"My Dream Bombs can consume dreams, part of your own minds and psyche! Without your dreams, you'll go insane and fall into madness!" Laughed Laplace.
"Urgh, it certainly gives me quite the headache." Sighed Mark.
"Is that it?" Elayne was a bit surprised it didn't hurt that much.
"E-Eh?" Laplace took a step back in surprise. "M-My bombs…"
"Your bombs suck, fucker!" Rita appeared from above, her gun suddenly shapeshifting into a gigantic black cannon with the tip shaped as a furious dragon head. "{Blue Dragon King's Bullet Cannon}!"
A gigantic beam of darkness descended as she flew down towards Laplace, impacting the jester's entire body!
"Guuuuaaarrrrgghhhh…!"
With an agonizing scream, the beam pierced through the entire arena stadium and shattered the halls where the toy monsters were sitting, massacring hundreds!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOOMMM!!! RUMBLE!
Meanwhile, Laplace was thrown away like a ragdoll, his body covered on wounds, with his bones broken, his skin burning, and missing half his lower half…
But above all, his mask completely shattered this time.
"D-Did you do it?!" Lily asked in surprise. "W-Well, that was faster than I imagined-"
"You shouldn't had said that! It was such a huge flag!" Mark facepalmed, as he and Elayne glanced at Laplace.
His huge body suddenly started to swell like a balloon, without his mask, something within him had changed. The entire atmosphere across the arena changed. The toy monsters were suddenly absorbed into his body, as his form started to shapeshift.
Revealing his face, everyone were shocked to see that he didn't exactly look like an ugly goblin, but half his face was missing, and instead, there was simply a deep, black hole, with a single red eye glancing from within.
"You've… awakened him… My other… self…" Laplace screamed in fear. "Y-You idiots!!! Gryyyaaaeergghh…!"
While screaming in horror, Laplace's entire body was consumed by the nightmarish darkness emerging from within his body, as his "other self" appeared.
If Laplace was the embodiment of Dorothea's Dreams, and was the "playful" and "childish" side… The other self he hid behind that mask was the embodiment of Dorothea's Nightmares, her "evil" and "wicked" side.
The pressure around the air became much stronger. Everyone felt almost paralyzed as the entity emerged from his deep slumber, the stadium shattering apart into pieces as its fragments floated in midair.
The entire room distorted, resembling the depths of a black nightmare, where they could only see stars of red and purple color across the endless black horizon.
The entity emerged from the black hole within Laplace's face, being freed from the shackles where he had been sealed…
"I am freed once more… I, the Embodiment of Nightmares, Ephiales!"
His monstrous body resembled a huge sphere of darkness, with a single red eye, and countless thick, huge tentacles spread across the endless nightmare realm. Countless mouths opened across his body amorphously.
"T-The embodiment of nightmares?!" Rita asked.
"So this guy was hiding this thing inside of him?!" Lily panicked.
"It doesn't matter." Elayne sighed. "If it's for my daughter, I'll even defeat as many Death Generals as possible, Demon Kings, or even whatever this thing is! {Pathway}!"
Elayne had enough, quickly activating {Pathway}, as her body started overflowing with the might of the Gods of Arcadia. Their Elemental Divine Energy started overflowing into her body and into that of her allies around her.
"Pathway…?!" Ephiales red eye squinted. "Your tricks Will not work against me, the embodiment of nightmares!!! {Abyssal Nightmare Eyes}!"
Suddenly, dozens of floating black eyes emerged around Ephiales, as they glowed bright red and immediately started firing deadly red beams, covering Elayne and her friends with huge explosions!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
At the same time, Ephiales charged as much energy as possible into his own single red eye, gathering it into an even larger beam!
"{Nightmare Purgatory}! DIE!"
The beam reached Elayne and her friends in a split of a second, completely decimating them through its darkness! Unlike Laplace, Ephiales was much more ruthless, and went all-out from the very start.
"Hahahaha! That should had eliminated you for real this time- Eh?!"
Not even a second passed but Ephiales eyes opened wide in shock, the smoke dissipated, only to show all four of them floating in midair… Unscathed!
What had protected them was Elayne's Shield, which had generated an enormous barrier fueled by Pathway's powers. Surrounding their bodies were mystical, translucent veils of divinity.
[The Divinity {All Mother of Life and Souls} has manifested herself]
[The Divinity {Dark Lady Dressed By The Night} has manifested herself]
[The Divinity {Furious King of Blazing Flames} has manifested himself]
[The Divinity {Lady Mother of Earth and Ores} has manifested herself]
Four Gods from Arcadia, the four that had chosen Elayne, Rita, Mark, and Lily as their "heroes" had manifested a part of their divinities to deal with this dangerous enemy, that could put the entire world of Earth into danger if he were to not be defeated now.
"The Gods have decided your fate." Elayne's eyes shone with bright rainbow light, divinity overflowing from her body.
"The Gods…?!" Ephiales asked. "Y-You mean the Gods of Arcadia?! So it was true… You can somehow… You're their Mortal Incarnations?! To think they already choose incarnations in this world! That means that-"
"{Divine Chains of Judgement}!"
FLAAASH! FLAAASH! FLAAASH!
Before he could finish his words, Ephiales various tentacles were wrapped by Divine Chains, these were the divine version of Elayne's {Life and Light Chains of Restraint}!
"UNGH?! AARRGH…! I-I can't move?! This bright divinity… It hurts! Y-You're Gaia's Incarnation!" Cried Ephiales. "BEGONEEEE!!!"
Unleashing several beams from within the many eyes he had summoned, Ephiales hopelessly attempted to destroy Elayne, only for her friends to appear around her, blocking all the hits with their own thin veils of divinity.
"You ain't touching my bestie, you tentacled abomination!"
"As I said before, you're not hurting her while I'm here!"
Rita, Lily, and Mark appeared around Elayne like her three loyal knights, reflecting and intercepting the attacks from Ephiales with their weapons, as cannons of blue dragon breath, quadruple slashes of red dragon flames, and giant boulders carrying the might of the cave drakes appeared around Elayne.
"{Punishing Divine Holy Smite}!"
Elayne's Shovel fused with the Light Spirits and Earth Spirits she had saved for this moment, transforming into a gigantic hammer of light, and hitting Ephiales huge red eye, his nightmarish powers being incapable of taking over the minds of these four mortals once the veils of divinity covered their bodies!
"M-My eye…! ARGH…! GRUUUUUAAAARRRGGHHH…!"
With an agonizing scream, the embodiment of nightmare's huge red eye started gaining countless cracks, shattering apart into pieces as Rita, Lily, and Mark's attacks reached the eye as well, giving Elayne's attack enough power to decimate their foe once and for all!
The divine light filled the Embodiment of Nightmare's body, inflating like a balloon, and then bursting into pure light, as all the nightmares, including this nightmare realm, exploded!
It felt as if reality around them started to rearrange itself, going back to how it was. Everyone quickly realized that since they started the trials of Laplace, that they had been sleeping while their minds were within a Dream Realm this whole time, waking up in shock.
"W-We did it!" Elayne gasped for air.
"I can't believe it… That was all a damn dream?!" Rita was shaken.
"Hahh… So that's why he was so powerful…" Mark sighed in relief.
"Oh, Falco's back to normal!" Lily clapped happily.
"If we were trapped inside a dream this entire time, where is the real Laplace?" Rita asked.
"There…" Elayne stood up, pointing at a small jester-like doll over the floor.
"Curse you… humans…!" It muttered, before completely dissipating into particles of darkness and disappearing, only leaving a small heart-shaped jewel behind, with one half being pink colored and the other half being black colored.
"This whole time he was that tiny doll?!" Mark was shocked. "You have to be kidding me… We went through so much trouble for that."
"I guess the original plan was to trap us and kill us within the dreams…" Elayne sighed in relief. "Well, that didn't go as he planned." She grabbed the stone.
Using her Spiritual Gaze, she quickly realized the item's name, and she could even see its detailed information inside of her mind.
[Dream & Nightmare Spirit Heart Core (S Grade)]
The Core of Laplace Ephiales, the Spirit of Dreams and Nightmares.
It possesses mysterious powers…
"Huh? What with this short description? It's not like the game at all…" Elayne facepalmed. "Anyways, we have to get going! Quickly!"
Everybody hurriedly jumped over Falco, as the bird flew as fast as possible.