4 Chaos Sea

There was a realm where dreams and nightmares were born.

There was a realm where a few ragged sounds could sound a symphony.

A realm where pandemonium presents patterns, where ideal fantasies turn into reality and memories feign meaning.

A realm where—for as long as a sleeper can sleep—stories are spun.

And so, listen.

Listen now:

At the end of this infinite realm, the serene waves of a golden ocean washed through the sands of a beach flanked by a rising valley. Even though there was no sun in the sky, rays of auric light broke through the wavy clouds, illuminating everything in golden shades.

A man stood on the gleaming golden particles of the beach, his saddled feet washed by the most tranquil of waves. He was young, with a youth that seemed to exist outside of time and a pale skin that contrasted with the golden environment. He had a muscular but slender build with a lean but chiselled physique. His black hair was short and frizzy, exuding a darkness rivalled only by the void. His eyes were platinum silver, sparkling like the argent moon at night. He was dressed in a black tunic belted at the waist and a silver wool on his shoulder.

He was none other than Hypnos, the Primordial of Sleep.

(Image here)

Hypnos gazed ahead at the serene golden ocean, and the primordial of sleep extended his hand into the substratum. The reality of the ocean and the sky that enveloped it began to shimmer as if it were nothing more than a veil. And with a single swift motion, he drew the veil away, throwing it into the blue firmament behind him, and they merged with a thrum of reality.

The scene before him immediately changed as the veil of concealment he had draped over the boundless ocean was lifted, revealing the horrors stirring beneath this realm—his realm.

The serene ocean and blue sky had melted into a vast, colourless sea, which opened as far as his divine eyes could perceive and beyond, descending into the abyss of infinity.

"What in Tartarus are you...?" Hypnos mumbled, his tone so heavy and sombre that if his family had been present, they would have been surprised.

He looked out at the colourless sea, his heart clouded by confusion and trepidation. The sea may appear to be harmless and benign, but it is anything but that. The mere sight of this sea could break the minds of mortals and plunge them into insanity.

Unknown—a concept he abhors instinctively. And the sea just appeared to be an amalgamation of everything unknown.

He found this sea deep inside the realm of the collective subconscious. In his mind, the sea seemed to go on for ever and ever, with no ending in sight. It surprised him, and his attempts to delve deeper into it were met with chaotic failure.

Hypnos was obviously fascinated by the mystery and tried to solve it. He created a puppet out of his dreams and imbued it with a sliver of his primal essence, binding it to him. He then tossed the puppet into the colourless sea.

He connected with his essence in it and perceived the chaotic sea through it after his puppet sank into it unharmed and unaffected, though he still kept his senses on high alert just in case.

Hypnos immediately regretted his actions. His senses were assaulted by the boundless sea, which splayed his mind into infinity. Words would fail to convey what he truly felt in the infinitesimal moment he made indirect contact with the sea before squeezing out all of his strength and self-destructing his essence in the puppet, severing the connection.

He was terrified, to put it mildly. He immediately assessed himself thoroughly, looking for any abnormalities or problems within himself. Thankfully, there were none, but he double-checked just to be quite certain.

After cursing himself for his sloppiness, he tried to make sense of what he had seen, but all his primal mind could conjure were glimpses of what he truly saw, and the rest fled his mind.

Nonetheless, he began to piece it all together, ignoring his heavy thumping heart. Slowly but steadily, he completed the puzzle, and the dreadful picture revealed itself to him.

The colourless sea emerged to be a vaster and more haunting cosmos beyond consciousness and sentience, sprawling into infinity unbound by matter, time, and space, the existence of which we suspect only in certain forms of sleep—those dream beyond dreams, mind beyond minds.

All in all, even with his primal mind, Hypnos didn't understand the colourless sea for what it truly was. The unknown had crept and rooted itself in his mind, and he loathed it.

But he knew better; the mystery of the colourless sea would have to wait until he had the strength to investigate its truth. Despite the terror it caused him, he was obviously not going to give up; on the contrary, it only served to strengthen his resolve to unravel its mysteries...

After a year, Hypnos looked out at the same chaotic sea that existed at the end of his realm, rather than the depths of the collective subconscious. It just appeared by itself after he laid the foundation for his realm.

Ignoring his apprehension at this startling development, Hypnos could now see beyond the fog of the unknown that cloaked the colourless sea and make far-reaching guesses; the sea signifies the beyond that suppresses mind, dream, consciousness, and sentience. A singularity of creation that exists outside of all thought and entity.

To the rational part of his mind, that sounds like a bunch of nonsense, but the colourless sea was just that abstract and chaotic. He even named the sea after it: the Chaos Sea or the Abstract Sea.

Returning to the point, he could make educated guesses about it due to its unexpected appearance at the end of his realm.

His realm was closely interconnected with the collective subconscious—the deepest segment of mind shared by all beings of creation. To put it another way, every being's mind is linked together, forming a web that spans the entire cosmos. It is the mind's world, or, as he preferred to call it, the key to all minds.

Two years had passed since that eventual dinner night with his family. He then immediately started creating his realm.

Hypnos chose to place his realm adjacent to the collective subconscious, as it is the most ideal place for his realm. After all, the mind is inextricably linked with sleep and dreams.

He began crafting his realm by entering sleep and dreaming it with all of his power. The line between reality and imagination thinned to an unimaginable level as his power surged through the layer of existence. He didn't simply shatter the barriers and make his a reality because of the vastness of his realm.

His realm is endless in size and proportion, almost to the point of being considered a separate infinite universe.

He was also nearly omnipotent within his realm; only beings more powerful than him could hope to stand against him, but even they would be at a disadvantage as this was his home court.

Hypnos was capable of achieving such ridiculous feats because of the uniqueness of his conceptual power, but this in no way equates to his personal power.

His infinite realm, in essence, was not real since it was his dream, but it was also not unreal as he willed it partially into reality; it exists between reality and unreality.

Hypnos established his infinite realm between reality and unreality, squeezing every drop of his power. Even this completely drained him, forcing him to enter a deep sleep for months. This was all he could do with his current power, but perhaps in the future he will be able to bring his infinite realm into existence, making it a reality.

He acknowledges that the existence of his limitless realm was perplexing, but that is how conceptual power genuinely works. It cannot be completely quantified, which makes it all the more powerful and terrifying.

And he eventually gave his infinite realm a name: the Dreaming. This is where his dreams and nightmares—his living creations—live, and where sleepers spend the other half of their lives dreaming. And there are two gates in Dreaming: the gates of ivory and the gates of horn. Dreams that pass through the ivory gate are lies, fantasies, figments, and deception, whereas dreams that pass through the horn gate are truth and reality. The gates were also the only way for outsiders to physically enter his realm.

Hypnos was nearly finished with Dreaming; the main structure—the realm—was complete, but the framework—the law and order—that holds it all together was still in the works, and there was still a need to create even more nightmares and dreams. It will take some time for his realm to be open to the world as a whole.

And, as usual, his father was right. By creating his own realm, he felt his control over his concept solidify, and his power gradually began to grow on its own, independent of his own efforts and training.

In terms of his power, he was the most powerful while using his sleep authority. The strongest attack he had devised in the concept of Sleep was the Eternal Sleep; it is an attack that bends the concept of Death, forcing your soul into eternal slumber and trapping it within your body for the rest of eternity. Death himself will turn his back on you, and you may never be able to find final rest in his Tenebrous realm (though it could be broken if Thanatos decided to be petty with him). This attack not only affects living beings but also natural phenomena and even some weaker concepts of creation, forcing them to enter dormancy forever.

Then there was the concept of Dream. As his mother had said before, all inspirations, fantasies, and ideas come from dreams, which we then apply to reality, altering it to fit our vision. Dreams, in the end, shaped reality.

After nearly a decade of training under his mother, Hypnos could manipulate and materialise dreams, nightmares, and visions to alter reality. With his authority, he could break the barrier between reality and dreams, enabling dreams to influence reality rationally or subconsciously.

They had even devised stages for his dream reality manipulation: basic, advanced, ultimate, and absolute.

He is now at the advanced stage. In this stage, he could turn his dreams into reality, though with limitations such as that it cannot defy the logic and laws of creation. And if he wishes to create something from his dream, he must have a solid foundation in the subject matter.

Despite the limitations, his power was undeniable. At this level, he could manipulate weaker concepts of creation or unleash all of his primal power onto his physical form, bending reality simply by his presence.

His power of dreams was not without weaknesses and dangers. The subconscious mind isn't always aware of how reality works; it believes what it wants and manifests it in the dreamscape. As a result, if he isn't careful, he may cause horrific and disastrous events to occur in reality, bringing literal hell to the world.

That brings him to the last concept he worked on personally over the last two years: Mind. He had put in less effort on this concept than he had on Dream and Sleep, since he was spending most of his remaining time perfecting his realm. He had been experimenting with the minds of monsters, manipulating and infecting their dreams with his commands, which in turn affected their psyches. After all, dreams shape not only reality but also the mind and personality, as well as how you perceive the world.

Using this concept, Hypnos was also aiming to maintain a serene mind so as to avoid dangers and the weakness of dreams. He didn't want to inadvertently unleash disaster on reality.

That was the extent of his current abilities. He may have left some, but that was the general gist of it.

Hypnos retuned his gaze to the infinite, colourless sea and clicked his tongue as the thoughts passed through his mind.

He let his mind wander yet again and completely overlooked the point he was attempting to convey—his guesses on the chaos sea.

Because of what Dreaming represents and symbolises, he was able to deduce the origin of the colourless sea. Hypnos desired that his realm expand further into the mind realm, eventually into all concepts related to sleep, which would encompass everything related to sentience and thought. And the chaotic sea just merely reacted to his grand acts and ambitions.

This was just his wild guess, with little to no evidence to back it up. And for all he knows, this could be completely wrong.

All of these mysteries and unknowns made Hypnos doubt if this was truly the world of Percy Jackson. Heaven and Hell exist, as do God and Lucifer. There were numerous primordials in other pantheons.

All of these shifts, which were not in any of the novel series, only added to his suspicion. But, given that the books didn't go beyond the Norse, Egyptian, and Greek pantheons and even hinted at the possibility of God's existence, this world could very well be the world of Percy Jackson.

All in all, Hypnos realised that this world—his world—was more than just the world of reckless teenagers and incompetent gods depicted in the Percy Jackson series. It felt far more than that, full of mysteries and unknowns lurking around every corner of existence.

And he would uncover everything one by one.

Suddenly, Hypnos felt a tinge in his perception. And he snapped his fingers, manifesting a veil of concealment over the edge of the chaos sea and directing it to drape over it.

The scene in front of him changed instantly. The infinite chaos sea had vanished, to be replaced by the ethereal golden sea.

And with that, a woman materialised at the side of Hypnos. Her long black gown was speckled with golden lines, and her silver hair was long and flowing like an argent waterfall.

The dreamy woman bowed to him. "I apologise for interrupting your revive, my lord, but the Lord of Death has arrived at the Gate of Horn."

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