The man with a scarred face was successful in goading Zhao Yanqing into a fight.

Once he finished speaking, a few projectiles were thrown in his direction from another side.

​​

The man with a scarred face had already prepared for this. While he was getting ready to avoid the damage caused by the explosions, he found that two aerosol bombs were thrown near him.

The white smoke that billowed out covered the entire street. After a while, the man with a scarred face started focusing on listening to the sounds around him.

He had excellent hearing, much better than ordinary people. This was one of the reasons why he could slaughter whoever he wanted in this battle royale game.

Another reason was that he was cruel and merciless enough.

There!

The man with a scarred face heard Zhao Yanqing running. He directly raised the Groza Rifle in his hands, then crossed over the low wall he was hiding behind. He pulled the trigger as he aimed at a position enveloped in smoke.

The Groza Rifle's super high rate of fire… instantly shot out a hail of bullets towards the direction the man with a scarred face was aiming at!

The bullets tore up the smoke and shot straight towards Zhao Yanqing.

Zhao Yanqing also responded in kind.

The man with a scarred face had no idea if he had shot Zhao Yanqing. However, his head was hit by a bullet from a Type 95 Automatic Rifle!

Luckily, he was wearing a level-three helmet on his head right now. Things with a design prototype produced by the westerners had higher resistance.

The bullet that hit the level-three helmet of the man had only left a dent. However, his body was pushed a step backward by the impact.

There were ringing sounds in his ears, as if his head was put inside a bell and someone had banged it fiercely.

Even so, the man with a scarred face still heard Zhao Yanqing's footsteps. He had run far away!

The fierceness deep in the man's heart made him take off the helmet that was getting in his way. He raised the Groza Rifle and chased after Zhao Yanqing.

While he was tailing Zhao Yanqing, they almost never stopped shooting at each other.

The man with a scarred face also paid attention to another thing. He was carefully counting how many gunshots Zhao Yanqing had fired.

He had looked into the magazines generated on this island. The magazine of an automatic rifle could only contain forty bullets. And now, this was already the thirty-seventh bullet Zhao Yanqing had shot!

When Zhao Yanqing fired three shots again in a row and missed, the man with a scarred face knew his chance had come.

Zhao Yanqing maintained a long distance from the man and hid in a building.

The man with a scarred face soon identified which building Zhao Yanqing was hiding in based on his footsteps. He lowered his body and swiftly went towards that building.

An incredibly soft sound of bullets being loaded into the magazine came from a room in that building.

He didn't prepare a backup magazine?

The man with a scarred face couldn't quite believe that a professional like Zhao Yanqing hadn't prepared a backup magazine in such a situation.

However… He couldn't be sure about it. These Dream Explorers only came in here to wander around at first, thinking that they were here for sightseeing. They might not have thought about killing since the beginning!

The sound of bullets being pressed into the magazine was soft. Zhao Yanqing was apparently trying his best to control his moves.

This was his chance!

The man didn't miss the opportunity. He used the least risky way.

He pulled out the safety pin of one sound bomb and two fragmentation grenades, then directly threw them inside the window,

When the three projectiles all exploded, the man with a scarred face immediately used the Groza Rifle to indiscriminately spray the suspected position with bullets through the window.

But after firing for a while, the man with a scarred face found that there wasn't anyone in the room at all!

How was that possible? Then, where did the sound of changing bullets come from?

The man with a scarred face suddenly saw some residue in the corner of the room. That was a scorched magazine and something that looked like the remains of a machine.

This was a trap!

It was already too late when this thought flashed in the mind of the man.

Zhao Yanqing jumped straight down from the second floor and directly knocked the man down to the floor. He then pressed him down tight.

"You…"

While the man with a scarred face wanted to shout, Zhao Yanqing took out a dagger and held it at his throat.

At this moment, the man used the power of his entire body to try to push the dagger away.

And yet, the sharp dagger still pressed at the throat of the man bit by bit, cutting off the skin slowly. It then went through his muscles and trachea until the man couldn't speak at all.

Zhao Yanqing stared at the man with a scarred face with a cold gaze.

He had never planned to kill the man with a gun since the start. This man had humiliated his wife and daughter. It would be too nice for him to be killed by a bullet!

The blade of the dagger finally cut through the man's throat. Zhao Yanqing ended his life with this dagger.

As he wiped off the blood on the dagger, the sight around him was swallowed by darkness.

The Lord of Nightmare walked out of the darkness and clapped gently at the same time.

It was clapping very slowly. Nobody could feel if it was celebrating or being sarcastic.

"You finally won this time, Mr. Zhao."

The Lord of Nightmare seemed to know Zhao Yanqing. Zhao Yanqing also acted calmly. He knew the dagger in his hand couldn't hurt this Lord of Nightmare.

"Tapir, you shouldn't have dragged a student into a nightmare."

While Zhao Yanqing was speaking, he looked at Qiu Ren, who was standing behind the Lord of Nightmare.

He also hinted at Qiu Ren not to get too close to that guy with his eyes.

The Lord of Nightmare had a moody temperament. Nobody knew if Tapir would keep Qiu Ren in this nightmare forever on the spur of the moment.

Qiu Ren raised his hand and told Zhao Yanqing not to worry too much. He still had some ways of escaping from this nightmare.

"I only want to give Mr. Qiu Ren a stage, as I'm interested in his potential and talent. The results show that the nightmare built by Mr. Qiu Ren is extraordinarily… yummy."

Tapir's voice carried uncontrollable excitement as it spoke towards the end.

"Yummy… You're not planning to change the Nightmare Dungeon back to the death tower?"

This was awful news for Zhao Yanqing.

When he won this battle royale game, it meant that… all the other ninety-nine death row prisoners and Dream Explorers participating in this Nightmare Dungeon didn't survive.

Harms brought by death in a nightmare would be projected to the real world.

Zhao Yanqing could already estimate how many death row prisoners and Dream Explorers would sleep in the nightmare forever and wouldn't be able to wake up in reality!

He wasn't sympathizing with the death row prisoners. However, the number of death row prisoners in Fengdu Prison was limited!

Right now, the consumption of human lives of this Level S Nightmare Seed had increased by five times. Once the death row prisoners in Fengdu Prison were all swallowed by the nightmare, the Dream Explorers of Fengdu Prison and soldiers from other military regions would have to take their places.

So, the ultimate goal of Zhao Yanqing exploring this nightmare was to negotiate with the Lord of Nightmare. He had to convince Tapir to change the Nightmare Dungeon back to the death tower, which only needed twenty Dream Explorers each time!

"Don't you humans always need a change as well? I'm very satisfied with the battle royale game Mr. Qiu Ren built. I'm so satisfied that I can't wait to start the second round."

The Lord of Nightmare, Tapir, seemed to be dissatisfied with Zhao Yanqing's questioning. What it said towards the end made Zhao Yanqing shudder with fear.

It was already horrifying enough when the Nightmare Dungeon required five times more people as sacrifices.

Once the frequency of sacrifice was shortened from the original twelve hours to six hours, or even one hour, that Nightmare Seed would be judged as losing control.

A hundred lives in an hour? Which era was this mass grave from?

Luckily, Tapir wasn't serious. It knew that it wasn't a good thing if humans suffered heavy losses.

"But don't worry, Mr. Zhao. The harm brought by death in the battle royale game is much lower than that in the death tower. This, I can assure you on my reputation," said Tapir.

"How is that possible?"

Zhao Yanqing didn't understand. People died in the nightmare anyway. How was getting shot in the battle royale game different than being mashed by the triggers in the death tower?

"I wasn't willing to believe it before, but it turns out it's feasible. It'll be enough as long as some of you truly enjoy the carnage in this nightmare from the bottom of their hearts," the Lord of Nightmare, Tapir, said as it glanced at Qiu Ren.

Tapir didn't believe Qiu Ren before when he said "some people would be addicted to this nightmare". Even if that was true, they would be some bloodthirsty murderers.

However, facts proved that they didn't have to be murderers. Most people, who understood the rules of the battle royale game, would get addicted to it. Those who weren't might be too afraid of pain and death.

After balancing pain and death, quite a few people would grow a fancy to the game's charm.

"…" Zhao Yanqing didn't answer. Even though he didn't want to admit it, there was nothing he could refute.

"Mr. Zhao, this is the reward for the final winner. Congratulations on surviving till the end in this battle royale with a hundred people. You successfully… got the wreath of laurel for 'eating the chicken.'"

Tapir didn't continue this topic. It directly gave Zhao Yanqing the reward of eating the chicken. The reward certainly wasn't really a plate of fragrant roasted chicken, though.

It was a light golden seed instead.

A Dream Seed!

This might be the best reward for the Dream Explorers to get after exploring a nightmare. It was also the most important reason why the Dream Explorers risked their lives to get into the Level S Nightmare Dungeon.

Creation Points weren't the only things Dream Makers needed when they built a dream. If they wanted to create extraordinary dreams like science fiction or magic, they would need Dream Seeds as the foundation.

The strength of the Dream Seeds was divided into Level E to Level SS. The stronger the Dream Seed was, the more powerful the characters in the created Dream Dungeon were.

The one Tapir took out as a reward was a Level C Dream Seed. It was a valuable strategic resource in the current market.

Or, without any exaggeration, any Dream Seed was a strategic resource for the country. They were as important as oil and rare minerals in this world!

Zhao Yanqing could only accept this Level C Dream Seed. Afterward, he looked at Qiu Ren again, as if he wanted to take him out of this nightmare.

"I still have things to talk to him about. Mr. Zhao, please go back now."

Tapir clapped again, and Zhao Yanqing suddenly woke up from the nightmare. He opened his eyes. The surroundings had turned back into the medical monitoring room in Fengdu Prison.

Only the shimmering Level C Dream Seed in his hands told him that everything that happened just then was real.

"You're awake? Have you talked to the Lord of Nightmare? What's its decision?"

Kan Shaoni and the other Dream Explorers of Fengdu Prison immediately surrounded him and asked.

"Tapir decided… to keep that nightmare built by the student for a long time." Zhao Yanqing spat out the bad news with a heavy tone.

This was bad news no different from the sky falling for the staff members in Fengdu Prison.

Some Dream Explorers couldn't even control themselves. They sat on the ground with a desperate look that said, "We're doomed!"

In the meantime, another bad news came to the monitoring room.

"Chief! The death row prisoners who came out of the Nightmare Dungeon have started a riot!" a prison guard rushed into the monitoring room and yelled.

"A riot? They still have the energy to riot? Grab those guys and throw them all back to the Nightmare Dungeon!" Kan Shaoni said.

"Well… Chief, the reason why they started a riot is that they want to return to that Nightmare Dungeon." The prison guard said, "Many of those death row prisoners shouted things like they want to go back to eat the chicken once they woke up."

Hm? Kan Shaoni was dumbfounded once she knew the situation. She looked at Xiao Zhou next to her.

She could still assume that Xiao Zhou's masochistic attributes had been awakened when he mumbled about going back to the Nightmare Dungeon to continue eating the chicken. Yet, those death row prisoners also wished to return there to eat chicken. What exactly was going on?

A mass transmission of masochistic infectious diseases?

Kan Shaoni might not be able to understand. When Xiao Zhou thought he wouldn't have the chance to experience the excitement of eating the chicken anymore, he had already reached a state in which "his heart had been taken away by the chicken and he wouldn't be able to have emotions again his entire life."

However, once he learned that the battle royale game had become a long-term item, he couldn't help but clench his fists and show a "Yay!" expression on his face.

So, how was that chicken cooked? Was it steamed or braised? Why did it have so much charm to make so many people want to try it regardless of their lives?