[chapter 2921] I've been thinking about the third nightmare recently

sunny and nephis were transported into their own bodies in the start of the third nightmare so how exactly did sunny meet his future self in the estuary if he was supposed to be walking around in his future body? we also don't see future neph in the nightmare for the same reason because the real nephis at the time(master) was her.

The only thing I can think of is either sunny was different due to his transformation ability and having 7 distinct bodies(each can open a unique dream gate so clearly they are considered indipendent entities to existence) but then again we only see one other future sunny not 6 more.

Or the other possibility, the future sunny we meet in the nightmare is the real future sunny as he is in the latest chapter having entered the real tomb of ariel and not a manifestation of sunny created by the nightmare.

Now here's the theory part

Time is at a standstill apparently with the great river not flowing and the chapter is called only the present which might be because of the vile theaving bird according to sunny so maybe when it escaped the nightmare after stealing sunnys fate which caused fate itself to break with the VTB at its center which could be the reason behind the laws of the tomb of ariel breaking causing every moment past present and future to be the present in the tomb of ariel which is why the black turtle seemingly seems to have just been killed probably by serpant king daereon when he first entered the tomb.

this also means the vile theaving bird would've just escaped the nightmare too and would explain by it hadn't escaped and decimated the world the last 5+ years since the cohort conquered the 3rd nightmare because it never actually escaped.

The rift it would use to escape would also be there in the real estuary but with time at a standstill the VTB can't escape because time in the real tomb is frozen in the moment fate broke as the portal to the 3rd nightmare opened which could be how the real sunny now enters the third nightmare again to wait in the nightmare estuary till his past self completed the course of events and gets his fate stolen where the real sunny of the present day will fight the VTB before it can escape get back his fate and be able to leave the nightmare through the rift because the laws would be fixed in the real tomb now that fate is restored.

its kind of a jumbled up timeline but the 3rd nightmare itself was a chaotic mess of time loops so I think this would fit in well in the same category but hey that's just a theory.