Infinite Nightmares

"Airplanes can swim?" The old Zhang Wenda would never have connected those two ideas, not even if his life depended on it. But in this bizarre world, he wasn’t so sure anymore.

Just as he had that thought, a loud SPLASH erupted from the water behind them and the sky overhead suddenly went dark. When Zhang Wenda, Song Jianguo, and all the cats looked up, they saw the airplane’s monstrous maw looming over them like a cave, half-enclosing them. They were so close Zhang Wenda could have reached out and touched its fangs.

At that critical moment, his Red Core began to glow. Zhang Wenda slammed both hands against the fangs and pushed. He used the reactive force to shoot the cat boat forward a short distance.

Song Jianguo’s face was ashen as she stared at the plane’s spinning propeller. "That thing can actually swim!"

But as he recovered from the lingering fear, Zhang Wenda keenly observed that the plane wasn’t in good shape. Its massive body was cracked, riddled with dents and deformations. The red light from its cockpit had also dimmed considerably.

It was clearly much larger than them, so it must have borne the brunt of the flash flood’s force. Add to that being knocked from the sky and into the water, and the plane now looked severely damaged.

It seemed to utterly despise Zhang Wenda and Song Jianguo for what they had done to it. With its monstrous maw gaping, it thrashed in the water, trying to close the distance.

Zhang Wenda glanced from side to side, then said to Song Jianguo, "Tell your cats to paddle slower. We’re going to slowly approach it."

"Are you insane? Do you have a death wish?"

"We can’t let it follow us forever. Who knows how much longer it can hold on. Besides, didn’t you want revenge? Let’s finish this bastard off."

Soon, the frantic paddling of the cat paws under the boat ceased, and the cat boat began to drift slowly toward the monstrous maw.

The plane seemed impatient to swallow them whole, opening its maw so wide it looked as if its nose would split in two.

’Closer... a little closer... closer...’ Zhang Wenda’s heart began to pound in his chest as he watched the sharp fangs loom larger and larger before him.

When they were just a few meters away from the plane’s maw, Zhang Wenda pulled out the Sunshine Jar and the Flame Jar and hurled them inside with all his strength.

The glass jars were shattered by the metal teeth, their contents mixing with river water as they were washed deep into the abyssal maw.

Zhang Wenda had no idea what was in those jars, but he was sure that anything ’those people’ carried on their person had to be a weapon.

"Go, go, go! Cats, paddle! Paddle fast!" At Zhang Wenda’s urging, the cat boat accelerated once more, quickly pulling away from the plane.

At first, nothing happened. But soon, flames and brilliant light started to erupt from the plane’s now-closed maw, and its body seized up in the water.

Suddenly, a series of small explosions echoed from within the plane. Flames instantly erupted from the shattered cockpit glass.

Zhang Wenda could just barely make out a figure, engulfed in flames, rampaging inside the cockpit.

A flash of white light, and a moment later the massive explosion finally reached them. A shockwave capsized their boat, throwing them into the water.

By the time the drenched and disheveled pair managed to regroup, all they saw were the shattered remains of the plane drifting away with the current.

"That was incredible! Those two are way more powerful than that Cloud Man!" Song Jianguo’s eyes fixed on the last remaining "rainbow" jar in Zhang Wenda’s hand, and she reached out to grab it.

"Don’t touch it." Zhang Wenda slapped her hand away. "We’re broke. We should save this; it might be worth something."

Just then, Zhang Wenda noticed they had drifted over a small town. Aside from a few tall structures, the entire place was underwater.

The water was littered with the bodies of giants, lying every which way. They were all motionless; he couldn’t tell if they were dead or something else.

’The flash flood came without warning,’ he thought. ’Looks like I wasn’t the only one caught off guard. They never saw it coming either. A lot of them must have drowned, and the entire factory is probably destroyed.’

’I just wonder how the MVP of this whole affair, Uncle Niu, pulled it off. Didn’t he say it would take years to collapse the dam? How did he do it so fast?’

"Let’s go over there." Zhang Wenda patted the cat boat, directing it toward a UFO-shaped water tower.

Once they were on top of the water tower, the cats, who were exhausted after all their hard work, collapsed and began to pant heavily.

"You all worked hard. I’ll treat you to fish when we get back."

"I want some too," Song Jianguo said with a raised eyebrow.

Zhang Wenda rolled up his sleeve, revealing his Yellow Core. He didn’t refuse this time; Song Jianguo had really pulled her weight. "We should be safe for the time being. You stand guard here. I’m going to the ’adult world’ to check things out."

As he pressed it gently, the Yellow Core responded. Apparently, the plane had been the reason it didn’t work before.

When his surroundings finished shifting, the underwater town was replaced by concrete buildings built into the side of a mountain. The one constant was the raging flood.

The force of the flood had turned most of the concrete buildings into dangerously unstable structures, leaving only a few of the taller ones intact.

Zhang Wenda now found himself on the rooftop of one of these compromised buildings. The view before him looked like he had been transported to the water-logged city of Venice.

Staring out at the utterly silent concrete buildings, Zhang Wenda grew worried. ’That Drone Head fellow... he shouldn’t have been affected by the flood, should he? I’m pretty sure he can fly.’

But after observing his surroundings carefully for some time, he found no trace of Drone Head.

It wasn’t just Drone Head; he couldn’t see a single other living soul. There were no signs of life at all, as if he had been transported back into one of the photographs.

Zhang Wenda waited for a while, but when nothing stirred, he got his bearings, jumped into the now-calmer water, and swam toward the next concrete building.

There weren’t many buildings to check. After a quick search, Zhang Wenda finally located the spot he had infiltrated before. The corridor he’d used was now completely flooded, but he could see a glowing orb underwater—it was the submerged sun!

An idea struck Zhang Wenda as he looked at the wondrous object that could continuously generate weapons.

’This thing... it must be really valuable, right? It has to be worth at least three drops of Oil Bab, no?’ SPLASH! He dove straight into the water, swam over to the sun, and reached out to take it.

The instant his hand touched the sun floating in the water, he was so badly burned he snatched it back. The thing was scorching hot; he had no way to carry it.

Zhang Wenda swam back to the surface, vexed. He stared at the blurry image of the sun in the water. He didn’t have anything to carry it in.

Glancing around, he spotted a discarded yellow peach can. He picked it up, twisted off the lid, and dove back down.

He attempted to scoop the sun into the can and found that it was a perfect fit. But before he could celebrate, with a sharp CRACK, the heat shattered the glass jar.

The sun burned his hand again, throwing him into a panic. But in that moment of chaos, he must have hit some kind of switch on it, because the dazzling sun began to dim, transforming into a sphere that glowed with a silvery light.

And just like that, right before Zhang Wenda’s eyes, the sun metamorphosed into the moon.