The final battle

The evil god sensed that its territory had been invaded and the believers who supplied it with sacrifices and faith had been slaughtered almost to the last. It flew into a rage.

A low rumble, seemingly crossing countless dimensions, echoed through the hall. It was no ordinary speech, but a psychic assault implanted directly into the mind.

Freddy looked at that writhing, wailing mass, its blood vessels pulsing irregularly across a body covered in murky fluid. Even he felt sick.

It looked like a deformity that combined every fucking evil gene in the world and had only just crawled out of a black goat's belly.

"Urgh~ No wonder that lizard-faced son of yours was so disgusting. His ancestor's right here. What? Is this some family tradition of yours, freak?"

But Freddy was nowhere near as carefree as he appeared. Even though he was no longer an ordinary human, facing such an evil, chaotic power still made him feel cracks and pain striking straight into his soul.

"You're really disgusting. Have you ever bathed? When was your last bath? In the amniotic fluid in your mother's womb?"

Freddy tugged down the faded fedora on his head, a mocking sneer rising across his ulcerated face.

The evil god's countless tentacles abruptly thrashed wildly, sweeping toward Freddy in an overwhelming tide. Even in such danger, Freddy still squeezed in a few words.

"With that many tentacles, doesn't grooming get annoying? Or do you just not have a hand to spare for yourself? Wait, does anyone get that pun?"

Wherever the tentacles passed, reality and dreams twisted once again. Countless horrifying visions were forcibly poured into Freddy's mind, attempting to erode and imprison his consciousness with endless nightmares.

A towering body, a swinging belt, snickering little imps slashing his body with their claws, winged angels flapping away, flames engulfing him.

The hall's remaining steel reinforcement and flames all fell under the evil god's control, changing direction and attacking the figure in the center of the magic circle together.

"What a mess."

Freddy shook his head as though trying to tip something out of it.

The evil god seized the opportunity to lash out with several rifts.

Freddy had only just narrowly dodged a rift capable of twisting his body to pieces. Though his body was already riddled with holes, he still grinned and said,

"It's fine. I like a mess."

Freddy's figure abruptly dissolved into black mist, constantly dodging within the illusion. The souls he had acquired within him kept turning into power, filling his body.

"You're a mess too, but I don't like you one bit. And of course, that's entirely your fault."

Freddy was proficient in every trick of the nightmare realm. He freely altered his surroundings, folding walls over and over and extending corridors endlessly to obstruct the evil god's advancing tentacles.

But the Lord of a Thousand Forms and Dreams commanded myriad illusions. Every illusion was as flimsy as paper in its eyes. Countless phantoms attacked simultaneously, steadily squeezing down the space Freddy had to move.

At last, one of the attacks finally landed on Freddy, but the figure that shattered and ultimately turned to drifting smoke did not seem to be him.

Freddy emerged from behind its enormous, twisted, disgusting body, even giving a rather innocent smile. One of his gloves was embedded deep in that warped flesh.

Freddy watched the figure being reduced to ash and smoke and could not help smacking his lips.

"Hey, that was the one who looked most like you, and the oldest one too. Hey... was he your eldest son? Never thought I'd see the day I did the public a service. Eww~ Am I going to heaven?"

The evil god kept twisting its body. It could feel that glove steadily sucking something out of it. It struggled to shake free of the thick, sharp-bladed glove embedded in its body, but all in vain. The dagger sank deeper and deeper. Even the surrounding flesh hissed, thick black liquid running down it and dripping onto the floor, which sizzled as it corroded.

This enraged it completely. It let out an extremely piercing shriek, sound waves and tentacles whistling through the air as they attacked Freddy.

Freddy was too close and had expended most of his power in the battle. Caught off guard, he was struck by more than a dozen tentacles carrying a twisting power. His body, which contained no flesh and blood to begin with, instantly broke into small black-gray chunks and powder like overburned wood. After one final howl, those mint-green eyes stared unwillingly in a certain direction in the darkness before finally dissipating.

But Freddy's death could not stop the evil god's main body from steadily collapsing. It wailed, trying to pull the blade from its body with its other tentacles, but all in vain.

Just as it was down to its last breath, an old man in a heavy cloak stepped out of the void. He was one of those who claimed to be an avatar of the so-called Lord of the Great Abyss.

On his deeply furrowed, aged face, that feigned solemnity turned into a long-suppressed, vicious grin. He walked slowly forward, casually crushing Freddy's remaining black powder underfoot.

He called himself an avatar of the Lord of the Great Abyss, but that was not the truth. Many years ago, perhaps part of what he said had been true.

He had indeed been a part of Chaugnar Faugn, a tiny dream-producing bubble formed while the chief god Chaugnar Faugn slept. Drifting through the vast universe, it had found this Earth. Having developed a little consciousness, it used a wisp of feeble power to break through the world's barrier and descend into this world, slowly gathering strength and growing in an uninhabited place.

But it did not belong here. As its power grew, it was continually suppressed by the laws of the world.

So its original self devised a plan to protect itself: split its soul and flesh into two. That way, it would no longer count as a complete living being. Its soul concealed itself in hell to evade the scrutiny of the world's laws, while its flesh, no longer restrained by its soul, was hidden deep underground.

But who could have expected people to venture into a place so remote, with such a harsh natural environment? (Freddy's scathing verdict: too much money to burn.) They found its flesh and worshipped it as a god. Continuously strengthened by sacrifices of flesh and blood and the power of faith, that separated body slowly developed an independent consciousness. Its power rapidly surpassed the hidden soul's, and it was unwilling to accept its original self's control.

Decades ago, it happened to find the Rheinhill Family of that time-specifically, the husband of Klein's mother, Valia. The bloodline of Maria's clan harbored a natural gift for dream mediumship.

At first, it planned to use the mother and son's psychic powers to counterbalance the flesh that had escaped its control. Unexpectedly, Chaugnar Faugn's cult discovered the plan midway through-the same group that had found it back then. Initially, they only wanted Klein and did not know that Valia possessed psychic powers as well.

At that critical moment, Valia sacrificed herself and used her psychic powers to twist dreams and change a small part of reality, making them believe she alone possessed this special psychic power and protecting her young son, Klein. But Klein's abilities had not yet fully developed, so it could only lie low for the time being and quietly wait for his psychic powers to awaken.

But it was too impatient. It forcibly exerted its power to make Klein awaken his still-undeveloped mediumship abilities prematurely. Klein's abnormalities soon drew the Rheinhill Family's attention again, and he was taken away.

With its plan thwarted, it spotted Freddy. This soul that naturally gathered evil energy was nothing less than a born vessel for nightmares, the perfect incarnation of a demon. From then on, it remained hidden behind Freddy, secretly laying its plans.

To prevent Freddy from developing a conscience and straying from the predetermined course, it even secretly exerted an invisible influence, twisting the dispositions of everyone close to him and luring them step by step into evil.

When Freddy suffered a devastating blow and stood on the verge of a mental breakdown, it appeared again, weaving lies to deceive him.

In the deathly silent hall, the evil god's broken body still twitched, dripping foul, rotten-black fluid. Its myriad illusory eyes remained fixed on the cloaked old man slowly approaching.

It sensed this familiar yet dangerous presence and let out an angry roar. The sound was mixed with powerful infrasound, and several corpses in the corner burst apart, their blood forming a mist that stained the air red.

"You stupid thing. You're nothing but a body I temporarily discarded, yet you dare act up."

He looked at that body, the disgust in his eyes plain beyond words.

"But it doesn't matter. Soon, you'll become an unconscious lump of blood. Then you'll be reduced to a storehouse that supplies me with an endless stream of flesh and blood. And with a small piece of my own body, I'll neither suffer persecution from the laws nor have to keep wandering the world as a soul."

The evil god's flesh still struggled and waved its tentacles. Its power remained, but its movements became weaker and weaker and less and less precise, like a human whose brain had been damaged.

"Can you see that thing behind you clearly? It was made by melting down a weapon Hephaestus, god of the forge, forged for Hades, king of the underworld, during the war of the Titans. It was intended to kill souls that should never have been born within flesh, but the plan failed, so hardly anyone knew of it. Only the demon guarding the dagger at the time knew."

"When I fell into hell, I happened to obtain that dagger."

But only the flesh's instinctive moans answered him. This thing that should never have existed, forged from the blood of thousands or even tens of thousands of people-this consciousness that should never have become a soul-vanished into nothingness.

The tentacles on that body retracted into its flesh one after another. Its eyes closed as well, sinking into the depths of its body. The entire body became an enormous lump of flesh with flowing blood and a beating pulse.

Only then, once the dust had settled, did he finally approach slowly, intending to take the body away and hide it somewhere again. This time, he would not hide it in some remote wilderness.

But the instant he touched that body, he felt his soul violently shudder. Looking down, he saw five great holes punched clean through his chest, blood running down his body.

"Surprise bitch!"