The name was unfamiliar, but for some reason, the voice that accompanied it sounded oddly familiar. He just couldn't recall where he'd heard it before.
Looking around carefully, Pei Guang noticed that the room's walls were covered in twisted clocks, and the ticking of clock hands echoed clearly.
Accompanying the ticking were faint, twinkling tones: like the sound of little stars chiming in harmony. If it had been just the clocks, he'd have brushed it off as background ambiance, but the star-like melody made something stir in his mind.
And remembering he was still playing as a patched-together "player," Pei Guang felt that bad premonition deepen.
"It seems… the secret of this place is connected to the Watchmaker. If that's true, then maybe this place holds clues to his legacy."
His words immediately caught Firefly's attention. "You mean… this place is connected to the legendary Watchmaker?"
Pei Guang nodded seriously. "Yeah. But there's not enough information in this room alone. Let's head out and explore."
"Alright!"
Firefly nodded earnestly: she, too, could feel something was off.
As they approached the door, Pei Guang hesitated, staring at the handle thoughtfully.
Firefly pressed herself close to the door and whispered, "Careful. There's something outside. Not strong, it feels like an enhanced version of the Sweet Dreams Troupe…"
Pei Guang nodded, his expression serious. "Makes sense. Monsters waiting outside aren't surprising. But Firefly, have you considered the possibility that in this kind of environment, there might be something far more terrifying than the monsters; something we can't kill, but that can kill us?"
"W-What?"
Firefly was startled. "You mean… there's something like that here?"
Pei Guang nodded solemnly. "Definitely. If this place were merely quiet, it wouldn't be scary. But it's not—it's sinister. These floating words, the constant voices, the omnipresent clocks, and those eerie ticking sounds… they're all pointing to one thing: this is a horror dungeon."
"Horror dungeon?"
Firefly looked confused, and Pei Guang began to explain seriously.
"That's right. A horror dungeon. It's not just about creepy settings or scary monsters. In these scenarios, there's usually a chaser, an entity you can't defeat until specific conditions are met.
Only after fulfilling those conditions or reaching a particular story point can you win. Until then, you can't kill it, but it can kill us instantly. And while we're running, there'll be small mobs blocking our way, puzzles to solve—and if it's especially cruel, maybe even a fuse box to find!"
Pei Guang had a hunch that the fuses he'd been carrying since the space station might finally come in handy—after all, this was a horror dungeon.
Although he'd entered dreamscapes before, like back when he first arrived in Penacony, those places had been calm and peaceful. This one, however, felt genuinely eerie and unsettling.
With the strange "starlike" background sounds, Pei Guang officially classified it as a horror dungeon.
If it had been a normal adventure quest, he would've proceeded boldly, but in a horror dungeon, caution was essential. In horror games, after all, an invincible, unkillable pursuer was practically standard fare.
Those enemies weren't truly invincible, but before the story reached a certain point, they couldn't be killed. Players could only run.
If there had been a "reload" option, Pei Guang wouldn't have cared: he'd have explored freely just to see what kind of pursuer this dungeon had, and how it might kill him.
But now, there was no save point, and only one life left.
Plus, he had a companion—a girl with some combat ability, but not nearly enough to matter in this situation.
Given all that, he needed to think carefully about what to do when faced with that kind of enemy: not how to win, but how to run.
Seeing Pei Guang's serious expression, Firefly stayed quiet, waiting for him to finish thinking.
The first thing he tested was his teleportation skill: it still worked.
According to the feedback, it couldn't take him back to reality, but it could teleport him to any dreamscape he'd already visited.
And he still had uses left. That meant that if they ran into danger here, he had a way to escape.
With his survival ability secured, the next step was figuring out how to handle the dungeon itself.
Everyone knows: the scariest thing in horror games isn't the setting or the music, but it's the lack of firepower and enemies with gimmick mechanics.
When you don't have enough firepower, even the weakest mobs can become nightmares. And with mechanic-based enemies, no matter how powerful your attacks are, if you don't meet the condition, it's useless: sometimes they can even kill you in return.
At that thought, Pei Guang suddenly regretted wasting almost all his garbage bags during that earlier mission.
With only a few left, he couldn't even summon a strong trash can anymore.
If he hadn't used up so much garbage during that earlier mission, wouldn't summoning an army of trash cans here let him just steamroll everything?
"Eh, no point thinking about it now. The mission probably made me use up those items on purpose so I couldn't cheese the challenge. But it's fine~ even if I can't skip it, a measly horror dungeon thinks it can scare me? I'm not the same guy who used to scream while playing horror games anymore."
Pei Guang calmly pulled a speaker out of his backpack.
What's the scariest part of a horror game? The background music, the creepy monsters, and the unstoppable chasers.
Now, he was going to eliminate those one by one.
"You want to play ticking clocks and that creepy 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' remix? Fine—I'll play Good Luck Comes instead!"
Scary monsters? Not a problem. As long as he looked scarier than them, what was there to be afraid of?
Pei Guang rummaged through his inventory and found the materials he'd collected after killing the Abundant Ebon Deer and various Abominations of Abundance.
He tied a few spawn and True Sting bug heads to his waist, wore a helmet made from the Abundant Ebon Deer, and smeared his body with the blood of those same creatures.
In the blink of an eye, a terrifying spawn appeared before Firefly.
Her eyes widened.
Just a second ago, Pei Guang had looked completely normal: now he was a twisted, pulsating creature infused with the power of Abundance and Propagation.
The sight sent a shiver down her spine; her hand instinctively reached toward her side, ready to act.
But before she could move, she blurted out, "Ah Guang?"
Pei Guang tilted his head. "Hm? What's wrong? You don't recognize me just because I changed my outfit? Don't worry, this is just to deal with whatever's waiting for us. If I look scarier than the monsters, they can't scare me."
Firefly let out a small sigh of relief, though she quickly frowned. "You call that changing your outfit? For a moment, I thought you'd actually turned into an Abomination of Abundance! I think you scared me before you scared any enemies…"
Pei Guang looked thoughtful. "Oh? You're scared too? No problem, I've got plenty of materials left, I can make you a matching set."
"Wait, that's not—"
Pei Guang was already moving. "Don't be shy! Relax, I've got enough materials for both of us. Come on, trust me: if you look scary, you won't be scared. Let's see whose looks are more terrifying: ours or the monsters'."
"Really, you don't have to, I—"
Pei Guang grinned. "What, you think I'm gonna mess you up? Don't worry, it's just a dream. None of this will actually affect you. Worried about getting dirty? It's fine, I can clean up everything afterward. Whether in the dream or in reality, you'll still be spotless and beautiful."
Firefly wanted to protest, but facing a determined player who'd already made up his mind, the words stuck in her throat.
Before she knew it, Pei Guang had finished her "makeover."
That day, Firefly too was transformed into a spawn.
Thankfully, no ordinary person could enter this dream: if they could, anyone who saw them would've thought Pei Guang was the real monster. Compared to his new appearance, even the Sweet Dreams Troupe here seemed almost cute.
The troupe still carried the faint charm of Dreamville, but Pei Guang… Pei Guang looked like a nightmare made of flesh.
Heads of Abominations of Abundance and True Sting bugs hung from his waist, blood dripped down his body, and just standing there, he radiated something primal and wrong.
Even the Sweet Dreams Troupe's monsters would tremble at the sight of him.
That day, the dreamscape of Penacony welcomed a new horror: its very own spawn.