Chapter 166: An Abrupt Return

"Are you throwing all of these away?" Red Xiaobai woke up in the morning to see Feng Xue continuously extracting nightmare fuel from the demon flowers.

The power of nightmares was the soul of the demon flower. Once extracted, the demon flowers would wither, dry up, and eventually turn into countless specks of dust within an extremely short period.

"Yes, I don't need them anymore." Feng Xue stored the pieces of nightmare fuel one by one into the Book of Nightmares. This was also a technique recorded on the very first page. Functioning similarly to the Akashic Records of the nightmare world—recording everything that exists within a world, from the destruction of a planet to the withering and flourishing of a single blade of grass—the Book of Nightmares itself was the product of highly condensed nightmare power, and thus possessed the ability to store it.

Feng Xue felt quite reluctant to destroy this field of demon flowers, but it was a matter of necessity.

Recently, the activities of the transmigrators had become increasingly frequent, and it seemed many had lost patience in waiting any longer. According to Feng Xue's estimation, it probably wouldn't take long before the number of people was reduced to under fifty. By that time, he likely wouldn't even have time to process these demon flowers before being pulled back to the Babel world.

Rather than wasting them, he might as well salvage as much as possible.

"By the way, is that guy still lying over there?" Feng Xue cast a helpless glance at the trap lying on the ground, feeling an indescribable complexity in his heart.

This fellow was none other than the idiot who had foolishly blundered into the demon flower field earlier, causing his SAN (sanity) value to drop to zero.

Yet, this guy was unexpectedly resilient against hunger.

In truth, three or four days had passed since Hua Xiaoheng fled, but this fellow had been lying here unconscious without food or water, showing no signs of starvation whatsoever—perhaps due to his metabolism slowing down drastically after fainting.

Come to think of it, this guy could be considered lucky, managing to pass the preliminary rounds simply by passing out in one spot.

However, considering that SAN values didn't recover easily, this fellow would probably remain a vegetative state or go mad for the rest of his life. Of course, whether that would change upon returning to the Babel world was another matter entirely.

It was only at this moment that Feng Xue recalled the mental interference option on the original application form.

He had to admit, people returning from the Don't Starve world truly needed such a safeguard. To say nothing of others, even Red Xiaobai's SAN value had dropped to only two-thirds by the time she met him.

"Xiaobai, help me carry these along. You can return them to me once we're back in the Babel world." Feng Xue produced three wooden barrels, each only slightly larger than a volleyball. These were made from oak wood that Feng Xue had managed to find with great difficulty, and after using magical means to dry them rapidly, he had barely managed to craft these barrels suitable for fermenting alcohol. Worthy of note, however, was that gathering the demon flower dew to fill these barrels was far more difficult than the oak barrels themselves. Collecting enough dew to fill them hadn't been easy at all, though fortunately, it was currently the turn of spring and summer, so there was plenty of morning dew.

"Hmph!" Red Xiaobai stared at the wooden barrels with an expression of utmost grievance. To gather enough flower dew for these three barrels of nightmare mead, even her daily flower dew quota had been slashed by more than half! That was supposed to be her personal menu of delicacies!

Feng Xue could only coax her like a child, patting Red Xiaobai's head and saying, "Alright, be a good girl! Once we get back, I'll cultivate a nursery of demon flowers specifically to supply you with flower dew, okay?"

"You promised!" Red Xiaobai stared at Feng Xue, hesitated for a moment, and then swallowed all three wine barrels in a single gulp.

There was simply no alternative, as Red Xiaobai had no conditions whatsoever to cultivate demon flowers herself. These flowers were not natural species; even pollination would only yield seeds of ordinary plants, and even layering or cutting propagation made it extremely difficult to reproduce identical demon flowers.

Mass cultivation required possessing the method to utilize nightmare power.

To be fair, Feng Xue and Red Xiaobai were probably the most comfortable transmigrators in the Don't Starve world. They had food and drink, possessed a sanity aura, and could leisurely research their life menus when bored. If not for the occasional transmigrator running amok to cause trouble, it could practically be described as a vacation.

Except for the clothing.

Feng Xue's original cashmere outfit had long since been discarded somewhere unknown. Now, the garments he wore were entirely woven from magic (resembling the attire of Heroic Spirits in Fate). Actually, Feng Xue had wanted to use soul particles instead, as that would have provided an additional means of storing soul particles; however, he simply didn't possess that many soul particles.

In contrast, Red Xiaobai remained impeccably neat. She still wore the simple single-layer dress she had worn when Feng Xue first met her, maintaining an unadorned, minimalist appearance that only served to highlight the girl's pure and pristine beauty.

"Crack!" For some unfathomable reason, Red Xiaobai suddenly reached out and slapped Feng Xue, sending him flying. Before Feng Xue could even react, a wave of pressure surged from behind.

"Hell! I let my guard down!" Feng Xue immediately spun around, only to see a giant standing over three meters tall slamming a punch directly toward Red Xiaobai's tiny fist. The collision of their forces actually generated a shockwave powerful enough to blow an ordinary person away!

"Girl, you really suit my taste! How about ditching that pretty boy and becoming my woman?" The giant's entire body was knotted with thick muscles, and even his face was bulging with sinews. As he spoke, the muscles and blood vessels on his face rippled, making him look exceptionally ferocious.

"Can this be tolerated?" Feng Xue instantly snapped. While he wasn't in love with Red Xiaobai, he had long since regarded this cute little girl as his own exclusive domain. Now, some random hog was trying to muscle in—how could he not fly into a rage?

"Command: Deter! Command: Paralyze! Command: Confusion! Command: Blur! Command: Exhaust! Command: Wither! Command: Age! Command: Collapse! Command: ..." Feng Xue reeled off dozens of command spells in one breath, not stopping until every last drop of accumulated magic power in his body was completely drained.

In an instant, the giant's entire body was covered in a multicolored glow, looking as though he had fallen into a dyeing vat!

"A pretty boy who only knows how to play petty tricks! If you've got the guts, fight me head-on!" The giant roared furiously, his muscles expanding by another fraction, and the engorged capillaries dyed his entire body red!

Yet this failed to halt the erosion of Feng Xue's magic. The giant's body began to shrivel visibly to the naked eye. However, the giant did not seem like someone who would sit back and wait for death. Surrounding him, turbulent currents of air surged, and using some unknown ability, his muscles instead expanded, directly shattering and dispersing a large portion of the command spells' magic!

"Awesome!" The giant's face was flushed crimson, looking as if blood might drip from it at any second. He clenched his right fist tightly and unleashed a blow directly toward Feng Xue's position!

"Boom!" Without any flashy techniques, this punch relied entirely on physical strength to produce the effect of a hundred-step divine fist. The air in front of the giant was compressed into an air bullet by a punch that broke the sound barrier, hurtling toward Feng Xue with the piercing screech of shattered sound waves.

Just as Feng Xue intended to deploy his AT field to withstand the blow head-on, Red Xiaobai suddenly materialized in front of him. Opening her tiny mouth, the girl simply swallowed the entire air bullet.

"Burp—" Letting out a satisfied burp, Red Xiaobai flashed a somewhat eerie smile and asked, "Are there any more? Xiaobai wants to eat more!"

"Fantastic, I'm getting more and more interested in you. I'm definitely going to make you my woman!" Whether there was something wrong with the giant's brain, or he had suffered some mental trauma in the Don't Starve world, he blurted out a protagonist-like line without a second thought, clenching his fists and charging toward the two of them.

"Do you take me for dead?!" Feng Xue was furious, his soul particles instantly surging into his arteries. At that moment, his entire body erupted with a dazzling red light: "Go to hell ten thousand times!"

However, just as Feng Xue was preparing to unleash an ultimate mutual destruction move with the giant, both of their visions suddenly went black...