It all began when the Dream World suddenly shook, as if a great cosmic quake began shaking the fabric of infinite reality.
"What the-?!" The Sleep Master jolted awake. "What's that noise?! What the heck is going on?!"
He flew outside of his house and gasped. In the great dreamy sky, a great cosmic rift formed as a crack like lightning. And it forced itself open, unleashing nightmares far worse than Hell itself!
"Oh no…" The Sleep Master panicked. "Oh nonononononononononoNO!"
The dark shadowy tentacles lowered themselves from the rift, distorting the Dream World and merging it with the Void to make an abomination even WORSE than the Nightmare Realm! Panicked dreamers screamed and vanished, waking themselves up.
And many monstrosities dropped down into the dream lands. Creatures of many shapes and sizes, with tentacles, eyes, maws, and far far worse. It was enough to make even the Sleep Master himself panic!
"AAAAH!" He screamed and ran away as Fear's ominous laughter echoed through the dream world. "Guys! Guys, we got a situation here! It's a Code Black! I repeat: IT'S A FREAKING CODE BLACK!"
…
Max awoke with a splitting headache. She needed to rest since she felt extremely tired after exposure to madness. Sasquatch DID get the barrier up and running at full power again. But…something felt different. Did she fall into a Reality Hole?
"Ow." Maximum Darkness winced as her shadow. "I don't know what that creepy thing did to us, but is it possible to make mental pain PHYSICAL pain?"
Well…Max WAS still just a kid. And she had gone through a lot. So yeah, it could make sense that she would start to get…messed up.
"Maybe they're trying to break me even further. They're targeting me because I'm the weakest in willpower." Max sighed. "What did they tell you?"
"That we were some kind of chosen one. Like a secret weapon to them. And I don't understand a THING about any of that."
"Good. Because I don't WANT to understand."
The visions and nightmares had begun getting worse and worse each and every time Max went to sleep. It was like A Nightmare On Elm Street, but the only thing dying was her mind and sanity.
Her mothers had been getting worried. Maybe the exposure triggered and did something. But was it working, or was she resisting?
Staying at the base, Max noticed something nearby: The Dark Tome. Mr. Lovecraft had called it the Necronomicon Ex Mortis, the Book of the Dead, and it had been an odd sort of book that the Midnight Society had first gained back when their days first began…
Well, at least she got SOME rest. But if she could understand that weird language, maybe she could finally translate that book…
The first thing she felt was that it was soft and warm. Like it was covered with human flesh. Maybe she was still losing her marbles, as she swore that the book never had a smiling face before.
She turned to the first page, noting how the words seemed to be inked with blood. Enough to fill an entire sea! Was that HUMAN blood? Max didn't know. And didn't WANT to know.
There had to be SOMETHING useful here. She continued reading through the book, putting the reading skills she got from her mother Lucy to the test…
…
Lovecraft had sensed various anomalies throughout the universe. Some on Earth, others in worlds beyond it. Van Helsing went with Seven Deadly Sins to investigate the anomaly in the draconic cavern region where Smolder resided. Immediately, he noticed something was wrong. The dead bodies weren't charred or eaten. Something else had killed them.
"Fear's one step ahead of us." Lovecraft noted. "What do these lairs hold?"
"The location of the Godstone." Van Helsing stated. "It's an ancient secret. Fear knew it would be here. He just needs to know where specifically."
"He can't know its location. I fear speaking it however, as I fear that we are somehow being watched. Either in waking or dreaming hours…"
"Chances are that there are some Dragon Deadites here. Sins, you'll have to take them out. In the meantime, we'll have to keep an eye out for any Abyssal Lords…"
The nine rushed forth, descending deeper and deeper into the molten and volcanic caverns of the interconnected tunnels throughout the dragons' cave lairs. And the deeper they got, the more they noticed that the tunnels were getting more and more darker and deformed.
"This is…wrong." Lovecraft noted. "Fear's begun merging your universe's Dreamlands with the Mystic Realm. He's trying to make a shortcut to the Godstone."
"He can't leave the dream world without a physical form." Van Helsing noted. "He's cheating his way through."
"I cannot tell if it is the madness of this place…" Lushara noted. "But I do believe I am hearing things…"
Van Helsing began hearing it as well. Roars, bursts of flame, and chanting. Under his mask, Lovecraft's eyes narrowed.
"I am currently shielding us from the madness with my magic." He stated. "We are not alone down here."
"Heh. Finally." Wargon chuckled. "I have awaited such action…"
Before Lovecraft could stop him, the Deadly Sin of Wrath drew his sword and charged forward with a roar, leaping into the darkness before them. Van Helsing only face-palmed.
"Sorry, but there's no stopping that guy." Primor said. "We tried."
The team rushed after the raging demon, following the sound of battle. There were also more roars and a voice roaring out.
"NEVER! I WILL NOT BE TURNED! I WILL NOT BE BROKEN!"
By the time the others rushed into the massive cavern, a very angry beast broke free of the magic restraints placed upon it by the cultists. Smolder began burning the masses of tentacles and cultists into nothing but melted crisps and corpses. Meanwhile, Wargon was laughing like mad as he hacked and slashed through the maddening horde, turning any tentacle that tried to grab him into sushi flambe.
"Damn, he's been playing a lot of Doom…" Van Helsing noted. "Welp, guess there's only one way out of this."
"We cannot remain here forever!" Lovecraft warned. "Even with my protection, it will only be a matter of time before our sanity erodes quickly, and our senses betray us!"
The demons quickly sprung into action, living up to their Earthly reputation by tormenting the mad cultists. Hands burst from Hell to grab the tentacles that also spawned from the unsacred earth, burning them and charring what very little remained of the shattered sanity of their souls.
Oddly, the monster hunter noticed how the cultists did not fear or resist death. They called out to their masters to let them embrace eternal sleep. He wouldn't be surprised if they were so evil that not even Hell wanted them.
Yet after they called their masters, SOMETHING answered. And it sent forth TWO Abyssal Lords from inky black portals, stepping forth in what was both the dreaming and waking world.
The Knight and the Slayer. The most brutal of the lords…
"Ha! At long last, I meet my equals!" Wargon only laughed. "With the dragon or not, I will see if it is possible to send a mad servant of the Great Old Ones to Hell for eternal torment!"
"The only eternal torment here will be YOURS, demon." The Knight said under his helmet. "Your body will feel pain, but will not perish. Your mind, however…THAT will be different."
"THESE CAVES WILL BE FLOODED WITH YOUR BLOOD!" The Slayer roared before the Deadly Sin of Wrath charged to meet them both.
Wargon's sword met the Knight's, blades and spears clashing like mad. When the lords drew blood, it almost surprised them how the blood was molten. Yet they did not fear burning alive.
Wargon's berserk instinct activated with each pain he felt, either mental or physically. He caught a thrown spear before getting slammed against a dark obelisk summoned forth, then tentacles from the knight's shield ensnared him!
He was pulled forward when, halfway, he sliced the tentacles off with his blade. The Knight advanced, the shield barfing up purple flame and slime. Wargon roared as it stunned his eyes, but backflipped from a lunging strike from the Slayer before punching him right in the single eye, breaking some eldritch bones.
It was almost impressive, Lushara thought. Wargon fought like a literal army, enough to overpower two of the Abyssal Lords. She could tell that this impressed Lovecraft…
Wargon dodged more thrown spears, slicing off more shackles. The Knight was more armored, but slower, whereas the Slayer was weaker, but more agile. Whenever the Slayer struck, Wargon drove his sword into one of the many eyes on its body, making it roar in pain.
Meanwhile, Smolder had equal rage, flying through the cavern and setting ablaze any and all sights of madness he could find. The tentacled and deformed faces melted off as tentacles were ripped from the ground and flailing around as burning tendrils. Nothing could cage this mighty dragon, as he ate more cultists whole. It wasn't long before their black blood stained the cavern walls.
Breathing hellfire too intense for the Knight to block, Wargon intercepted an ambush strike from the Slayer, breaking the eldritch arm and ripping it off, the Abyssal Lord screaming like mad.
Wargon didn't stop. He hacked off the tail next. Then the second arm, then the legs. And then he stabbed furiously at each and every eye on the body before grabbing the Slayer by the neck, even crushing the groin with a single stomp.
"You will pay for this…" The Slayer roared with no mercy. "My gods will make me reborn, and I will return with an ARMY! This pain is nothing! I live for all eternity!"
"Oh? So you're immortal?" Wargon smirked. "Well, HERE'S what I think of it!"
And with a swift motion, he ripped the head clean off, tossing it into the air and chucking the Slayer's own spear at it, slicing the head completely in two as the eldritch being's body melted away into purple goo.
"Ooo, that's gotta hurt." Primor winced. "Looks like the Slayer just got slain!"
Only the Knight remained. He showed no remorse, no emotion towards his brother's end. Perhaps the Slayer was right when he said he would return.
Wargon had no need for a shield, yet he conjured one hellish, fiery, and spiky just to be even with the Knight. There had to be SOME honor within him.
The two clashed, blade against blade, and shield against shield. They were evenly matched, their brute force making them unstoppable and immovable. The Knight managed to impale Wargon, but the demon only laughed.
"That tickled…"
He then headbutted the Knight and breathed forth hellfire, but the armored warrior grabbed him by the head and slammed him down onto a knee. It seemed like those mad and twisted like the Abyssal Lords did not fear Hell or eternal torment.
"Your hellfire is but a candlelight in the darkness of the infinite void." The Knight scowled. "Even Satan himself would go mad at the sight of the Great Old Ones."
"Even if the mortals claim him to be pure evil?" Wargon asked.
"They have never seen what TRUE pure evil looks like. One so terrifying that it kills the mind."
Demon and Eldritch clashed again and again. Seeing others retreat, Primor realized something: They were probably going to search elsewhere for the whereabouts of the Godstone's Location!
"They ain't getting away!"
He took off at blazing supernatural speeds, easily pummeling each one as the other Sins slew more cultists and abominations. The cultists, eldritch pentagrams carved into their flesh, seemed to scream and roar like deadites that lived still.
Greed was a tricky adversary. The cultists came in a howling, gibbering rush of bodies. He tossed out spiked caltrops to trip and sting them. The front ranks faltered and fell with agonized howls. The caltrops were followed by a hurricane of black shuriken that streaked through the darkness of the cavern to strike their targets with lethal accuracy. Bodies tumbled to the ground as the advance was slowed, and finally halted altogether.
Glorton munched down on many more tentacles, Slor taking blows from sacrificial knives as if they were nothing. Environ tricked cultists into thinking they stabbed her when they actually stabbed each other. And Lushara choked more to death with her whip before snapping the necks.
Finally, after shattering the living sword and breaking the sentient shield, Wargon beat the Knight relentlessly. And with one final blow, he broke the ribs as he knocked the dark being back onto the ground. All the Knight did was get back up and conjure forth an identical set of weapons, possibly the same ones from before, now repaired.
"They call you the Knight." Wargon smirked. "I wonder if you can do what all other knights can do…"
"And what would that be?"
The Knight's question was answered when Smolder landed in front of him with a loud snarl.
"Slay the dragon, and I will see you worthy of the title." Wargon chuckled.
"Slay the body? First I shall flay the mind…"
The Knight stabbed the scales with the sword…and no blood was shed.
"What?!"
"MY SCALES CANNOT BE PIERCED BY THE BLADE OF ANY MERE MORTAL." Smolder stated. "NOW THAT THE MAGIC OF THE DREAM WORLD STRENGTHENS ME, NO BLADE OF ANY CAN DO THE SAME. AND MY SCALES FORTIFY THE MIND. IT IS AS I SAID…I CANNOT BE BROKEN. TO ME, YOU ARE BUT A MERE SIMPLE…DESSERT."
With a heavy inhale, Smolder breathed forth immense flame that the Knight guarded against, blocking with the shield as it began burning. He then smashed the Knight under a talon, pulverizing him with the tail, and finally broke his bones in his jaws.
The Knight only roared as it, like many others in fables and lore, became nothing but a feast for the beast. Wargon only smirked.
"My kill was better." He stated as Smolder spat out the armor.
"EVEN THE TASTE IS HORRENDOUS!" The dragon cursed. "NEXT TIME I'D PREFER TO SEE IF THESE MADDENING THINGS HAVE BONES…"
"It will take more than killing the physical form to destroy an Abyssal Lord." Lovecraft noted. "Azathoth will revive his enforcers with a body even stronger than before. The fact that we encountered TWO of them is a grim omen. Truly this was important to them."
"THEY EVEN CORRUPTED MOST OF MY KIN." Smolder added. "I WILL SEE THEM BURN FOR THIS ATROCITY."
"Sasquatch stated that the Unicorns put up a barrier around their kingdom, but it won't hold for long." Van Helsing said. "There's only one way I can think of to stop all of this: Kick some Outer God ass."
"You will lose yourself upon seeing their forms. Your minds cannot comprehend them." Lovecraft stated. "Leave them to me. You must focus on ensuring that they do not know the locations of R'lyeh or the Godstone. Which means that they cannot possess the Necronomicon."
"Got it. No book means no city. No city means no physical form. No physical form means no Godstone. No Godstone means no death to the universe. So yeah, no pressure."
Speaking of the Necronomicon, the monster hunter began speculating that it might prove to have useful info on defeating Fear. Maybe Lovecraft could translate it.
He guessed that he would have to find out back when they returned to base.
…
"Woah…you…you actually read the whole thing?!"
Van Helsing thought nothing shocked him. Until Cory's words about what Max had read clearly.
"Guess my mom's love of reading paid off." She stated. "Maybe it was the exposure to Fear's madness that allowed me to perfectly translate it. This thing was Tolkien levels of long, cause that thing is a THOUSAND PAGES LONG!"
"Woah." Lisa gasped. "How did you not fall asleep?"
"It had some really interesting things." Max said. "Including its entire history! You might wanna strap yourselves in here, guys. There's a lot to cover, so I'll try to be brief…"
