章節 29: The Coronation
"People create gods when they wonder why things happen, and do you know why things happen, it's because gods made them happen,"
"So, who came first, gods or men?"
—Hypnos to Morpheus on the mysteries of the divine.
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Finally, the time has come.
With certitude, Hypnos thought, thrumming the armrest of his throne in the heart of Dreaming. He was fully present in his realm for the epochal event that was about to occur. There could be no mistakes, no errors, no slights, for he was facing the most important crossroads of his path—he was about to open his realm for all of creation.
The primal realms allow second-generation primordials to gain firm control over the concepts they embody, allowing their power to grow freely over time without their efforts until they eventually ascend to the level of original primordials. They also reflect their perception and conception onto their own concepts, allowing them to be modified according to their will and imagination. They were also at their strongest here, to the point of being unbeatable even by beings mightier than them.
Consequently, their realms were their lifeblood.
And his realm was Dreaming.
Dreaming existed on a metaphysical plane between reality and unreality. Because all minds dream, his realm was like an infinite curtain that overlapped the mind world, only to be felt and entered by sleepers to spend the other half of their lives.
In the long run, dreaming was also infinite in size and proportion, allowing it to cater to the endless dreams of all beings in creation, from tiny bacteria to mighty primordials.
Yes, Hypnos was resolved to monopolise the concept of dream for himself; it was the most critical step on his journey to becoming the Primordial of Dream. He had an instinctive feeling that if he went down this dream path, he would confront a lot of enemies, despite the fact that there was no Primordial of Dream in creation. But he didn't dare forget his mother and father's eerie words: he needed to keep "Them" away from the astral realm, which he now believes was the colourless ocean at the endless edge of his dream.
Anyway, Hypnos stopped worrying about it for the time being, focusing on the matter at hand.
His realm was complete—he had meticulously laid the groundwork and framework.
Then there were his living creations: dreams and nightmares. He made a lot of them over the last year, each with a specific purpose in dreaming, such as guiding dreamers to face and overcome their fears and inspiring dreamers by giving hope to even the most insignificant of their ideas and aspirations.
Those were just a few of the many tasks assigned to his living creation. They were vital to the operation of his realm—if the Dreaming were a human body, they would be the red blood cells—so he had taken great care in creating them all, giving them each a name, an identity, a purpose, and a home.
To be honest, Hypnos found himself enjoying creating—having his ideas come to fruition, his dreams come true—through his own powers. It was truly exhilarating. He suspected he would never get tired of it.
In any case, Hypnos had summoned the Dreams and Nightmares to two realm gates—the Gate of Horn and the Gate of Ivory—for the opening. They obliged with zeal and trepidation, as it was their first day of work.
He'd also summoned Mnesmosyne back to Dreaming for the occasion, as she played an important role in his realm as well. In his realm, the Titan of Memory had built her Hall of Remembrance.
Within it was the Pool of Anameisis, created by Hypnos. The pool was programmed by him to attract the memories of sleepers and trigger the birth of dreams. It was absolutely vital to the operation of his realm, and he had appointed Mnesmosyne to oversee it.
Anastasia, the Librarian, was already at her station in the Great Library, preparing herself for the books of dreamers.
All in all, everyone and everything was where they should be, ready and primed for the epochal event.
Hypnos reclined on his throne and decided to give it all a final check, and so his senses expanded into his infinite realm, analysing everything within a fraction of a second, and the result was…
All was well.
Hypnos took a deep breath, bracing himself for what was about to happen—the opening of the primordial realms would cause quite a stir in creation; it would be more appropriate to describe it as a declaration of power and ascension. Thanatos, his brother, caused a great uproar by declaring himself the Death of Cosmos and opening his realm—Tenebours.
The Lord of Dream looked ahead at his infinite realm with a settled expression on his face.
Finally, he tapped the armrest of his throne.
Immediately, an unseen wave of power swept into Dreaming, even through the mind realm, passing into the material and spiritual worlds, as well as the infinite realms of primordial beings and other cosmic beings.
And the whole of the cosmos shimmered with unreal light as though, for a moment, everything in Totality was nothing more than a dream in the mind of Hypnos himself.
The Primordial of Sleep felt his perception expand into all of creation in this infinitesimal moment. He immediately began to feel contradictions within himself—he was everywhere yet nowhere; he saw everything yet nothing; the knowledge and secrets of the cosmos filled his mind yet escaped him; his very existence was real yet unreal.
He was the Dreamer.
Hypnos suddenly understood. The answer came from nowhere, like a whisper from the Khaos "Herself",and "She" didn't stop there:
He was the Dreamer—A Paradox of Creation and An Error in Cosmos; The Bringer of Chaos and the Breaker of Order; The Monarch of Sleeping Marches and the Ethnarch of Unreality; The Nightmare King and the Sultan of Sleep.
He was, in the end, the Shaper.
With that realisation, the unseen wave of power that had swept the entire cosmos converged back to Hypnos in a split second, returning the cosmos to its previous state, free of the clutches of unreality.
Immediately, Hypnos felt his power increase exponentially, far surpassing his initial expectations and assumptions and sending his mind into a state of chaos.
Meanwhile, the Dreaming realm rumbled as the colossal gates of Horn and Ivory opened with thunder, unveiling a dreamy and chaotic expanse. The Dreams and Nightmares marched through gates, their faces set with determination, plunging directly into the dreams of sleepers one by one to complete their tasks to the utmost of their abilities.
And throughout the unreal lands of Dreaming, an infinite number of sleepers—from mortals to gods, insects to monsters, demons to angels—began to materialise for the other half of their lives.
Mortals went about the Dreaming unaware of its existence since their feeble minds couldn't comprehend the primal realm, whereas Gods and other higher beings looked around in wonder and marvel, but two stood out: Nut, the Egyptian Goddess of Sky, and Geb, the Egyptian God of Earth—the divine lovers who were separated by Ra as a punishment for threatening his rule—were finally reunited in the Dreaming in blissful tears after millennia apart. They then turned to Heart of Dreaming to express their heartfelt gratitude to Hypnos.
Elsewhere in Dreaming, Anastasia was waving her hands around tremendously, as though commanding a grand orchestra, which she indeed did, for there was an endless band of shimmering books heading to each wave of her hand, flying to their allotted sections, slowly filling the infinite sleeves of the Great Library.
Mnesmosyne tended to the pool of Anameisis in the Hall of Remembrance as memories of sleepers shimmered into existence on its layers, causing it to swirl upon itself like a chasm of chaos and sparking the birth of an infinite number of dreams, which were like shimmering stars, rising within the waters of unreality and drifting into the minds of sleeping marches.
Concurrently, the Primordial of Sleep opened the Dreaming to the Creation, rolling open its dreamy doors to all sleepers of the Cosmos and welcoming everyone to the world of unreality.
All the while, Hypnos reclaimed his throne with his eyes closed, still digesting the astronomical changes of power within himself, though he had already separated a part of himself to keep an eye on the opening event of Dreaming.
To say he was flabbergasted by the rise of his power was an understatement—it far exceeded his initial expectations. He had gained a firm foothold on his concept of sleep, as expected, but his power over the concepts of dream and mind grew dramatically beyond his expectations, and he felt his power extend to many other concepts related to the concept of sleep.
But this was not what truly stunned him; rather, it was the expansion of his influence over the cosmos. Unlike the original Primordials, the Second-Generation Primordials had a limit to how much their concepts could affect the cosmos. This limit, however, could be worn down through training to improve control of their concept or simply through the passage of time, and thus their influence over the Cosmos would gradually grow with it to the point where they would eventually break free and ascend to the level of their parents. All second-generation primordials followed this fixed and ordered path to become the Original Primordials.
However, in the case of Hypnos, that established precedent was broken. With the opening of his realm, the Lord of Dream felt his hold on the cosmos loosen enormously, and in retrospect, his influence had expanded into half of it. He had already overtaken his siblings in power, even Aether, his eldest brother, who had expanded his influence to one-fourth of totality in the two centuries since he had opened his domain.
What caused this…?
Hypnos didn't feel any exhilaration at his new-found power; rather, worry and fret filled his heart. He recalled the saying from his previous life: "Nothing good ever comes without a price."
He recalled the whispers of nothingness that crowned him as a Paradox of Creation, an Error in Cosmos and the Breaker of Order.
The Lord of Sleeping Marches was aware that his reincarnation was never a coincidence—it couldn't be, given that he was reborn as the Primordial. He had always believed that a higher power was responsible for his rebirth, and he had spent a lot of time trying to figure out who it could be and what its purpose was.
Hypnos already knew the answer to the first question, ever since his second meeting with his dear cousins, who referred to him as "the harbinger of chaos."
If that clue wasn't obvious to him, he didn't know what was, but he chose not to think about it any further. He didn't want to give in to his pessimism even more at the time when he was with his beloved.
But, with his ascension, he was forced to accept his conclusion—he was mostly reincarnated by Khaos, the progenitor of the Primordials. Even his now utter increase of influence and power could be related to "Her".
Hypnos even came to the far-reaching conclusion that it was really Khaos who whispered and crowned him in his ascension.
As for what "Her" purpose was for doing all this, he had no answer. The existence of Khaos completely escaped him….
The Sultan of Sleep reclined on the throne of Dreaming, his troubled thoughts restrained. He didn't allow himself to be extremely worried because there was no point. He chose to deal with the problem as it arose—a risky strategy, to be sure, but it was the only one he had for the moment. Rather, what he could do was prepare for the inevitable future that awaited him.
Hypnos took a deep breath, pushing the issue to the back of his mind and calming down before returning his attention to the issue at hand—his opened realm. He retrieved the silver that was tending to the changing situation of Dreaming and personally focused on the progress of his opened realm, which was presented to him in the form of holographic projections that swirled around his throne.
Just as he dove into endless information, he felt a tinge in his perception, and his eyes slightly widened. 'It's already happening,' he reasoned. 'I didn't expect…'
In an instant, Hypnos vanished from his throne in a flash of dreamy light.
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Hall of Remembrance.
Hypnos materialised in the abode of Mnesmosyne.
"My Lord!" Mnesmosyne turned from the pool of Anamnesis, noticing his arrival and then his solemn expression. "Is there a problem?" she inquired, her gaze trailing back to the starry pool of memories.
"Watch with me," Hypnos said simply, joining her beside the quaint pool.
Mnesmosyne heeded tentatively, pressing down her doubts, and then together they gazed at the shimmering pool in resounding silence.
And it was soon broken; the pool of Anameisis began to stir restlessly as some memories began to brighten, gradually outshining others completely.
Mnesmosyne glanced over at them—they were the memories of humans from a mortal tribe in Western Africa known as the Akan. It was chaotic and mostly meaningless, but they all had one thing in common: they all showed mortals praying to Ananasi, the God of Stories and son of Nyame, the supreme God of the Sky.
Though upon investigation into the memories of the tribe, Mnesmosyne concluded that Ananasi was just a god made up by the Akan tribe since she didn't even find a trace of divinity in any of them.
The pool began to shine brilliantly, capturing her complete attention, and she witnessed something she would never forget for the rest of her eternal life: the memories of the Akan tribe began to move towards the swirling centre of the pool, pushing other mortal memories away from it.
The Akan memories shimmered as they swirled down into the whirlpool, and slowly but steadily, pieces of memories were broken away, leaving only the facets that involved Ananasi, and they all began to coalesce in the heart of the pool of Anameisis.
"No…" Mnesmosyne stumbled back in realisation.
With that, all of the mortal memories that entailed Ananasi completely merged together, sparking the birth of a Dream.
A brilliant star emerged from the unreal waters, emitting a blinding divine and sacred light, and it began to expand and morph into a divine being with long spider-like legs and hands.
"Oh Gaea..." Mnesmosyne watched on in utter horror, her trembling hands covering her agape mouth.
The Lady of Remembrance couldn't believe it—or rather, refused to believe it. She wished it was all a dream, which was cruelly ironic given what was happening in front of her.
A God was being born from the Dream of Mortals!
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