Chapter 228

Chapter 228: We Can Make It Even Bigger

Yes. When Foxy really foxed out, it got loud.

Think about it: a nine-tailed demon fox the size of a house, wrapped in foxfire, surrounded by a swarm of roaming cannons that launched saturated volleys every so often—and on top of that, she bounded through the woods like a maniac, rolling, biting, tearing.

One bite gouged a pit half a meter deep into the ground. Whether it was a hundred-year-old tree or a ten-thousand-year-old boulder, anything that went into her mouth crunched. Any Big Bad Wolf that rushed her only twitched twice before being pulped under her fangs and claws.

Just one big white fox like that—and she was in full mode—you could imagine the destruction.

She rolled at the front and practically crushed a path open by brute force. If the wolves in the black forest weren’t endless, Yu Sheng might have believed this cyber fox immortal could punch straight through the whole place by herself.

But that was the problem.

The wolves were endless.

And no matter how terrifying Foxy was, she could only deal with what was right in front of her.

Luckily, Yu Sheng had more than just a cyber fox immortal.

He also had Little Red Riding Hood’s wolf pack.

A true wolf pack.

The shadow wolves poured out beyond counting. Under Little Red Riding Hood’s command, they formed a spearhead that surged forward in waves, colliding violently with the Big Bad Wolves that kept rushing out of the forest. The gap Foxy tore open was quickly secured by the shadow pack, and they pushed forward from there. Even with an endless enemy, Yu Sheng’s group was getting closer and closer to the rift.

A massive Big Bad Wolf howled as three fox-carrot missiles slammed into it. Smoke rose. Foxfire burned eerie and bright. Through it all, Yu Sheng finally saw the rift clearly, several hundred meters ahead.

Its interior was pitch-black, like a hollow nightmare.

Its edges were jagged and broken, twitching and swelling unstably in the air. And thin, tentacle-like structures stretched from the rim, swaying nauseatingly as if sensing something.

Yu Sheng felt Anka Aila’s presence.

And he knew the other side had seen him too.

“We’re almost there!” he shouted.

A ground-shaking rumble rolled toward them as the huge silver-white demon fox barreled back. She smashed aside every Big Bad Wolf in her way, tails waving excitedly.

“Benefactor! Am I awesome or what?!”

Yu Sheng went momentarily speechless. Then he smiled and reached out to scratch her under the chin. “Yes, yes. You’re very awesome.”

Foxy beamed and scampered back into the pack, tearing into a giant wolf that had just popped out—almost her size.

Then a pressure surged up from deep in Yu Sheng’s chest, cold and heavy. He looked up sharply, following that unease to the sky above the rift.

A shadow covered in countless eyes reached out from the top of the rift. It loomed like something that could pierce the heavens—a solemn watcher sweeping over the dusk-lit sky.

Where that shadow looked, the forest fire lit by foxfire went out in an instant. The road they’d carved began to heal. Big Bad Wolves that had been killed began to rise again.

Wolf Granny appeared.

Not just one.

Tall, terrifying figures emerged from deep within the pack.

Yu Sheng felt the shift immediately. Little Red Riding Hood’s summoned wolves shrank back. Foxfire dimmed. The once-solid front line developed gaps everywhere.

The squirrel in Irene’s arms let out a shrill scream.

“Anka Aila is here!”

Little Red Riding Hood rode up beside Yu Sheng, fighting to keep her fear from swallowing her. She stared at the shadow in the sky, voice trembling. “Th-that… what is that?!”

“You can see it?” Yu Sheng shot her a surprised look, then lowered his voice. “That’s Anka Aila. Maybe just part of it.”

His face hardened. “As expected. Once we got close to the rift, it had to act in person.”

Before he finished, the wolves launched another wave.

The shadow above seemed to wake from a half-sleepwalking state and began to sink lower. The noise it made nearly split the skull. Its hostility felt tangible.

Then the real attack began.

The black forest came alive.

Towering trees, thick shrubs, boulders—everything began to warp and grow. Limbs cracked outward. Countless blinking eyes opened across bark and stone and soil. Even streams and flowers and the ground itself turned into something eager and hateful.

Even Foxy, not far away, was dragged into a brutal fight.

Anka Aila murmured in the nightmare. The angel was redefining the nightmare.

“Yu Sheng! Think of something!” Little Red Riding Hood shouted. When the rocks beneath her feet started rolling and stitching themselves into horrible shapes, dread washed over her hard enough to make her knees go weak. “If this keeps up, we can’t win!”

Yu Sheng only glanced at the doll on his shoulder. “Irene. It’s about time.”

“Now?” Irene stared. “Are you sure? I haven’t linked everyone yet…”

“A portion is enough,” Yu Sheng said, slowly closing his eyes. “We’re not trying to beat Anka Aila—we can’t. In someone else’s dream, you can’t defeat the one who’s dreaming.”

He extended his hand forward. Even with his eyes closed, he could see that enormous shadow in the sky. He could see the self-symbol cast by Anka Aila within its own nightmare.

“But we can try to break the dream.” His voice went steady. “At maximum intensity. At the highest level. Break the subset structure of the entire fairy tale system.”

Black silk threads surfaced in the air. A coldness drilled straight into flesh and mind. Yu Sheng heard Irene muttering in his head, voice tense and annoyed all at once. “Fine, fine. If you say it works, it works…”

Spider-silk spread from Irene like living hair. One by one, the strands burrowed into Yu Sheng, then extended outward from his hands, threading through the entire black forest.

Even though they’d worked together before, Yu Sheng always felt extra cold and wrong when that silk sank into him. And when he saw Irene’s hazy form and blood-red eyes outlined within the illusion of the silk, the eerie, wicked feeling became harder to suppress.

But within that chill, he also felt something familiar and steady.

Irene was cooperating—really cooperating. She loosened her control over the silk so he could shape it into something he understood.

Like a door.

Yu Sheng imagined the door.

The principle was similar to the first time he and Irene opened a teleportation gate to the black forest—

—but this was unimaginably huge.

It had no edges.

Like a mirror reflecting the entire black forest within it.

And it was also small, concrete, and precisely connected to each stage.

For a brief instant, through Irene’s perception, Yu Sheng saw the sanctuary wasteland.

Children and “guardians” who had fallen into the wasteland after losing in subsets were gathered together, clustered in the grass as if asleep. Each one was wrapped in black silk threads.

Those threads pierced into their dreams, weaving through every subset.

Door after door took shape.

They were the magic mirror of the evil queen. The foyer leading to the eternal ball. The ship’s cabin where the mermaid hid after coming ashore. The bright display window lit by the little match girl on a cold winter night. The doorway to the giants’ dwelling Jack saw as he climbed the beanstalk. The castle entrance deep within Sleeping Beauty’s thorn thicket…

Yu Sheng thought: There is a door.

A door is passage from one place to another. Things once separated become connected by a door. Things once connected can be severed by a door.

A door is the overlap of connection and separation.

And he was the collapsar.

Now, the handle turned.

Little Red Riding Hood stared at Yu Sheng, stunned. She didn’t know what he was doing. She only knew black silk threads were spreading everywhere from Yu Sheng and Irene, and then the two of them stood there, unmoving.

Every second felt like a year.

Because the forest was becoming her enemy.

Everything was coming alive. This was no longer the black forest she knew, the one she walked through when she went to visit grandmother.

Then she heard it.

The soft click of a door handle turning somewhere in the void.

She couldn’t see the door. She couldn’t see anything open. But she heard the whole world creak.

Nearby, towering trees rose with a roar. Their trunks twisted into faces. A giant wolf lunged from the brush, claws and fangs flashing with blood-colored malice. The shadow wolves guarding them began to retreat, even vines and rocks blocking their escape—

—and then, in the next second, a screaming sound cut through the sky.

Under the dusk canopy, bright flames swept across the forest overhead. Beautiful streaks of light, like fireflies, fell from the clouds. Little Red Riding Hood’s eyes widened, reflecting those rapidly expanding points of fire—

—and then the forest ignited.

A blazing inferno surged outward, spreading between living giant trees as if it had a will of its own.

“White phosphorus bombs… Little Match Girl?!” Little Red Riding Hood cried, thrilled and stunned all at once.

She looked up.

A Thunder Titan holding a heavy bomb jumped off a falling dragon.