The Second Floor of the Academy Dungeon.
The shattered temple stood silently in the perpetual gloom, like a skeleton trampled by a giant.
Deep claw marks and fine patterns left by shattered ice crystals covered the ruined walls, silently telling of the fierce battle that had taken place not long before.
At the center of this ravaged battlefield, a pitch-black cat sat beside a pile of rubble.
She scraped at the sandy soil beneath her paws, her movements focused and meticulous. Dust flew beneath her claws with a faint rustling sound.
Before long, she dug an irregular, dark-red stone tablet out of the dirt.
The black cat leaned toward the tablet and gently sniffed it.
She held that pose for a moment, then raised her head, her amber, slit-pupiled eyes gleaming with an unfathomable light in the gloom.
"Though this bears her scent as well, it is not as strong as what I smelled on Greg. In other words, he did not pick up her scent from this tablet..."
She surveyed the shattered surroundings.
"...Then does that mean she truly came here once?"
With graceful, measured steps, Nightmare approached the utterly destroyed humanoid statue.
Its upper body had been completely shattered, leaving only the remains below its waist barely retaining their original outline.
Nightmare sat before the statue's remains, her tail curling gently around her front paws as her amber eyes gazed at its shattered outline.
"Since thou hadst the power to come here, and even made contact with my other half..."
She tilted her head slightly, as though pondering a difficult puzzle:
"Then why-didst thou not kill us?"
Silence.
Only the occasional drip of water in the distance echoed through the empty space.
"Was it because thou found it amusing? Or was it charity?"
Nightmare's voice remained calm, but