Some things must be done, and some things must not be done.
Demons eat humans, but humans can also eat demons. In fact, when it comes to malice, humans are even worse than demons.
Roy received the notification sound from the panel and looked up at the night sky, letting out a soft breath. It was night; he had broken away from the Demon Slayer World and, without stopping, returned directly to the Hunter World.
This battle could be considered fast or slow, but most of the time had been spent on the journey.
Roy immersed his consciousness and arrived at the Sea of Cognition once again. This time, he did not rush to wake up. Instead, he walked to the dream passage leading to reality, stopped, and stood there for a moment, lost in thought.
What is a dream passage? What is a dream? And what is the Door of Broad Dreams learned from Mameng? Roy had shuttled between the Hunter World and Demon Slayer World so many times, yet he had never seriously considered this question.
It was not until he played along with the plot and was hit by Mameng's Blood Demon Art, [Whispers of Forced Slumber], voluntarily allowing himself to be hypnotized by Mameng to enter his dream world, that Roy suddenly realized something. Human dreams are connected to each other, like bubbles floating in the collective subconscious ocean of humans or even intelligent magical beasts, such as the Kiriko family.
In other words, dreams, visualization objects, and even the panel he obtained based on his rebirth and traversal were all products manifested from the collective subconscious ocean based on his cognition.
Because individuals are different, the visualization objects anchored are different, which gives birth to all kinds of Nen abilities. Because the subconscious ocean is also part of nature, God can steal authority from nature and seize the capacity of others from the collective subconscious ocean to add to himself.
Thinking of this, Roy faintly felt that he seemed to have touched upon a trace of the truth about dreams.
Since it is an interconnected subconscious ocean, then one should be able to swim freely in it.
Zzz... Snoring sounded at three-thirty in the morning on Kukuroo Mountain.
At this time, at the Zoldyck estate—whether in the old castle, the butler's villa halfway up the mountain, or the security office at the gate—people of different positions and identities were sleeping. This even included the magical beast Mike, lying deep in the mountain forest.
Roy had a realization. Being in a dream, he tried to use a dream to host a dream. A layer of gray Nen film immediately appeared over his eyes. He focused and looked toward the dream passage. The colorful dream passage suddenly extended and forked, producing several more passages leading to unknown places.
Roy watched this scene quietly, remained silent for a moment, then lifted his foot and walked toward one of the passages.
Through the haze, he arrived at an unconscious domain and saw a large dog sticking out its tongue and constantly licking a person. Roy walked closer and recognized at a glance that the dog was Mike. It was dreaming, reminiscing about the reckless fanatics who had rashly broken into the Zoldyck home today in a vain attempt to kidnap a Zoldyck for a huge bounty, only to be eaten by it.
So, this was Mike's dream. Like a bystander, Roy stood outside its unconscious domain and watched silently for a while before turning to leave. After a short while, he chose another dream passage and walked in.
In a vast, white, new unconscious domain, Roy heard the sound of a whip before he even got close. Through the shadows, he saw a chubby boy waving a whip in his hand, constantly lashing a young man who was tied up like a dumpling and suspended in the air.
The young man cried and begged for mercy: "Milluki... please, stop hitting me, stop hitting me, okay... I'm not your brother, you are the brother..."
Roy took three steps in two, peeked over, and saw that the person crying was actually Illumi. No, it should be the Illumi in Milluki's imagination. He realized that this guy was fantasizing.
Roy didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Noticing Milluki grinning with a wide mouth, humming and laughing hideously with pleasure, he silently backed out and found another dream passage to enter. This time, he was surprised to find...
The third person's unconscious domain was surprisingly not a vast expanse of whiteness. The entire space presented a shade of heart-shape red, filled with a pink, ambiguous atmosphere. Out of curiosity, Roy went in to take a look and was instantly stunned. Then...
With a dark face, he retreated from Illumi's dream in a panic. He immediately decided that when he got up tomorrow morning, he would definitely follow Milluki's example, hang Illumi under the willow tree, and give him a severe beating!
What the hell? Give him a little sunshine and he wants to bloom!
The boy shook his head, forcing himself to throw that unsightly image out of his mind. He simply chose a fourth dream passage and walked in. This time, he saw Gotoh. Afterwards, the fifth passage, Kurajing... the sixth, Kastro, where he saw him pinning Gotoh to the ground and beating him... the seventh, Zebro... then Tsubone... Luke...
As the dream passages appeared before his eyes one by one, Roy gradually came to a realization.
The small piece of the collective subconscious ocean that he was swimming through via Dream Parasitism was still limited by the geographical relationships in reality. It was concentrated in this small area centered on the Zoldyck castle and had obvious geographical distance restrictions!
In other words, Dream Parasitism did not extend infinitely; it also had to follow the Law of Equivalent Exchange.
With a trace of understanding, Roy walked to the fork in the road again. He suddenly discovered that there were only three passages left before him that he hadn't entered. After thinking for a moment, he lifted his foot and walked toward the one on the right. As he got closer, he suddenly found a lamp burning ahead. Under the lamp, a person was reclining on a tiger-skin sofa, reading a book, seemingly engrossed in it.
It was his father, Silva.
Rustle... The pages turned, revealing the title page, on which was written How to Cultivate Intimacy with Your Child.
Silva's silver hair cascaded like a waterfall over the sofa. Under the soft lighting, a rare look of kindness appeared on his solemn expression. In a trance, it gave Roy an illusion.
He didn't look like the cold father who was usually reticent and had the words "Strangers Keep Away" written all over his face. For a moment, Roy was stunned.
"So it's a dream..." the boy said softly after a moment. Then, he watched silently at the entrance of the passage for a while and intended to turn and leave. Unexpectedly...
"Son."
A soft call chased after the boy's retreating figure and lingered in his ears.
Roy's footsteps paused, and he turned his head abruptly.
Under the light, Silva closed the book, looked over with a smile, and slowly opened his arms to him: "Come here, come to Daddy."
Roy: "..."
His thoughts exploded with a boom!
It was like a server being forcibly stuffed with hundreds of millions of pieces of information in an instant, directly overloading and failing to process the current situation. Outwardly, the boy just stared foolishly at Silva, his brain crashing completely!
What did he call me?
No, he actually knows how to smile?
He stood up...
He walked over...
He...
Whoosh. Silva came up to Roy, pulled him into his arms, rubbed his head, and said...