His thoughts were evolving swiftly.
With some extensive consideration, Grimm immediately took out the Lamp of Awakening from the Dimensional Gap while activating the Principal Will of the Sorcerers World to constrict himself from illusion to return to reality, vanishing from the Sorceress’s eyes.
Grimm’s experiences in the dream of this Sorceress-Apprentice were precisely the same as the way he had peeked through the Dimensional Gap. Everything was slower and bizarre, nothing would surprise him, nor would he really believe what he saw.
After all, who would believe a dream?
Even if this dream was real, it was just a dream.
As for some biographical novels, there would be scenes of oracular guidance in dreams. Every sorcerer believed that the fate of the Endless World was unpredictable; hence any prophecy would be rejected with extreme prejudice.
Except for the omnipotent “God”, the other prophecies were considered absurd.
Right after Grimm’s disappearance, the Sorceress then rushed to her baby, holding it in her arms as bitter tears streamed out of her eyes.
“It’s mother’s fault, it’s all mother’s fault, you have every right to hate mother. Mother should not blame you for what that unfaithful man did. It was all mother’s fault, woo…”
The weeping sound was the woman’s voice Grimm had heard on the first day he arrived at this castle.
Like a stealthy hermit, Grimm observed everything in the shadows.
“Ah ah ee ah …”
The baby laughed cheerfully and seemed to enjoy the warmth in her mother’s arms. It opened its big bright eyes as its tender little hands stretched out to the Sorceress-Apprentice’s pale face.
“My baby…”
The Sorceress-Apprentice held the baby tightly in her arms, kissing it and smiling at it tearfully.
Grimm’s eyes could not ignore the run-down cabin in the Nightmare World that had started to emit golden lights. The whole scene became a beautiful dream, and it was no longer a nightmare!
Gentle droplets hung in the air…
The Sorceress-Apprentice and the baby in her arms turned into golden light fragments, dissipating into the sky and flying into the World Aperture. The beautiful scene was short-lived, as the ticking sound began to fill the air once more.
At the same time, the World Aperture on the wooden bed gradually began to seal up in the middle of the night in the Nightmare World.
“Woo… it’s my fault, it’s my fault…”
The Sorceress-Apprentice’s cries came through the closing World Aperture. On the other side, her sister seemed to have been awakened.
“What happened, sister, is it another nightmare?”
The Sorceress-Apprentice suppressed her mournful voice.
“Everything has passed, everything in the past is merely our experience. It is the future we should face. It was my fault from the beginning, and the child within me should not be punished because of him…”
The voice stopped with the closure of the World Aperture.
Grimm strolled to the window and pondered upon the hazy mist in the distance in the Nightmare World, as he started sorting through all his findings.
The first process was what had happened just now.
When the Sorceress-Apprentice entered the Nightmare World, her dominant aura had almost crushed Grimm’s heart, as he was unable to even lift his head. It was almost like he was facing the Sorcerers World’s Guardian of Autumn!
This could not be a normal phenomenon.
She came through space and time and caused some unclear distortions in space and time. Even the wall clock stopped ticking completely.
‘And she called me a monster?’
‘In her eyes, I’m a monster in the Nightmare World?’
Grimm dispersed the Principal Will of the Sorcerers World, and placed the Lamp of Awakening into the Dimensional Gap. He looked at his twisted, horrifying palm, and went deep into his thoughts.
Based on his observation of the baby Nightmare Phantom in that room, Grimm concluded that the fundamental essence of the Nightmare Phantom was the guilt of the Sorceress-Apprentice.
In general, psychological trauma would gradually heal through dreams, which was completely normal.
The psychological trauma of the Sorceress-Apprentice was because of the child in her belly that she had murdered after a period of emotional entanglement. She had always felt guilty for what had happened, and had hoped to heal this guilt and psychological trauma through dreams.
Under normal circumstances, what happened in this room should have started long ago.
Before this Sorceress-Apprentice had entered the room in the Nightmare World, she represented the Law of this World’s Will because she was the one who created this dream.
‘Nevertheless…’
Grimm lifted some black ashes he had collected in the clear glass bottle.
Grimm speculated that these black ashes were the metabolic dander of the Horrifying Creatures from the Nightmare World. They surrounded and shielded this baby, thus altering the Sorceress-Apprentice’s psychological healing dream in such a way that it became an eternal nightmare, constantly torturing the Sorceress-Apprentice.
If it were a weak-willed creature from another world, it would have collapsed under such an influence. Since the Sorceress possessed spiritual power and knowledge evolutional capabilities, she could maintain her Sorcerer intellect and strengthen her will through incessant meditation.
Therefore, Nightmare Phantoms could only affect her dreams but not her rational judgment!
Before the beginning of the Ancient Sorcerers World, perhaps this was the method used by Horrifying Creatures from the Nightmare World to control other biological groups?
Grimm gathered the clues he had and started to speculate with his Sorcerer wisdom.
After careful consideration, there were too many missing pieces since he had way too few clues. Without a word, Grimm started to sort out his methods of thinking.
The Nightmare Phantom surrounded and shielded the baby, and the baby itself was the carrier of the Sorceress-Apprentice’s guilt. It was created by her subconscious mind, in hopes that she would be able to compensate for the trauma through her dreams.
But this baby was wrapped by black ashes. It could turn into an ugly red-haired monkey in his eyes, haunting the Sorceress-Apprentice and turning the dream into a nightmare.
‘Her inadvertent behavior broke through the nightmare surface, and replaced the environment with her dream.’
‘Does that mean Nightmare Phantoms are projections of Horrifying Creatures?’
‘Perhaps I should come back tomorrow to check if the wall clock is still there.’
‘Wait a minute!’
‘I left something out!’
Suddenly, Grimm trembled in fear as he asked himself, ‘ Monster? That Sorceress-Apprentice called me a monster and demanded that I leave her baby alone. At that moment, in her eyes, I was a Nightmare Phantom, an ugly red-haired monkey!? ”
At this time, Grimm was sure that he had indeed fallen into the Nightmare World and had become a member of the Nightmare World’s creatures. In another context, he was sealed in the Nightmare World.
“To tell the difference, I have to check if I’m covered by dark ashes.”
Without a word, Grimm took out a small elegant knife and cut some of his hair off. His eyes were locked onto his hair as they fell onto the ground.
“So be it…”
Grimm was relieved by the fact he was not a Nightmare Phantom. Nevertheless, he was indeed trapped in the Nightmare World. He was not the baby, nor an image created by the Sorceress-Apprentice’s dream.
‘That’s right! ‘
‘I might not be a Nightmare Phantom; I am still a living creature in the Nightmare World. Does that mean that I have become a Horrifying Creature in this Nightmare World?’
‘The obvious behaviour of a Horrifying Creature is that it wants to leave the Nightmare World. Aren’t I the same?’
‘If this speculation is correct, the other conclusion is that the Horrifying Creatures of this Nightmare World did not originate from this world, but, like myself, are living beings that have fallen into this Spectral World.’
‘Other than Horrifying Creatures, the most powerful beings in the Nightmare World described by Master Peranos are called the Dreadlords. Perhaps they are the first few creatures from other worlds trapped in the Nightmare World?’
Grimm became much more fascinated by what he had concluded as he continued down his journey of deep thoughts.
His breathing hastened gradually.
Grimm mumbled to himself, “To find out if I’m one of the Nightmare World’s Horrifying Creatures, I need to conduct an experiment to create a Nightmare Phantom just like that baby.”
As Grimm was caught up in his meditation, the black sun of the Nightmare World gradually rose. A new day had begun.
The evening was reserved for Grimm’s experiments on the Nightmare World, and the day was spent on Grimm’s studies for his promotion in the path of a Sorcerer.
Grimm suppressed his curiosity of the Nightmare World, as he waited for the next evening in the Nightmare World to arrive.
Several hourglasses went by as the crimson crescent moon made its way among the stars. It was another night in the Nightmare World.
Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock…
The pendulum of the wall clock swayed mechanically within the confined space in its usual manner for the whole night. No Nightmare Phantom visited the room that night.
