The Great Merchant in the Cataclysm

Chapter 133: The Fight Against Psychic Creatures

Despite that, Zhang Mu did not stop there. Instead, he slammed the Obsidian Beetle dagger through the head of the Nightmare Worm, forming a big hole, before he pulled back.

In an instant, that Nightmare Worm began to convulse. Fortunately, their defense and health were equally fragile. Otherwise, it would disrupt the balance if both their health and psychic ability were able to reach such a high level at the same time, even though the Nightmare Worms were only a first-ranked mutated animal. Zhang Mu could only state that he was unlucky if that was the case.

At this very moment, Yuan Rui and the mutated wolfdog were waking up weakly. The wolfdog was still reminiscing the big meal he just had and seemed to be yearning for more. However, its body was staggered on the ground, as it had lost the energy to stand. Probably because it was the easiest to devour, hence the dog had lost some of its vitality. Meanwhile, the Obsidian Beetle was still motionless on the ground.

On the other hand, Yuan Rui’s body had stopped trembling although her expression was showing that she was still afraid, as if the dream she just had, made a tremendous impact on her.

Only when she saw that Zhang Mu had returned to her side again, her mind was at ease. However, she still could not stand up at all.

For no reason, these Nightmare Worms did not take action nor did they retreat from the house, and just kept the posture they woke up in, with their compound eyes staring straight at Zhang Mu’s body.

Since they did not attack yet, Zhang Mu also leave them aside. Given that their body was fragile, even if they fought, Zhang Mu would not even take it to heart. Hence, he turned to the direction for Yuan Rui.

“Yuan Rui, how are you?”

Zhang Mu helped Yuan Rui up and anxiously asked her, as he could see that Yuan Rui was not in good condition.

Yuan Rui did not make a sound at first, as she needed some time to recover before replying to Zhang Mu with some fear lingering, “Uncle, just now I dreamed of some bad things happened to me before, and it seems to be even more horrifying than I had remembered. I’m scared.”

Zhang Mu never spoke and just gently patted Yuan Rui’s back, comforting her silently.

From Yuan Rui’s words, she had reminded Zhang Mu to recall the matter happened in his dream too. These Nightmare Worm indeed had a strong psychic ability as they had chosen the part that Zhang Mu had been through the toughest.

In three years of the Cataclysm, that was the moment that Zhang Mu felt closest to death. It was true that all the goods at Shan Xi city were totally emptied, and he only required the remaining half of the golden leaf to complete his task. All the matter happened until here was real. The characters, events, all of it was exactly alike. But of course, excluding the part with the silver minks and piranhas. Those part of the memory should be extracted from what Zhang Mu had listened from others previously.

Therefore, everything would seem natural. Hence, Zhang Mu would felt that everything was real even when he had experienced it again.

However, in his dream, the deadline was changed. Stealthily, it was edited and modified without a trace.

His deadline still had 30 days left, so he rushed to another city. He even traveled during the night before returned back to Luoyang city on the final day to complete his era merchant’s task eventually.

If he was delayed for another day on the road, then Zhang Mu might have perished then and become a dry corpse. As a result, this incident had left a deep impression on Zhang Mu, which was the reason that the Nightmare Worms had chosen to concentrate their power to mobilize that portion of his memory. Their current strength had not reached the point whereby they could completely reconstruct the dream to its best aspect. But even if this was the case, because of Zhang Mu’s bizarre reason, it also required most of the Nightmare Worms to work together. After all, they were merely a first-ranked mutated animal and had to work together to affect someone emotionally.

He thought clearly about all of this before finding the words to comfort Yuan Rui. His steady tone calmed down Yuan Rui’s emotion, “If you think again about the bad things that happened, was it deliberately exaggerated in many places? The areas that you had formerly pulled through was it more terrifying than before? But the reality was not that case if you recalled what happened precisely. There should be a difference in the dream you just had.

So, would you find that it was just a big scam? If you think this way, would you feel better?”

Yuan Rui lowered her head and appeared to think carefully about the words that Zhang Mu described to her. According to Zhang Mu’s suggestion, she slowly cleared her mind. After a while, her mood recovered back to normal a little bit.

Zhang Mu then pointed to the back, towards the Nightmare Worms behind him, “You see, these worms were the ones that were harming you. There is nothing to be afraid of as they were only just a special kind of first-ranked creature.”

However, Zhang Mu did not expect that once he pointed to them, Yuan Rui would scream suddenly. At this time, Zhang Mu realized he might have overlooked a fact. Because he had seen much, so he had never felt any discomfort looking at the appearance of the Nightmare Worms.

But it was different for Yuan Rui. With the compound eye of the Nightmare Worm staring at them in a compact mass, coupled with an ugly appearance, it would increase the fear from the dream she just had, and she would become more terrified.

Zhang Mu suddenly felt that these Nightmare Worms did not need to go through so much trouble to deal with Yuan Rui. They only need to gather in front of her, no need to trouble themselves with constructing a dream to scare her.

Just as Zhang Mu was having this wicked thought, the Nightmare Worms started moving because of Yuan Rui’s scream. Zhang Mu reckon that these fat worms were merely making an empty show of strength. Hence, he did not take them to heart.

Others might not know, but me, Zhang Mu, still doesn’t know about you? You guys now, were just a bunch of paper tiger only and want to act in front of me? As if you have the room to revolt.

Zhang Mu thought that this was the case, but when he was about to take a step to settle these Nightmare Worms, his smile was utterly stiffed.

Right now, he could not move!

It was the psychological control again!

At least twenty Nightmare Worms were placing all of their psychological control on Zhang Mu only. Even though he was not directly controlled by them because this was the outside world, but when all of the Nightmare Worms focused all of their psychic power on Zhang Mu, he found that he had lost control of his body, just like the time when he met Zero.

He subconsciously pushed down his eyeball and looked at his chest. Only then he remembered that his psychological talisman was broken in the previous confrontation to help him break away from their control, losing all of its shine.

Zhang Mu was speechless in his heart. Not this again. I even bought the talismans to defend against psychological attacks, but why did it get destroyed so soon? Nonetheless, this second-ranked psychological talisman had done its best already.

It was not easy to secure one’s life already, and it appears that Zhang Mu was asking for too much.

Seeing the swarm of worms was wiggling towards him, and he was still unable to move, Zhang Mu started to panic in his heart.

Although these worms had a weak close-combat ability, no matter how vulnerable they were, Zhang Mu was all flesh and blood. How could he endure them gnawing on him?

Currently, the mutated wolfdog was useless, and Yuan Rui did not have any combat skills. So what should he do now?

Suddenly, he discovered that he had left out someone and shouted directly in his mind.

“Stupid Beetle, get up and work!”