Chapter 519: The Dreadlord V
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Together with the unnamed Nightmare Creature, Grimm gradually disappeared with the arrival of dawn. Each of them went their own lonesome way as daylight fell upon the Nightmare World.
Alas, Grimm had lost the conditions to absorb the other party’s Fright Energy so there was no point in giving further chase.
Also, even if he were to wait until nighttime in the Nightmare World, his hunt would most likely end up unfruitful as his prey, fearing for its life, would have long escaped to some other unknown location. Likewise, for the Nightmare Creatures that were previously hot on Grimm’s tail, one day alone made all the difference. It would be difficult, if not impossible, for Grimm to sniff out that creature’s whereabouts let alone attack it once more.
As the Nightmare World distorted under the rays of the black sun which made the entire place seem surreal, Grimm retrieved the Starfall Reconnaissance Craft from the Dimensional Gap. With a “click”, its opening hatch popped open and in slid Grimm moments later, the craft then started flying in the direction of the Tricolor Fairies’ fairytale law he was pursuing last night.
Grimm’s aim was to leave the Spectral World and return to being a human Sorcerer from whom he currently was, The Fallen.
***
Twenty years later.
With the pa.s.sage of time, Grimm followed the flight path of the Tricolor Fairies. Once again, he had travelled across the territory of the Holy Tower of Four Rings in the Nightmare World, arriving at the Holy Tower of Three Rings’ territory.
As the number of Horrifying Creatures slain by Grimm grew, so did the total pool of Fright Energy he had painstakingly acc.u.mulated over the years. And as this pool of Fright Energy grew, Grimm’s body size in the eyes of the creatures grew ever larger too. Gradually, Grimm came to notice that the rate at which he was harvesting Fright Energy had gone past a certain extreme limit.
Speaking in terms of his total Fright Energy, he already had enough to be recognized as a Dreadlord Servant!
Of course, for most of the Horrifying Creatures of the Nightmare World, this twenty-odd meter-tall ugly, hairy ape was invisible to the naked eye. But because of the sheer number of Horrifying Creatures being hunted down under his belt, they could not deny that there existed an extremely powerful Horrifying Creature with an incredibly unique power, lurking the corners of the realm, ready to strike without a moment’s notice.
As such, rumours about the “Nightmare Jaeger” circulated across the land as time went by.
For a while, rumors of the hunter-killer spread like wildfire in a district Grimm was pa.s.sing through, as if he had been declared the mortal enemy of the Fallen.
The Nightmare Jaeger was the mortal enemy of all Horrifying Creatures below the level of a Dreadlord Servant. It had no shape nor form, giving it the ability to appear without so much as a warning before disappearing into the cover of the night. What was even more frightening was its powers, which had garnered even the attention of the Dreadlord, not to mention many of the Dreadlord Servants across the Nightmare World.
To the Horrifying Creatures who were on the path of advancement toward becoming a Dreadlord, an opponent like the Nightmare Jaeger came as a bigger threat than any other Dreadlord!
At the very least, the powerful Dreadlords would not wantonly murder his servants nor any other Fallen just to obtain their Fright Energy, which was an impossible task to begin with. This alone set the Nightmare Jaeger apart from the other creatures.
It was a “corrupt Fallen” that was birthed into this world just to destroy and pillage the Fright Energy of its fellow creatures. Evidently, the name Nightmare Jaeger was befitting to what it was doing.
In total, there were six great Dreadlords ruling the Nightmare World.
Apart from the Nightmare Mist, the Nightmare Mire, the Nightmare Bug and the Nightmare Wither Dreadlords, whom Grimm had deduced as per their existence, there was also the Web of Lies Dreadlord as well as the Eavesdropper Dreadlord.
The relations.h.i.+p between these six Dreadlords was extremely complicated, but one thing that remained constant was the neverending feud between the Nightmare Mist Dreadlord and the Nightmare Mire Dreadlord’s factions.
It seemed that they had stumbled upon a cross-road as to the future developments of the Nightmare World.
The relations.h.i.+p between the Dreadlords and their Dreadlord Servants in this civilized world, too, remained too complex to be understood in its entirety. However, many of them aligned themselves under the two opposing factions, with the remaining following the other Dreadlords who came and went between the two rival Dreadlords.
This explained why, when Grimm was travelling in the Nightmare World at night, there would be no issues if he chose to walk across the Nightmare Mire. The situation would be different if he opted to take to the skies, which would immediately result in his signal being intercepted by the Nightmare Mist Dreadlord, and an imminent attack would soon follow.
Gradually, Grimm came to understand the politics of the Nightmare World and consequently, he started hunting down the followers of the Nightmare Mist Dreadlord. On the other hand, he started actively avoiding confrontations with the followers of the Nightmare Mire Dreadlord, even if they were pursuing him.
This was because amidst the complex system of the Dreadlords’ relations.h.i.+p, for some reason, Grimm felt that this Nightmare Mire Dreadlord had a contractual relations.h.i.+p with the Sorcerers World!?
After constantly observing and a.n.a.lysing the patterns of the Tricolor Fairies’ fairytale law for an entire decade, Grimm could vaguely notice that there had been an inexplicable anomaly that occured recently.
The source of the Tricolor Fairies’ fairytale law should be within the boundaries of the Holy Tower of Three Rings.
Which was to say, Grimm’s hope of leaving the Nightmare World was just around the corner.
As the crescent moon hung high up in the sky, a peaceful night descended upon the Nightmare World. After pursuing the Tricolor Fairies’ group for roughly half an hourgla.s.s, it seemed that they had vanished into thin air from the sky above.
As soon as Grimm noticed this, he stopped in his tracks and noted down his current coordinates in the Nightmare World. His eyes scanned the surrounding horizon in search of tonight’s new victim.
Today, twenty years after he first embarked on the path to acc.u.mulating Fright Energy, he had already ama.s.sed more than 400,000 points at hand!
Such a tremendous amount of Fright Energy rightfully justified the Horrifying Creatures’ fear of Grimm’s powers. He felt almost invincible with such powers, which were enough to cause disasters by merely a raise of his hands!
The expansion of his powers was unprecedented and there were no conditions to regulate such growth. While Grimm tried hard to maintain a normal state of mind, he could not help but feel deep down in his heart that he was indulging in his unchallenged powers.
This was by no means a good thing.
Thinking about how hard it was to gain actual power in the real world, and how easy it was for him in the Nightmare World, he never stopped questioning, what if he turned the Nightmare World into the world of reality, and the Sorcerers World into the Spectral World that was beyond the Nightmare World, how blissful would that be?
Fortunately, Grimm refused to continue sinking into such thoughts and chose to persist onward, to carve a path out of the Nightmare World.
Such was the power of the Spectral World, which had aroused Grimm’s vigilance towards it!
Should the day come, when Grimm were to become obsessed with such illusions, his ident.i.ty as a Sorcerer would then cease to exist. He would then become a true Fallen, whose reality becomes trapped in the Spectral World beyond the Nightmare World. The real world to him by then would no longer be the Sorcerers World.
Though, one could not deny that the Grimm now in the Nightmare World, was already considered as a relatively powerful Fallen.
In the real worlds of the Endless World, creatures possessing his current powers would have become a World Lord a long time ago, with the additional support of the Will of the World. Under the unique Spectral laws of the Nightmare World, Grimm might have already surpa.s.sed the powers of a lesser Dreadlord Servant but due to a shortcoming on his part, he still could not become a true Dreadlord Servant.
The aforementioned shortcoming, was the Power of Torture!
The Power of Torture was embodied by human hair from the Sorcerers World. Those who were facing disrupted sleep schedules would naturally start losing their hair as a result.
WIthout the Power of Torture, Grimm could not alter the laws of the local districts in the Nightmare World, an ability which the Dreadlord Servants were required to possess. With this ability, it became easy to judge between the Fallens as to who could potentially rise up as a Dreadlord in the future.
In the territory whose laws had been changed by Dreadlord Servants, these servants themselves would see a great leap in their capabilities. In some cases, the top-tier servants would gain so much power that they could even resist the will of the Dreadlords themselves!
Grimm’s wishes to become a Dreadlord Servant required the use of a new form of energy called the Power of Torture.
This meant that Grimm would need a constant population of human beings from the Sorcerers World, whose sleep had to be disrupted on a large scale, indirectly reducing the number of nightmares this population would have.
The occasional nightmare should come as nothing to the human beings of the Sorcerers World.
But if they were to experience nightmares day in and day out over an extended period of time, the human beings would inevitably become absent-minded, their psyche would grow weak and their qi would deplete given enough time.
Such effects displayed by any human being would be judged by the Sorcerers as a severe mental disorder.
A curse that was fuelled by a mysterious energy source which worked with deadly effectiveness!
To acc.u.mulate Power of Torture via such methods had already violated the laws of the Sorcerers World’s Holy Tower. As someone who had received harsh punishments at the hands of the Prison of Seven Rings, Grimm naturally wanted to avoid taking such gambles as it was too high a price to pay should he fail.
Furthermore, Grimm had to always follow the flight path of the Tricolor Fairies’ fairytale law in the sky. He had no choice but to push forward without stopping. The powers granted by becoming a Dreadlord Servant, on the other hand, required him to be stationed in a specific location without moving around so it was irrelevant in the end.
Thus, Grimm rejected the powers of the Dreadlord Servants.
If he were able to find Judgment Staff Stigmata Sorcerer himself, then Grimm would no longer need to use the method that was in the grasp of the Nightmare Mire Dreadlord in order to return to the Sorcerers World.
After half an hourgla.s.s.
In the wilderness, a seven or eight meter tall ugly hairy ape-like Fallen could be seen walking. If viewed through the eyes of Grimm when he had first arrived, this would come across as a ma.s.sive Nightmare Creature. As for tonight, it was no more than a prey that he would have to take down.
Instinctively, Grimm disappeared into the night and sneaked up behind the creature. He raised the Sabbatic Goat Staff above his head before hammering it down hard on the ape’s skull. His actions were well-timed and everything flowed smoothly, as if he had done this countless times before.
With a loud “thud”, this Horrifying Creature did not even have the chance to comprehend that it was under attack before it disintegrated. The parts that were scattered across the ground were absorbed by Grimm immediately.
“70 points of Fright Energy. Tonight’s harvest seems to be bountiful. Not bad.”
Grimm muttered under his breath to himself as he looked around in every direction. He had now grown accustomed to looking for Horrifying Creatures who would regenerate somewhere nearby in order to attack it the second time for more Fright Energy to be released.
“Nightmare Jaeger, finally… I have finally found you! Ha ha ha ha, the great Nightmare Mist Dreadlord’s reward shall be mine and mine only!”
The regenerated ape, whose size had so obviously shrunk, sneered at Grimm. Its eyes beneath its red fur were squinting with delight.
Grimm’s eyes narrowed.
This guy…
Soon enough, Grimm found a red layer of Nightmare Mist wrapped around his body tightly. While for the most part he was nervously frustrated, he was also surprised by the sudden turn of events.
Could it be, that the now gray-colored binding on his body was not actually wrapped by the Nightmare Mist Dreadlord?
To the Nightmare Mist Dreadlord, the situation in which Grimm was in was exactly like that Sorceress-Apprentice’s infant when they had just fallen into the Nightmare World.
The Dreadlords were a nightmare within a nightmare, where Fallens were born.