Ñout: We tried to extract the Utha facet, the one that represented the neutrality of Mü Thanatos… But we failed. And what we pulled out was not Utha… it was an abomination. A thing that should never have existed.
At these words, a reminiscence struck Sakolomé. An ancient memory, a recollection of a conversation with Saiko. That day, when a strange, feminine entity had sought to approach him, Saiko had answered his questions in a low but firm voice:
"...It is a part of my mother. A portion that a certain Zeus believed he could take from her."
Then, after an even heavier silence, Saiko added:
"— More or less. It was only a failed version. An imperfect emanation that she herself tolerated. An illusion of love. Mother never truly felt empathy for us, her children."
Out of breath, Sakolomé finally understood. Saiko knew. He had always known. He knew the truth of this failure, he recognized the nature of that abomination Ñout had just spoken about. That day, it was not Mü Thanatos they had encountered… but a fracture, a fragmented shadow born from that failed extraction.
But another question haunted his mind: why was Saiko obscuring the facts? Why was he hiding their mother's location? Why this shroud of silence, this deliberate veil?
Only one brutal hypothesis arose: Saiko was nursing a grudge. A burning anger towards the primordial gods, towards Zeus and Ñout. Perhaps he held them responsible for the exile of Mü Thanatos. Perhaps he thought his mother had not committed a fault, and that her sidelining was nothing but a disguised injustice.
A sigh escaped Sakolomé. Too much information. Too many contradictions. All this demanded calm reflection, far from fury and turmoil.
Finally, he lifted his eyes towards Ñout, voice firm but still trembling with hesitation:
— Lord Ñout… I agree to return this favor. After all… finding my brother was already part of my objectiv
A solemn silence enveloped the place. The primordial gods exchanged a glance, then all smiled in unison. But this smile, far from triumphant, carried a tint of melancholy. As if they already knew that this choice, for Sakolomé, would be both a burden and a blessing.
Ñout added calmly, but with a serious spark in his gaze:
— If you wa
Sakolomé raised an eyebrow, intrigued:
Ñout:
— You will have to enter the imaginary world of Oni
Sakolomé's face hardened, his eyebrows furrowing:
It was Apollo who spoke, his voice carrying an almost theatrical resonance:
— He is the Nightmare of the Dream. His true name is Kurayami-no-Kage. A pure incarnation of the fears of the dream itself
A shiver passed through the air as Apollo continued:
— In appearance, he manifests as a faceless shadow, with flowing hair and a wide-open grin revealing sharp teeth. A specter guiding the darkness of the subconscious. He is not just a monster… he is the living projection of the t
Sakolomé, in a low voice:
— And… to which divin
Apollo, straightforward:
— Or
Sakolomé slightly widened his eyes.
— An Original God… like Munhwan and Mü Thanatos? That would mean that… all Original Gods possess an imagina
Apollo slowly shook his head:
— Not exactly. Some do, others don't. It is a rule valid for all deities, regardless of their rank. Even we, the Primordial Gods, have our own imaginary worlds. Look around you, Sakolomé… where you stand now, surrounded by these gold bars and strange clouds… you st
A silence settled. Sakolomé nodded slowly, arms crossed, thoughtful.
As he spent time among the gods, Sakolomé measured the magnitude of what they were and what they could accomplish. The dream revealed itself to him as an absolute container, capable of holding even the absolutes themselves. Once inscribed in the dream, no one could truly ever leave it. But there were margins of freedom, interstices between the domains.
Memories of the Castle of the Unforgettable merged with his reflections. Now his mind saw more clearly the structure of the Dream's zones:
The first zone, territory of the Primordial Gods. A pre-origin space, anterior to the others, where nothing is fully defined but where everything begins to stir. Not a pure dream in the strict sense, but a raw beginning of definition—even abstract, even incomplete. Only entities of overwhelming power like the Primordials could subsist there.
The second zone, which he perceived as the true Pure Dream. There opened the primordial void where all things receive an origin, a form, an identity. It was the domain of the forces of Madhurya, where Meta-Concepts distribute identity itself. And its absolute master was none other than Isissis.
The third zone remained for now a complete mystery in his eyes, an enigma that even the Castle had not given him the keys to.
As for the fourth zone, he understood it better: it was the space where deities were closer to mortals. Not by existential essence, but by hierarchy. A zone where gods and transcendent entities interacted more directly with humanity and its lineages.
Each revelation plunged Sakolomé deeper into the consciousness of an immense universe, hierarchized by laws still beyond the comprehension of mere men.
If the Pure Dream had four zones, the Out-of-Dream held only two: the domain of the Original Gods and that where one is "out of the Dream" in its entirety. But this exteriority itself remained illusory: for once inscribed in the Dream, there was no true outside anymore. Even the Out-of-Dream still belonged to the Dream, as its inverted reflection.
Sakolomé frowned:
— Why send me precisely into Oniyurei'
Apollo took a long breath, his gaze lost in the fleeting horizon of Ñout's kingdom. Then he answered gravely:
— Oniyurei's imaginary world is not a simple mental projection nor an inner refuge. It is an autonomous sphere, a growth of the Pure Dream itself. One could call it a "dream within the Dream," but that would still be too weak: this place is woven directly into the dreamlike fibers, a closed chamber that only Oniyurei's shadow can open and maintain.
He paused, then resumed:
— Unlike other deities who inhabit the Dream as one occupies a dwelling, Oniyurei has built his own prison there. This world is composed of unstable layers, strata that continuously dissolve and reform. The landscapes resemble unfinished canvases: mountains that collapse and then rise again, rivers flowing backward, skies saturated with shifting glyphs whose meaning no one has ever deciphered. The logic there is reversible, time bends and cancels itself. Even emotions shape matter, as if every feeling became a continent.
Apollo's tone darkened:
— The atmosphere is one of deep melancholy. It is a spectral beauty, fragile like a breath. The light does not emanate from a sun, but from shadow lanterns suspended in the void. And above all… there is the inverted tower.
Sakolomé raised his eyebrows.
— An inverted tower?
— Yes. Its foundations hang in the sky, and its spires plunge into a bottomless black ocean. It is the heart of Oniyurei's world, its secret. In this tower, he imprisons everything he wanted to forget: fragments of memory, stifled desires, fears so ancient they have become monstrous. But nothing ever truly disappears.
Apollo turned toward Sakolomé, his eyes shining with a solemn gleam.
— That is why you must go there. This world is both a sanctuary and a prison. Oniyurei hides his contradictions there, but also a raw force, a power born from his nightmares. Those who enter risk getting lost: because stepping into this domain is to
Oniyurei's imaginary world contains, however, a place even more interesting:
The Pit of Whispers
Beneath the black ocean that embraces the inverted tower opens a forbidden abyss: the Pit of Whispers. One does not enter it through doors, but by accepting the fall. Those who let themselves be drawn into the abyssal waves immediately hear whispers — not real voices, but broken thoughts, shattered echoes of memories that no one should have heard.
The floor of the Pit is not mineral earth. It is living flesh, gray and veined, pulsing with the rhythm of an invisible breath. At each step, the ground trembles as if it were suffering, and the imprint of the foot resonates with a muffled cry — the cry of a crushed memory.
Above, no sky: only a thick fog, heavy like dried blood. At times, red lightning crosses it, tearing the space without ever truly illuminating it.
The air itself is a prison. To inhale is to swallow the condensed fear of millennia: each breath floods thought with visions of death. Time does not flow; it breaks. An instant can repeat itself, again and again, increasingly distorted, like a nightmare refusing to awaken.
In this hell move the Devoured Reflections. These humanoid silhouettes have no faces, only a gaping mouth where eyes should be, endlessly screaming. Others appear as skeletal beings, their bodies covered with inverted crosses, walking with metallic clatter. They seek to snatch intruders to incorporate them into their shifting flesh.
But the worst horror is the Nameless Mother. She emerges from the darkness like a colossal spider, formed of thousands of tangled human arms. Her central body is nothing but a cracked face, weeping black soot. She does not feed on flesh, but on emotion: she amplifies fear until the mind breaks, leaving her prey empty, insane, or erased from the very fabric of the dream.
The Pit of Whispers is more than just a place. It is the nightmarish heart of Oniyurei, the incarnation of its oldest anxieties. Here, its imagination strips bare: not poetic nor sublime, but sick, eaten away by wounds no god has ever managed to close. It is his personal Hell, where every creature is an involuntary confession, and every scream a scar become living.