Infinite Nightmares

Zhang Wenda had seen an Oil Bab before. He’d spotted one once at a flea market.

That one might have been a fake, of course. But even a fake is modeled after the real thing, so its appearance couldn’t have been too different.

He’d only seen it for a moment, but he could never forget something worth a whopping 200 yuan.

It was pitch-black deep in the Dark Web, making it almost impossible to see more than a few meters ahead. But the blackness of the Oil Bab was clearly different.

It was a black that carried the faint luster of an oil slick. Suspended in the utter darkness, it was incredibly conspicuous. This wasn’t an ordinary black, but a rich, iridescent, oily black.

"So that’s the little thing worth 200 yuan?" Song Jianguo stared at the object in the distance, her eyes gleaming.

She was about to go over when Zhang Wenda pulled her back. "Hold on. It can’t be this easy, can it? Just served up to us right in the open? This feels a little too deliberate. What if it’s a trap?"

Considering the possibility, Zhang Wenda cautiously pulled out his flashlight. He cranked it to its brightest setting and aimed it forward. The surrounding darkness seemed to absorb the light; the powerful flashlight could only project a beam about the width of a bowl.

Still, the beam was enough for Zhang Wenda to get a clear look. There was no apparent danger near the drop of Oil Bab, nor was there anything else around it.

Meanwhile, Song Jianguo had also dispatched one of her cats to investigate. It also found nothing hostile near the Oil Bab.

They waited as 2826 cycled through various light spectrums to perform its own scan. Finally, after this triple-check, they confirmed that the Oil Bab posed no threat.

Zhang Wenda carefully took the Oil Bab in his hand and was surprised. It looked like a liquid about twice the size of a normal water droplet, but it felt like a small piece of asphalt and radiated a gentle warmth.

’I can tell this thing is special just by looking at it. I’ve heard it can turn water into oil, but I have no idea how.’

He slapped away Song Jianguo’s reaching hand and placed the object into an enamel mug, storing it carefully.

’With this, I’ve completed one-third of my goal. Now I just need to find two more drops of Oil Bab, and I can head back.’

’It’s not easy, though. No wonder this stuff is so expensive, hiding way down here at the bottom. The journey’s been a bit rough, but so far, so good.’

Once Zhang Wenda had put it away, he looked over at 2826. "Are Oil Babs produced in the deepest part of the Dark Web? Why was that one floating in midair?"

shook his head in response to Zhang Wenda’s question. "I’m not sure. The data I pulled does have records of this location, but the Dark Web hasn’t existed for very long. There are definitely things here that the survey teams haven’t found yet."

Zhang Wenda stomped on the ground. It felt like stepping on a water-logged wool sweater. You could call the substance underfoot water, but it felt more like glue, and it was mixed with rocks of various sizes.

Shining his flashlight around, he saw that the entire area was like this. It seemed they had reached the very bottom of the Dark Web.

"Alright, let’s go. We need to stay on high alert, find the other two drops of Oil Bab, and get out of here as fast as we can."

’That was the plan, anyway,’ Zhang Wenda thought. ’But I’ll have to play it by ear. If this place isn’t too dangerous, maybe I can find a few extra Oil Babs. I could be set for life.’

The three of them, along with the clowder of cats, began to move cautiously through the area. This time, however, Zhang Wenda kept his flashlight off.

Holding a flashlight in the pitch-black, even after drinking the Mosaic, would be too conspicuous to any other creatures lurking in the dark.

But in a place so dark you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, moving without a light was nearly impossible.

Fortunately, the cats’ night vision was far better than theirs. The felines quickly fanned out in a perimeter around the group, serving as their eyes in the darkness.

This way, even if they couldn’t see far themselves, they would be alerted in time if anything approached.

With the cats on patrol, Zhang Wenda felt a little more at ease in the darkness. He lowered his voice and asked 2826, "What the hell was that thing from before? The giant one that was snacking on a Floating Island."

"I don’t know either."

"You don’t know? I thought you said you came prepared for the Dark Web. You don’t even know what kind of monsters are here?"

But 2826 just shook his head.

"No, you’re mistaken. I only said this place was dangerous. This is a derivative zone of Thought Wave Network Seven. We haven’t had a chance to send a survey team to assess it yet. So, aside from some verbal reports from people who’ve returned, we don’t know much more than you do."

"Then what was that ’atmospheric creature’ you mentioned earlier?"

"Filter-feeding organisms that live in the stratosphere of Thought Wave Two. Their bodies are mostly composed of air, so they’re largely transparent and remain perpetually airborne."

Zhang Wenda glanced up at the blurry, web-like structures overhead. "Would there be atmospheric creatures here, too? This doesn’t exactly look like the upper atmosphere."

"And that’s exactly why I said this place is dangerous. It’s not because we know there’s some specific, highly dangerous creature here. It’s because this area is unknown—it hasn’t been thoroughly explored or developed. ’Unknown’ means anything can happen, and in this world, ’unknown’ means ’danger’."

"I see..." Zhang Wenda silently committed everything 2826 had just said to memory. Sometimes, intelligence is the key to survival.

Suddenly, he seemed to latch onto a key point. "So, in that case," he said immediately, "does this count as us exploring an unknown region for Bureau 507? You guys should be paying me for this, right?"

Thinking of the pathetic 13 yuan in his pocket, Zhang Wenda eagerly awaited 2826’s response.

"Of course there’s payment. A substantial amount, in fact. But it counts as my exceptional duty bonus. If you had joined earlier, you’d be getting a cut."

"Damn... you look so honest, but you’re really double-dipping, huh? How about this: when we get back, you give me a tour of Bureau 507’s headquarters?" Zhang Wenda was about to say more when his eyes suddenly lit up. "Look! Another Oil Bab over there! Is the yield really this high?"

But before he could take more than a few steps, Song Jianguo’s voice called out from behind him, "Haozi! One of the cats is missing!"

Her words hit him like a bucket of ice water. ’Of course,’ he thought, ’this damn place just won’t give us a break.’

He immediately forgot about the distant Oil Bab and drew his Light Saber. "What happened?! Call all the cats back!"

As Song Jianguo whistled, the cats began to return from the darkness. After a quick headcount, she said with certainty, "That’s right! One is definitely missing."

"Are you sure? Don’t miscount!"

"You think I don’t know how many cats I have?! Are you implying I’m so uneducated I can’t even count?" Song Jianguo’s voice was laced with anger and worry.

Zhang Wenda was about to retort but suddenly snapped his mouth shut. He heard a sound drifting out of the darkness. "MEEEOOOWW... MEOW..."