Considering I almost didn't recognize Gaston due to his changed appearance, I give Noel a 100% of his next words being "Who are you?"

...well, when Noel regains consciousness at least.

Wait, these teal dresses are hospital gowns! These minions used to be patients here. I wonder how Gazz managed to escape the eyeing.

Was that always a thing that Gazz said/says? The previous page comments implies that this is a certified Gazz:tm: move, but I don't recall when he actually said or used this tech.

I just realized there was a knock knock joke lmao

Gaston my beloved <3

Didn't Gaston have blue aura? Something seems off here

No one decapitates three nightmares like Gaston!

Five out of six heads in today's update are upside down.

Awesome entrance.

Now why is the last panel showing Noah and Ciel in the corner?

@Zed has been for a while, yeah. If you go back to the Magic Training Arc, Gazz uses it show off to Felix, then Eloy makes a fool of him, and the teacher (Garth?) tells Gazz off that it's too unrefined a technique.

DECAPITATION!! *Epic guitar solo*

Now that’s an entrance, maybe Noah won’t die now.

I decided to look back, because while I knew that Gaz's hair looked different, I didn't know why. Apparently this is just what he looks like with his hair down. Though that was remarked on the previous page, as well.

For those who don't care to search, here's where we first see this move: https://www.neorice.com/hoh_noah_532

@Ajonos

Ah, I see you too have been cursed with the "I confuse both names because they are similar" spell.

That's Noah you're talking about :P

I wonder what the future holds for them. Everyone who survives till the end will have been a different person, and not just in their abilities.

@mystik you might be onto something, i looked back and saw that gazz's spirit is green.

So, with the benefit of hindsight, I'm going to use this unrelated page to posit (if it hasn't been already) that Veda is almost certainly one of Cheryl's nightmares.

1) Simply because of plot conventions, we almost certainly haven't seen the last of her, despite her being grabbed and dragged underground by a giant nightmare hand. This means she has to have survived somehow, despite supposedly not having magic, which could easily be explained if she turns out to be a nightmare with hidden skills of her own as well.

2) We know from the mirror monster that some of the nightmares attack others indiscriminately, which means the hand actively targeting her proves nothing... especially if it was just taking her elsewhere, rather than actually trying to kill her, as I imagine it otherwise would have simply crushed her on the spot.

3) Veda's interest in Cheryl bears a clear resemblance to the way the stronger nightmares are now vying for control of her, and would give her even more reason to have chosen to go after Cheryl specifically. Additionally, the hand targeting her specifically (while leaving everyone else around alone) could be explained by its owner recognizing her as a nightmare with a "rival interest" in Cheryl - particularly if said hand belonged to the Hallow Man or the Sceleramancer, as I still suspect.

4) Noel went quite in-depth in his explanation that Cheryl's creations can be indistinguishable from normal humans, and that just because they came from magic does not actually *make* them magic. Which would explain how Veda came up negative for such when the empire tested her, and why there's so much strange intrigue revolving around that subject. Including...

5) ...when we found out that the guy who tried to shoot Veda at her door in the middle of the night had gone missing. She must have taken care of him *somehow*, but we've no idea how she would have evaded or survived being shot point black without magic... unless she's simply built tougher than that.

6) We know Veda *isn't* from the Empire, as Guy Juliet told Noah to remember in his note, making her actual origins unclear. Also, in that same conversation, we found out that whatever Guy found out when he started snooping, it scared him off from looking any further/led him to a dead end. If it was just that the royal guards saved Veda, why would that be "something better left buried", given their presence is/was already quite publicly known?

7) Most obviously, *way* back just after Noah escaped the elf's mind, we saw Veda attached to some sort of giant centipede body down in the sewers. This would again explain the bizarre "she's not magic, yet she turned into a monster" discrepancy, which we otherwise have seemingly no answer for.

7a) ...and in context, it would also explain why when Noah asked about her height back in the car ride they shared, she gave the extremely strangely phrased reply that she knows many people in the same "length" category. It was just a passing comment, but still.

Overall, the theory explains a lot, makes a lot of what's been said/happened in this arc clear foreshadowing in retrospect, ties together Veda's goals with her still-mysterious origin, and means her role in the story can potentially be nicely tied up the next time Noah encounters her... which I imagine might be quite soon.

I could of course be wrong, or have forgotten something that instantly nixes this idea - this comic has a lot of small details to keep track of - but I liked the idea too much, and thought it had too much potential evidence behind it, not to at least put it into writing somewhere.

Flairina, I disagree about the concept for one reason:

All of the nightmares, or at least the smarter ones, all know of Malhart's existence in a very familiar & spiteful sense. They also know where they originate from, Chernyl.

So why would Veda have to go so far out of her way to research in advance before she could oust Malhart, and to prove that the plague was a hoax to cover Chernyl? She would have already had that information without going through all that trouble.

It is more likely that she is simply some of of lamia/monster species from outside the country. Also technically, if Chernyl had created her, that would make her originally from the Empire, lmao. Nightmare citizenship rights demanded for all.

@Mystik

Prev page, Gazz has a green aura. I think the gold(?) in the blade is reacting to his magic

^^^ Wait, nvm, I think Gazz spirit should be red? I don't recall

@ Flarinina: Honestly, I've just been reading with the assumption that Veda was a Vampire or equivalent. Possibly, given the relatively recent revelations about them, a Psychic with blood-draining abilities, but most likely a Vampire.

Whether Vampires are normal in HoH, or if Veda specifically was brought into existence directly (or indirectly) by Cheryl's Nightmare Powers doesn't really affect this assumption either way, and could be an origin for her... if she had been in the Empire last time Cheryl's powers were active. Which is completely unknown.

Hey that's a neat theory. Though how would nail fit into this theory? Would he know anything or could he be something else. It feels like there's a lot of beings of strange power in this world and nightmares don't seem to have any 'tells' that can let you ID them. (That I can remember anyway.)

@Flairina Great theorycrafting, seems pretty likely! Thanks for posting that

@Flairina

If Veda is a nightmare, it does seem strange that she went through so many pages explaining to Malhart how she was a genius for uncovering the Haven coverup, the falsification of empire history, and deducing that the real problem in Haven was Chernyl's nightmares rather than his paintings, and that in fact his paintings were suppressing Chernyl's powers. She seemed to have way too much fun explaining her deductions for this for this to be something she invented as an excuse for knowing what was going on - to somebody she had absolutely no need to explain her knowledge to in the first place, whether Malhart or Noah.

...and that's before we get into the curious question of why, were Veda one of Chernyl's nightmares, she wasn't suppressed by his paintings but in fact operated freely both inside and outside haven.

In other words, I consider your theory to be - if not instantly nixed - deeply problematic.

Perhaps Veda the unusually tall and Malhart the unusually tall come from the same place outside the empire? We know so little of the world's more exotic locations that for all we know people like her might be common somewhere else, or perhaps they are unusually tall for different reasons. Or perhaps she's a one-off monster, or... So many possibilities.

...oh wow, er, didn't think anyone would actually see that theory; I just wanted to type it down somewhere. ^^; Yeah, there's a number of things that could disprove the idea - the extended research Veda did that she presumably wouldn't have actually "needed" were she a nightmare, and the fact that I'm pretty sure she's operated out in the sun/light before without the kind of wide brim hat she wore to the meeting (when Chernyl's nightmares supposedly only operate in darkness) are particular sticking points. Though, I don't think Malhart's paint would have suppressed Veda regardless, since she would have already existed/been brought into being previously in this theory, and I was under the impression Malhart's power was just suppressing the nightmares from spawning, not just continuing to exist when they aren't technically magic themselves.

Either way, I just thought the idea had too much potential relevance/evidence not to post somewhere, regardless of the potential flaws. If I'm wrong, it'll turn out to be a neat parallel regardless.