Chapter 103: The Dream Demon

He is a Dream Demon, a fiend capable of warping human dreams, sustaining himself by harvesting the terror generated from nightmares.

Every day, the director of this orphanage feeds the children a candy disguised as a sleeping pill, waiting for the Dream Demon to arrive and collect the fear.

The Dream Demon is a B-rank anomalous entity, which is considered relatively formidable among the creatures of the Sunset Kingdom. He drifts slowly into the orphanage’s dormitory building, entering room by room to peer into the children’s dreams.

Although most of these children have no families, their innocent hearts are full of hope, and their dreams are naturally beautiful.

Lying on the bed is a small boy with a sweet smile on his face, clearly lost in a pleasant dream. Without hesitation, the Dream Demon slips into the boy’s subconscious.

In the dream, the boy is running happily across a lawn, clutching a frying pan. A swarm of butterflies follows the pan, creating a warm and peaceful scene. Don’t ask why he’s holding a frying pan; logic has no place in dreams.

The boy is running joyfully, acting like a fool, when suddenly, the weather turns. The sky is instantly blanketed in dark clouds, and the entire world sinks into a bizarre, gloomy malaise. The butterflies trailing the boy’s pan all transform into monsters with fangs and wings. Though they retain their original colors, the hues shift into colder, more sinister tones. Terrified, the boy begins to cry, swinging his frying pan at the monstrous butterflies.

The Dream Demon, watching from a god-like perspective in the sky, lets out a cackling laugh and manifests beside the boy. But before he can make his next move, he is sent flying by a swing of the boy’s frying pan. The blow leaves him dazed. He struggles to his feet, touching his bruised face with a look of fury.

In the realm of dreams, raw strength is useless; only spiritual power matters. Since children possess the weakest mental fortitude, they are his preferred targets. The stronger one’s mental power, the more one can manipulate the dream. The Dream Demon’s mental power is clearly superior to a child’s.

Scrambling up, he wears a vicious expression. Instantly, countless thorny vines erupt from the ground, binding the boy tightly. The thorns pulse and retract, leaving shocking wounds on the boy’s skin. The boy begins to wail in agony, while the Dream Demon shifts his form into a colossal monster, looming over the child to torment him further.

Only when the boy’s dreamscape collapses into total darkness does the demon leave, feeling satisfied. Darkness signifies that the boy’s mental energy has been exhausted; he has harvested enough for the day, and will wait until the next evening to continue.

Next is a little girl who dreams of being a princess, eating chocolate, riding a unicorn, and wearing an endless supply of dresses. To the Dream Demon, however, the scene is hair-raising. The girl is riding a unicorn down a red carpet lined with two rows of kneeling figures—all of whom look like the orphanage director. Most chillingly, the chocolate she is eating is a miniature, edible version of the director.

The Dream Demon is immune to such scenes; he has seen every bizarre dream imaginable. He makes the unicorn suddenly turn ferocious, bucking and jumping. The chocolate director she is gnawing on transforms into a monster and bites her back. The red carpet turns into a pool of blood, dragging all the kneeling directors into its depths, only for them to emerge as hideous monsters intent on seizing the girl. Even her dress sprouts limbs and a face, cackling at her.

The girl clings helplessly to the unicorn, but the creature tosses her into the blood pool. She watches in horror as she slowly sinks into the gore. She fears the directors, the unicorn, and her own dress, but she fears becoming a monster herself most of all. The dream fades into darkness amidst her screams, and the Dream Demon emerges.

Third, fourth, and so on—in one night, he traps over thirty children in nightmares. Crucially, these children cannot be startled awake, forced to endure the darkness in isolation. Because people rarely remember their dreams clearly, by the next day, they will have forgotten everything, remembering only the pleasant parts. Thus, the Dream Demon’s activities have yet to attract the attention of the Sunset Kingdom’s authorities.

After draining the children, he pulls out a box and peers inside. "The harvest is too poor today. I can't stay here tomorrow, or I won't be able to fulfill my quota." He shakes the box symbolically, hoping the contents might increase. This box stores the extracted terror, which he must present to his superiors. As the children are drained repeatedly, their mental worlds grow weaker, yielding less fear.

He usually maintains two locations; when one is exhausted, he moves to another, perhaps a boarding school or a slum. He never targets the children of the wealthy, as they are often protected by Spirit Guardians. The Dream Demon is weak in combat and would find such encounters troublesome.

Don't ask why there are so many Spirit Guardians available to the rich; it is not that they are common, but that the wealth gap in this country is extreme. The population consists of either the incredibly wealthy or the impoverished living in slums.

As he puts the box away and passes Long Mengting’s door, he frowns. "A newcomer?" He shakes his head. "That’s not right. There was no human presence here a moment ago; why is there one now?"

Regardless, he has a job to do. If someone is sleeping, he must harvest their fear and offer a portion to the altar, or his fate will be dire. He enters the room to find a beautiful girl lying on the bed, though her appearance and skin tone are unlike anything he has ever seen. The Sunset Kingdom was a white-majority nation a century ago, but it has since been transformed by an influx of black genes, with sixty percent of the population now black. People from the Sakura Kingdom or China rarely visit, viewing the Sunset Kingdom as inferior. Consequently, he has never seen a Chinese person before.

Still, it is a human, and her human aura cannot be a lie. He stands before Long Mengting’s bed, ready to enter her dream.

He attempts to enter several times but fails. Suddenly, the surroundings turn blood-red, as if he is standing in a mist of gore. When the Dream Demon realizes what has happened, everything around him has shifted. Most critically, his own strength feels greatly amplified. This is a common phenomenon when entering a dream, though the intensity feels wrong. He ignores it.

"It seems I won't have to lift a finger; this is a nightmare already."

Just as he pulls out his box, staring at it in confusion as to why the level of terror isn't rising, a doll slowly stands up behind him and speaks in the language of the Sunset Kingdom:

"Mr. Demon, what are you busy with?"