Nightmare Mythos

"It's been a while Deceit,"

Cesar's demeanor grew cold as he instantly recognized who he was facing, another person that one of the Origin Entities currently controlled.

"Fuck, that two red pupils is Doubt's trademark. Looks like he's the one inside that heretic's body." Cedeit commented, his tone slightly cold, "Be careful, Cesar. The only reason why he hadn't attacked us is because he wants something,"

Not minding an Origin Nightmare knowing each other, Cesar remember the words that Cedeit reminded him of and stayed in put.

"Are you alone in here?" Cesar asked.

The heretic where Doubt was currently taking control, shrugged before answering, "Why would I even go alone in here?"

Soon, another two more robed individuals removed their cloaks and revealed two pupils in their eyes right beside the very speaker of this group.

However, something was different from the six other figures who were staying put in their places.

Three figures had their mouths slit from ear to ear, revealing their hideous long teeth from the inside. Their eyes were blank while a few mouths appeared from their body that could be visibly seen through naked eyes.

On the other hand, the last three entities had a flesh-like blade attached to their arm in a crescent moon-shaped structure. All of them seemed to harbor ill intent toward Cesar, very eager to attack any moment if Doubt ordered.

"Obviously, I brought my friends here,"

'Trinity…'

Cesar felt even more choked at this situation as if the trap he had made for the assassins became for him in the end.

Cesar already expected in the such degree that he would fight them in the future since if Karl's words were correct, they were the ones raising the bounty for them.

He just wasn't expecting that this would be sooner.

"Well, Prejudice was the other individual that agreed to do this with me but not Hate. He really does loathe you, Deceit," Doubt let out a soft chuckle before coming back to the topic, "Well, thank you for making up this plan, Sparrow. Now we can have a conversation between us,"

Cesar paused, "What do you want?"

'Doubt' scratched the back of the human's head before smiling cheekily, "Let's team up!"

"…"

That... took him off guard.

Cesar couldn't help but blankly stare at 'Doubt' that just gave that deal.

Who was he kidding? Teaming up the enemies who put the bounty above his head? Even a dumb person will not consider it.

But Doubt then explained, "Look, we're not the one who put a bounty on your new boy's head. Someone framed us! This comes to our attention since we had a different goal in this world, and not ganged up on a kid that could potentially inherit his legacy,"

Doubt then smirked, "And we believed it is another Origin Entity that tried to blame us that we targeted you. We're trying to find a way to strike up a conversation without agitating you. And we saw this as an opportunity,"

Cesar immediately got confused at how this was turning out.

If the Unholy Trinity wasn't the entity that didn't put the bounty above his head, then who would do it? And what will they get if they achieve it?

This situation has become even more bizarre that even Cedeit couldn't say anything.

Cesar, who didn't wait for Cedeit's instructions, asked, "What is the entity behind this trying to achieve?"

"Hey, you're the Lord of Deception, figure out this whole conspiracy yourself," Doubt clarified before shrugging, "Anyways, do you want to team up or not?"

'That… doesn't sound convincing at all. Even if they didn't harbor any ill intent, their objective and true opinions about me are still unknown…'

Cesar mused inwardly, not noticing that his clothes were drenched in sweat and he was merely conscious due to sheer will. By the looks of it, doing a massacre on that scale earlier didn't look very easy at all, especially with that condition of his.

Cesar's felt his thoughts begin to cloud but Cedeit was there to help him.

The Nightmare inside his body who was silent throughout, relayed a question to Cesar on which he prepared to speak out loud.

Pondering the right words, Cesar voiced out, "What are you trying to achieve in this world? And if I teamed up with the Trinity, that doesn't guarantee that I'll be safe with guys like you around,"
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Doubt began to think as the chin of the human was caressed with his hand before answering, "Look, we aren't ungrateful brats that wanted to pounce at you in your ridiculous state. We are thankful for what you did to us from that time, and so many times after that. Hence we're returning the favor by at least not intending to kill you. It doesn't matter if you're merely a divided consciousness of the real Him. We're not going to have a bad blood with Deceit,"

Doubt paused, "As for our objective in this world, we have a lot of them. The most important thing in the current time is nurturing three Seeds of Authority that we planted in this world,"

'Seed of Authority? The hell is that?'

Cesar felt perplexed but he didn't pry any longer.

If there is a situation that these individuals talk converse complicated topics, Cesar understood that he would definitely knew something that he shouldn't have heard for someone of his caliber.

So, he had to decide whether he'd just accept the deal like that. In that way, he had fewer enemies to worry about… in the meantime.

But Cesar wanted more.

He wanted to be greedy.

He don't want to settle for less for abruptly accepting the deal because the Trinity promised an alliance and a condition to not get him killed because they were thankful.

Hence he thought up something inside his head and demanded.

"If I wanted to team up with you, I want one of either two of these conditions. A Soul Scholar or one of Deceit's Consciousness,"

Suddenly, one of Hate's heretics clicked his tongue and voiced out.

"Watch who you were dealing with, human."

Doubt tried to calm the situation down as he knew Hate and Deceit had a slight history between each other. Raising his hand to stop whatever Hate was trying to do, he stated.

"Hey, hey. Easy now. You know what? Fine, we'll give you two of these conditions to make you satisfied. Thankfully, I possessed one of Deceit's consciousness,"

Doubt was weirdly generous as he grabbed something out from his pocket and threw it at Cesar, who avoided it, in case it was a bomb made from them.

But this notion began to disappear when Cedeit reacted differently to it.

"Hey, grab it. It's oddly familiar,"

Still hesitating the grab the thrown item, Cesar approached where it was dropped while still being wary of the nine figures. Then, as soon as he was near it, he seized the item and looked closely.

It was a marbled, enigmatic eye that glowed in shifting colors. Cesar who hasn't seen something like this felt a sense of familiarity.

Just touching it was unnatural.

"It's really mine…"

Cesar couldn't help but frown at why something expensive as this was willingly given up when Cedeit stopped him.

"A Consciousness of Origin Entity like us is something unbreakable, just like the others who already marked themselves in the Universe. Hence they could use this to strike a deal with another Entity who had lost it. And this motherfucker, Doubt, has one of mine,"

Cesar remembered the deal he had with Cedeit then whispered, "That's one consciousness for you,"

Cesar then awaited to see if they also had a Soul Scholar stored within their pockets that they would just throw around but Doubt's next words weren't anything like that.

The Nightmare stated, "A Soul Scholar is very ingenious when it comes to hiding. We've been finding one ourselves but we settled for a lesser kind of creature to nurture our seeds since we couldn't find the ones we knew existed.

"However, there's concentration of soul at one part of this world is something we've taken interest in because it's located in the most crowded place humanity could live,"

Prejudice's heretics who were keeping quiet most of the time that Doubt was talking, interrupted and revealed.

"We concluded that a Soul Scholar is currently hiding in the Academy,"

"…"

That one sentence alone was very unbelievable to hear.

Cesar, who clearly lived most of the three years of his life in that place is surely confident that not a single trace of Nightmare was hiding in that place.

However, he couldn't help but remember that one time when Cedeit was joking that the concentration of soul in the Academy was very high while searching for a place to pinpoint a Soul Scholar.

Cesar really thought that he was!

But then again, it started to make sense.

'I've been trying to find you but you are there the whole time?!'

Rustle—!

Just as Cesar was revering that his problem was right just in front of him, he sensed a weird sensation behind which he couldn't help but look back.

"Hehe, so you guys have a Seed of Authority,"

Whoosh—!

The Trinity's heretics all lunged towards an assassin that seemed alive after being targeted by Cesar's floor of darkness.

His head was cleaved by Hate's slashes as it rolled down on the floor but his eyes were still opened wide and his mouth working.

By the looks of it, the assassin was no other than Aspirer who was laughing with a gleeful face.

"Who the hell are you?!"

The ridiculous turn of events just became even more baffling.