Was it possible to stop time? Angor did not know. However, he read something about time being completely static when certain conditions were met. Still, if the time in Nightmare Realm flowed like normal while the reality stopped moving, Angor’s knowledge about physics would be busted.
Could it be that the Nightmare Realm uses different physics laws, or is it located on a different timeline?
Angor only had several seconds to think these over. The Twisting Protozoa on the desk kept releasing ripples until they formed up a spider net structure which continued to spread. It looked as if someone just shattered a non-existent glass with a hammer.
Sunders squinted his eyes. He took out a sharp blade from his pocket and sliced the Twisting Protozoa in half. He then threw one to Angor while keeping the other to himself.
“It’s time! Run into the space rupture!” said Sunders. He dashed towards the center of ripples as he continued, “Keep the Protozoa safe. It’s our passport to get back here. If we lose it, we’ll be lost in the Nightmare Realm forever.”
Half of his body already disappeared inside the “spider web” when he said, “Remember to wait in the coord—”
Angor panicked. Time flowed differently in the Nightmare Realm and in reality. Angor feared that he would be separated from Sunders farther if he went in too late, so he immediately threw himself into the space rupture without any further hesitation.
Upon connecting with the rupture, a strange numbness spread from Angor’s head towards his entire body. First, it was his neck. Then, it was his chest, hands, waist, and his toes.
When the numbness stopped, Angor felt as if he just cast off a layer of skin, or being a baby inside his or her mother’s uterus who broke out of the amniotic fluid and breathed air for the first time. It was both strange and comfortable. As he tried to recall the amazing feeling, he found himself standing on solid ground.
Teacher’s words about how dangerous the Nightmare Realm could be immediately interrupted his thoughts. He quickly opened his eyes to inspect the surroundings.
And he was terrified for good.
A giant face was in front of him. It had two red spots as its eyebrows, one single large eye, two nostrils but without a nose bridge, and a thick, white beard. Its mouth was hidden behind the beard. The face, or rather, the giant head did not have a body or limbs. The head itself was already bigger than Angor himself.
The face stared at Angor, puzzled. It would bounce up now and then. How did it do that without limbs?
The head monster seemed really curious at Angor, and it slowly bounced towards him. Angor stepped back.
He suddenly felt himself backing against a warm wall. He touched the wall out of instinct and realized the wall was releasing hot air.
Angor froze up.
Could it be—
He slowly turned around. His fear doubled when he saw another head monster just behind him. Even worse, his hand was still placed on its face!
Angor felt like crying with two giant heads pinching him in between. Why was he so unfortunate?! He was dropped in front of monsters right at the beginning! In the middle of two!
Looking at them moving closer, Angor was unsure of how powerful they were, but he WAS sure that he had no hope in fighting them. He did not have Toby to “save the beauty” this time, so his only choice was obvious – Run!
Angor saw a chance and dashed away. He soon realized something else; his steps brought him high in the air as if there was no gravity. He remembered the same thing happened when he took his talent test in Padt Manor.
Still, he did not really have the time to think about why. He simply dashed higher. Maybe the monsters could not fly!
When Angor climbed for about ten meters, he noticed that he was not in the sky. A thick stone wall was blocking him.
A terrible idea appeared in his mind. Was he teleported directly into the sewer labyrinth?!
Angor took a deep breath to comfort himself. No, it could not be. He was inside a building.
Yes, this is it!
Angor looked down towards the head monsters and was surprised to see that they did not chase after him at all. They were still looking at Angor with a puzzled expression as if saying “why are you running?”. If punctuations could appear in the air like in comics, there must be big question marks floating above the heads.
“Why aren’t they coming for me?” Angor muttered to himself in the air. Sunders told him that all creatures in the Nightmare Realm would hunt outsiders like mad. So what was going on now? The heads did not seem interested in him at all. Was it a trap?
Well, since they did not chase Angor, he gave up on figuring out the reason. Angor began checking around the environment and looking for landmarks, so he could arrive at one of the coordinates quicker.
Angor looked around in the air. He was disappointed when he only saw stone walls. There were stone walls around him, above him, beneath him… There was only one single path leading to two directions.
The landscape made him doubt that he really was teleported inside the maze.
Well… jackpot.
Sunders left him seven coordinates, six of which were above the ground and were easy to find because there were obvious landmark buildings around them. The last one was inside the underground maze, which was located at the center of the maze. It happened to be the exit, as well as where the channeling method book was seen.
The paths inside the maze were unpredictable, and they were populated with monsters. Sunders could force his way through, but Angor could not. Sunders told Angor about the coordinate in the maze just in case, but the man never considered that Angor could be so unfortunate as to get himself placed inside the maze right away…
Angor moved towards the opposite direction from the head monsters. Soon, there was no light in the area and Angor could no longer see his own hands. He stopped in the air for a moment and realized he could not even tell the direction now.
Which way was forward?
His heart raced. In the absolute darkness, he could hear his blood flowing like running river.
Angor recalled that the stone wall above him was relatively smooth, so he decided to move upward and advance by moving along the ceiling wall. He did not know whether there were monsters up here, but he guessed there must be more monsters on the ground.