Infinite Nightmares

Crimson blood splashed onto Zhang Wenda’s face, trickling slowly down his cheeks.

He stared in shock at the steel behemoth before him, its mouth dripping with crimson blood. He watched as it swiveled on its wheels to face him.

If Pan Dongzi were here right now, Zhang Wenda could tell him with absolute certainty: airplanes were formidable, far more so than tanks.

He finally understood why the guards had been so lax—their vehicle *was* the weapon!

"Run!" Zhang Wenda roared. He snatched something off the ground, spun around, and bolted toward the nearby fields.

He figured the airplane would have limited mobility on the ground, so he leaped over field ridges and streams, deliberately choosing the most difficult terrain.

Song Jianguo caught up to him, her voice trembling as she screamed, "Auntie is dead!"

Zhang Wenda glanced back at the passenger jet, its maw gaping as it began to move toward them. "This isn’t the time for that! Split up! We save who we can!"

"I’m going to kill it! I’ll avenge Auntie!" Song Jianguo’s eyes were bloodshot, and her voice trembled with rage.

Zhang Wenda punched her, jolting her back to her senses.

"Are you fucking crazy?! Can’t you see how outmatched we are? I’m ordering you: do not try to get revenge for Auntie!" After he spoke, Zhang Wenda and Song Jianguo split up, running in opposite directions.

’There’s no way we can win a fight. I’m not Superman; how could I possibly take on a monster like that?’

After vaulting another field ridge, Zhang Wenda glanced around before diving into a cornfield, hoping the tall stalks would hide him from view.

After several minutes of nonstop running, a winded Zhang Wenda finally risked a stop, craning his neck to look behind him.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the behemoth was gone, but his relief was immediately replaced by worry for Song Jianguo. ’Did it go after her? That silly girl... she’d better not have done something suicidal.’

Just as the thought crossed his mind, drops of what felt like a bloody rain began to fall. He looked up and saw the giant airplane, its savage maw wide open. It circled once overhead before diving straight for him.

The sight made Zhang Wenda’s scalp crawl. ’The damn thing can actually fly!’

Clinging to his last shred of hope, Zhang Wenda pressed the Yellow Core. He was ready to enter the adult world and fight the plane to the death, but... nothing happened! His surroundings didn’t change at all.

Before Zhang Wenda could figure out what was wrong, the plane was upon him. The powerful downdraft flattened all the corn stalks, and the force of the wind was so strong Zhang Wenda couldn’t open his eyes.

The next instant, his feet left the ground as he was flung into the air.

Tumbling through the air with nothing to grab onto, Zhang Wenda watched as the plane’s crimson maw grew larger and larger.

Just as he pulled out his Light Saber, a cat-like rope shot up from below, riding the powerful updraft toward him. "Haozi! Catch!"

As Zhang Wenda grabbed it with one hand and yanked, sharp little claws extended from the rope, digging into his flesh.

Below, Song Jianguo and the other cats strained to pull Zhang Wenda from the sky, but they were only just barely fast enough.

Zhang Wenda whipped past the plane’s bloody maw, so close he could feel its sinister gaze locked onto him.

"To hell with you!" Zhang Wenda raised his Light Saber with one hand and, with a powerful thrust, carved a deep gash along the plane’s side.

They shot past each other. Freed from the powerful winds, Zhang Wenda was finally yanked back down to earth, making a safe landing on a pile of cats.

"It can fly! We can’t outrun it!" Song Jianguo yelled, her hair a wind-blown mess as she pointed at the plane circling overhead once more.

"I’m not blind. You think I didn’t notice?" Zhang Wenda stared fixedly at the plane. ’If that had been a normal person, my last strike would have cleaved them in two.’

’But against this colossal steel monster, my attack was barely a scratch. Like trimming its toenails.’

’If I could use the Yellow Core to get back to the adult world, I might stand a chance. But right now? I’m not even as big as one of its wheels. There’s no hope of winning.’

"What do we do? What do we do?" Zhang Wenda was frantic, mashing the button on the Yellow Core, but it seemed to be completely unresponsive.

He didn’t know what was happening. Was the Yellow Core broken, or was the plane itself interfering with it? When it came to the Third Line, he was a total amateur compared to a ’regular’ like Drone Head.

He didn’t know how to use its full potential, nor did he know all of its limitations.

Just as the plane began another dive, something clicked in Zhang Wenda’s mind. They weren’t alone. They had backup!

"Come on! This way!" Zhang Wenda said, grabbing Song Jianguo and bolting in the direction of Uncle Niu’s fields.

The trek was grueling, but by working together, the two of them just barely managed to avoid being eaten by the plane.

"Uncle Niu! Help us!!" As the roaring sound grew louder in his ears again, Zhang Wenda screamed desperately toward the fields ahead.

He screamed the name several times. Just as Zhang Wenda began to think Uncle Niu couldn’t hear his voice from the adult world, the ground began to tremble.

Elation surged through him. ’Uncle Niu! I’m over here!’ he yelled, twisting his head around, eager to see what Uncle Niu looked like in this world.

But when he turned, he saw nothing. The field was empty. He only felt the sky growing darker.

He tilted his head up but saw nothing. He tilted it higher, then higher still, until his neck was craned back as far as it could go. Only then did he see a wall, slowly blotting out the moon and stars.

’That’s not a wall... it’s water! A wave that blots out the sky! Uncle Niu isn’t here! He actually went upstream to dig out the dam all by himself!’

The scene took Zhang Wenda completely by surprise, and the airplane as well.

The hunting plane, in the middle of its dive, also saw the wall of water crashing down. It tried to pull up and climb, but it was too late.

Faced with a flash flood that was like a force of nature, neither Zhang Wenda nor the plane had any power to resist. They were simply engulfed by the water.

Luckily, they had the Black Cats. The creatures quickly formed an overturned boat, enveloping Zhang Wenda and Song Jianguo and carrying them rapidly to the surface of the turbulent water.

Once the cat-boat righted itself on the surface, Zhang Wenda and Song Jianguo, their faces purple from lack of air, greedily gulped down mouthfuls of breath.

Despite his ragged breathing, Zhang Wenda immediately scanned his surroundings. The landscape was utterly transformed. The fields were now a wide river, its menacing current surging toward the concrete buildings built into the mountainside.

"What about the plane? It’s not... still alive, is it?" Soaked to the bone, Song Jianguo gripped the edge of the boat, her face tense as she scanned the churning water around them.

"I doubt it. At most, the plane can fly. I can’t believe it could also... swim?"

The moment the words left Zhang Wenda’s mouth, a sliver of dread crept into his heart.