Nightmare Gate

The Gates looked like tears, in reality, revealing nothing but vile darkness in their depths. It was lethal for anyone trying to pass through it, ensuring failure.^[3]

A Nightmare Gate is a one-way path through which only creatures from the Dream Realm could enter and nothing from the waking world could pass through it into the land of nightmares. Only an Awakened could answer its Call by sending their souls on a perilous journey. All they had to do was fall asleep in the vicinity of the rift.^[4]

Masters and Saints could answer it as well by pulling on their own anchors, but not by physically stepping through the Gate. Sovereigns, however, might be able to.rift.^[4]

An Awakened who lost consciousness near an active Gate meant that their soul was stolen away by the Call. They will be thrown into an unexplored, dire region of the Dream Realm, surrounded by numerous Nightmare Creatures and abominations. Their only chance of survival was to fight their way to a Seed, challenge it, and conquer the Second Nightmare alone.^[5]

Anyone trying to pass through the gate from Dream Realm is destined to fail and approaching it from waking world is also lethal.^[3]

If a Seed of Nightmare isn't found and destroyed before it matures, a Gate from the Dream Realm is opened and a horde of Nightmare Creatures is unleased into the real world. To destroy the Seed, any number of Awakened can enter the Nightmare and attempt to conquer it.^[6]

Thus, it won't be wrong to say that the duty of all Awakened is to enter the Dream Realm, seek out maturing Nightmares, and close them before any harm befalls the real world.^[6]

The government has a technology used to detect the appearing Gates in advance. People usually receive a notification at least ten minutes, half an hour, and sometimes even days before the event. The technology also can predict the probability of the gate category.^[2]

Obel Scale is the spelltech system that the government uses to detect signs of a manifesting Gate.^[7]

The gate category is based on the Guardian of the gate which is always at least one rank higher than the Gate's Category and can be of any high class, from a Devil to a dreaded Titan.^[8] But the gate that appeared in LO49, had a Demon class gate guardian.^[9]

The most frequent gate category to appear in the real world is Second Category Gate.^[8]

Every Aspirant who fails their First Nightmare becomes a miniature Gate, allowing a single Nightmare Creature to enter the waking world. That is why their corpses turn into monsters. They are classified as Gate of the First category.^[10]

The Gate opening looked like a tall vertical depression in the fabric of the world, a place where light refracted in unnatural ways and the inaudible screams were the loudest. It is not yet a rift in reality, but a hint of one.^[11]

The opened Gate is a dark rift in the fabric of reality, as wide as the street itself and as tall as the buildings. It seemed to devour all light around it and called for the Awakened to enter.^[8]

Main article: Call of Nightmare

The severity of interference increases as one gets closer to the Gate. The Call supersedes both the tether and the anchor in its immediate vicinity. This means that if one decides to enter the Dream Realm near an active Gate, they will be drawn to its Seed rather than their Citadel. The same goes for the Awakened who fall asleep in the vicinity.^[12]

The first few waves of advancing Nightmare Creatures are comprised mostly of Dormant creatures, with some Awakened abominations mixed in. Their classes and numbers would be comparatively low. After that, every Nightmare Creature coming from the Gate is going to be of the Awakened Rank, with more and more Fallen ones appearing as well. Their classes are going to rise until there were as many Demons as there are Monsters and Beasts around.^[8]

If the Gate is going to end up being Second Category, the Guardian of the Gate would manifest itself into reality which is of Fallen rank and can be of any class, from a Devil to a dreaded Titan.^[8]

If it continued to grow, reaching the Third Category, then there would be more and more waves of Nightmare Creatures, hundreds of Fallen abominations lunging into the real world from the dark void between worlds, with Corrupted horrors and creatures of higher Classes appearing among them.^[8]

Awakened and especially Masters could make a judgment on the condition of Gate interference and the potency of the Call in the surroundings. Although their personal senses were not as precise as the complex calculations and observation data provided by the headquarters.^[13]

Main article: Obel's Research

The number and power of Awakened in the real world correlate with the number and power of the Nightmare Gates that manifest. The Ascension of many Awakened can be the cause of the growing number and intensity of the Nightmare Gate. But there is an exception, the Category Five gate which appeared before a bunch of Supremes ran around the world.^[14]

Due to Earth's laws were designed to be mundane, preventing Awakening and sorcery. It made it the last to be infected by the Nightmare Spell. This alone proves a connection between Nightmare Gates and Awakened individuals.^[15] (Refer to Earth's Nature)

• Most of Earth's water is home to terrifying Nightmare Creatures as the majority of Gates open underwater. They simply leave those Gates alone because they only have a few methods of battling them underwater.^[16]
• Gates were known to mess with technology.^[17]
• Sunny suspected that Nightmare Creatures were experiencing a call that was very similar to what Awakened had experienced. They were drawn to the blooming seed from the depths of the Dream Realm. The first to reach it were those who had come closer, but others could arrive at a later date. That is why, if a Gate couldn't be closed, it would have to be kept under government control and constantly monitored.^[18]
• The Gate disrupts the anchors of those near it, so Masters and Saints that enter the Dream Realm will appear in the vicinity of the blooming Seed.^[19]
• Touching the gate as Master, Sunny received damage that seemed to be more than a mere physical wound.^[20]

• First Gate Experience
• Antarctica Campaign