The matter at hand

"Unless there's one exception," the gentleman added. "Unless that person has special abilities."

"Special abilities?"

"I'm not too clear on that either," the gentleman said, recalling.

"Ah, the most recent ones appeared over a decade ago. Two in succession, reportedly a mother and son. They had special dream abilities. I don't know exactly what they were, but in any case, the man who sacrificed them to the Lord gained considerable authority. Though he hadn't been a member for long and hadn't contributed much, those two sacrifices still got him into the inner circle."

"The Rheinhill Family. I think the mother was called Tilinas Rheinhill, and the son was Klein Rheinhill. Those should be their names..."

He continued muttering, "I don't know how he managed it. They say both of them were willing sacrifices. Of course, I would never blaspheme against the Lord's mercy. I simply find it incomprehensible... how could two ignorant mortals who had yet to convert, who had never embraced divine grace, willingly..."

He did not finish the rest, but everyone understood what would follow.

In an instant, all the fog dispersed. Every oddity, every scheme, every unsolvable mystery burst into clarity.

The mask of gentleness, refinement, restraint, and composure cracked inch by inch and shattered piece by piece. The calm, reason, and compassion of a top physician were utterly consumed by surging darkness and bone-deep hatred. At this moment, he finally shed every disguise, revealing the most twisted, obsessive, festering face deep within his soul.

Rather, he had finally revealed his original face.

"Do you know?"

Freddy suddenly chuckled, his laughter thin and cold, like a freezing wind sweeping over barren tundra. The old gentleman beside him stiffened all over, an icy chill shooting up his spine as an indescribable fear suddenly rose in his heart.

"Every time I see that fat belly of yours, stuffed with grease and disgusting organs, I want to poke it open with a knife. Tell me... would it burst like a balloon?"

With that, he stopped paying attention to the old gentleman's expression, merely laughing as he walked out on his own.

It was not that Freddy could not perceive his own changes. But Freddy knew that, though this might be the influence of those three tadpoles, what was now being exposed was his original personality. What he had suppressed and controlled had been released.

What the darkness awakened had never been a newborn evil.

It was the obsession, pain, resentment, and urge to destroy that he had suppressed for decades, all the dark aspects of his nature that he had deliberately sealed away and forcibly restrained, finally breaking their shackles and gushing out without restraint.

He returned to his residence, a villa whose central area was modeled entirely after the house he had lived in with Klein back in Elm Grove Town. The only addition was a display case in his bedroom.

Inside were several objects: a battered brown felt hat, a misshapen red-and-green striped sweater, a carefully maintained set of dissection tools, a golden dagger, and then a box-a tiny urn.

Freddy gazed at that tiny box. This was one of the few lives he cared about, but sadly, even he had not stayed with him for long. Not long after Freddy got into university, he had passed away of old age.

Through the glass door, Freddy stroked the little black box, and despair welled up of its own accord.

Why couldn't I hold on to anything? My birth mother, the person I cared about most, my happiest life.

Even though he knew where Klein was, even though he knew Klein was not dead, even though he knew Klein seemed to be enduring tremendous suffering at this moment, he did not hate Klein. The one he truly hated was himself. He hated his own constant helplessness.

He thought of everything behind that door. Every detail from that moment seemed deeply branded into his mind: the silent, wordless, frenzied murmuring; that shattered figure, as though everything had been crushed together, like dismembered human limbs mixed into soil. Even though it had only been a phantom, it was the first time in Freddy's life that he had experienced fear-that maddening pain carved into his very soul, making him recognize his smallest, most wretched side.

He laughed madly until his voice grew hoarse, then collapsed weakly to the floor like a dog that had lost a fight. His surroundings were terrifyingly quiet. There was nothing but the sound of his own breathing.

"Do you want to save him?" In this excessively quiet setting, the voice sounded almost piercing.

Freddy jerked his head up. An aged voice came from the chair opposite him. An old man sat there, his face weathered, draped in a thick, heavy felt cloak.

Freddy abruptly raised his head.

Guards were stationed all around this villa. Moreover, he had locked the door when he entered. Anyone forcing their way in would trigger a chain of defensive alarms.

More importantly, Freddy had absolutely no idea when this old man had appeared in the room.

"How did you get in?"

Freddy demanded sharply.

"Naturally, I came in because I wanted to. Is that all you care about?"

Freddy fell silent for a while. Of course he had heard what the old man had said earlier.

"...What did you mean by that?"

"Let me think. The child with the Eastern face, yes? His name is Klein, correct?"

Seeing Freddy's eagerness to speak, he merely extended a hand, and Freddy's lips fused together, as though they had never existed on his face. He paid no attention as Freddy frantically felt around his face, making startled, muffled sounds.

The old man continued, "About fifteen years ago, he bought something from my stall. More precisely, I had him buy it. It allowed me to contact you and test whether you could become a qualified..."

He tapped the glass display case beside him. The carefully maintained golden dagger suddenly appeared in his hand, and he toyed with it.

Both his words and his actions demonstrated that he was no ordinary person.

The old man extended his hand again, and Freddy's mouth instantly returned to normal. But Freddy did not even pause to breathe, merely speaking urgently.

"You can save him."

"No." He sighed and set the dagger on the display case. Metal met glass with a clear clink. "As I am now, I don't even amount to a projection of a sliver of consciousness."

"Then you..."

"Shut up."

Freddy had the sense to close his mouth.

"First, let me introduce myself. I am an incarnation of the Lord of the Great Abyss, on the same level as the one you saw today. As for this me before you, call me whatever you like."

Freddy let out a wheezing laugh like a broken bellows.

"You mean Chaugnar Faugn. You've seen him..."

Suddenly, the withered, ragged old man before him, wrapped in black robes, merely moved a finger. Every blood vessel in Freddy's body burst instantly, and he slumped to the floor like a mass of insensate flesh. Yet with a simple turn of the old man's hand, Freddy immediately returned to his original state, left twitching on the spot, his forehead covered in cold sweat.

"That is merely a name you humans gave him. Even this one is something I chose myself. As for our true names, even if you humans heard the first syllable, your souls would instantly dissolve into something indescribable, rotting away utterly in this world."

Only after a long while did Freddy find his voice.

"Why are you helping me?"

"No, I'm not helping you. You are merely a tool of mine." He sighed and continued, "Perhaps several epochs ago, his true body happened to awaken for an instant. His... hmm... a cell, as you would understand it, split off from his body, wandered through the universe, and landed near the edge of your world, projecting itself into the surrounding area. This originally had nothing to do with me. But while I slept, he seized a sliver of my authority."

"And what you must do is destroy them. My power will naturally return to my true body, and when that happens, won't saving Klein be easy?"

Freddy said excitedly, "What should I do?"

The old man chuckled, looking almost kindly.

"Just be yourself."

In an instant, a memory-or rather, a spell-entered Freddy's mind.

Three days later, Freddy arrived in Elm Grove Town. He slowly raised his head and looked toward the ruins of the little house at the end of town, which he had replicated countless times.

This place had once been the haven where he and Klein had briefly lived in peace. Little time remained before the evil god's sacrificial ritual began.

One month later.

Blood soaked the soil of Elm Grove Town. More than twenty descendants of those who had bullied him back then all died in their dreams. By the time people noticed, Freddy had already burned himself to death.

Flames devoured the house, thick smoke billowed upward, and the raging fire enveloped his body. Pain no human could withstand elicited only mad laughter, until the flames burned through his throat.

Thus, Freddy the mortal perished in the flames.

Freddy the nightmare was born from the ashes.

The surviving residents personally watched the fire die out and the house burn into charred wreckage, confirming that Freddy had perished in the blaze. Everyone secretly breathed a sigh of relief, believing the nightmare had ended and they could finally regain their peace.

But the calm lasted only a few short days.

One after another, people fell into nightmares they could not escape. Freddy moved through everyone's dreams, reaping lives at will. Injuries suffered in sleep were faithfully reflected on their physical bodies. Those who died in dreams would have the same wounds appear on their bodies in reality and would never wake again.

Gripped by boundless terror, the remaining survivors fled Elm Grove Town, scattering in every direction. But this played directly into Freddy's calculations. Wherever these people fled, his nightmare power could extend, unhindered by geographical boundaries.

Authorities in various places noticed the succession of bizarre deaths and established layers of mental blockades and sleep-control systems, attempting to sever the connections between dreams. But the barriers humans constructed could not withstand a single blow from the power that linked dreams and reality.