Chapter 132: The Truth Past the Veil

Cerridwen’s baleful smile met her vision with the eye-like ruby gem attached to her chest as the child of the malevolent death goddess fed nightmares into her, morphing Rachel’s body into the monster within her own soul.

The world faded in the sadistic mist that surrounded her, drawing Rachel into her inner world, yet only an ominous, ever-changing mist met her. An echo from the Welsh goddess filtered through a vast abyss, whisperings plucking at her reshaping spirit like strings on an instrument.

"Go to the World Tree...look to the inside to break the seals, bleed out the dark decay, and ascend to places beyond the real. There, you will find me."

A calm darkness swelled within Rachel as she returned to the stadium. Straightening, she found Conner riding Delphinus, nose a swirling cyclone of holy water as they channeled the powers they’d shown off against the magma dragon. The spear-like water cleaved through pillars, zig-zagging to strike the ones he wanted.

Unperturbed, Rachel held her hands behind her back as black fur grew from her skin, transforming her into the horrific hare as she hummed along to the ominous choir resonating within her. There was a blindness around her, causing her to ponder the message Cerridwen left her as she descended into madness.

Solar balls rained down upon her, but all they hit was a misty reflection; Rachel’s head tilted to the side as Conner ran after dozens of psychosis-induced mirages, swept away by his Solar attacks. Nia was exploring her new form, giggling as she morphed and divided herself into various nightmarish clones for the pair to pursue.

Standing beside one particular pillar, the hammer appeared in Rachel’s hand, her thoughts still lingering on the infinite and vast, lurking just beyond sight within the veil of the Black Moon. A hand held behind her back, Rachel brought the mallet against the glass, shattering it into oblivion, releasing a horde of nightmares from the unholy sphere and heroes from the depths of the holy sea to join the cause.

It wasn’t a problem; heroes were exactly what the Black Moon feasted upon, sucking out every last drop of hope from their marrow. Yet, Rachel’s eyes were on a glimpse of the truth that Cerridwen was imparting unto her in this melodious horror.

A wicked, exaggerated smile revealed her fanged, gnarled teeth as she lightly tapped the next column beside her, shattering the chains that held the cage still and sending them into a crazed tug-of-war between the maelstrom of holy water and the nightmarish sphere.

Rachel stood upside down on the platform, unbothered by the change in gravity as Nia kept flipping it, with the horrors and heroes in battle. An army of cackling gremlin bunnies ran Conner in circles, leaving Rachel’s shadows to form within the fog and taunt the legend.

But Rachel was already beyond what was real. This was not how it was supposed to end, yet it did give her the insight she needed to see the finale. Her manic eyes peered beyond Conner, Nia, and the legend’s own delusional, hope-inspired vision of defeating her, looking past the corners of their reality. She oversaw it all from her high perch.

Eventually, he would sweep away the negative field to reveal her true body; it would be too late by then, and she’d see what lay within the dark abyss.

Crouching down on her bowed, hare legs, Rachel giggled as the effects of the Black Moon filled her being. Nightmares swirled in conflict as a bright flash of Solar Energy lit the heavens, Conner attempting to break the spell by depriving her of her power, but it wasn’t her he and his army were fighting: it was the Black Moon herself.

The bright clouds came between the void sphere cage, sparking hope as many nightmares flickered and died, making Rachel snicker and her ears drift to the side; an illusion. It would take more than a simple and ordinary sun to block something as potent as the Black Moon. Lost between herself and her nightmare, between the real and the dream, Rachel found an unusual closeness to the Seed within her.

[Horror of the Dream Adaptation X (Restricted) - Reborn in the twisting abyss of the terror-ridden madness of imagination, the user sinks into the depths of what the wise seek and fail to obtain. A herald of The Truth, the user must descend into the infinite and vast to peer beyond what lies beyond the gateway into Ever-Shaping Horror.]

[Curse of the Wise X (Restricted) - The user can comprehend the vastness and infinite nature of that which cannot be known. By breaking the seals, the user can transcend the prayers on the lips of liars to learn from the Whispering Beyond.]

[Entity of the Nightmare X (Restricted) - Invoke hope in all that is around the user, feeding on the light that it brings. Never truly defeated, only postponed to savor the feast, to then be awakened again to feed the next night anew.]

Rachel’s mind bloomed with the vision of a thousand nightmarish blind eyes, and her gaze peeled back to see the heart of a giant tree, where a sleeping man rested, connected to its core as a somber woman, too beautiful to look upon, cried over him. Her nightmares seeped into Rachel’s soul, allowing her to feel the guilt and anguish that gripped the nymph.

Vision peeling back, Rachel’s eyes lifted to meet Conner’s as the man swept away the misty veil, revealing her. His Solar-charged fist plunged for her head, but this was where hope died; her form flickered, and she was now standing beside Nia on the ground, Eldritch energy sweeping her away.

Lowering to the grinning bunny’s level, Rachel rubbed her head as Conner slowly recovered and looked down at her. "Why don’t you play with the heroes?"

Her swirling clover eyes creased with a smile as a golden-skinned Olympian jabbed a holy spear through her skull, only for her to swirl into smoke and reappear beside Conner in the air, animal-like head tilting to the side as the legend realized nothing had changed since the opening of the Black Moon.

"Confused?" she chuckled, a dark pull welling up within her as Conner’s unsure eyes shifted to her; his mount was about to disappear from his five-minute limitation.

"I...can’t hurt you, can I? Why? I have the blessed water of a god. Eh-haha. It doesn’t make sense."

Rachel hummed, looking up with her oversized, toothy grin to study the sky. "At first, I thought the same as you, Conner... This is Negative Energy that can be purified by a deity’s Positive Energy." Her large eyes lowered to his. "It only seems negative because it is all that you can comprehend, but I have seen The Truth."

"Which is?" he sighed, far less angry or annoyed than he should have been, yet he’d already accepted his death before this, and Rachel held no animosity toward him personally.

Motioning to him toward a misty veil she had created, Rachel walked through it, entering a tinted world between the battlefield and the unreal. Nia’s giggling, twisting form drifted in and out of view as she danced between lines, making Conner shiver as he joined her.