"It"self? Not "him"self? Strange. He said "Emperor" and there's only one Emperor we know of (assuming I'm not misremembering something), so it does beg the question; of whom does he speak?

So cool

Theory time:

The hallowman is Malhart, not because he did something to the original, but because to some level Chernyl fears Malhart, and recreated him.

It's fair to say he probably has similar powers, if that's the case.

@jeff - Good catch. I wonder if it could be a typo?

@jeff I'm guessing it's just a typo. Neorice probably meant to write "The Empire really allied itself."

Or maybe he did write that at first, but changed it and forgot to change the pronoun. Either way it seems like an easy mistake to make.

I'm not going to start speculating just yet. Maybe if the text is still there tomorrow.

@jeff probably meant empire, not emperor.

Good luck, Nail and Catz! You'll need it.

Also, why is Catz bringing Noah into melee range when the Hallowman can disintegrate with a touch? Catz doesn't know Noah's power works at close range.

Speaking of, whose mind is Noah going to enter? Noel's, the Hallowman's, and Chernyl's would probably drive him insane and/or kill him. Nail would probably have to kill him if he learned his secrets. And Catz isn't actually here.

Or maybe Chernyl's mind is the safest place because all her nightmares already escaped into the real world.

kinda weird malhart traumatized at least two of his students to the extent that he's either of their literal worst nightmares

but honestly, that just makes me want to see how he fights for real

Theory; the reason we were shown the Vallance prince's story is because we're about to get into the meat of Noah's own power-stealing adventures. Heck, maybe the cause of all these ill artificial magic users is that someone is poisoning the populace with micro-doses of black water?

You know when stuff is about to go to the roof when the main villain starts doing the DIO walk from Stardust Crusaders...

Maybe a typo? Empire, not emperor. Or maybe the typo is the other way around: himself, not itself.

I really like the smile full of long thick teeth. It's a different yet similar type of threatening

Did we seriously plow through bloody years of this for 'it's malhart'? Hell, Daddy was ALREADY here for that, providing an actually decent nightmare-version of controlling patriarchal guardianship.

I'm torn between hoping this is another false start [which seems likely as long as I'm giving one ounce of credit] and the real hallowman doesn't suck or just completely not giving a shit and hoping this means it will end faster. This arc was so promising for a long time but with the loss of Gazz and Noah being unconscious since... literally last year... we're pretty much stuck following only the worst available characters.

Happy 3000.

@WiseGuy I was wondering when someone would make a JoJo reference!

@player_03
Come on, Noah doing anything as long as there are other options, such as quietly hoping nobody will notice him?

At least we know Fakeheart isn't omniscient. He only has suppositions over whether Nail is immortal.

So looks like whoever said that the Hollowman is based on how terrifying Malhart must've come off when he first went against the nightmares might be on the money unless there is a swerve yet to come.

@Detective Caillou - very interesting theory. Living up to the username lol