Chapter 2277 — 2277: This Ain't No Hymn

Eventually, Effie gave Sunny a glare and grumbled:

"I liked you more when you were Master Sunless…"

He chuckled.

"I am still the same man, though."

She sighed and leaned back, picking up a pastry from the tray.

"Well, yeah! But you are also a powerful Supreme who goes around beheading Sovereigns…"

Sunny raised an eyebrow, then shrugged nonchalantly.

"You are the world's sweetest mom, but also a Transcendent powerhouse who goes around tearing Great Nightmare Creatures apart with bare hands. A person can be more than one thing."

Effie swallowed the pastry and gave him a satisfied look.

Then, her eyes gleamed dangerously.

"More than one thing, you say? That reminds me… Princess, does he ever…"

Luckily, whatever she wanted to say was interrupted by the sound of the door opening. Cassie entered the parlor, carrying a stack of documents with her.

"Oh, you are all already here. Let us start — Nephis has to move on to the next item on her schedule in thirty-four minutes."

With that, their brief meeting began. As the Supreme ruler of humanity, Nephis was endlessly busy — if she was not on the battlefield, she was usually drowned in an endless parade of strategy meetings and discussions. Every day, she had to make countless decisions, many of them having the potential to affect the very future of mankind.

Of course, the benefit of being the highest authority in the world was that there were vast resources at her disposal — human resources, most of all. Humanity's best and brightest were ready to answer her call, advise her on the best course of action, and take various tasks off her hands. In fact, with Cassie's help, Nephis had built a greatly efficient pyramid of delegation.

The great apparatus of the Human Domain worked as a well-oiled machine.

The most precious resource in the world was talent, and there were countless talented individuals working together to accomplish the goals she set. Still… even that was not enough. So, one of the most important priorities of the new regime was to seek and nurture talent.

Administrative talent, scientific talent, engineering talent… all kinds of people were recruited and given ample opportunities to realize their varied talents, as well as grow.

But most of all, of course, what Nephis wanted was to nurture strength.

Humanity needed warriors more than it needed anyone else, after all.

So, everyone was encouraged to grow stronger. Awakened were encouraged to become Masters, Masters were encouraged to become Saints. Saints were encouraged to reach the very peak of their potential, or even challenge the Fourth Nightmare if they wished — not that anyone had, yet. As a result, the number of champions of all Ranks had been swiftly growing in the last year.

The fact that countless inexperienced Awakened had returned from Godgrave as seasoned veterans was helping greatly, too.

…And, of course, mundane people were encouraged to become Awakened.

Now that people were migrating to the Dream Realm en masse, the nature of Awakening had transformed. Before, only those chosen by the Spell could challenge the First Nightmare — but now, anyone who passed through the Dream Gate could. All they had to do was request it.

They did not even need to return to the waking world with the help of a Saint or leave the boundary of Neph's Domain. All they needed to do was wish for it sincerely in their hearts.

Sensing their strong desire to challenge a Nightmare, Nephis could release them from the protection of her Domain.

Strangely enough, people tended to do it communally. The places where they gathered to prove their longing were solemn and quiet, with people meditating in silence for hours, or sometimes even days… to Sunny, they looked similar to believers kneeling in a temple to pray.

It was quite eerie, actually, to see how readily people forgot that Nephis, too, was a person, and treated her as some kind of goddess instead. He knew for a fact that this strange development had nothing to do with what Nephis and Cassie themselves wanted.

If anything, they wanted the opposite, since believing in a benevolent deity would eventually instill people with a subconscious belief that they would be saved — instead of inspiring them to seek enough strength to save themselves.

What Nephis wanted was to become someone whom people believed they could become, not a heavenly existence that was forever out of reach.

…In any case, there were more and more mundane humans Awakening every month. They did not have to wait for the winter solstice anymore — passing through the Dream Gate and anchoring them to a Citadel was enough to become an Awakened, even if some still chose to pass the second trial of the Spell without any help.

There were unintended consequences to that new reality, as well. For one, the Awakened Academy had to change and open its doors to mundane youths for the first time since its establishment. Since anyone could become a Sleeper as long as they willed it, withholding the best education from the aspiring youths had no point.

Another side effect was far more somber.

People were encouraged to become stronger, but not forced to. Still, there were more and more mundane people challenging the First Nightmare, more and more Awakened challenging the Second, and more and more Masters challenging the Third. The number of human warriors of the Awakened, Ascended, and Transcendent Ranks was swelling…

But not all the challengers survived. In fact, for every one who succeeded, there were several who did not.

The grim harvest of lives the Nightmare Spell collected was more plentiful than it had ever been, with the exception perhaps of the first days of its descent.

At the same time, there were more Nightmare Gates opening in the waking world, and more youths being infected by the Nightmare Spell naturally every day.

Sadly, there was little Nephis could do about the latter even if she wanted to. The Sword Domain and the Song Domain had stood on a foundation built by the Nightmare Spell — the Citadels. Her Domain, however, had no boundary, existing in the hearts of those who were inspired by her.

It spanned both worlds… but Nephis and Sunny swiftly found out that the suppressing effect Domains seemed to have on the tiny seeds of Corruption hiding in the hearts of Aspirants was not, in fact, an expression of a Sovereign's power.

Instead, it was a function built into the Citadels by the Spell, just like Nightmares themselves were a function of the Spell that gave humans a chance to destroy the Seeds before they blossomed.

So, only those followers of Nephis who lived in the area of influence of her Citadels could escape the First Nightmare.

That was why the population of the Night Garden could cross over to Earth and be spared the deadly trial, but the infected youths of the waking world could not rely on their goddess to save them from having to face it.

All they could do was pass through the Dream Gate to postpone their Nightmares, if they wished to do so... and had enough time to flee.

In the end…

Humanity was reinvigorated and inspired to strive for greater heights.

However, there was still a mountain of broken dreams hiding in the shadow of its rise from the ruins of a crumbling world.