Chapter 1543: Chapter 1543

After a jarring fall, Jenkins hit the grass with a thud and scrambled to his feet. Before him stretched a sky drizzling with rain, a perfectly flat grassland that seemed almost artificial, and countless souls gathered around a colossal statue, praying. It all clicked into place.

"The dream I was just in was my own," he realized. "But this... what are those people planning now?"

He'd initially assumed this bizarre dream was the work of the Perfume Appreciation Committee, that they had found a way to deal with him and had forcibly pulled him into this realm. But then he remembered he was living within the Church's main compound now, a place that was practically a Sage's sanctuary. It would be impossible for them to harm him there.

He scanned his surroundings. Countless spiritual forms, much like his own, drifted past, swirling around the altar and statue before kneeling and murmuring in unison. Although Jenkins had no idea how he'd ended up here, he let the current of souls carry him forward. He found a spot among them, sat cross-legged, and kept his head bowed in silence.

The sheer number of spirits at the foot of the altar was overwhelming, so no one noticed Jenkins's presence was out of place. He mulled things over in silence for a while before a theory about his situation began to take shape.

"Could it be from when I absorbed that massive mass of spiritual energy?" he wondered. "Did that somehow create a link between my own dreams and this collective dreamscape?"

The more he considered it, the more sense it made. He realized this wasn't an attack. He glanced around furtively, then held his right hand out over the grass, palm up. Instantly, a golden apple materialized in his palm.

The moment his hand closed around the Sweet Dream Crystal, the grogginess clouding his mind from the incessant murmuring instantly vanished. The feeling was as crisp and refreshing as diving into a cool pond on a scorching summer day, so pleasant it almost brought a smile to his lips.

He quickly reined in his feelings, took a deep breath, and raised his head to look at the now-fully-repaired statue.

Now, observing the faceless, humanoid statue from a much closer vantage point, sensing its aura, and watching the flow of the dream world's immense spiritual energy—all combined with what he'd read in a few chapters of *The Great Sins: Beasts of Calamity*—Jenkins came to a sudden realization.

The Sin Nightmare was a Calamity Beast born within the realm of dreams. Its power was so immense that it had nearly destroyed a past Epoch simply by influencing the physical world from within dreams. But now, it was trapped by a powerful seal in the deepest recesses of the dream world, and breaking free using spiritual energy alone was clearly impossible.

However, the seal only functioned within the dream world. If the beast could find a way to cross directly into reality, it could bypass the seal's constraints. The problem was, the seal's very purpose was to isolate dreams from reality. Furthermore, the Sin Nightmare's intrinsic nature meant its power would be severely diminished in the physical world.

The Perfume Appreciation Committee had devised a brilliant workaround. They were using the spiritual energy of countless mortals to create a "shell" for the dream-bound Calamity—forging this very statue from that collective power. The chaotic, mottled nature of so many minds could conceal the Nightmare's true essence, allowing it to be "smuggled" from the dream world into reality. And once it crossed over, it could draw upon that massive reservoir of spiritual energy to temporarily wield a fraction of its true power.

"So, in other words, if I just destroy this statue, I can stop the Sin Nightmare from manifesting..." he muttered to himself. "Sounds simple enough..."

It sounded simple, but he knew it would be anything but. He'd gotten lucky last time, luring his foe into the physical world. If he had to confront the Calamity Beast's power directly within its own realm, the dream world, Jenkins knew he wouldn't stand a chance.

Besides, even if he managed to destroy the statue, the Perfume Appreciation Committee, with its control over countless dreamers, could easily create another. The real key to solving this problem wasn't in the dream at all, he realized. It was back in the physical world, finding a way to deal with the aftereffects of that cursed tobacco.

Jenkins sighed at the thought. If he could solve the problem in the real world, he'd be sleeping soundly in his bed right now instead of being here.

As he held the Sweet Dream Crystal, he knew it possessed powers beyond what was written in any text—it didn't just ensure pleasant dreams and empower the dreamer. Perhaps it was because his spiritual form was touching the golden apple directly, allowing the divine office and essence hidden deep within his soul to connect with it. While he was lost in thought, head bowed, the apple's golden hue began to fade, giving way to an ethereal, translucent white.

The object cupped in his hands now looked exactly like a crystal apple losing its luster. By the time he noticed something was wrong, the transformation was already irreversible.

Jenkins had never heard of anything and couldn't begin to explain the principles behind it. His first instinct was to send the apple back to the real world immediately, before its bizarre transformation could attract any unwanted attention.

But the very instant the thought "return to reality" crossed his mind, the endless murmuring ceased. Still sitting on the grass, Jenkins stared, dumbfounded, as every single soul turned to face him. Their faces were all blank, devoid of expression, making the scene utterly grotesque.

The man closest to Jenkins spoke, his face lined by the years that had also claimed most of his hair.

Realizing this was very likely the Sin Nightmare speaking to him through the souls of these mortals, Jenkins clutched the now-translucent crystal apple tightly to his chest.

"Impossible. And what are you?"

He'd sooner feed the apple to his cat than hand it over to an enemy. At that very moment in the real world, Chocolate, the cat lying beside Jenkins's pillow, suddenly shot upright. Its whiskers twitched, and its amber eyes fixed intently on Jenkins's closed eyelids.

Back in the dream world, Jenkins rose to his feet. In perfect unison, the thousands of ordinary people surrounding him—all ensnared in this dream by the tobacco—also rose.

"Give it to me," a woman behind Jenkins spoke, "and I will let you leave this time."

"I find it hard to believe you can't see what I am," Jenkins sneered, clutching the apple with both hands. "Do you really think I'm afraid of you?"

"You are a god, but an incomplete one. You have the station, the identity of a god, but none of the power. If we were anywhere but this dreamscape, I would flee at the mere sight of you. But this is the dream. This is my domain."

The voice now came from a small boy, one who barely reached Jenkins's knee. Jenkins couldn't fathom why a child so young would be a smoker.