As time passed, more and more children slipped into comas—and every one of them shared the same trait:
they had all once come from the Warm Home Orphanage.
After returning to his room and reading through various Inter-Knot posts about the comatose children and Warm Home, Zhe threw himself backward onto the bed and stared at the faint cracks in the ceiling.
Everything he had gone through lately—the bizarre dreams, the grotesque Nightmares, the missing-person cases that corresponded to reality—was tangled together in his head like an impossible knot.
"Everything... is just too strange."
Right then, the communicator he had casually left beside his pillow suddenly rang, badly timed as ever. Its screen flashed with an incoming call from an unknown source.
He hesitated for a moment, but in the end, he still pressed answer.
[Are you going to abandon your responsibilities?]
A deep male voice, precise and formal in English, came through the speaker, carrying an unquestionable gravity.
Zhe jolted as though shocked, springing upright on pure reflex and sitting stiff-backed on the bed. Then... in an extremely innocent and utterly bewildered tone, he answered:
"Um... sorry, what exactly are you saying? I... I can't understand any of that at all."
(Inner thoughts: Crap! Is this an international call? A scam call? I've never passed an English listening test in my life!)
[OK.]
After a brief silence, the voice switched smoothly into fluent Chinese.
[Are you going to abandon your responsibilities?]
"Responsibilities?" Zhe looked even more confused now and tried to play dumb. "Um, who are you looking for? Did you call the wrong number?"
[I'm looking for...]
The voice on the other end spoke each word with deliberate clarity:
[Code Name—ZZZ.]
Zhe's heartbeat skipped.
That codename existed only in his dreams...
He forced himself to stay calm. "W-Who are you?"
[Open your wardrobe and take a look.]
The voice from the communicator allowed no room for doubt.
"My wardrobe?"
Half suspicious, half curious, Zhe walked over to the wardrobe in his room and pulled the doors open.
Inside were still all the same familiar everyday clothes, nothing seemingly unusual at all. Just when he thought he was being messed with, his eyes caught sight of something tucked into the inner corner of the wardrobe—
a strangely designed hanger.
Its hooked frame had been cleverly shaped into the letters ZZZ.
"What is this?"
He reached out and touched the cold metal hanger.
Almost unconsciously, he tried twisting it.
Click.
A soft mechanical sound rang out.
Then, without a sound, the inner back panel of the wardrobe slid inward, revealing a hidden door just wide enough for one person to pass through, glowing faintly with a ghostly blue light.
Zhe drew in a deep breath, forcing down the shock in his chest, then turned sideways and stepped inside.
The hidden door quietly sealed shut behind him.
He realized he had not entered some ordinary extra room, but was now standing on a highly futuristic circular platform—
this was the very same mysterious operations room from his dream, the place where he had obtained the belt.
"I... am I still dreaming?"
Zhe looked around in disbelief.
[This is the operations room I prepared specifically for you.]
That same voice echoed through the chamber once again.
[From here onward, you will carry out missions as an agent.]
"Zero? Is that you talking? Where is your voice coming from?" Zhe shouted.
The moment he finished speaking, a red-and-white motorcycle with a sleek, streamlined body suddenly hummed to life in the corner of the room.
Its body panels began shifting, folding, extending, and recombining as though alive. Under Zhe's dumbfounded stare, it rapidly transformed into a humanoid robot roughly the height of a person.
It turned toward him, the optical lens in its face flashing once, and spoke in that same familiar synthesized voice:
[Here.]
"Zero... is actually a motorcycle that transforms into a robot?!"
Zhe felt like his entire worldview had just taken a direct hit.
[No.]
The robot corrected him.
[I am merely remotely controlling this support vehicle robot. My true body is not here.]
"Wait a second." Zhe looked overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information he was being hit with. "Does that mean... I really did become a secret agent? This isn't a dream?"
[As long as one believes, dreams can become reality.]
Zero's voice carried an almost philosophical tone.
[There is only one thing you need to do: infiltrate the dreams of others, conduct investigations, and prevent or eliminate the nightmare侵蚀 caused by the Nightmares.]
[From now on, I will provide the support necessary for your agent operations through this operations room and this support robot.]
The support robot—Zero—walked to one wall and activated a switch.
That wall immediately lit up, and a row of devices resembling capsule toy machines slid neatly out from within it. Each machine contained capsules of different colors.
[Within these special tools are sealed powers capable of realizing specific dreams. They can help you handle a variety of situations within dreamscapes.]
"Ooooooh!"
Zhe's eyes lit up as he stared at the array of high-tech devices. A distinctly male desire to collect and experiment flared to life inside him.
[Try turning one.] Zero suggested.
"Alright! Let's test my luck!"
Excited, Zhe stepped up to one of the capsule machines and gave the knob a hard twist.
With a clunk, an orange-and-white capsule rolled out.
He picked it up. An abstract transformation emblem was engraved on its surface.
Zero controlled the robot to extend a hand, prompting Zhe to place both the capsule and the communicator in its mechanical palm.
The robot inserted the capsule into a port on the communicator.
The communicator's screen lit up at once, displaying a brief readout of the capsule's information.
"Transform? A power that lets the body transform?"
Zhe found the description fascinating.
[It will certainly prove useful in future missions.] Zero said with certainty.
After the initial thrill faded, Zhe calmed down and asked the most important question of all:
"The thing you called a Nightmare just now... what exactly is it? Is it that... monster I encountered in my dream?"
[They are malicious manifestations of the subconscious. They take the dreamer's subconscious desires and realize them in the form of nightmares.]
Zero's tone grew grave.
[Once a person experiences the 'Ultimate Nightmare' brought about by a Nightmare, their consciousness is completely trapped in the darkness woven from that nightmare, and they can never wake again.]
"Never wake again..."
Zhe repeated the words, feeling a chill crawl over him.
[Because at that point, the Nightmare uses the opportunity to invade and occupy that person's body, replacing their existence in reality.]
"Then if I don't defeat that Nightmare, the owner of the dream will..."
Zhe stopped mid-sentence as a terrifying realization struck him.
He had dreamed of Nicole.
In that golden dreamscape... Nicole had longed for family, and the Nightmare had answered that obsession by bringing her the children from the orphanage...
Could it be that the true owner of that dream was actually...
Nicole herself?
And that right now, she was in enormous danger of being fully consumed by a Nightmare?
Zero's explanation hit Zhe like a bucket of ice water, making the severity of the situation suddenly and brutally clear.
[Nightmares can project interference from the dream directly into reality. If they complete a kidnapping or murder within the dream, the corresponding individual in reality will suffer the same fate.]
"Then what am I supposed to do?" Zhe's voice came out rough with urgency. "How do I save Nicole?"
The large screen in the room lit up, projecting the image of a Gate of the Mind.
[Go and find the 'Gate of the Mind.' It connects to the dream owner's deepest psychological world and serves as the final anchor maintaining their conscious self. If a Nightmare finds it first and defiles it, the dream owner will sink completely into the nightmare and will never awaken again.]
"The Gate of the Mind..."
Zhe stared fixedly at the image on the screen as a crushing sense of urgency tightened around his heart.
"Doesn't that mean we're almost out of time?!"
[That is correct. The hourglass has already begun to pour.]
Zero's steady voice now carried immense weight.
[Find that gate. Defeat the Nightmare lurking within the dream. Pull Nicole back from the edge of the abyss and return her to reality. The one who can stop this tragedy—the one who can save her, and the children who have been trapped—]
The support robot raised its mechanical arm and pointed directly at Zhe.
Its synthetic voice rang clearly through the silent operations room:
[is you alone, Kamen Rider ZZZ.]
Those words were no longer merely a codename.
They became a heavy, unavoidable duty—and a conviction—that dropped squarely onto Zhe's shoulders.
He tightened his grip around the Transform Capsule, and the last trace of uncertainty in his eyes was replaced by firm resolve.
"I understand."
Zhe took a deep breath. The capsule in his hand seemed to grow faintly warm in response.
"The next mission... is to save Nicole and those children!"
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 172)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 116)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter105)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter100)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter69)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter119)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 60
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 40
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 66
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 50
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 52
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 55
The Way the Umamusume Look at 42
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 40
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 36
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 30
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 26
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 26
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