"Memory is no different from the deep sea."
"Never stare into the ocean on a moonless night."
Inside the dream lobby of the Reverie Hotel, a purple-haired woman sat alone on one of the lounge sofas.
Her head was lowered, her expression dim, as though she were lost in thought.
No one knew what exactly the young woman was thinking about.
Then, at that moment, an elegant yet languid voice suddenly drifted to her side.
"Waiting for someone?"
The girl slowly opened her eyes and looked up.
A woman draped in veils appeared before her.
Grace lingered in every movement she made.
There was confidence in her bearing, a mature charm in the curve of her lips, and within those violet eyes lay both curiosity and unmistakable interest toward the girl in front of her.
The girl gave a slight shake of her head.
She only glanced at the woman once before lowering her gaze again.
"Then... would you care to share a dance with me?"
Black Swan looked at the girl with great interest.
She had seen this girl in the Reverie Hotel's dream lobby countless times already.
There was something about her...
A scent that did not belong to this world.
It carried the shadow of IX.
Anyone who could walk away from the grasp of Nihility's IX could not possibly be simple.
Black Swan had developed an intense curiosity toward her memories.
That was why, even when the messenger of a god had summoned her earlier, she hadn't gone.
In Black Swan's eyes, if it was already a divine messenger calling, then there was no need for a mere Memokeeper like her to intervene.
Besides...
She had been watching this girl for quite some time now.
The girl raised her eyes slightly, then placed her hand into Black Swan's palm.
It was Black Swan's first invitation.
And the girl seemed as though she didn't quite know how to refuse.
"A Galaxy Ranger... mysterious, just like the rumors say. There's a touch of nobility to you as well."
Black Swan slowly drew closer, her body pressing intimately against the girl's.
If not for how suspiciously yuri-coded the whole thing looked...
One would almost think this was the sort of scene meant for adults only.
At the center of the dance floor, the lights converged upon the two of them.
As though the entire ballroom had become nothing more than a backdrop for their dance.
Elegant music drifted softly through the air.
In that moment, it felt as though the stage held only the girl and the graceful woman before her.
"The Hunt?"
"Not the only hunter."
"At this distance... you're even more captivating than you look."
The girl before her had clearly come for the Watchmaker's legacy as well.
But in Penacony's game...
Everyone lied.
Including Black Swan herself.
Her first probe failed.
There was a faint aura around the girl that blocked any attempt to pry into her memories.
"Now this is getting interesting, isn't it?"
As the two of them spun across the dance floor, they looked directly into each other's eyes.
Black Swan made her second attempt.
"The past shapes the present. Some people grasp their memories, while others are shackled by them."
"Unable to escape... so I acted."
Among the most mysterious Paths in the universe, Remembrance was one of the strangest.
Its methods and techniques were unfathomably obscure.
It could reach into the depths of your memory...
And dig out every secret hidden in the deepest corners of your heart.
That was why, after Evan had grasped the Authority of Consciousness, he had seen the possibility of memory within it.
Memory.
Dreams.
Consciousness.
In truth, they were all variations of the same thing.
Something intangible and elusive...
Yet intimately close.
At this moment, at the center of the dance floor, the girl gradually relaxed her consciousness and opened her mind.
And Black Swan's probing awareness began to slip into the girl's inner world.
Within this dance, Black Swan was guiding Acheron.
She held the lead.
But in the very next second—
A world woven of black and crimson surged forth like a raging tide, completely swallowing Black Swan's consciousness whole.
And in that instant...
A white-haired oni appeared before her.
The spinning scene, the white-haired demon—
In that moment, it manifested completely around Black Swan.
"Excuse me... were you asking me?"
Crimson eyes locked onto the woman before her.
The next instant—
Black Swan felt like a swan seized by the throat.
That strand of consciousness of hers was being forcibly stripped away.
Only then did Black Swan realize what she had stumbled into.
Cold sweat broke out all over her back.
She could never have imagined that, as a messenger of Remembrance, she would be turned against in the realm of memory itself.
It was terrifying.
Horrifying.
That white-haired oni had overturned every ounce of control Black Swan had held moments ago.
In this world of consciousness, Black Swan had no ability to resist.
Such a method was simply too dreadful.
Too despair-inducing.
Was this... Nihility?
The suffocating power of Nihility blanketed the girl's memory world.
Even that white-haired oni...
Seemed to be a nightmare the girl herself never wished to mention.
Terrifying. Truly terrifying.
Black Swan had always prided herself as a hunter of memories.
In Penacony, there were very few who could threaten her.
At least...
That had been true until this girl appeared.
Within this girl's memory world, the roles of hunter and prey had been utterly reversed.
Inside her memories...
Black Swan was nothing more than a plucked bird trapped in a demon's claws.
There was no way for her to escape.
Not until...
Acheron let her go.
Back in the dream lobby of the Reverie Hotel, the dance floor lights shone down upon Black Swan.
She was already drenched in sweat, staring at the girl in front of her with fear written all over her face.
Her thoughts sank into deep confusion and disbelief.
Only the girl herself looked back at her blankly.
"The Ever-Flame Mansion?"
"What's that?"
Judging by Acheron's genuinely puzzled expression, she clearly wasn't lying.
She truly didn't remember anything about the Ever-Flame Mansion.
She didn't even have the faintest recollection of Duke Inferno.
It was just...
Her memories.
Black Swan fell silent.
The world hidden within Acheron's memories was far too terrifying.
It was a place called Izumo.
Two planets, bound together by a tragic destiny, revolved endlessly around a pitch-black sun in an eternal waltz.
The planet that nurtured humanity was called Izumo.
The planet that birthed the gods was called Takamagahara.
On an unrecorded day in history, the eight million gods descended from Takamagahara.
The divine beasts bearing the names of gods turned heaven and earth upside down, shattered the land, and plunged the world into ruin.
Those gods had not come to rule.
They had come only to slaughter.
On the brink of extinction, Izumo embarked upon the path of godslaying.
With countless sacrifices, they felled one god after another, until at last twelve world-protecting divine blades were forged.
But at the very instant the war against the gods was about to end—
History came to an abrupt halt.
The two planets were annihilated overnight.
That black sun...
Was none other than IX, the Aeon of Nihility.
Those two planets had always existed beneath Its shadow.
There had never been any chance to escape.
And that demon...
Was the seemingly quiet girl standing before her—
Acheron, an Emanator of Nihility.
Only now did Black Swan realize how badly she had miscalculated.
If the being within that girl's memory world had not shown mercy...
Black Swan would have been lost in that sea of memories forever.
All she had wanted was a glimpse into the girl's past.
Who would have thought that past would be so horrifying?
She had nearly been killed on the level of consciousness itself.
It was terrifying beyond words.
And right then—
The surrounding world suddenly plunged into absolute darkness.
"What's happening?"
Black Swan was pulled up from the floor by Acheron and brought to stand beside her.
A moment later...
The ground beneath them collapsed.
...
After leaving Dewlight Pavilion at the Hour of Dewlight, Evan looked over the dreamscape around him and fell into thought.
This damned dream world...
Really was troublesome.
If only the Oak Family alone existed across all twelve dream hours, that would have been one thing.
But unfortunately, there were plenty of others trapped in this dream world as well.
Some of them were people important to him.
And there were also innocent guests wandering through the dreamscape.
If he really went on a killing spree here...
Nanook's gaze would probably turn this way.
At that point, being hunted by the Harmonious Choir would be the least of his problems.
He'd probably end up with half the universe after him.
Not long after leaving Dewlight Pavilion, Evan pulled out his phone.
He wanted to ask where March, the others, and the rest of the crew had gotten to.
Robin was dead.
She had already been sent into the deeper dreamscape, so by now she was probably in Dreamflux Reef.
That meant she would discover the truth sooner or later.
But getting out of Dreamflux Reef wouldn't be easy.
Which meant Evan would probably have to go fish Robin out himself.
[Evan: March, Stelle, Himeko, Yang—where are you guys right now?]
[...]
Unfortunately, even after waiting for a long while, no reply came.
And not long after the message was sent...
Evan sharply sensed that something was wrong.
The space around him began to collapse.
Some kind of force was trying to drag him elsewhere.
"Darling... something feels—"
"Mr. Evan, something's wrong!"
Before either of them could finish speaking, everything around them suddenly went silent.
Then, in the next moment, a chaotic force erupted around them.
A shattered dreamscape appeared before Evan's eyes.
This place was...
Evan narrowed his eyes.
His Authority over Consciousness could pierce through this space—
And yet the entire area felt disordered.
Like a mirror that had been torn apart and shattered.
He couldn't return to the shallow layers of the dreamscape.
Nor could he descend into the deeper dream world.
So this had to be...
"A shattered dreamscape."
"The Child's Dream?"
Evan's voice echoed through the fractured space, reverberating back and forth.
To read advanced Chapters, head over to p@treon:
patreon.com/nani_kaito