Nightmare Mythos

He used the mundane bullets that the army provided for the soldiers who used training rooms to practice their shooting skills.

It was great.

"Oh, shit… I've taken too much time,"

Realizing that he had a great time testing the revolver the search routine almost slipped out of his mind, Cesar started running outside of the building to prepare.

All of a sudden, commotion started to arise in the nearby areas. He was running, solely focusing on returning to the building yet the little uproar he thought would subside any minute was becoming larger each second.

His pace became slow until he completely stopped.

Redirecting his attention to the road where personnel varying from the army and corps were running, Cesar reluctantly followed those people.

Seeing those people rushing towards something, Cesar got curious and went ahead, not minding the sweat that was already drenched on his clothes. It will get dry anyway.

'What are they grouping up for…'

As if there was no need to delve any deeper into the question in his mind, Cesar's eyes widened the moment he saw the soldiers gathering around in a huge spot.

In the middle of a particular street, a pierced reality had manifested. Hovering through the air perpendicularly, it was emanating a stinking sense of… death as if a rotting corpse was left there inside these realities. The cut was curved in a strange and twisted up, curling upwardly.

That wasn't even the surprising part.

'How could we see it…!'

The reality which was only drawn in the past to the blueprint has finally shown itself in their sights. It remained the same but it had one decisive difference from what Quentin provided for them and that was the fouling stench of a rotting corpse from within.

Even with that being the case, the hazy cloud that was covering the inside was still there, hiding the contents of whatever it stored inside. Unknown and full of mysteries.

Though they still couldn't peer through the mysteries it contained inside. If such secrets even existed from it.

'So these are the infamous pierced realities Quentin kept mentioning and seeing. It looked really… magical and perilous. I'm surprised he hadn't suffered any illnesses yet especially mentally. Is it because he said he had been exposed to Nightmares five times and escaped from their clutches?'

Cesar couldn't help but mused inwardly, re-evaluating his opinion about Quentin. He's special in his kind of own way, though he could easily be manipulated if given the right things.

After the area had gathered enough onlookers, the buzzing crowd calmed down once the commander of the base approached himself. With a dignified and authoritative gait, Vin got closer to the pierced reality with a piqued of curiosity.

The same as others, it was his first time encountering the real deal which only came from the mouth of one of his men and through blueprints.

"So this is what you looked like. Very fascinating…"

Gathering all the crowd's gazes by taking a confident trod towards it, Vin remained passive.

As everyone watched him do it, Cesar used the chance to sneak his way through beside Quentin, who was only standing beside Vin's men. With a whisper, he asked in a slightly anxious tone.

"Is he not afraid of triggering something? Why does he continue to move forward?"

"Beats me. Why do you even ask a question you know I will not be able to answer?"

Not urging himself to throw a soft punch at his cheek, Cesar remained silent at his place and continued observing Vin.

His footsteps continued stepping forward at the huge pierced reality without even letting anyone follow him. Looking fearless, he came to a stop right in front of the hideous penetrated realism.

"What are you trying to hide here…?"

Vin then suddenly stretched his hand forward as his lips moved.

Then, only for a brief moment, he glanced backward at where his group was located, probably to warn them about what was to come.

But looking at his indifferent face from the distance made Cesar shiver. It didn't look like he was particularly looking at him but the atmosphere surrounding his entire persona can make everyone involuntary kneel for forgiveness.

It was sort of instinctive.

"Hey, rookies. Don't get surprised by what is about to happen," Maine explained briefly.

Cesar didn't even get to ask her what she meant when all of a sudden, his vision formed cracks, splintering into tiny pieces of shards that showed the real world, albeit a bit differently.

All lines were cracked, leaving some spaces left unseen in some forms.

'What the—!'

Stepping back in disbelief, in one of the cracked shards, Cesar also saw Quentin sitting down on the ground, completely astonished as to what he was also witnessing.

He, Cesar, and everyone else were experiencing such an amazing display of prowess right on their very front.

Disregarding Quentin's amazement, Cesar focused his attention on the front once more where Vin remained standing. At first, he was unmoving before his figure started cracking as well, completely becoming one with the shards.

At this moment, his character seemed to have mixed in together with reality itself yet whatever he was trying to do, the job didn't seem to be finished yet.

Next, Vin casually rolled the sleeves of his uniform and… plucked a shard of his skin that made his expression contorted before grabbing a piece of shard from the pierced reality and replacing it with his shard skin.

Watching it all didn't even look grotesque at all for Cesar. It's just filled with magnificence, dreamlike, and a bit of… well, repulsiveness, in a way.

'What is he doing?' Cesar asked himself while observing the shardscape world they were currently in.

Suddenly, he was holding one of the shards he replaced with the pierced reality before placing it near his mouth and chugging it down to his throat as if his previous doing wasn't revolting to look at.

Then, he stretched his hand forward again, and soon, the shardscape was reverting back to the real world. The cracks were mending, gluing together to make the shards disappear from their places.

In just a few seconds, the world came back to its normal nature.

The cracks Cesar and the rest in the same area were seeing vanished right on the spot, and what was left was the amazement on their faces as they watched Vin's figure solely standing at the huge manifested penetrated reality.

However, there's a tiny different view from the mysterious pierced realism as there was a shiny white shard that replaced the bottom of it. It was Vin's power. As to what it does, probably only he knew about it.

"The show's over," Vin's voice reverberated across the area they were in as he added, "Swiftly go back to your posts, and let's isolate this thing real quick,"

With a word from their commander that sounded like an order, everyone began to work.

…

Their routine of searching for penetrated realities has been moving as usual. The only problem is that the remaining men available and who hadn't been stationed were already used. Cesar, who had been with them for a couple of hours, was stationed near one of the corrupted areas, Low Whispers, which he willingly avoided at all costs.

"Why did I have to be posted here…"

Cesar grumbled in a soft tone, as his situation was much worse than the others since he didn't have any people with him.

No army, no person in the corps.

With them lacking men to be deployed, the ones positioned near the unseen penetrated realities could only look out for themselves. Of course, he will only have to stay for a few hours since Vin is currently thinking up a way to solve their predicament.

Rustle—!

As he was being dramatic about being positioned all alone when he preferred being that way, the sound of something moving perked through his ears.

Cesar had already sensed it a few seconds ago, but whoever it was didn't seem to mind the noise it was making.

His face, demeanor, and actions took a complete pause before he slowly stood up from his seat and swiftly aimed his revolver right at the target slowly lunging at his back.

He had already slid his hand through his holster to grab his revolver the moment he felt someone was slowly creeping his way onto him. All that was left was to place it right on the intruder whose goal is probably him.

Thus once he did manage to get the full view of the unknown intruder, Cesar couldn't help but put a frown on his usual indifferent face.

There, a robed man was silently observing him with both of his hands raised.