Nightmare Mythos

Chapter 76: Misdirection

The Nightmare was astounded. Its own underlings even understand the emotion their puppeteer is feeling as they observe a man all together who was wearing a slight smirk on his face.

It was still Cesar.

However, his demeanor and everything around him didn't tell that it was the real Cesar.

Jeremiah noticed it too instantaneously.

'A different manner of speech, his tone fully of mockery to his opponent as if merely speaking to it was beneath for someone excluding a higher authority as him...' Jeremiah couldn't help but gulp in nervousness, 'Cesar…! Just what have you brought here with you!?'

'Cesar' scratched the back of its head before straightening his body and giving a derided reply to the Nightmare, which appears to be a small fry for the likes of him.

"Do you want to play, Nicotara?"

The Nightmare seemed to have shuddered and took a step back but momentarily stopped. It was thinking that it wasn't the same creature before that watched its kind slaughter by whoever was inside of Cesar.

It had gotten pretty strong.

"How readable,"

Screech—!

As if telling 'Cesar' to shut up, the Nightmare extended the shadow from himself after the purge from Jeremiah had ceased. Now that he had run out of essence to keep it running, he had no choice but to release it and recuperate fast.

But the turn of events made him stay in his position.

Whoosh—!

In an instant, the floor became dark and stretched hundreds of meters away.

The Nightmare seemed determined to end this fast, bringing out its best powers to the battlefield. It wouldn't have dared to control the squad and study the useful facets to become a puppeteer if one of them were being controlled by yet another creature.

As if the Nightmare and the shadow had become limbs for it to use, developed to be one singular being, all of them started lunging towards 'Cesar', who appeared rather bored.

"Rubbish, hollow, and puny. You have never changed Nicotara."

Just as the shadow and the Nightmare all made contact with their target, 'Cesar' flicked his fingers.

Pwoosh—!

But in the end, he was hit right in the chest.

"Screech—!"

As if it wasn't done, the Nightmare tore 'Cesar' into two which made Jeremiah shiver just by being a bystander. It was brutal and fast execution.

'If we were fighting without any disadvantages such as shouting its name… I might've been torn like that instantly—wait, Cesar!'

Jeremiah worriedly looked at the front, knowing he was next before he spotted something strange on 'Cesar's body that only the Nightmare had started to notice.

There wasn't any blood or organs gushing out continuously from its body. The moment his body was torn in half, the 'Cesar' Jeremiah was observing turned into a paper figurine and merely melted.

"The basic step of deception. Do you know what it is, Nicotara?"

'Cesar' appeared at Nicotara's back, teaching him a lesson for some reason. Even so, he let out a smirk and continued.

"It is misdirection,"

Whoosh—!

Nicotara slashed its hand in a circular motion and tried to kill 'Cesar' who remained unmoving yet once more, his body was cut in half vertically, and the same result happened.

'Cesar' would just turn into a paper and let himself get attacked, turning yet into a paper once more.

Now, he appeared above the Nicotara's shadowy head, using its head as some sort of stand to support himself.

"A pretty low trick, I would say."

Nicotara grabbed a hold of 'Cesar' and crushed him into pieces. Once again, the Nightmare didn't kill him but merely vanished from its sight by turning into a piece of paper.

"Why use it on someone like you? So you'll remember how I wiped out your kind using the same trick once again."

Cesar's voice echoed throughout the area.

"Turning you against one another, blaming the innocent, and driving your mindless kind to commit murder among yourselves. Ah, what a very fascinating scene."

The Nightmare tried to pinpoint the location where 'Cesar' had gone through before his attention slowly went down to the shadow and clearly saw the image of the man it loathed the most.

"So? Do you remember or the corruption had gotten over your little head since then?"

Thud—!

The Nightmare pounded its foot on the ground, mercilessly forming cracks where the image of Cesar had appeared a moment later, was gone.

Soon, 'Cesar' reappeared in the real world, dozens of meters away from the Nightmare and the squad itself.

"Poor fellow. All I did to spare your life… only to fall into ridiculously low."

Cesar's uneven voice seemed to start to bore him as the development wasn't developing to what he envisioned.

Cesar then began to relax.

"…"

After briefly glancing at Nicotara, he brought his hands together, not clasping them, but in a gentle way of resting one hand on the other.

But then he opened it, revealing a six-sided dice for him to show the Nightmare.

He closed it again, but only this time, the dice were gone after he opened his hand, as if he were performing some kind of magic trick.

Cesar then flicked his finger with a mocking grin as he added, "Be happy to witness something beautiful,"

The Nightmare worriedly looked around, trying to see what the dice meant for Cesar's ploy. But then he noticed something at the ground just right on his very front.

The dice were peacefully lying on the floor.

Whoosh—!

The Nightmare instantly disappeared from where it stood and reappeared just outside the boundary of its shadow floor. Aware that remaining within it posed a risk even to its own creation, Nicotara kept a cautious distance to observe a situation that had already spiraled beyond its imagination.

Nicotara couldn't keep up with the mysteriousness of the being controlling Cesar's ploy for a moment.

That's why…

"Very unfortunate for you,"

It failed to notice someone already touching his back.

"Any last words?"

The Nightmare refused to respond and attempted to use the other marked teleports it had prepared in advance, but none of them triggered.

All around the shadow floor… those marked teleports were just burning.

All that was left was the position it was currently standing. Discover hidden stories at m,v l'e-NovelFire

From start to finish, 'Cesar' used 'paper figurines' that acted as the real Cesar inside the shadow floor to disrupt the monster's thinking. The real 'Cesar' was right outside, destroying the mark teleports that the Nightmare prepared beforehand and left one teleport and used a 'concealment trick' to hide himself.

The Nightmare even tried to activate the other teleports it had marked from the table, but it was as if an invisible 'wall' had been erected around the area, severing whatever plan the Nightmare had been preparing from the very beginning if it tried to escape.

All the talks 'Cesar' uttered and even the dice that one of his 'paper figurines' demonstrated are nothing but a way to buy time for the real 'Cesar' to pull off one ultimate trick.

"Screech—!"

Even if the Nightmare was already cornered throughout the side, it tried to attempt one last struggle to see if all of his words were untrue.

Yet it could only bear witness that everything has been true.

Before it could touch Cesar, the Nightmare bursts into a tiny, bloodied piece of paper. Spreading across the area, the red-painted papers slowly withered away the moment he willed it.

Watching the disappearing bloodied papers fading away from the real world, 'Cesar' muttered in his place as he reminded along in the air.

"There's nothing beautiful about deception."