(Written while listening to: "Being Alive" by Audio Machine on YouTube)
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So apparently this guy was a first generation Sleeper, at least from what Laito could guess.
Despite his attempts to remain calm, Damian was certainly not right in his head, so a lot of his "story" was intermingled with a lot of frothing, switching between screaming and quietly mumbling, only to enter a state of some unhinged convulsions. After he was out of words to say, Damian finally managed to calm down.
He basically passed out.
That left Laito floating alone in stunned silence, trying to filter out important things from the tirade he was just subjected to.
Basically: Damian was a first generation Sleeper. Not only that, but he was one of the very-very few survivors of the first descent of the Nightmare Spell.
He was one of the people who was subjected to it without even knowing what hit him.
Miraculously, he survived his trial, only to wake up in a world that was rapidly devolving into absolute chaos.
The vast majority of the people that NS has chosen, died very fast and became the openings for Nightmare creatures to invade reality.
The events mentioned by Damian were very similar to what Laito remembered from what was described in the Shadow Slave novel.
Flood of monsters overwhelming the world militaries, massive eruptions of human on human conflict, carnage like the world has not yet seen, etc.
For a few months Damian used his newfound Memories and ability he gained from Nightmare Spell to protect his immediate family and search for any pocket of safety.
He even suceeded… for a time.
But nobody knew about the Winter Solstice.
So when the Nightmare Spell influenced its very first Winter Solstice on Earth, Damian and all other "miracle survivors" of their First Nightmares got caught off-guard.
Damian especially forced himself to ignore approaching symptoms, as his group was on the run at the time and when he suddenly had fallen into the Nightmare Realm… it happened while he was in the middle of the fight, being the only thing that separated a small group of Dormant Beasts from his wife and daughter.
Needless to say: Laito knew very well that while Damian's Spirit Body got thrown into the Nightmare Realm, his earthly body, alongside with his family, got most likely torn to pieces.
That also made Damian one of the "Lost".
Which is the reverse of a Hollow.
Hollow is an empty body whose soul died within the Nightmare realm.
Lost is a person in the Nightmare Realm whose original body in Waking World has died.
Ever since that time, Damian has lived within exactly the same area where the Nightmare Spell has thrown him into…
Inside of the belly of a giant squid-baby monster, in the depths of Storm Sea.
How did he survive?
Damian had armor that granted him immense acid-resistant properties. Alongside with his harpoon that allowed him to always be able to breathe as long as it's summoned. Even if underwater, or in this acidic pit of a hellscape. He also had some weird tools that could whith which he could make himself "campfires" from bones... how did it work?
Nobody knows.
He had to feed himself either on whatever the monster had eaten itself or on some smaller gastric parasites that also dwelled somewhere lower into the entrails… these parasites were also a nice-but-dangerous way to farm some lesser Memories too.
Despite having an extremely lucky combination of assets that allowed Damian to survive this extremely unlucky spawn point… there was another reason why he was still alive.
Normally a man who loses all that he had and all the people he loved and falls into the deepest of nightmares incarnates has a high chance to lose a will to live and fight… give up and let himself dissolve into mush… it wouldn't be that hard.
Just dismiss protective armor for more than a few minutes and be done with it.
And Damian would most likely do that too.
But what stopped him…
Was his Flaw.
Damian's Aspect Name was: Hierophant.
And it's Flaw basically forced him to choose any living divine entity as his own and then to worship it.
Failure to meet this condition resulted in madness.
And it was that madness that prolonged his life up until the moment of his meeting with Laito.
For well over a decade he has waited for any change.
And that change was the arrival of the very being that was now essentially a sentient invisible disco ball.
That disco ball also conveniently had a Divinity of Light.
And indeed the moment Damian declared Laito his "Oh, Old One!" The accumulated madness in Damian's mind starts to slowly abate.
At least the Flaw-induced one, because years spent in that state would definitely leave a mark on his psyche.
But that was for another time to consider.
Now.
Laito had to decide what to do with this guy and with the situation in general.
If he killed the squidwart like he planned earlier… that would certainly spell doom for the poor hermit.
Ironically, the monstrosity's body, despite being a prison, was also the only thing that shielded Damian from the assured-death zone that was Storm Sea.
The guy was restricted by his physical flesh, unlike Laito.
Protecting him would be a massive pain in the ass.
But then having his own deranged cultist played very well into the "Lovecraftian vibes" that Laito's Aspect metaphorically screamed with.
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Decisions, decisions…
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[16 months left until MHA plot beginning]
[Chapter End] The story is not over yet
My tipping jar: buymeacoffee.com/marasis
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Author notes:
Awkward.
Posting anything after a "week break" that turned into months long is insanely awkward for me.
Apparently, once you break your release schedule, it's quite difficult to get back to it.
And I can't shake the feeling of disappointing the readers.
Welp.
I guess I gotta finally quit the whining.
Tho, from now on there's no more "schedule".
Otherwise I would be forcing myself and the quality of everything would dramatically drop.
Unfortunately, I can't write anymore in any other way than "willy-nilly".
But!
That's at least something.
Thank you all here that had the angelic patience to still check in on this story. Your comments has put the necessary pressure on my lazy ass.
Aaaand…
See ya soon!
I hope.
Or maybe not-so-soon. Idk.
p.s. Damian Schneider is actually a returning character. We already got to know him back from the prologue!
What a small world(s) we live in... Am I right?