Chapter 186
Chapter 186
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Nightmare of Nightmares
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Nightmare.
If you can't distinguish it from reality, can it still be called a nightmare?
Hallona was still wandering through the nightmare.
Without even realizing it was a nightmare.
Thus, Hallona's nightmare was gradually encroaching on reality—
And now she was living in a nightmare more vivid than reality itself, and a reality more horrific than any nightmare.
“Huuk…! Huuk…! Huuk…!”
Hallona was running down the corridor.
Her instinct was urging her to escape this place.
‘This place? Where even is this…?‘
However, her mind, clouded as if filled with dust, missed that instinct's warning.
What controlled her now was not her original reason, but profound terror and despair.
She had to run.
‘Run? Run where, exactly?’
The one clear thought amid the haze led Hallona onward while plunging her into confusion.
At that moment.
The nightmare imposed yet another thought on her.
“Rishir…”
That name escaped with her heaving breaths.
‘The being that killed that absurd man is chasing me… Can I really escape? What can I possibly do against such an existence?‘
Hallona writhed in terror and despair.
Yes, writhed. She hadn't completely given up yet.
She wanted to survive.
She wanted to escape.
An instinctual will transcending reason drove Hallona forward.
The nightmare had suddenly made her recall his name in order to shatter that will entirely.
It created the situation its target feared most.
That was how a nightmare encroached upon its victim.
“Hic…!”
Hallona suddenly froze in place.
Her ragged breathing hitched unnaturally.
“Ri, Rishir…?”
The man who should have been dead stood right before her.
Scholar Hallona's reason cried out.
Something was wrong.
She had to recognize that incongruity.
But the dust filling her mind wouldn't allow it.
“Yo-you're al-alive! You're safe!?”
Hope bloomed across Hallona's face.
“Yes! That's it! You meeting such a pathetic end so pointlessly! I knew something was off! What I saw just moments ago… a hallucination, yes! A hallucination! Our enemies are showing us illusions! Maybe even Palrag's death was just a mis—”
As that hope began to ripen.
The nightmare reached out once more to its prey, playing right into its own design.
“Huh? Rishir? Rishir! Watch out—behind you—”
Puk.
As if it had only been waiting for her to react, it struck Rishir instantly.
Something pierced through Rishir's throat and jutted out.
Devoid of color or form, it revealed itself through Rishir's blood.
Fingers hooked sharply like talons.
“Gurgh—”
A feeble sound leaked from Rishir's mouth as his trachea and lungs filled with blood moment by moment.
“No!!!”
A throat-tearing, desperate scream burst from Hallona's lips.
At the same time, Rishir's body was yanked into the air.
He began thrashing, clutching the hook impaling his throat.
“Euk— Euk—”
To no avail—the wound tore wider, the bleeding accelerated.
Gurgle. Grulk.
Before long, the noises from Rishir took on an inhuman quality.
“Aaah, aaah…!”
A sigh like her last breath being squeezed out escaped Hallona's mouth.
The second despair.
Hallona could no longer hold out.
Her consciousness was on the verge of being wholly devoured by the nightmare.
It was then.
“You! Bad!!! You'll get a scolding!!!”
The space was squeezing Hallona tight.
The corridor itself, like the stomach of a writhing beast, sought to swallow her whole.
That bizarre phenomenon collapsed.
The groans of Rishir that had been ravaging her mind fell silent.
Wondering what had happened, she lifted her fully drooped head to look up at Rishir.
“!!!”
A girl spirit with such vigorous energy she almost looked angry at a glance.
The spirit was hugging Rishir's neck while glaring at whatever was behind him.
-Aaaaaaah…!
The formless presence there was the owner of those talon fingers.
The will that comprised the current space—
The nightmare itself.
Embracing Nightmare Slahan.
It let out a throat-rattling sound as it regarded the girl spirit.
-Sand mountain that blots out the sun…!
“That's right! I am the sand mountain that blots out the sun! Berban—”
Grrrh!
The spirit channeled every ounce of her strength into her tongue.
“It huuuurts!!!”
Given the dire situation, her pure and childish demeanor created an extreme sense of dissonance.
“What in the world…”
Hallona blankly watched the scene unfold, unable to comprehend.
“Ugh—”
She hurriedly clamped her ears shut.
-Aaa… Aaa…!!! Aaaaaaaa!!!!!
Could squeezing, pounding, and scraping the vocal cords produce such a sound?
A grotesque, demonic laughter no human throat could utter seemed to churn through her mind.
It wasn't any kind of power.
Simply the outburst of raw emotion.
That alone made Hallona feel as if her mind was being tainted by something.
‘Not a mere… demon…!’
That transcendent presence.
Hallona instantly recognized it as a high-ranking demon.
Her despair deepened.
The existence of a high demon gave undeniable reality to Rishir's and Palrag's deaths.
If it fully unleashed itself, the whole of Bondalles would be corrupted under demonic power.
Perhaps it already had.
“Aiya… hurry and take Rishir to safety…!”
Hallona said with great effort.
With that high demon now coveting Bondalles.
She had to prevent Rishir's death at any cost.
His otherworldly abilities would be invaluable against such a surreal foe.
Indeed, wasn't his spirit protecting him from the demon right now?
“We have to run…!!! No matter what it takes, take Rishir and escape that thing… so— Ugh!”
Hallona clamped her ears again.
The demon responded to her words with explosive laughter.
-Run… RUN!!! RUN!!!!! The sand mountain that blots out the sun says RUN!!! Aaaaaah— Aaaaaah!!!
The corridor—no, the very world they inhabited—shook as if it would collapse.
The demon howled with laughter it couldn't contain, finding it all hilarious.
-Yes!!! Sand mountain that blots out the sun!!! Run!!! Turn your back on me, Embracing Nightmare Slahan, and flee!!! Protect that puny little body of yours!!!
The demon cried out in rapture.
-Fallen one!!!
“!!!”
At those words, strength gathered around the girl spirit's eyes.
Her eyebrows angled even sharper.
And that laughter again.
The demon chewed on its delight.
-Even in that pathetic form, your once-great self lingers, does it!!! Yes! Infuriated? Humiliated!? Fallen one! Voice your anguish! Entertain me with it!!!
Fallen.
Each time the word was uttered, the girl spirit's expression grew more grave, while the demon's ecstasy intensified.
Finally, the tormented girl spirit opened her mouth.
“Fallen…”
-Yes! That's your lot now! The wretched reality you've met, the humiliation you'll bear for life!!!
“Fallen!!!”
The demon savored the girl's reaction.
As its laughter shook the space, the girl spirit suddenly thrust both hands high.
-Yes! Squirm all you like!
“What's fallen mean!?”
That was the reason for the girl spirit's torment.
The word "fallen" was far too difficult for her to grasp.
“Zuinnni! What's fallen!?”
At that moment.
The girl spirit asked her master.
To the demon, it was a pointless act.
After all, that human form was an illusion of its own making.
That illusion—
Placed a hand atop the girl's head.
Then, with a pleased smile, it said,
“Fallen means you've gotten even cooler than before.”
“More awesome!?”
“You could say that.”
The illusion—
No, the human's action defied the demon's expectations.
Buoyed by her human master's encouragement, the girl spirit thrust her hands up fiercely once more and declared,
No.
She proclaimed it.
“That's right!!! I have fallen!!!”
The demon could mock the girl spirit no longer.
She realized that neither the girl spirit nor the current situation lay within her grasp.
Perhaps it never had.
The girl spirit had manifested through the human's presence.
Through the human who should have been mere illusion.
-What are you— Could it be you who turned Him into that—
The demon now began to regard both the girl spirit and its own created illusion warily.
-S-scatter!!! This is my domain! My nightmare!!!
Hallona.
Until moments ago, she had been running endlessly down the corridor.
In search of the nightmare's exit.
The roles had reversed.
The demon that had leisurely hunted its prey from the shadows.
It had revealed its full existence and power without reservation.
In pursuit of the answer to this derailed nightmare.
To the demon, that meant dominating the dream's owner, Hallona.
The demon lunged for Hallona.
This was a nightmare of its creation.
All principles and laws bowed to it.
The instant it resolved to seize Hallona, it should already have been before her.
Yet the girl spirit and her master stood before Hallona a step ahead.
The master gently set the girl spirit down on the floor, then placed a hand on her small head.
“!!!”
The girl spirit vigorously shook her head.
Savoring the touch, she addressed Hallona.
-Wake up! Not time to kokonanne!
Whoosh!
Something shoved Hallona hard.
She flew backward and crashed down.
“Huuk...!”
Soon enough, she pulled herself up again—
And the nightmare ended.
“...”
A sword through the chest.
Blood and breath were slowly draining from Dedophe's body.
The emotion dominating him now was neither rage at being toyed with by his enemies nor terror of death.
The High Priest's eyes, losing their light.
They took in the girl spirit and the man separately.
The High Priest was a demon follower.
Chasing demons. Coveting their power.
Thus, he understood.
What the man and the girl spirit—
No, the man and 'what had been a demon' were doing.
The man had beseeched the demon—
And the demon had granted it, bestowing power upon the man.
The very thing the High Priest had so desperately craved.
The High Priest's original goal had been to revive Slahan and receive that demon's power.
Even after reviving Slahan, devoting everything would barely suffice—
Yet this man achieved it with absurd ease.
“...”
The High Priest retched in utter futility.
But only briefly.
‘No... that's not it...’
He realized too late.
The demon hadn't bestowed power upon the man.
Nor had the man thereby become the demon's vassal.
The reverse.
The demon was the man's vassal.
Just as the High Priest had served Slahan out of ambition.
The demon served the man out of its own purpose.
What it sought in return—
Nothing.
Merely a single pat.
And encouragement.
How utterly irrational.
“...Ha.”
Only a hollow chuckle leaked from Dedophe's lips.
Soon, his gaze drifted to the crystal on the floor.
A relic infused with Embracing Nightmare Slahan's essence.
Hope lingered yet.
‘As long as Slahan endures...’
Demons were immortal existences.
Becoming their vassal allowed one to imitate that immortality, however unstably.
‘Embracing Nightmare!!!’
The High Priest sensed the demon still linked to him and cried out.
‘Please, grant me your power!!! The authority to punish those who shamed you...!’
The High Priest's prediction proved correct.
The intervention of the 'girl spirit' and her master had instilled a genuine sense of crisis in the high demon.
The lofty transcendent being finally lent an ear to the High Priest's plea.
And so, as the High Priest stood on the cusp of fulfillment and rebirth as a demon vassal—
“The situation... seems more or less wrapped up. Now then, shall we discuss what to do with that relic.”
Palrag opened.
The High Priest sneered inwardly.
The best they could manage would be to seal the relic or hide it beyond the reach of demon followers.
Far too late to halt the High Priest's scheme, already in motion—
“Ah, Ber!!!”
“Rishir! What's wrong!”
“It looks like Ber swallowed the relic!?”
Pshuu.
A cute little burp escaped the girl spirit's mouth as proof of digestion.
The High Priest felt his connection to Slahan sever.
“What bullshit...”
With those words, the High Priest's breath ceased.
Bondalles.
While the city slumbered unaware, nightmares prowled its midst.
The nightmare hadn't visited only Gus Manor.
At the same time.
Countless people across Bondalles had fallen asleep while fully awake.
Trapped in nightmares from which they could not awaken.
“You! Are you coming to!?”
“...Kokonanne?”
“Pardon?”
Amid it all.
The cherished disciple awoke.
“My goodness! Thank you, young master! Thank you so much for regaining your senses! I feared you might not wake up—”
“...Hold on.”
“Yes? Ah! Please, speak! I'm listening!”
“...Do you happen to know what 'kokonanne' means?”
“...Pardon?”
The man bearing his family's full expectations awoke.
And so, one by one—
Those who had wandered nightmares in their waking state began to truly awaken.
This after sharing one common experience.
“Master...”
“Yes. Tell me. What did you see inside. Who helped you.”
“...Zuinnni?”
“?”
Before breaking free of the nightmare, they had all seen one man and a girl spirit.
Specific figures staying in Bondalles.
The moment an unknown man's face etched itself into their minds.