Inside the void, Tang Ze saw several things.
He saw a young girl who was stuck at the bottom of a well, as water continuously poured down from above. She was crying out for her parents, though no one came for her.
He saw a boy who was hiding in a small cupboard, while a huge wolf wandered around the room he was in, looking for him.
He saw a young girl lost in the woods, calling for her parents, though no one came.
As more nightmares like that assailed him, he could not 'see' anything within the void between the planks of wood in the house, but he could feel them.
The issue was, how to get the children out of these nightmares?
His powers as Knightmare Night were to basically do the opposite.
Still, there had to be a way to do the reverse of what he was designed to do.
"Are we going to do something?" Chen Yu asked. He also tried peering into the darkness, though he couldn't see anything.
"I'm trying," Tang Ze said, still not sure how most of his powers worked.
Finally, after what felt like a few minutes, though it could've been far longer or shorter as time seemed to work in a weird way in this dream, he finally found what he thought was a solution.
Before he used it, he felt a bit of trepidation. He was going to use a power that he didn't fully understand - what if he ended up messing things up in some way? What if he locked the children even deeper into their nightmares?
The problem was that much like the time he had gone to deal with the Diamond Dust sect, there was no real alternative.
He did not have the luxury of time to figure out how his powers worked. He could only hope that he wasn't going to mess things up.
With what felt like a snap of his fingers, the nightmares unraveled, and the wooden structure disappeared, to be replaced by the children, who were naturally confused as to what was going on.
"Please relax," Tang Ze said, though he realized that he probably looked more terrifying than the nightmares the children had just escaped from in how he was currently dressed. His hunch seemed to be correct as several of them screamed in terror upon seeing him. "Ah, Chen Yu, you mind taking over from here?"
"Sure," Chen Yu said. Then again, while Chen Yu looked more normal, he was also a stranger to these children, who began sobbing and calling out for their parents.
As Tang Ze tried to figure out how to break this dream realm so that the children could finally wake up, a dark specter moved over the land.
His horse began flaring its nostrils as it turned to glare at the shadow. It was the first time that it had become perturbed by something since this adventure had started.
The shadow began to take form, and the children behind him screamed even more as it looked like they had seen something like this before.
"Is that a…" Tang Ze began, struggling to remember what the animal was called. "…an anteater?" It was the size of Tang Ze's horse, and had dark grey skin. Its eyes betrayed its intelligence as it glared at Tang Ze.
Seeing it, Tang Ze felt a wave of indignation rise within him.
Why was he so angry?
It took him a moment to realize why he was offended by its simply presence - because it was the thing that was behind this nightmare. And that was his job!
Nightmares were his domain as Knightmare Night.
This thing was encroaching upon his territory. It was like an apex predator finding another one had entered its marked domain, no doubt it would feel both enraged and threatened.
"It looks like a Baku or a Mo," Chen Yu said. "A dream eater, I've seen paintings or statues of them, but never one in the flesh like this… oh well, I guess this isn't in the flesh either…"
Tang Ze urged his horse to go meet the creature. He wanted to chase it out - he just had no clue as to how to do so.
He didn't even know how power scaling worked in this place. Was he stronger than this creature? It had not been able to ensnare the adults into this dream realm, meaning it either had a predilection for children's dreams, or could only prey upon the dreams of children.
By contrast, Knightmare Night could easily ensnare grown adults, and had been able to take over an entire city while this thing was limited to a small village.
That said, in this bizarre world of dreams, who knew how the rules worked? And even if Knightmare Night was stronger, it wasn't like Tang Ze knew how all of his powers worked.
He would've liked to avoid a fight if possible, so, much like a lion letting out a loud roar when encountering a rival that had dared to enter its territory to let it know who the boss was - he let out a wave of malevolent thoughts towards the creature.
It stopped in its tracks, glared at Tang Ze, and for some time the two sides stared at each other, neither backing down - until it seemed that the creature realized that it was best not to pick a fight and slowly retreated, leaving the dream realm and going off to who knows where.
Tang Ze could still feel the traces of that creature, and if he wanted to, he felt that he could've gone to hunt it down. However, he did not think that was a good decision given he had no idea what it could do, and barely even understood what he could do.
With that, this dream realm began to unravel and he found himself in the next moment back in the house in the village, with the children waking up.
Ten minutes later, Chen Yu and Tang Ze were watching the children embracing their parents, as multiple people came up to thank them.
The children were now running around after they had eaten, playing like nothing bad had ever even happened to them.
It was a heartwarming sight, but Tang Ze still sent an odd glance at the strange tree in the middle of the village that only he could see for some reason.
Why had that creature struck here and not somewhere else?
It couldn't have been a coincidence - it had to have something to do with this tree. He went around the surrounding area just to be sure, and couldn't find anything like it for miles.
He didn't think it was appropriate to leave something like this here in this village if it was going to attract more trouble, so later on, he ended up transplanting it with his powers as Knightmare Night to a courtyard in his sect division, planning on having someone who might know more about it to take a look at it.
It was definitely something that was linked to dreams in some way, and the sect division had far better defenses than some random village.
After their job was done, they returned to Chen Yu's house, where they stayed for two more days before heading back to the sect division.
They did end up taking a loss on the mission, but neither of them really minded.
No one seemed to be able to tell Tang Ze what the tree was though. He drew a picture of it and asked Yin Tiang if he could identify it, but he had never seen anything like it.
Elder He Xuan, upon hearing his story, didn't have any explanation. Dream path cultivators were very rare, to the point that even Xian Yue didn't have any pointers to give him. He looked through countless books, but could not find one that would tell him what that tree was. He found texts describing what a Baku was, but these were contaminated with descriptions from mythology, to the point where he wasn't sure what he was reading was factual or just based on legend.
Tang Ze began to consider whether it might've been a mistake to place the tree in the sect division then given he had no idea what it did or why that thing had come after it.
So, he ended up transplanting it again to a remote wasteland where he would keep an eye on it in the future.
As it was, Elder He Xuan had other things on his mind other than strange dream creatures, or how Tang Ze had performed during his audience with the emperor.
Elder He Xuan was certain that the Imperial Family would not let Tang Ze go so easily, but for the time being, they would not act rashly. And that was all that he needed for now.
He had waited for long, but the time had finally come.
Tang Ze had already been ready for some time.
Elder He Xuan couldn't help but laugh deep within his heart.
His posting here, in this remote location, was seen as him 'paying his dues' as a newly minted Golden Core cultivator.
It was not a prestigious position and did not have many opportunities to advance, but it was expected of him to give twenty years to such a position before he could be allowed to move on to greener pastures.
Some people might have resented such a thing - he had almost begun to do so, but had figured that it was a regular rite of passage for new Golden Core cultivators, and so simply told himself to put up with it for now.
Yet, if he had known beforehand that he would run into someone like Tang Ze at such a position, he would've easily given his front teeth for such an opportunity!
This had truly been an unexpected gift from the heavens.
Tang Ze's growth had surpassed all of his expectations.
It was like finding a diamond in a trash heap - at long last, the dream that he had earlier thought might take centuries to fulfill, if he even could ever fulfill it, would be accomplished!
Elder He Xuan had thought that more time might be needed - in which case he would've requested to stay put at this location rather than being moved somewhere more lucrative even after his twenty years was up, simply so that he could be closer to Tang Ze.
Of course, had Tang Ze chosen to move to the main headquarters, this plan would've been ruined, but he had come to understand Tang Ze - and had been nearly certain that Tang Ze would've refused that offer.
And he was correct.
And though he had been incorrect in how much time it would take to get Tang Ze ready for the task at hand, that was fine as he had underestimated, not overestimated his potential.
Thank the heavens that that idiot Ling Kuang had not succeeded in killing his golden goose.
For a moment, during that time, He Xuan had been worried that his plans would be ruined with no way for him to do anything about it - he had no way of holding off Ling Kuang at the time for any significant period of time, though, as it turned out, there had been no need to.
That spirit ring had been a desperate attempt on his part to ensure Tang Ze's survival without endangering his own life, but Tang Ze had found a way out of that situation that did not even require his assistance.
Now, the time had come.
Elder He Xuan could feel his heart racing in anticipation of what was to come, though he kept a tranquil look on his face as he addressed Tang Ze whom he had called into his office. "In two day's time, there is a special mission that I will be relying on you for."
Tang Ze nodded.
"Tell your squad members and anyone who asks you that I was greatly pleased with your performance in the Novice Tournament, and therefore wanted to show you a personal spot I know of which is very good for cultivating," Elder He Xuan said.
Tang Ze caught the hidden meaning behind those words. "So... that's not actually what we're going to be doing?"
Elder He Xuan shook his head. "No. I have an important mission, but it needs to be handled with the utmost secrecy. We will be going on this mission together, just the two of us, and you mustn't breathe a word of our true objective to anyone, the rest of your squad included - no matter how close you feel to them. I will fill you in on the details of the actual mission once we get there. We should be gone for around three or four days at most. Oh, and feel free to bring your costumes with you."