“The first nightmare is the collective nightmare that everyone is in together. That’s the place the Grand Expedition believed to be the Abyss of Nightmare.
“It has three floors and nine zones. The previous Grand Expeditions have scouted the entire place, and they never found the World Core there.
“Hence, they believed the World Core was beyond the third floor.
“However….”
Ava swept her gaze around.
“We now know there is nothing beyond the third floor. That place is fake to keep them trapped.
“Even if there is something beyond the third floor, it’s logical to believe Tartarus won’t keep its Core there, since it can be targeted by the members of the Grand Expedition,” Ava explained.
“You think there is another nightmare, and the World Core is in there?” Elizabeth questioned.
“Indeed, I do believe that. I can sense it with my Nightmare Affinity, and I believe Neo can do the same. Everyone caught above is going through a different, individual nightmare.”
“You just said everyone is going through a combined nightmare before this.” Elizabeth pointed out the obvious clash of information.
“That’s what I meant by saying there are two types of Nightmare.
“One is the collective nightmare. The ‘conscious mind’ of everyone is caught there together.
“The second is the individual nightmare. The ‘subconscious mind’ of every person trapped in the individual nightmare. The World Core is hiding inside one of those individual nightmares.”
Ava pointed at the people above.
“The individual nightmare is inside their head, while the collective nightmare is happening inside the Nightmare Tree.
“It’s why the vines were protecting people but not the Nightmare Tree itself.”
Neo nodded.
Her theory, while far-fetched, had solid basis.
Since the World Core was protecting every person, it was hard to tell exactly whose subconscious mind it was hiding, which must be the World Core’s goal, given that there were millions of people caught by the Nightmare Tree.
“So we go inside the second type of nightmare, find the World Core, and defeat it,” Neo muttered, then spoke aloud. “There are millions of people here. It will take too much time.”
“Also, Tartarus can still control the second type of nightmare, no?” Elizabeth frowned.
“I doubt it can control it fully,” Neo said. “Tartarus is creating two types of gigantic and complex nightmares. The nightmares are so vivid that people can’t tell they are nightmares.
“Such level of complexity can’t be done with simple Elemental Manipulation; it has to be the result of Tartarus’ Nightmare Element’s Concept.”
The difference between Elemental Manipulation and Concept was simple.
Neo could use Death to kill. It was Elemental Manipulation.
His Concept also killed but by putting them to eternal sleep. It was not a normal death. This was a Concept.
“I see. So that’s how it is. If the nightmares are created from a Concept, then Tartarus itself has to follow the rules of the Concept.”
“Exactly.”
Neo nodded.
Concepts gave tremendous powers. But they bound people to their rules too.
Neo had once lost his Death because he had rejected the Concept imbued in his Bloodline.
He was able to gain a new Concept.
Nonetheless, he could no longer use [Judgement], a subskill of his Blessing, as it needed the Impartial Death Concept.
One had to realize that Neo could rebuild his Concept as Impartial Death originally did not belong to him.
Had Impartial Death been his Concept, and then he rejected it, he might not have been able to create another Concept again.
“Tartarus doesn’t kill. It punishes the evildoers. It’s highly likely its Concept is related to punishment, and these Nightmares are created using that Concept.
“In other words, it can’t use the Nightmare to kill us, only punish us with it, which it is already doing, but we escaped,” Neo explained.
He didn’t voice the most obvious problem of their plan.
It was an unproven theory.
If Tartarus had another Concept, it could kill them as soon as they entered its Nightmare again.
“There is no point in being here and wondering if our theory is right or wrong. We can only enter the Nightmare and hope for the best,” Zera spoke up.
The remaining three nodded.
“How should we enter the Nightmares that are inside the subconscious mind? Only Ava and I have the Nightmare Element, and we might not be able to bring you two inside too.
“Even if we can enter the subconscious mind’s nightmare, there are millions here. Searching without any direction will—”
Neo stopped speaking.
Artemis’ Blessing.
Maybe that would work?
“All of us will enter. I would have to request you to exert yourself and make sure Elizabeth and I are brought together,” Zera said. “After all, fighting against the World Core would need all the combat power we can gather.”
“How will we know in which person’s mind the World Core is hiding?” Elizabeth questioned.
“If Neo’s blessing works, we will know our destination easily. If it doesn’t, we keep moving from one mind to another and hope for the best.”
The obvious method was to wake up more people.
If they had numbers, the radius of search would increase.
But waking up people was hard.
“Let’s do it,” Neo said.
He held Elizabeth’s palm and touched the Nightmare Tree’s bark with his other hand. Ava did the same with Zera.
He used his Nightmare Element and tried to connect to the Nightmares being created by the tree.
Beads of sweat rolled as he felt he had breached something.
Suddenly, a large suction force began to pull his mind in.
‘That must be the collective Nightmare! I can’t go there!’
Neo struggled to make sure he wasn’t sucked into the collective nightmare.
He looked around and noticed he was floating in a starry sky. A shapely female figure made of light particles floated next to him, her hand in his hand.
“Elizabeth?”
“Yes, it’s me,” the female figure spoke.
While the two spoke, two more female figures made of light appeared.