(Milestone): Carolina’s Dream

In Zhang Ye’s current "vision," Moon Knight looked like a glowing lightbulb. His entire body radiated white light, making it impossible to see his form clearly. He seemed like a heroic spirit.

Perhaps that was the divine power coursing through him, Zhang Ye guessed.

As for John beside him, he looked like a desiccated corpse filled with decayed, strange substances. The dark aura he unconsciously gave off made even Zhang Ye frown.

Zhang Ye had originally wondered whether John would look like a humanoid bat, or perhaps a "blood man," but to his surprise, John was actually a zombie radiating dark magical energy. This might also indirectly confirm the origins of vampires as creatures of darkness.

He just did not know whether the legendary vampire Dracula would look the same under astral projection.

After pausing briefly, Zhang Ye quickly withdrew his gaze and refocused on Carolina before him. She emitted rainbow-colored fluorescence, while the protective membrane representing her mental barrier was as fragile as window paper. Zhang Ye passed through it without exerting any force at all.

Feeling how weak Carolina’s mental barrier was, Zhang Ye could not help frowning.

Although Carolina was an alien and Zhang Ye did not know much about her origins or genes, someone with such powerful genes and superpowers could not possibly have mental abilities this weak. Carolina’s current mental state was not even as good as that of an Earthling suffering from a severe cold.

The moment Zhang Ye noticed this, he immediately prepared himself. Clearly, his guess had been correct. Carolina had not only been contaminated, but her mind was also in a state of self-contamination, constantly destroying itself.

In other words, Carolina had already lost her most basic sanity and was trapped in endless madness. This madness did not manifest externally; it was a form of mental self-destruction. Even if everyone healed her physical wounds, her mind would not awaken.

She might even be trapped in the mental world forever, unable to escape. She would sink deeper and deeper until no one could perceive her anymore. By then, she truly would be no better off than dead.

Because once her consciousness sank into another world, the passage of time would slowly peel her soul away from her body. In the end, after her body had "died," her soul would still be trapped in that other world, unable to free itself.

For someone to achieve this meant their abilities were even more terrifying than Zhang Ye had imagined. Now, Zhang Ye had become curious about the thing on Deadpool’s body. What kind of existence could cause such horrifying cognitive damage?

And what was its purpose?

With those questions in mind, Zhang Ye passed through Carolina’s mental barrier and slowly descended into her consciousness.

In a world covered in scarlet, Carolina was running at full speed. She did not know how long she had been running, nor did she know where she was running. There was only one word in her mind: run.

She had been in this world for who knew how many years. Time could not be recorded here, and the flow of time was vastly different from the outside world.

From the moment she arrived, Carolina had known this was not reality. Like a lucid dream, she quickly found the anchor of the mental world and "recalled" everything that had happened to her in reality.

She remembered being attacked by Deadpool with her teammates at their base. Captain America had issued an order during a televised interview, telling all lone heroes to keep a lower profile and preferably gather together. It was precisely because of that order that Carolina and the others had returned to their base to wait for the turmoil to pass.

They had wondered whether their villainous parents would seize the opportunity to wipe them out, but before their parents arrived, Deadpool found them first.

Though their team was not well known, they knew plenty about other superheroes. Naturally, they knew who Deadpool was, and they knew that with their abilities, they had almost no chance of surviving against him.

So, in order to leave one survivor, Carolina’s companions paid for it with their lives. They only hoped Carolina could use her alien superpowers to fly away and deliver the intelligence to the real superheroes.

However, they had underestimated Deadpool—or overestimated themselves. Carolina ultimately broke through, but she suffered fatal injuries as well. The massive blood loss even left her brain unable to think for a time.

Carolina’s last memory was of being saved by a beautiful blonde, blue-eyed woman. She knew nothing about what happened afterward, or rather, afterward, she came here.

This strange world containing nothing but the color of blood, this eerie space that exhausted her body and soul.

Carolina ran all the way forward. Soon, a woman lying in a pool of blood appeared ahead of her. Carolina immediately recognized her. That woman was her mother.

"Carolina, save me. I don’t want to die." The woman reached out as though trying to grab something.

But Carolina answered with a full-force kick. The tremendous power sent the woman flying, leaving her unconscious, her fate unknown.

Carolina turned a blind eye to it. She did not even spare her another glance, nor did she pause for even half a step.

Yes, Carolina already knew this world was false. Everything she saw here was false as well. Not long after arriving, she had already encountered her "mother." But that woman had tried to kill her, and to protect herself, Carolina had no choice but to ruthlessly kill her in return.

She had thought it would end there, but who would have expected these illusions to appear even more frequently afterward? It was no longer just her parents. Slowly, even her comrades from the Runaways began appearing one after another. Carolina had already lost count of how many times she had killed her own companions.

In the end, even Avengers heroes began appearing endlessly in this world. But by then, Carolina was no longer the hesitant little girl she had once been.

After killing countless illusions in this world, Carolina had become a god of slaughter.

Whether it was Captain America, Iron Man, Captain Marvel, or Hulk, any being that tried to speak with Carolina, cozy up to her, or attack her ultimately died at her hands.