This implies that the nightmares were defeated by something before.
I wonder how well Burk would do in this situation...

Seems like Noel didn't think his plan through. And he already admitted he doesn't really know how to stop her and needs to figure something out when the JSP confronted him. Getting rid of Gaz was a huge mistake.

@Welf
Leaving Gazz behind might well have been a mistake in the abstract, but if the nightmares don't depend on Chernyl's magic, I doubt her dying would work. To be fair, with that "end her," Veda implied it might be effective, but she's also the lady who instigated this mess, and I don't believe her.

Since the Hollowman can stop even Nail, I think the only thing Gazz having entered would have accomplished would be his death or suffering. Remember also Persephone was shut out, so if he did make a difference he might not have been let in.

@Hilden
If Chernyl's powers have grown, it's possible it was feasible to hunt them down one by one before. But that doesn't quite concord with the Sclermancer and Daddy being around from before Malhart. Maybe the new versions are successors/remade? Or maybe there's something important about Malhart's magic or paint we don't know...

Yep. Worse than "what you're doing is not working" is "what you're doing is working, but useless".

But we knew it wouldn't be Nail or Noel who would solve this in the end anyway. We're still waiting for the whole Greychild's Noahwish thing after all.

@Hilden
The old nightmares were defeated by Malhart. Noel did mention he is capable of killing them.

@Welf
I'm not sure what Gaston would even be able to do here. Raw force seems to be of extremely little use against him, and given that even a titan found herself completely outclassed, I doubt Gaston would fare much better.

If anything, getting him stuck outside might very well have saved his life. Nail and Noel are alive because Hallowman is interested in them. I doubt he has much interested in Gaz, and probably would've just one-shotted him and be done with it.

I wonder how Noel's power affects Chernyl's mindscape.

@Welf : looking how easily the Hallowman neutralized nail, its highly doubtful Gaston could have done anything. He would have been killed. In fact, being prevented from entering the sphere certainly saved his life.

By the way, Noel preventing new nightmares to be summoned from Chernyl, navigating Chernyl's mind is surely safer for Noah than he could have imagined.

Chameon was correct there, it's not that he can't stop Chernyl, is that he can't kill the magic-flesh constructs.

Though how did they put all the nightmare's back last time? Did Malheart have to personally Karate chop every escaped nightmare in two?
Or put his paint of suppression on the city block by block to stop it.

Building up on what @Hilden said is related to a discussion we had on the Discord.

Namely the existence of a "leash" that allows Chernyl limited control over already created nightmares.

Can Chernyl "will away" already created nightmares?

Do notice that, after this page, even Gazz' plan of killing her is no longer guaranteed to be a solution.

@Hilden

Noel stated multiple times that Malhart fought a lot of them, with very few of them that he couldn't beat.

The difference is nightmares can only survive at night, so most likely what happened is Malhart painted the town during the day to prevent nightmares from being produced, then killed off stragglers that were hiding away as time passed. Or close enough to that.

That grey child DID say Noah was actually the one who can stop this. I guess we're learning now why it's not Noel.

This means there's no guarantee killing her would end it, either. She might need to wake up to truly end this dream.

In other words, I'm very hopeful that we get to see Noah do something soon.

Ironically, the stupidest characters aka the JSP, were the only ones whose plan included a way to deal with already manifested nightmares instead of just stopping Chernyl.

Gaz would have not have fared better than Nail I fear. Hallowman would either be torturing him to push Noel to submit or would have killed him outright.

@Welf

Not bringing Gaston along was no mistake , it saved his life.
The Hallowman could easily tear him to shreds while dealing with the others and Gaston made clear he would have just charged in, so the situation would not be any different except for Gaston dying during the initial attempt to get past the Hallowman.

This confirms that that IS Chernyl sitting by the table.

Nuke

Well, well, well...maybe Gaz was right. Then again, maybe killing Chernyl isn't enough at this point.

But this is kind of what happens when you approach a problem with the solution you want set in stone...

Noel knew that page 2673