Having lived through past and present lives, Eugene had experienced various incidents and sustained numerous injuries.
Yet, even he had never experienced his head being completely shattered. He had smashed countless demon heads, but this was the first time his head had burst.
This was naturally the case, as a person typically died when their head was destroyed. It wasn’t only true for humans, either. Most creatures died if their heads were destroyed.
However, Eugene did not die now. He was in a dream. This was not reality. But that was precisely why it felt even more bizarre and repulsive.
Eugene watched as his skull fragments and brain bits scattered. He saw some liquid, possibly his blood or brain fluid, burst forth. His vision shook chaotically as his eyeballs sprung like springs and disrupted his sight.
The pain of his head shattering, the swirling vision — all of it was a strange, repulsive, and novel experience for Eugene. Even though what was happening was not real, the sensations Eugene felt were as real as anything in the physical world. He knew that he would feel something similar if his head were to be destroyed in reality.
Eventually, his body staggered. Without his head, his torso lost control. His legs trembled, and then he collapsed. Blood spurted from the messy stump of his neck like a fountain.
Such a scene was familiar to Eugene. But he was only familiar with the scene from the perspective of the perpetrator. Eugene himself had never suffered such a fate. Even though he had attained divinity, he was fundamentally human. Losing his head would mean death.
'I am alive.'
He quickly assessed the situation. His head was shattered, but his thoughts continued. Complex and horrific pain threatened to obliterate his reason, but Eugene remained composed, enduring the agony. 'Don't get swept away. Don't think about death.'
He repeated these words to himself like a mantra. His head had indeed exploded, but he had not died. However, if he dwelled on death and became engulfed by it, he would fall straight into Noir Giabella's nightmare.
Though his headless body sat there, spouting blood like a fountain from his stump, Prominence did not vanish. Eugene's sanctuary still protected him in this ludicrous dream.
'Again,' he thought.
Fwoosh!
The scattered brain fluid returned. His brain reassembled, and his skull rejoined. The rolling eyeballs returned to their sockets.
Thus, Eugene's head was restored. He gasped while pressing his hands against the floor as he pushed against the ground to stand up.
"Ahaha."
Laughter echoed from above. It was Noir's laughter. But her laugh was so loud it reverberated through the ballroom.
"You wanted to duel, didn’t you?" Eugene asked.
He frowned and looked around. The dozens of dancing Noirs had vanished. Only Eugene stood in the spacious ballroom.
And Noir was looking down at him from above. Eugene saw gigantic, purple eyes as large as a full moon. All Eugene could see in the ballroom were Noir’s eyes.
"I’m just kidding. It’s a joke. Hamel, why would I want to duel with you?" Noir giggled.
Rumble!
Her eyes seemed to recede, and then a gigantic hand descended towards Eugene.
"How about playing with dolls instead of a duel?" Noir suggested.
A massive finger attempted to grasp Eugene.
Was it that Noir had grown, or had everything else shrunk down? The question crossed Eugene’s mind momentarily, but he decided it didn’t matter either way. With a roar, the flames of Levantein lashed at Noir's fingers.
"Hmm."
The large finger dodged the flames. The movement was light and the motion minimal, but the flames missed their mark due to the space distorting and receding erratically.
"I’m going to be honest with you. I hate those flames,” said Noir.
Crackle!
The space crumpled and compressed around Eugene. He was stopped in his tracks for a moment, and Noir’s index finger curled while resting on her thumb.
"I don't want it to touch."
The finger flicked and struck empty air. That space compressed around Eugene was ripped away along with him. Eugene swallowed the blood curdling in his throat.
As long as all space was under Noir's control, using Prominence's spatial leap was impossible. The power of the sanctuary could only extend to protect Eugene in the dream.
On the other hand, Noir was free to do anything. It was already impossible to kill her in reality, but in the realm of dreams, it wasn’t an overstatement to call her omnipotent.
'But is Levantein's flame effective?' Eugene wondered.
Regardless of what Noir had just claimed, Eugene judged that Levantein was indeed effective against her. It was absurd to think otherwise.
Levantein, the Holy Moonlight Sword, was forged from the wishes of all gods existing from the last era to the present. It was a weapon designed to kill the Demon King of Incarceration and the Demon King of Destruction. Even if Noir Giabella had become an Evil God, it was impossible for Levantein to be ineffective.
The problem was, no matter how powerful Levantein was, it was meaningless if it couldn't hit its target.
Such concerns had been unnecessary in his duel with Gavid. As Vermouth had said, Gavid was a traditional swordsman. Even with the Demoneye of Divine Glory, Gavid’s tactics had been straightforward.
But Noir was different. In the first place, she had no need to choose a straightforward fight. Even now, it was so; no matter how much Eugene swung Levantein, it couldn’t reach her.
Fwoosh!
Levantein began to multiply again. The crumpling and unfolding space was now filled with dozens of flaming blades.
"I was surprised earlier, but,” Noir scoffed from high above. "The power itself may be duplicated, but the divinity cannot be. This is my dream, after all."
Crunch, crackle!
The ballroom was engulfed by flames and started to shake. The space itself began to crumple like a dollhouse made of paper.
The windows, hidden behind red curtains, shattered. Noir’s eyes were visible through the gaping window. Her purple eyes, emitting a sinister light, peered into the dollhouse.
"Well, even if there's no divinity, the power is considerable. But not enough to kill me. Even if the entire dream burns away and vanishes right now,” she stated.
Crash!
The ballroom and the mansion disappeared. In that instant, Prominence wrapped around Eugene. He hadn’t caught the transition between the dream ending and a new one beginning before, but this time, he did. He saw the dream that had unfolded vanish and a new one form.
With a mighty crash, a massive wave engulfed Eugene. It was not a metaphorical wave but a real one, complete with the salty tang of the ocean breeze and the distant cries of seagulls. Eugene instinctively swung Levantein and sliced through the wave.
"I can leave the blazing dream behind and simply dream anew,” Noir stated.
As soon as the wave was cleaved, a tranquil sea emerged, stretching boundlessly with no land in sight. Noir lay on a sunbed atop a giant flamingo float under a large parasol. She lifted her oversized sunglasses, which covered half her face, and grinned.
"Since we're at the sea, why not relax a bit first?" Noir proposed as she stood up. She held a bottle of oil she seemed to have conjured from nowhere, and whispered, "How about we apply some oil to each other?"
"Huh?"
By this point, Eugene could hardly hide his exasperation. He gazed towards the endless ocean and murmured, "Just how far can you go?"
"In a dream," Noir replied with a casual shrug and an easy smile, "nothing is impossible. Everything is as you've imagined, Hamel. Here, I am omnipotent."
This leisure was not pretense. The current dream was far more expansive than any before. There were no distinct settings like cabins, forests, mansions, or ballrooms. This place was truly an infinite ocean. The more Eugene tried to perceive an end, the more the ocean seemed to expand.
Such was the nature of this dream. The more he tried to penetrate it, the more it overwhelmed him. In this endlessly unfolding dream, Eugene's sanctuary seemed pitifully small.
'It's beyond anything I imagined,' Eugene realized.
He hadn't anticipated it would be this extreme. How could this be? The scale of it made it harder for Eugene to comprehend.
Even if Noir had spent three hundred years accumulating life-force using every method and pursuing optimum efficiency, even if she had created Giabella Park in recent years and gathered tremendous amounts of life-force and desire, this was… incomprehensibly excessive.
Eugene's shoulder twitched. Noir's left eye emitted a sinister light. It was the Demoneye of Divine Glory, which she had directly received from Gavid. He reconsidered and observed the dream anew. Eventually, Eugene came to an understanding.
Noir had used the Demoneye of Divine Glory to completely incarcerate the dream, cutting it off from the outside world and filling it with fantasies. In this dream, there was no distinction from reality. Here, every fantasy Noir desired became a reality.
"Do you understand now?" she asked.
Noir squeezed a generous amount of oil into her left hand.
"I know you don't want to admit it, but some things just aren't possible. In the dream world, I was already near invincible three hundred years ago. Now? Ahaha, do I even need to say?"
The beach towel draped over her shoulders slid off. Her swaying tail moved behind her back and pulled at the strings of her bikini top.
"Your struggles and resistance are enjoyable, but there's always time for that later. For now, let's enjoy something else. Let's apply oil to each other, lie down together, and soak up the sun."
Eugene briefly closed his eyes.
"Ah, don't misunderstand me, Hamel. I don't wish for a different ending with you. I am going to kill you, and you must kill me. This is all part of our journey to the end," Noir said.
Eugene contemplated with his eyes closed.
"So, why don't you enjoy yourself for a moment? You've been through so much. Hamel, endlessly reincarnated against your will, always having to live up to countless expectations. Oh, naturally, I know. I know that you would have done the same even without anyone expecting that much of you,” she continued.
How could he end this perfect world?
"Even if you hadn't known about Agaroth, given you are Hamel's reincarnation, you would have acted just as you have now, even if you had not been born into the Lionheart family but into a humble, no, a more wretched family. You would have... somehow found your way to me,” Noir confessed.
This was a world incarcerated by the Demoneye of Divine Glory, a dream constructed by the Demoneye of Fantasy. The fuel for this world's construction was all the power Noir had accumulated, along with the worship and faith garnered by fulfilling the desires of those in Giabella City through dreams.
This dream was Noir's sanctuary. Even if Eugene possessed Agaroth’s divinity and the Light, standing his ground was the best he could manage.
"I know it sounds cruel, Hamel, but this is your final destination," Noir continued.
Killing Noir in the dream was impossible. Levantein couldn't reach her. Even if he repeated the destruction of the dream, Noir would restart it again and again.
"You can't defeat me. Just as you prepared to kill me, I too, prepared to kill you. You might think you came here to kill me without any leisure, but you were too late from the start. I could have killed you at any time, Hamel,” Noir said.
Destroying the dream was easy. But what was the point of repeatedly destroying something that could be restarted indefinitely?
He knew. Using Ignition repeatedly, proliferating Levantein, and swinging it didn't tire him. The same was true for Noir. Then, this battle would end only when someone's spirit broke first after being worn down by the endless repetition.
"Don't think about it too hard, Hamel. If we enjoy ourselves a bit before it ends, maybe we'll both have fewer regrets?" Nir suggested temptingly.
With a rustle, the strings of her swimsuit loosened. Holding the clear oil in her hands, Noir gave a smile.
Eugene opened his eyes. His golden pupils were undisturbed, and his lips were firmly shut. Seeing his expression, Noir frowned.
"Don't you like the sea?" Noir asked.
Eugene came to a conclusion. Escaping the dream and returning to reality alone was difficult. He could try hundreds or thousands of times. If the only way to reach Noir was to erode the dream, Eugene was willing to do so.
But that was not the only method available to Eugene. Though he was in the dream, Sienna and the Saints existed in the reality outside.
'Can my voice not reach?' Eugene questioned himself.
Yet, he was undoubtedly connected to the Saints. That was enough. Just as Eugene felt the connection with the Saints, they too, must be feeling his presence. This itself became a coordinate. No matter how many times Noir recreated the dream, Eugene could not be erased. As such, this coordinate was immovable.
"It's pointless," Noir scoffed while shaking her head.
She, too, knew. Sienna Merdein, Kristina Rogeris, and Anise Slywood were outside Giabella City.
"If they had entered, I would have killed them," Noir giggled. Her fingers were slippery with oil as she rubbed them together.
"Hamel, you break it from the inside. Sienna Merdein, Anise Slywood, and Kristina Rogeris break it from the outside. Fine, that sounds impressive, but only if it goes as planned. Do you really think it’s possible? For a wizard resurrected from death, a ghost who clung hideously to this world in death, and a rotten doll made from the corpse of that ghost."
Crackle, crackle...!
She began to rub her fingers faster and more forcefully.
"Do you think they can break my dream? Really, do you think they will be of help to you?" Noir asked.
"Yeah," Eugene answered without hesitation.
He didn't provide a reason. He believed there was no need to justify faith. His response was filled with conviction.
"Oh, is that so?" Noir said flatly.
She did not like his answer. The straps of her swimsuit, which had loosened, came back together. The oil disappeared from her fingers.
"That's annoying."
Boom!
The flamingo float carrying Noir exploded, and with it, the ocean burst as well. Waves soared to the sky and crashed down all around Eugene.
"That faith of yours is annoying," Noir whispered beneath the shower of water droplets. She brushed back her wet hair with both hands while glaring at Eugene.
"I wanted to have a good dream with you, Hamel."
Whoosh!
Flames radiated out from Eugene, forming a circle around him. The split waves evaporated instantly. Through the dense fog, Noir pointed a finger at him.
"If you don’t want a good dream."
Crack!
Dark power surged from her finger and pierced the fog. Eugene reflexively raised Levantein to block the attack, but he couldn't cut through or deflect Noir's magic. The force blasted him and Levantein backward.
He was thrown back by the collision. Instead of pursuing him, Noir rotated the world by half. The sea that had been at their feet moved behind Eugene.
"I have no choice but to show you a nightmare."
The voice that should have been distant sounded right next to him. Along with the voice, the bubbling of froth filled Eugene's ears.
The bottomless sea swallowed Eugene.