Inspiration… Nightmare thought lowly of this emotive, spontaneous feeling. A temporary burst of excited passion before inevitably deflating after the pinnacle has come and gone, leaving a chance of regret. By its own nature, inspiration has a looming end.
Could this being of magic and despair be affected by this slapdash stupidity? Yes, actually. He was an artist and scientist afterall. Molding and interfering with life and siding-stepping the order of nature is propelled by inspiration. However he knows when and where inspiration is useful and makes the most of it. Most of his army is composed of demonbeasts whose sole purpose is to be expendable soldiers with various abilities. All this came about with the inspiration to make an unbeatable army.
In response to his interest in universal domination and seemingly acts of nature, The Galaxy Army raised troops. The biggest disadvantage they have is the benefit of monotonous soldiers that are easily replaceable, instead they have to rely on volunteers and alliances with third parties.
And Star Warriors.
Truth be told, he isn't entirely sure what a Star Warrior is and how their specific "army" works. It seems like a collection of individuals who either work closely with The Galaxy Army or work independently. There doesn't seem to be any sort of traditional military hierarchy.
These so-called "Star Warriors" are said to be born to oppose forces such as himself. "Gifts from the Stars", as if he was the antithesis. He honestly can't tell Star Warriors apart from everyone else. Supposedly they're stronger and better fighters, but outside of these arbitrary traits, he couldn't pick one out from a crowd. He wished he could comb through his territories and get rid of them, yet they easily blend in with the populace.
But just like everybody else, they too are mortal.
Regardless of those Star Warriors, for every soldier and ally The Galaxy Army gets, Holy Nightmare can make twice as many demonbeasts to go fight and die. They try to appeal to civilians, spinning up some inspirational story of how Nightmare can be stopped with enough support and blah, blah, blah...
To him, the war ended before it began. Theoretically, his army is impossible to defeat. Unless the opposition can somehow develop effective war machines or come up with enough soldiers to out number his demonbeasts, they are doomed to fail. For him it's about crushing the opposition and those who go against him. The Galaxy Army is just an organized collection of insurrectionists that are constantly getting in the way. Annoying however, since they have enough power to excessively interfere with his work. And like the ephemeral creatures The Galaxy Army consists of, they're incredibly annoying to exterminate.
Over his eternal life, Nightmare has engaged with the various kinds of creatures found throughout the universe. They're all frustrating. Many don't last long enough to have any meaning to him, and they in turn rarely listen to him.
He'll acknowledge that having "Emperor of Darkness" on his resume isn't a very captivating trait, and trying to get involved in a civilization that worships dreams when he is mainly known as "Nightmare" wasn't the best idea. He had his reasons, but now they're all dead, leaving him with the last laugh.
Despite that civilization being a notable part of history, just like every other society he has seen and been through, it fell into ruin and faded away to time. These societies created by mortals seem to go through a pattern - built by the visionaries and torn down by the supercilious. Nightmare has long debated if this is an inevitable conclusion and a product of nature, or mortals just being stupid by wasting so much time over the irrelevant.
It confounds Nightmare how relaxed mortals are at wasting time. That's a luxury only he has.
Going and creating his own kingdom and later empire was a concern for the smarter few, but there was little resistance overall. However, growing empires require resources and manpower, and his problem-solving methods didn't resound with most of the universe - A.K.A. Just taking what he wanted.
Consequently, he's at war now.
So there he was now, the warmongering emperor, studying a map of a specific galaxy, an illusion projected from nowhere in his interdimensional space. This galaxy had mostly desolate planets, rich with minerals and gas. There were two planets that were at an early stage of planetary evolution, having plants, fish, and bugs. It was these two planets where The Galaxy Army had set up ground bases.
One of his sergeant majors was making an update on the intrusion progress of this galaxy and addressed Nightmare with an unwavering tone, "The Galaxy Army has patrols set up mainly between the two planets with their bases. The smaller one is used like a pit stop for patrolling ships. The base there does have soldiers stationed there in case we tried taking that planet. We have confirmed some Star Warriors are at the larger base or participate in the patrols. As for the smaller one..."
The major faltered a bit, more so from apparent doubt about this information. "There's a child being trained at the smaller base - according to our personnel there. We aren't sure what for yet."
Nightmare hummed a low tone in intrigue. Certainly an anomaly.
Perhaps this was a child being raised and trained into a supersoldier? Was this the mysterious training to make a Star Warrior?
The Galaxy Army was always pompous about how morally upright they are, or at least publicly. Training a child would be out of line for them. Something didn't add up or the child had to be special. Otherwise The Galaxy Army was as hypocritical as he thought.
The report in question was vague, something about the foliage making it difficult to send out transmissions and they are made quickly and briefly. How annoying. Wasn't their technology better than this? Stars know how long ago it was first written.
The major continued on to invasion plans and schemes, what should be the main dish of this meeting, though it's all normal business. Galactic fights and invasions are different from land battles. Afterall the terrain moves, albeit very slowly. Meaning sometimes you have to wait for a more ideal setup while keeping things in mind like their patrol route. The farthest the planets from each other, the better really. Of course The Galaxy Army is aware of this and would increase and decrease the number of patrolling ships based on the distance between checkpoints.
Part of intergalactic defense is juggling around ships and soldiers between galaxies to make sure they are properly defended. Holy Nightmare didn't really have that problem. He had plenty of soldiers and battleships that could defend his territory sufficiently. For now they'll monitor the coming and goings of ships, connect with spies, and develop a plan.
The child did interest him a tiny bit, and the mystery of its training and purpose. He could go inspect the child's dreams to see if he could gather any information, and give it a nightmare while he was at it. He could also detour in his search to give some others a bad night's sleep too.
At the conclusion of the meeting, and with deep chuckles, he faded from the room to a realm less traveled. A realm layered with reality that made dream hopping easier to navigate. Maneuvering through other's dreams is a unique power not bestowed among many creatures. He could count the amount of people he's met, or at least remember, that had a similar power on one hand.
Most of the creatures on the small plant didn't have the mental capacity to have dreams, so locating the base in the realm wasn't difficult. Wasting no time, he located a victim and immediately started shifting their dream. Pulling forth buried emotions, past wails, and anxieties for the future. It takes a little longer to manifest nightmares than one would think, but that's the case with sculpting in any form of medium.
He didn't care for the individuals or for their life stories, he just revels in their discomfort and distress. Forcing them to confront a fraction of the woes of life. What they dismiss, what they fear, what they run from. They won't be having "sweet dreams" tonight. Prancing as he shifted other dreams to his namesake, smiling internally at his work. A master of his trade. Slipping away from one dreamscape to the next one-
- This dream felt weird.
He's felt this before, but he forgot what it meant, something he hasn't come across in a long time. Long for him at least. It felt like he wasn't in control here. The dream was dull - very bright and forestry. There was foggy spots, but not actual fog, just blurred spots in the dreamer's mind. Signs of an unfocused mindstate. Stars glimmered through the leaves giving a sparkling effect to the area.
Usually dreams frequently change, however the trees and stars remained longer than welcomed. He ventured further, an aura of malignity searching for the owner. Finally, in a clearing - a young blue puffball with purple feet and yellow irises resided. There wasn't anything special to note about him, he was just a puffball child.
The kid was standing and looking around with a confused expression. The eyes of the child passed over Nightmare, not noticing the phantom among the brush.
Ah. The child is lucid dreaming, The encroaching demon noted with intrigue. Lucid dreamers were a thorn in his side. They're not very common and Nightmare is perfectly happy about that.
This child was likely the one The Galaxy Army was training. Was the lucid dream a coincidence? Were they looking into lucid dreams to use against him?
The puffball seemed like he was going back to what he was doing before stopping again, as if bothered. He looked around again with more alert eyes. Nightmare wasn't paying close attention to the insignificant child, trying to recall other encounters with lucid dreamers. Sure they weren't common, and the chances of himself running into someone currently lucid dreaming is-
His thoughts were cut short as the child's eyes stopped in Nightmare's direction. Nightmare stared back for a second before noticing the kid wasn't continuing.
Can he see me? Nightmare stiffened at the prolonged stare. His question was answered when he was suddenly back in his throne room. That brat kicked me out.
He remembered why he hated lucid dreamers.