William started reading cultivation novels recently.

He liked them enough to binge chapters for hours, even though he skimmed the chapters in most parts of the story. There were only so many of the flowery words he could consume before he was lulled to sleep. Still, it was enough for him to vaguely grasp the similarities between most of these novels.

Even though it felt like he was reading the same novel repeatedly, it didn’t stop him from spending far more time on it than was reasonable. Enough that it was affecting his work.

William’s boss was already on his ass for his deteriorating work ethic, and if he didn’t drop his recent obsession that was making it worse, it would make his currently working ass suddenly become an unemployed ass.

“William!”

William flinched in his chair and straightened his back while trying to look busy. He didn’t need his boss to see him distracted this early in the day again. As much as he slacked off at his job, he still needed it with the way the economy was.

“Hey, Jeremy,” William tried to sound more awake than he was, “Morning.”

“I need you to stay late to put in some numbers for me. We won’t get them until the guys in the main branch finish their part.”

William couldn’t help the weary sigh that escaped him, but he quickly put on a smile when Jeremy narrowed his eyes. “Sure thing. I’d be happy to help.”

He kept up the smile until Jeremy nodded and walked away. He groaned softly, reclined in his chair, and rubbed his eyes. This was something he brought on himself, so it wasn’t something he could blame his boss for, not that the sound logic stopped him from doing that anyway.

William stretched in his chair and let out a small groan in relief. If he was going to have a long day at work today, he might as well get himself a cup of coffee. With the building having a coffee shop in the lobby, all it would take was a short trip on the elevator.

William walked past the rest of the drones that were working in the office. An unfair description, especially since he is one of them, but it is the truth nonetheless.

Was it a wonder why William frequently got lost in reading fantasy novels when this was his life? Even when he was younger, the habit wasn’t much different. He was obsessed with games of the role-playing variety. If finances weren’t an issue, he would have happily kept playing into adulthood.

Learning the cost of owning a computer capable of playing games quickly broke him of the habit. He couldn’t exactly ask his parents to buy him a gaming computer after graduating high school. He wasn’t that shameless. Luckily, the novels had come to his rescue, and he had never thought about going back to games since then.

William pressed the button to summon the elevator, cursing lightly when he saw it was twenty floors away.

Another thing he hated about his workplace, other than the seemingly meaningless work, was that it was in a skyscraper with what might be the world’s slowest elevators. It took over a minute to reach his floor from the lobby.

*Ding*

William blinked in surprise when the elevator’s door opened, wondering if it sped up because he was insulting it in his mind. With a shrug, he stepped inside and pressed the button to take him to the lobby. He just hoped there wouldn’t be any stops on other floors to slow his trip.

William sighed as he closed his eyes, wanting to get in a quick rest in the couple-minute long ride, and leaned on the metal wall. A cup of coffee sounded better and better by the moment.

“That boy is waking up.”

“Yang Hua, can’t you even dose a kid properly?”

William frowned and tried to open his eyes, but it felt like his eyelids were clamped shut. The last thing he remembered was getting on the elevator, and he had been alone at the time.

Did he fall asleep?

“I did, I promise! Look at all the others. They’re still unconscious.”

William realized that his hands were tied behind his back and he was lying on the floor. What the hell was going on? His first thought was that he had been kidnapped, but the more rational part of his brain told him nobody would kidnap an office drone, especially not from a secure building like his office.

“I don’t care! If it wasn’t for Master telling me to bring you along, you wouldn’t even be here! Take care of the kid, Yang Hua!”

William started to struggle when he heard footsteps getting closer to him. Something told him that he had to escape or he wouldn’t live much longer. However, the same thing made him freeze in shock.

Since when had he ever thought his life was in danger? The sudden presence of other people, the vague conversation with a Chinese name uttered, and William’s inability to open his eyes made him think of another possibility.

He was dreaming.

It hadn’t been the first time William dreamt that he was personally experiencing being present in a cultivation novel. Still, it was undoubtedly the most realistic yet. He had heard of these types of dreams. Lucid dreams, it was called.

William’s frown turned into a smile as he imagined getting godlike powers and killing his captors like the main character. Since this was a lucid dream, his thoughts should control the dream world.

“Tsk, what a freak. You should be crying, kid, not smiling.”

William’s ears perked up at the voice coming directly above him.

“Well, I guess it’s better if you didn’t cry. Senior Sister Jia would snap your neck, and we’d have to waste time summoning another sacrifice.”

William felt a sharp pain on the back of his neck before he lost consciousness.

“NO!”

William woke up to a shrill, high-pitched scream that seemed to penetrate directly to the center of his brain. This time he was able to see, and he really wished he couldn’t.

It was something straight from a horror movie. No, even a horror movie would be better than what he was seeing.

William’s legs shook in fear, losing all ability to keep him standing if that had mattered. He was tied to a pole, just like all the kids in the room, waiting for their turn to be butchered by the human-shaped monsters.

There was a pile of small, dried-up husks that used to be children carelessly thrown to the side of the room as a woman added to it slowly.

William wanted to wake up. He wanted to go back to his tedious job and boring life. He would stop reading cultivation novels if this was what his brain came up with as a dream.

And it had to be a dream. No matter how real it seemed. It had to be a dream.

“AHHHHH!”

A new kid shrieked as something translucent was pulled out of her and entered the woman. William shut his eyes as tightly as he could and chomped on his tongue, almost slicing through it with the force he put into the bite.

The only thing that got him was intense pain as tears appeared in his eyes. He would have taken it gladly if it had successfully woken him from this hell.

It didn’t.

He screamed in fear, or at least attempted to, because no sound left his lips. However, that didn’t stop him trying to scream until his throat felt as dry as a desert and he physically couldn’t keep up the effort any longer.

William couldn’t do anything but watch child after child get killed by whatever that woman did to them. As terrible as it sounded, the screams blended together as he tried to block them out. That was the only way he could keep himself sane.

Even if this was definitely a dream and nothing else.

No.

Not a dream. Rather, a night terror would be a more accurate name for what he was experiencing.

Another thought appeared in William’s mind that he wasn’t proud of. Why would they pick an adult like him when the rest were kids? Why didn’t they get another kid instead of him? What made him special?

“Sister Jia, there’s only one left.”

William stared at the woman with dead eyes, happy that he was next and he would be able to get out of this hell.

“Hmm,” The woman licked her lips, “Tell the others to summon fifty more. This batch helped, but my cultivation still has room to increase.”

“Yes, Senior Sister.”

William watched two men rush out of the room. At the same time, the remaining man untied him and pushed him toward the woman who had to be a demoness with the evil she had just committed.

“Be honored,” The woman smiled, “You are a child that will help me break through mortal limits.”

William blinked and looked down at himself. He hadn’t realized he was a child in this nightmare. It only made sense, he supposed.

No matter, it would all end. William looked back at the woman called Sister Jia and waited for his fate.