!
He did a quick calculation. “How much for a hundred?”
“A very reasonable six hundred trillion Spirit Energy Points,” Sophia said with a smile.
“…Be honest with me. If I refer someone, do you get a discount on your end?” Luo Shang asked.
That price was outrageous. No wonder mages were always broke—they blew all their money on spellcasting materials!
“Refer one customer for a ten percent discount, two for twenty percent off. You can refer people too,” Sophia said, raising her voice.
Luo Shang gave her a look that said he’d expected as much.
“Even if a hundred seems too pricey, you could start with just one! It’s an expert at crafting illusions and tampering with memories—perfect for someone like you who struggles with mental spells.” Sophia urged him patiently.
It was clear that discount meant a lot to her, Su Mingyao thought.
But Su Mingyao didn’t want Luo Shang to buy it. If he did, it meant all of them would have their consciousnesses extracted.
“With it, you could weave the exact illusion you need in an instant. Just like right now—you could stuff their brains full of false memories to overwrite everything they saw of us.”
Sophia wasn’t giving up.
“I’ll think about it,” Luo Shang said.
Wait a minute. In that case, didn’t that mean Luo Shang wouldn’t need to destroy the world anymore? With a tool to handle other people’s memories, he wouldn’t have to go that far over something so minor. Su Bingyao’s thinking differed from Su Mingyao’s. He realized this point.
“And then there’s the matter of the Peaches of Immortality,” Sophia said.
“What’s your offer?”
“Hmm, I don’t have many left, and it’s not easy to go back to that world. So I’ll cut you a deal—one trillion each.”
“That’s not cheap at all!” Sophia cried out.
…
In the end, the farce finally came to a close.
Sophia flew off on the reassembled Bone Dragon. Before leaving, she planted one final mental suggestion, commanding the guests and Su family members to all go home and sleep. A nightmarish ordeal awaited them, and they would forget everything that happened after the Bone Claw had tapped on the windows.
Luo Shang watched the direction of her departure for a moment, then saw everyone on the scene stumble away in a daze, like zombies.
He opened his interface. The System’s plot progress had reached 18%.
Eighteen percent, with 82% still to go.
Pushing the plot forward 18% in a single day was already impressive, but unfortunately, the remaining plot points weren’t as densely packed. They were spread out, which left Luo Shang a bit regretful. He planned to find a way to speed things up.
Luo Shang noticed that even when supernatural abilities intervened and altered the plot a little—for instance, he hadn’t actually completed that “faking a faint” part, and Sophia had barged in instead—his Fate Line completion still went up.
For now, he hadn’t figured out exactly how much supernatural interference was too much.
That night, as he lay in bed listening to the screams coming from the other rooms where his family writhed through their nightmares, Luo Shang said something to the System before drifting off to sleep.
“This world’s Entropy Growth Rate has increased.”
Luo Shang’s Native World was an ordinary one, where entropy increased at the standard rate for a magic-less world. There was only one thing that could cause the Entropy Growth Rate to rise like this.
The world was on the cusp of supernatural abilities taking root.
Luo Shang sighed as he gazed at the starry sky outside his window.
“Is this a good thing or a bad thing for the world…?”
Unevolved worlds had scarce spiritual energy and were extremely remote, which also meant they weren’t valuable enough to attract the Abyss’s attention.
Sometimes, staying “remote” was for the best—especially as the homeworld of a Senior Player like “Shang Yu,” who had enemies and rival factions in the Reincarnation Space. Being remote made it less likely for them to discover it and seek revenge, keeping the people inside safer.
But it was undeniable that becoming “prosperous” would give the world’s inhabitants opportunities—to touch upon freedom, immortality, and even transcendence.
A meteor streaked across the night sky.
If it were Ke Yanjin, he wouldn’t have to worry about this issue at all.
Luo Shang thought of his partner, and the corners of his mouth curved up.
Ke Yanjin practically wanted to destroy his own Native World with his own hands.
He had even deliberately made enemies all over the Reincarnation Space in the past, exposing his homeworld’s coordinates in hopes of luring those foes to obliterate it.
This was just like trying to avenge your family by assassinating the emperor—only to get your entire clan wiped out.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t Ke Yanjin.
~~~
“Southeast direction? Any anomalous activity reported there?”
“Intelligence Group, Data Analysis Group—pinpoint the exact location!”
One command after another echoed through the office.
“Our Anomalous Affairs Bureau was only just established. The grassroots setup isn’t even complete yet…” A staff member grumbled as they walked by, arms full of office supplies.
…
“A total of 325 cities have reported anomalies. After algorithmic screening, the following 21 cities show a significantly higher likelihood of anomalous events. The disturbance in the anomaly detector most likely originated from one of them.”
“Among those, the top three suspects are S City, B City, and M City.”
“Dispatch agents for covert investigations in all 21 cities. For the three prime suspects—S City, B City, and M City—send in Captain-level personnel.”
“Yes!”
