Nightmare Mythos

Cesar left Nightmare Shop with an outcome that was quite better than what he was expecting. What confused him, however, was how a Higher Nightmare Creature was found dead at the pond, which Cedeit still had no explanation for.

If something as strong as that only provided a concentration of essence in this city, what could have made that abomination into something like that?

"Care to give me some explanation?"

Cedeit who heard his whisper replied very swiftly, "I don't. I would like to tell you that even though I'm knowledgeable, my other consciousness is way, way more than what I contain. They could've told you what that was about. Sadly, you only have me,"

Cesar didn't dwell much on the situation regarding the Nightmare he found in the mountainside of Flora City. He put his mind at ease and did window shopping first to find some weapons suitable for him even if it's not Artifacts.

When he found absolutely nothing that interested him, he went to the inn where Arnold was currently staying for the day.

…

"Cesar?"

Cesar let out a gasp as he opened his eyes tiredly. Looking at the window to see the situation, it seemed it's been a while since they resumed their travels after resuming their travels a few hours ago.

Passing through countless cities as there was a skyway to use for vehicles when traveling across high distances, it didn't take long before they entered Langston Bridge, the interconnected and Intersecting Bridge.

Moving inside the gigantic bridge that only provided lights inside of it, the driver skillfully traveled through smoothly. There was no waste of movement and made sure the two of them are safe.

While the driver was doing his job perfectly, Cesar focused on himself and started to use Iso's teaching to keep his breaking Soul intact.

As of now, symptoms started to appear of his Soul crashing down.

He didn't notice it at first but he was more fatigued than ever even if his movements were only minimal. Like yesterday when he was merely pulling the Nightmare Flesh out from his storage, he felt sweat above his forehead even though something as simple as that shouldn't tire him way back.

An additional symptom he noticed is his sleep. Right after they leave for their destination at Dawn Breaker, Cesar realizes he slept for a solid thirteen hours upon checking the time right before he went concentrating.

It wasn't just a few hours since then.

"You were sleeping so well I didn't even want to disturb you," Arnold said before handing over a piece of burger to Cesar, "Eat now. I can hear your stomach grumbling,"

As if he was right, Cesar's stomach indeed let out a low growl as if his hunger couldn't be left unchecked any longer. He stopped doing the essence exercise and shifted his gaze at the food.

"…"

Receiving the burger bashfully, Cesar began to eat his fill as Arnold kept offering food. It looked like an owner was feeding his dog but Arnold wasn't like that as he was just doing this with good intent.

"Just how much food is this?"

"Enough,"

Cesar felt that his hunger was already satiated. Bringing down the spare food, he went back into concentrating once more and Arnold left him be.

Moving into their peaceful ride as the time seemed to pass by so fast, their vehicle finally left the Langston Bridge. Once more, the driver asked Arnold if they should take a break since their vehicle needed another set of gas to fuel its engine up.

However seeing that Cesar didn't have any intention of sight-seeing in the current city, Arnold told the driver that they will resume their ride the moment the vehicle gassed up.

That's what they did.

From time to time, Cesar took a few minutes break to replenish his exhausted mental state due to the relentless time he put into the essence exercise from Iso's course. Because of that, he was only able to spot a few things on the road but he could feel he passed through different kinds of terrain.

At once, the ride was so bumpy that he and Arnold kept shaking in their places. Then there was the time when the vehicle had to take a slow approach due to the harsh terrain, then another landscape where there was so much traffic they had to go through a lot of streets to make themselves escape from the hellish road.

All these roads came to an end the moment their arrival in the City of Lights was right ahead of them.

And just as its name suggests, even if someone is very far from the whole city itself, one can see the brimming lights that show someone's eyes with brightness. It was very blinding… and also a bit too much.

"We're finally here,"

Arnold let out a sigh as he started stretching himself due to the fact that the only thing they did together was sit in one wide space beside each other. Their faces look very raggedy and very spent.

"Can I look around for a moment?"

Cesar asked, very interested in the city he was going through for a week right the moment the banquet started. So why not enjoy it till then?

Arnold contemplated it for a brief moment before nodding once, "If you want to learn about the whole city's structure and history, go towards the Hunter's Association Guild. But if you want to learn more, go to the owner of that branch and tell them, 'Arnold's on the house'"

Cesar tilted his head before remembering those words at the back of his head.

Parking the vehicle at the side after the driver saw the chance, Cesar went down and finally could view the whole city right outside of its gate.

"Finally… something that didn't smell like a car interior at all," Cesar paused as he added, "City of Lights, Dawn Breaker. Cesar, the Hero of Wheels is entering your humble abode,"