MIGHT AS WELL BE OP

Chapter 663: A Heavenly Dream

As the broken plea faded into silence, Anthony’s perception shifted. His focus pulled, and then it locked onto another nightmare.

This time, a woman appeared before him, trapped in a dark, swampy plain where the air reeked of rot. Her body was bound within a cocoon of grotesque, flesh-like vines, stitched together with sinew. She couldn’t move, but she felt everything.

Her stomach began to swell unnaturally, bloating to the point of grotesque distortion. Then, with a wet tearing sound, it split open, not from bursting, but from within. Hundreds of maggots spilled out, fat and pale, writhing in a sickening tide. Thousands followed, crawling down her trembling skin.

They gnawed open fresh holes in her flesh, only to burrow back inside, tunneling through her organs. They feasted piece by piece, leaving just enough tissue untouched to keep her alive. The agony burned, eternal and unyielding.

When the maggots finally gorged themselves, they pupated inside her body. From her chest, her stomach, even her limbs, they split her apart from the inside to emerge as grotesque, bloated flies. Their buzzing wings carried a sound that was more than noise, it was mocking laughter, echoing endlessly in the woman’s ears.

And then, with a snap, her body was restored. Whole. Fresh. Alive. Only for the nightmare to begin again. Her eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, every orifice was a gateway through which new larvae burrowed, chewing her from the inside out.

Anthony stood in grim silence, his face set in stone. There was no saving her here, not in this cursed nightmare. He could only witness.

Once again, his vision blurred, sliding into another consciousness. This time, it was a boy.

The child awoke strapped to a cold stone slab, his body stretched and exposed. He couldn’t move. His nerves had been sharpened a hundredfold, every brush of air felt like fire crawling across his skin.

From the shadows, they emerged. Not demons. Not beasts. Not monsters.

Hands.

Only hands. Cold, surgical, merciless.

They carried rusty knives, jagged hooks, and saws dulled with use. Without hesitation, they began. Flesh was peeled back in strips. Muscle sliced apart layer by layer. Tendons plucked like strings on a broken instrument. Each cut was made with unnatural precision, enough to maximize the pain, but never grant release in death.

The boy’s screams shook the darkness.

Once his flesh was carved away, once he was nothing but exposed bone and sinew, the hands began their grotesque artistry. They rebuilt him backwards, skin stitched inside-out, bones rearranged into impossible angles, organs swapped and twisted into unnatural configurations. His body became an abomination of form.

Then, like clockwork, he was restored. Whole once again.

And then the butchery began anew, this time slower, more deliberate, as if the unseen hands had grown fond of savoring every second of his agony.

Anthony’s mind shuddered. Across all ninety compartments of perception, horrors unfolded simultaneously. Each vision was a theater of torment, each stage playing out unspeakable cruelty with chilling clarity.

He could have looked away. He could have severed the connection. He could have spared himself the weight of their madness.

But he didn’t.

He watched. Every scream. Every shred of agony. Every broken plea.

He bore witness.

Minutes crawled by, each one stretching into an eternity. Finally, Anthony severed the link, his mind pulling free from theirs. His perception returned to the real world, his body heavy and still.

The screams continued in the cage, echoing mercilessly. But Anthony willed the air to bend, manipulating it so that not a single sound reached him. Silence enveloped him.

And yet, silence did not mean peace.

He stood unmoving, lost in thought, as though trapped in a daze.

He had always believed his previous life, before reincarnation, had been harsh, difficult, miserable.

But compared to this? Compared to what he had just witnessed? His previous life now felt like paradise.

Calling what he had just seen ”miserable” seemed almost laughable, like painting agony in bright colors and calling it art.

Compared to them, his former life had been bliss. A heavenly dream.

He remembered one nightmare in particular. A woman with twelve sons, all of whom adored her deeply. In her cursed nightmare, however, she was raped again and again by those very sons. The nightmare twisted her love, stripping it from her heart and body in the cruelest, most grotesque fashion imaginable.

Tears welled in Anthony’s eyes and fell before he realized. His eidetic memory, his divine intelligence, his perfect recall, they betrayed him. They replayed every moment, every scream, every torment with brutal, merciless clarity.

His hand rose instinctively, brushing his wet cheeks. His fingers came away damp.

’I’m crying?’ Anthony thought, stunned.

The only time he could ever recall crying was when he had been born. That had been nothing but a reflex, the first act of life, which was normal for all babies.

But now, this was different. This was real. For the first time since his reincarnation, Anthony truly cried.

’It seems I didn’t appreciate my first life enough.’ The thought struck him hard.

Just moments ago, he had been reflecting on its hardships, on how difficult it had been. But now? Now those complaints felt absurd. Laughable.

And what he had witnessed, this was merely from ninety souls. Ninety. What of the others? Those who had their eyes clawed out? Those still rotting in cages unseen?

Anthony’s heart grew heavier.

’If I were in their shoes... what would I have done? Could I have endured it? Or would I have broken? Would I have begged for death?’

He shook his head sharply, forcing himself back to the present. Every second he wasted here, they suffered. That was unacceptable.

Anthony raised a hand, his resolve solidifying. A surge of pure light erupted, radiating through the entire chamber with divine intensity. Chaos energy dissolved instantly. The curses shattered. Injuries vanished. Limbs regenerated. Eyes reformed in sockets. Organs grew anew. Bodies once filthy were cleansed, restored to purity.

But Anthony didn’t stop there.

Before anyone could even gasp or move, he bent time itself. With a mere wave of his hand, every prisoner froze in place. The flow of existence halted, bent to his will. He needed absolute focus for what would come next.

Through Quantum Manipulation, he infused them with vitality. Their bodies grew stronger, their malnourished frames revitalized. Muscles filled out, bones strengthened, their very essence restored to peak condition.

Then, once more, he reached into their minds.

He sifted through their memories, tracing their lives before their capture, before the nightmare. He anchored himself to those fragments and began weaving. False memories bloomed where horrors had once festered. He erased the torment completely, replacing it with lives of adventure, of family, of ordinary hardship, but never despair.

Some would say they deserved the truth. That memory, even dark memory, was part of identity.

Anthony rejected that thought outright.

Nobody deserved to carry such suffering.

Nobody.

So he erased it all.

He wove their pasts seamlessly, leaving no gaps, no questions. If their families asked where they had been, they would have answers. Plausible stories. Real truths, from their perspective.

Adventurers received memories of being lost in labyrinthine dungeons. Merchants recalled months trapped in faraway trade routes. Each narrative was tailored, unique, flawless.

When the work was done, he granted each of them wealth, quarks, mana crystals, tangible aid.

A final gesture.

With another wave of his hand, they vanished, transported safely away, to the last place they were before their kidnap.

Time resumed, and Anthony stood alone in the chamber once more.

Empty. Silent.

He did not seek their thanks. He did not crave their praise. He had done what he must.

Nothing more.

Anthony gazed around the chamber one final time. Its emptiness pressed against him, a reminder of what had been. A sigh slipped from his lips, weary and heavy.

Then, without another word, he vanished from the Mirror Dimension, carrying with him the weight of various shattered lives.