Chapter 16

It was late at night, and everyone was quiet.

Lumian woke up in his dream again, and the first thing he saw was a faint gray mist.

Instinctively, he raised his hand and inserted it into the pocket of his clothes.

The cold, hard sensation of metal immediately entered his mind.

He took out the object he had touched, and a glint of gold illuminated his eyes.

It was a gold coin.

A gold Louis.

"It's still here..." Lumian sat up and looked down at himself.

He was still wearing the cotton shirt, cotton pants, and leather jacket he had worn during his last exploration. The nearly two-meter-long steel fork and the sharp, iron-black axe were within arm's reach.

This was exactly the same as when he had left the dream.

"This means the dream is evolving and doesn't reset every time I enter..." Lumian played with the gold Louis and put it in the pocket of the cotton shirt inside.

Although it couldn't be brought to reality, just looking at it made him feel happy.

Lumian got out of bed, looked out the window for a while, and confirmed that the red mountain peak in the ruins had not changed significantly.

He picked up the axe and the steel fork, walked out of his room, and entered the dim corridor.

Aurore's bedroom and study were still open.

Lumian glanced at them and suddenly had an idea:

"In the dream, my room corresponds to reality, and everything that should be there is there. Aurore's room seems to be the same at first glance.

"Can I find her witchcraft notes, secret potion formulas, or ways to become a witch in this bedroom?"

This thought, like the whisper of a devil, made Lumian's heart race, and he wanted to try.

Compared to exploring the unknown, dangerous, mysterious, and bizarre ruins, rummaging through Aurore's room was a much easier and safer choice.

No, no! Lumian shook his head sharply and dismissed the thought.

He would rather take risks than pry into Aurore's privacy. He would not search her bedroom without her permission.

This was a sign of respect for Aurore.

If it weren't for Aurore, he would have died five years ago as a homeless child.

Lumian painfully withdrew his gaze and walked towards the stairs.

If the owner of that bedroom were anyone other than Aurore, he would have gone in to search for useful information.

After going down the stairs, Lumian didn't rush to go out but checked the kitchen's supplies.

Aurore's stock of olive oil, corn oil, and animal fat was neatly arranged in barrels and cans, just like in reality.

Almost instinctively, Lumian first picked up the barrel of corn oil and placed it next to the stove.

The only reason for his choice was that animal fat and olive oil were more expensive.

Then, he skillfully used coal and wood to start a fire in the stove and made several torches to be lit.

This was in preparation for burning the monster.

Of course, if there were other ways to deal with it, that would be better, but this was the last resort.

After completing these tasks, he picked up the axe and went out the door.

Lumian immediately noticed a difference:

The faint gray mist that permeated this dream was more humid than before, and the ground under his feet was slightly muddy.

"Has it rained? When I'm not here, when I'm not dreaming, does this place still exist and evolve according to certain rules?"

Lumian was both surprised and somehow felt it should be so.

Thinking of the strange stories Aurore had told, he suddenly had a guess:

"Is this a real world?

"Is my dream connected to a real world, and did the tarot card make me wake up to cross the barrier between the dream and the ruins?"

Lumian looked around and saw that the edges of the dream, the "boundaries" of the ruins, were endless gray mist.

"I can test this later. Instead of going to the ruins, I can walk out of the gray mist and see if I end up in a strange, illogical dream or in a real world with earth, sky, villages, and towns..."

If the former, it means this is still a dream. If not, Lumian would need to confirm which world this is.

He thought that, based on the use of the gold Louis, this place seemed to still be in the Intis Republic, but it might not be the current era, perhaps a lost, vanished place from decades or even a century ago.

However, Lumian felt he had a high probability of not being able to leave the surrounding gray mist.

He gathered his thoughts and continued towards the ruins.

He had not forgotten that the purpose of entering the dream this time was to try to deal with the monster.

After walking a couple of hundred meters on the muddy wasteland full of rubble and cracks, Lumian suddenly stopped.

He thought of a problem.

The preparations he had made earlier were flawed!

Previously, his two-story building had no fire, which was very safe in this mist-covered world. Now, it had a stove fire, which emitted light. Would it attract a large number of monsters and make the safe area unsafe?

Lumian instinctively turned back and looked at the direction he had come from. In the faint gray mist, the bottom of the semi-underground two-story building was lit by a red glow through the different glass windows.

It was like a lighthouse in the dark world.

Considering the time that had passed, it was too late to try to extinguish the stove fire. Lumian simply quickened his pace, entered the ruins, and hid in a building that had collapsed due to burning.

He tucked the axe into the belt on his back and nimbly climbed up a wall, hiding in a dark corner formed by bricks and wood.

Lumian looked far into the wasteland on the other side, towards his home.

Time passed, and he did not see any monsters attracted by the stove fire and approaching that area.

"It seems the stove fire won't cause any changes, at least it won't make my home surrounded by monsters..." Lumian quietly sighed in relief.

This meant that if he encountered any danger, he could escape home and quickly fall asleep to get out of the situation.

He began to consider how to lure out and deal with the monster from before:

"From the brief fight last time, its strength, speed, reaction, and agility were about the same as mine, but it was clearly fighting purely on instinct, without enough experience, skill, or intelligence. That's why I could counter-kill it even when ambushed...

"It also gets confused and stunned, just like humans...

"Besides combat skills, I have two advantages over it: one is my superior intelligence, and the other is my ability to use weapons and tools, which is the greatest advantage humans have over such monsters...

"As long as I am careful, defeating it again shouldn't be difficult. The key is how to completely get rid of it..."

Just as Lumian was about to deliberately make some noise to see if it could attract some monsters, he saw a figure silently approaching the completely collapsed house on the side.

The figure was blood-red, without skin, and its muscles, blood vessels, and tendons were exposed, clearly the same monster from before.

What was different this time was that the monster was holding a pitchfork.

A pitchfork!

"It can use weapons too..." Lumian's face stiffened, and his expression turned grim.

His confidence had unknowingly dropped a bit.

As the monster approached and turned, Lumian saw exaggerated wounds on its back, neck, and the back of its head, but the cracks were no longer oozing pus and appeared to be mostly healed.

"It's definitely the one I encountered before...

"Its self-healing ability is many times stronger than that of a normal human..." Lumian silently drew a breath.

He forced himself to calm down and quickly analyzed the current situation.

In a moment, Lumian made a decision:

Now is a good opportunity, and when an opportunity arises, one must seize it and not miss it!

He quietly pulled out a brick from the side and waited for the monster to reach the expected position.

In just a couple of steps, the monster entered Lumian's "ambush zone."

Lumian suddenly threw the brick, aiming for the ground behind the monster.

Thud!

The brick hit the ground, causing the monster to turn quickly and look at the source of the attack.

Seeing this, Lumian gripped the axe with both hands and jumped down from the wall, attacking the monster from the side.

Bang!

The axe, carrying the weight of his fall, struck the monster's neck, splitting it in half.

Thud, thud! Lumian and the monster fell to the ground simultaneously.

Lumian quickly got up, picked up the axe, and ran over, chopping the monster's neck again.

One, two, three times, the monster had no time to react and was beheaded.

As the head rolled to one side, the skinless body twitched twice and stopped moving.

Lumian did not stop there. He took a step, turned the axe, and used its thick back to smash the monster's head, turning it into a mess.

Then, he turned around and chopped the exposed muscles, blood vessels, and tendons, crushing the heart and other vital organs.

After doing all this, Lumian stepped back, looked at his work, panted heavily, and laughed softly:

"I thought you were invincible, but you're just this weak!"

As he laughed, the headless corpse suddenly twitched.

Lumian's eyes tightened, and he instinctively wanted to turn and run.

He forced himself to resist this impulse, stepped forward again, and raised the axe.

The corpse twitched twice and then returned to stillness, seemingly making a final, unsuccessful struggle.

Lumian observed for a while and finally confirmed that the monster was dead.

"What a tenacious life force..." Lumian sighed to himself, then approached, squatted down, and used the axe to cut open the muscles and tendons, examining the corpse.

The monster's body structure was not much different from a human's, but its muscle vitality was clearly stronger. Even though it was dead, some cuts still showed slight movement.

"There's no treasure, and no extraordinary power has been transferred to me..." Lumian assessed his current state and felt a bit disappointed.

The idea that killing a monster would make him stronger is just a story in Aurore's tales.

He then moved the monster's body and head into the collapsed building and used bricks and wood to cover them.

Next, he searched the burned-down house, hoping to find something useful.