Chương 553: Chapter 548: Enforcer

"You were saying the corruption slowly affects the inhabitants until the dream world collapses," I said.

"But surely some people must have tried to stop that?"

"Many have tried," Lu Chenyang confirmed.

"Most have failed."

"Most have failed which means some of them actually succeeded?" The old man's face grew a lot more animated.

"Yes. There are documented cases of corrupted dream worlds getting saved, and while it isn't many, with perhaps half a dozen in the last ten thousand years of recorded dream walking, it is possible."

"How did they do it?"

"They found the source of the corruption and cut it off," Lu Chenyang said simply.

"Every single corrupted dream world has an origin point where the decay originally began, so if you can locate that source and purify it, the rest of the realm will gradually stabilize on its own."

"But around here, it seems like the Xuan Yi itself is the source because the entire energy system is corrupted," I frowned.

"That is a very common misconception," Lu Chenyang explained.

"The energy system isn't the source because it is really the medium that the corruption spreads through, you should think of it like water pollution. The water itself isn't the problem; it is whatever that was dumped into the water that caused all the contamination. If you remove the pollutant, the water can be cleaned." That made a lot of sense.

"So even though the Xuan Yi is corrupted, we could theoretically purify it if we find and eliminate whatever originally corrupted it?"

"Exactly," Lu Chenyang nodded.

"It sounds simple and straightforward when you put it that way, but the process is extraordinarily difficult."

"Why is that?" I was getting genuinely curious now.

"There are several reasons for it. First, finding the source requires advanced detection techniques that most normal dream walkers do not possess at all. Second, the source is usually heavily protected by both the dream world's natural defenses and the corruption itself. Third, even if you manage to successfully reach the source, purifying it requires enormous amounts of pure spiritual energy and a deep understanding of the realm's fundamental structure." The old man let out a big sigh.

"I have seen cultivators who were more powerful than me attempt it twice in different corrupted realms, and they failed both times because the defenses were too strong and their preparation was insufficient."

"You mentioned those detection techniques for finding the source." I leaned forward.

"Could you teach me how to do it?"

"You want to try purifying this realm?" Lu Chenyang looked surprised.

"Senior Hou, with all due respect, even with your recent breakthrough to Oneiric Sovereign, attempting to purify a realm that is this corrupted would be extremely dangerous for you."

"I understand the risks," I said.

"But I have my own personal reasons for wanting to help this world out, so will you be able to teach me the technique?" The old man sat there studying my face for a long moment; he was probably trying to figure out if I was being serious or if I was being recklessly overconfident. He must have gotten the answer he was looking for, because he finally gave a nod.

"Very well. The technique is called Source Tracing, and it requires you to enter a deep meditative state, so you can attune yourself to the flow of the corrupted energy. Once you get attuned to it, you follow that flow backward and track it to its origin point. It's like following a river upstream to find its source."

He sat down and gestured for me to join him, so I settled into my meditation posture with my newly enhanced Oneiric Sovereign senses already picking up on all the subtle flows of Xuan Yi energy that were around us.

"Close your eyes," Lu Chenyang instructed.

"Focus on the Xuan Yi in your immediate vicinity and do not just sense it, you need to examine it closely. Look for any inconsistencies or irregularities or anything that feels wrong or unnatural." I did what he said and extended my spiritual senses outward. The Xuan Yi was everywhere, and it felt thick and cloying like honey.

Most of it felt normal, as far as belief-based energy could be considered normal, but there were these dark threads of something else mixed into it, moving right through the golden light like oil moving through water.

"Do you sense it now?" Lu Chenyang asked.

"That wrongness and that taint?"

"Yes, I do." A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Good because those dark threads are the corruption. Normal Xuan Yi flows in response to belief and conviction, while corrupted Xuan Yi has its own agenda. It moves against the natural flow and pushes all the cultivators toward more extreme positions, so it can feed on their absolute certainty and use that to strengthen itself." He took a pause to let me process all that information.

"Your goal is to identify one of those corrupted threads and follow it all the way down. Do not try to interact with it directly at all because you will end up attracting attention to yourself, so simply observe it and track it. The thread is going to lead you toward other threads, which will lead to larger currents, which will eventually converge at the source." I focused on the nearest dark thread – a thin strand of wrongness twisting through all the surrounding Xuan Yi like a parasite.

I followed Lu Chenyang's instructions and began tracing it backward where the thread connected to another thread, and then to another one after that. Every connection revealed more of the corruption's massive structure and showed how it had woven itself through the realm's energy system like a vast web.

The technique was elegant with how simple it was, because instead of fighting against the corruption or trying to purify it directly, Source Tracing used the corruption's own structure to map out all its connections. If you followed the threads to their convergence point, a skilled practitioner could locate the source without ever alerting the corruption about their investigation. It was honestly strange working without Azure.

Normally, I would have my companion analyzing all the energy patterns and providing me with real time feedback on my technique, while warning me about any potential dangers. But Azure was with my physical body back in the tournament arena, so I was on my own here. Still, I had been cultivating for around a year now. A year of learning multiple different energy systems while fighting opponents who were far above my level, and surviving situations that definitely should have killed me.

So yeah, I think I should be okay to analyze a spiritual technique on my own. The Source Tracing method relied on attunement instead of using force, so the practitioner needed to match their own spiritual frequency to the corruption's frequency. This would disguise the cultivator as part of the corrupt system. I could see why Lu Chenyang's seniors ended up failing twice.

The technique demanded a lot of finesse and not just raw power, because a cultivator who tried to force their way through it would immediately attract attention they couldn't afford to attract. Someone who ended up losing track of their own identity while they were attuned to the corruption might just find themselves becoming tainted. The balance for it was razor thin. I opened my eyes, filing way everything I learned about the technique.

"Thank you, Senior Lu. This is exactly what I needed."

"I hope you will be careful with it," Lu Chenyang said seriously.

"Many dream walkers have attempted Source Tracing and they never returned. The corruption does not appreciate being investigated."

"I will be careful," I assured him. It almost looked like he was about to offer to help me out when something cut him off. A really dark and powerful aura erupted off in the distance. I couldn't see its source, but I could feel it approaching us. It was fast but what concerned me was the spiritual pressure. It was overwhelming and different from anything I had ever experienced in this realm so far. I looked at Lu Chenyang to find that his face had gone pale, he stumbled backward and his hands were trembling.

The confident and experienced Oneiric Sovereign, who had been teaching me moments ago, had transformed into a frightened old man.

"What is it?" I asked him while my hand instinctively moved to where I would normally wear my storage ring except, it was on my original body. All I had right now was Du Yanze's cultivation and my own dream qi to work with. Something told me that wouldn't be enough.

"N-Nightmare Enforcer," Lu Chenyang whispered.

"It's one of the world's natural defenses against dream walkers."

"A natural defense?" The description did not match up with what I was actually sensing. Natural defenses were supposed to maintain order and protect the integrity of a realm, but this thing felt malicious and predatory. It felt like something that only existed to destroy things.

"They appear whenever dream walkers dig too deep into a realm's secrets," Lu Chenyang explained quickly, his words tumbling over each other in his panic.

"Or when they attempt to access restricted areas, or when they try to manipulate the fundamental aspects of the dream world. The Enforcers hunt them down and force them back to their physical bodies, sometimes permanently." A frown appeared on my face. The description matched up with what was currently happening, but the timing for it was suspicious. We just learned Source Tracing, a technique that would let us find the corruption's origin point, and now suddenly this defense mechanism appeared to stop us?

That honestly seemed less like a natural protection and more like the corruption was actively preventing us from purifying the source. The dark aura was getting closer. I could sense it moving through the city at an incredible speed. Whatever this Nightmare Enforcer was, it wasn't being subtle about its approach at all. The spiritual pressure kept growing heavier with every second that passed.

"Senior Hou!" Lu Chenyang grabbed onto my arm.

"We can't fight this thing. I've encountered Enforcers before. They're manifestations of the dream world itself; they operate at power levels far beyond what any dream walker can achieve while suppressed in a foreign realm. Our only option is to flee." I looked at the old man's terrified face and then in the direction of the approaching entity. A cultivator's pride would demand that I stay and face the threat. I was an Oneiric Sovereign now, and I'd fought enemies far above my cultivation level before.

Surely, I could handle one spiritual construct. But pride was how cultivators were crippled or worse, killed. Sect Master Yuan had taught me that during our conversation about the dao. A weak dao was one that served your ego, but a strong dao was one that served your true purpose. Right now, my purpose was gathering information to help save this realm, and I couldn't do that if I was forcibly ejected back to my physical body.

"You're right," I said.

"Survival comes first, let's go."