Nightmare Mythos

Cesar kept ripping off his own flesh, the pain was so intense that tears started streaming down his face while being drowned with his blood. With a deranged expression, desperate to see the end of his madness, he continued eating his own flesh, destroying the arms he had once carefully cared for.

But if his right was thinking, the arms he had was superficial.

Even so, it is real.

Superficial is different from fake after all.

These superficial emotions, the surroundings, and everything he was experiencing... Cesar thought everything originated from somewhere... somewhere within himself.

If he was right, Cesar knew he had been attacked through his mind.

The powerful mental attack probably came from the Nightmare, and Cesar can pinpoint that it's the ability to manipulate the darkness that Jeremiah 'superficially' dismissed in the image he was seeing.

It was 'superficially' arranged by the Nightmare.

Who knows what it's doing to them by now?

Cesar wouldn't have been surprised if he were already inside the belly of the creatures he detested most, but he would still seize this chance to witness the end.

'I will not be giving up! I didn't cross the vast ancient table and hallways, just to get my mind hexed and be eaten without my knowledge! A-at the very least, let it be where I know! I don't want to be stuck in a dreamscape in the first place!'

What he is doing is a simple inducement of pain by tearing his own flesh apart while being inside the superficial dreamscape.

If he was right, he might get out. If he wasn't, then he'd merely become crazy and would die from the excessive blood loss.

Splash—!

In this supposed superficial dreamscape, Cesar came to know that aside from their 'real' things that vanished, the facets of the people remained on themselves.

Cesar knew this was the work of the Nightmare.

'Is the Nightmare testing the ability while under its darkness manipulation…? It could mean we're going to end up like those shadow puppets who showed different kinds of abilities while having the perks of the darkness itself! Then, it's obviously going to control us!'

Cesar kept munching down his own flesh until he came to a halt once he realized he wasn't waking up.

His arms had been ripped off in the most grotesque way imaginable, his insides were bleeding profusely, and it seemed as though he was spraying blood like a damn shower.

'Inducing pain is not clearly working…! What's worse than excruciating pain, Cesar! Think about it! Just think!'

Cesar's mind worked immediately, and the answer came to him a second later. It didn't require much thought however as he had been confronting it for quite some time now.

Thud—!

Cesar immediately knelt down on the ground and bit his tongue using the same facet [Sink] to deal with another self-torture.

"Mhhm!"

Feeling his heart accelerating due to how he mauled his own tongue while going deeper as he continued biting his own mouth like a rabid dog, Cesar was barely hanging on himself.

'Still!'

He was barely holding on to himself.

'Still not fucking dead!'

At this point, unable to speak and appearing half-dead from his posture alone, a flicker of clarity crossed Cesar's gaze as he looked upward.

He gritted his mangled teeth together and then slammed his head forcefully against the ground.

Thud—!

'It hurts…'

Thud—!

Seeing that he was pretty much alive, albeit barely, Cesar once more raised his head upwards before relentlessly battering his head to the ground without stopping.

'Die! Die! Die!'

Finally, after the struggle of suicide to evict himself from the superficial dreamscape, Cesar died.

"!"

However just the next instant, Cesar found himself being shrouded in the darkness.

'This…'

Barely able to see his surroundings with only one eye, shrouded in darkness, Cesar quickly began to assess the situation he was in.

From his perspective, the cohort was circled around the Nightmare as they slightly hovered through the air. Cesar could see that he was the lowest height of the bunch while Jeremiah and Klaus were close to the top as if they were experiencing something phenomenal.

The Nightmare was in the middle of the squad, its hands slightly extending forward while its head moved in a strange, unsteady, weird way.

Shivering, two of its eyes were closed as if savoring its progress on devouring Jeremiah and Klaus, who the Nightmare considered the hardest opponents to control since they were the two strongest in the group.

The Nightmare wasn't wrong which is why the two had bought time and made Cesar realize that he was being in the process of being a puppet.

'That makes sense. The Nightmare would've done it right away if the process of puppeteering someone was easy… Still, when did we get controlled by its power? Judging that we're still near the door, it happened in this place… So when?'

Cesar pondered very carefully, not forgetting this time since he was out of the superficial dreamscape. Because of it, he remembered one moment before… presumably, he was affected by its power.

'The time I look at its eyes… That's how we got controlled?'

It was totally nuts to think how he got curbed by its power with its two red eyes but at least there was a reason. It is complicated but he can use it to his advantage.

'God damn it, Cedeit! He did tell me he wasn't sure if the Nightmare had any other additional abilities but still… damn it!'

Cesar gritted his teeth at his normal and fixed mouth in frustration as he painfully reached into his pocket, where the orb artifact was stored.

Rustle—!

But the Nightmare slowly opened its eyes, two bloodshot eyes moving towards where Cesar was struggling to reach out his item.

It sensed that someone was out of its control before trying to take over once more and Cesar felt his vision wavering again.

'Shit… I'm losing consciousness…'

Almost instantly, Cesar grasped the orb artifact that had once belonged to Erin and clenched it tightly in his fist.

"Let there be light!"

As Cesar poured half of his essence into the orb, the darkness surrounding him began to create gaps that allowed light to seep through. Gradually, the darkness started to break down as the light expelled the darkness away.

"Let there be light!"

Adding a bit more essence to boost the intensity of the artifact's lethality, Cesar's surroundings were more showered with light.

Swoosh—!

And he escaped.

Tak—!

Landing successfully on the ground, Cesar smirked and screamed loudly, "Nicotara!"