Nightmare seemed completely unfazed by Greg's threat. She even tilted her head elegantly, responding in a somewhat playful tone.
"Rest assured, my other half. We share the same Godhood and are bound to the same fate. What benefit would there be for me to deceive thee?"
"Well, that's true."
Hearing this, Greg finally stepped toward the stone tablets.
"By the way, the power I absorbed last time supposedly came from the Mother of Depravity. What about this time? Whose power is in these stone tablets?"
"This time..."
Nightmare looked down at the ground and said slowly, "The Mother of Fragmentation. A... very troublesome individual."
"The Mother of Fragmentation?"
Greg felt that this world truly lived up to its yuri game origins; even the Outer Gods were female. He wondered if he could have controlled Victoria to romance them in the original game.
He cursed the development team for burying such a massive lore pit in the dungeon.
After finishing his mental rant, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and slowly mobilized the dark mana within his body.
The power of the Dark-Erosion Armament quietly covered his hands. On the surface of the pitch-black bracers, an ominous black mist began to flow slowly.
The moment they touched, the twisted patterns on the stone tablets suddenly lit up, emitting a dim red glow as if something living was roaring inside them.
But Greg's dark mana was like a dominant predator, unceremoniously enveloping, eroding, and then... devouring it!
Unlike the mental shock he felt when devouring the Mother of Depravity's power—which felt like his soul was being forced into cold sludge—this time was different.
This time, Greg felt a much more chaotic impact.
It was as if a mirror had suddenly exploded within his spiritual world!
Countless fragmented images, sounds, and sensory shards surged toward him like glass splinters from an explosion, covering everything!
Among them were noises that felt like they could slice his soul, along with a cold rhythm... a rhythm suggesting that all things would eventually return to decomposition.
Amidst this chaotic impact, a relatively complete image forced its way into the depths of Greg's consciousness, like a frozen frame from a movie.
It was a blood-red lake that gave off a scent of rust and sickly-sweet blood.
The water was calm and rippleless, yet it seemed to be slowly squirming, reflecting a chaotic, dark red sky above.
In the center of the blood-red lake, standing on the surface of the water with her back to him, was a young girl.
She had dark red hair that reached her ankles, looking like coagulated blood. Her hair drifted eerily over the windless lake as if it had a life of its own.
She wore a simple, ancient ritual gown of the same ominous dark red. She stood barefoot on the water, seemingly merging with the blood-red lake.
The moment Greg's gaze focused on her, the red-haired girl seemed to... notice something.
Her body trembled ever so slightly.
Then, she began to... inch by inch, turn around.
Greg's consciousness involuntarily held its breath, staring intently at the figure that was about to turn.
However, just as the girl's profile was about to be revealed through her dark red hair, and the curve of her shoulder was clearly visible—
"Why hast thou suddenly stopped moving? This amount of power should not be too much of a burden for thee now."
Nightmare's ethereal voice, tinged with a hint of confusion, suddenly rang out in his consciousness.
Buzz—!
Greg felt his spiritual world shake violently!
The eerie and vivid vision of the blood-red lake and the red-haired girl instantly covered with dense cracks, like a mirror struck by a heavy hammer. Then, with a crash, it shattered completely, turning into countless motes of light that vanished into the darkness.
His vision and senses were snapped back like a powerful rubber band, returning instantly from that illusory, eerie crimson world to reality.
He was back to the damp, cold dungeon air, the dim light, and the pile of stone tablets that had lost all their luster.
The devouring... was over.
He instinctively looked down at his hands and then felt the mana within his body.
His dark mana seemed to have become more active. He also had a vague sense that his understanding of dark-attribute magic now leaned more toward erosion and disintegration.
He felt a slight physical fatigue, but it was nothing compared to last time.
Indeed, as Nightmare had said, this reaction was much milder than before.
"Yeah... there wasn't really anything too special this time."
Greg flexed his wrists and confirmed, "It's just... while I was devouring it, I seemed to see a... well, a very strange hallucination."
"A hallucination?"
Nightmare, who had been lying lazily on the ground, sat up slightly. Her emerald eyes turned toward Greg, the light within them sharpening for a moment.
"What kind of hallucination?"
Greg frowned, trying hard to recall the brief but vivid scene.
"A... very, very large blood-red lake. In the middle of the lake stood a girl with red hair, her back to me. Then... she seemed to notice me and started turning around... but just as I was about to see her face, you happened to wake me up."
He paused and added with some confusion:
"It's strange... I didn't see any specific hallucinations last time; it just felt miserable and my head was a mess. Why was it... so visual this time? Could this be some kind of weird side effect from absorbing too much?"
After Greg finished speaking, he waited for a few seconds but heard no response from Nightmare.
He turned his head curiously toward the black cat.
"Hello? Hajimi? Why did you suddenly stop talking?"
Greg felt a bit uneasy and couldn't help but ask:
"Is this hallucination... something serious? It's not some Outer God's mark or curse, is it?!"
Nightmare was brought back to her senses by Greg's voice. Her emerald eyes blinked, and the momentary complexity and gravity within them quickly faded, replaced once again by a lazy expression.
She flicked her tail and said to Greg in a teasing tone:
"No, it is nothing. It was likely... just a meaningless hallucination."
She paused, her tone becoming even more mischievous.
"I suspect it is related to thy sexual desire, which was stirred up on the surface today but had no outlet. In other words, thou art simply craving a woman right now."
Greg: "...???"
"You—you can even sense that?!"
Greg pointed at Nightmare, his voice rising an octave, filled with disbelief and indignation at the invasion of his privacy.
"Is there no such thing as a right to privacy anymore?! Peeping into someone's physiological and psychological activities—is that what a goddess should be doing?!"
Nightmare didn't care about Greg's accusations at all. She even elegantly lifted a front paw and licked the back of it, responding in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Since we share the same Godhood now, our fates and souls are closely linked. It is quite difficult not to notice thy more... fervent thoughts and surging physical reactions."
Greg: "...I'm going to take a cold shower! I'm warning you, don't you dare peek at me! Or I'll really start acting like a total creep!"
With that, Greg glared at Nightmare, then turned without looking back and strode toward the underground river not far from the camp.
He needed physical cooling, and more importantly, he needed to calm his disturbed mind.
Listening to Greg's receding footsteps, Nightmare slowly lowered her paw.
She remained sitting quietly, but her emerald eyes no longer held the previous playfulness and laziness.
Her gaze became deep and solemn once more, even... carrying a rare hint of wariness and confusion.
Her sight seemed to penetrate the dim rock walls, looking toward a place that was both extremely distant and seemingly right before her.
"Why... did he see that person?"
"Is it because he absorbed too much power containing the concept of fragmentation while being relatively close to her, thus passively receiving fragments of information from the source?"
"Or is it that her seal... has already begun to loosen ahead of schedule?"
"Or perhaps..."
Nightmare's emerald eyes narrowed slightly, the light within them flickering uncertainly.
"...Is there some... other reason... that even I do not know?"
Rate on N.U.
