The sky was already wrong. It bled sideways.
The air was thick with madness, not magic, not miasma.
But Madness
Like breathing in someone else's nightmare while your own memories screamed for attention.
No creatures in sight. And that was worse.
Too quiet.....
We were on guard. In this place, even Dream-beings like Ezizh and Tasi weren't safe.
One touch from these madness-born freaks could shatter their very nature, crack them down to their core essence.
I'm a Dreamwalker with chaos running through my veins, so I held up better than most.
But them?
They were built on dreams. Break the mind, and the body follows.
Still, the climb to the top of the black spire was a cakewalk.
No resistance.
Just us, the Eye in the sky, and a pressure that made every step feel like it was dragging pieces of our soul behind.
CRACK
BOOOOOM
"What the...!!!"
The ground shifted.
The sky cracked like glass.
And everything exploded into chaos.
From the shattered sky above, they came....creatures of Pure Madness
Slithering down like ink bleeding into water.
No logic to their shapes.
Some had eyes where mouths should be, others screamed in colors.
A few just blinked, and entire trees withered into dust.
They didn't hesitate. They attacked anything that moved....
Tasi and Ezizh leapt in instantly, protecting the path forward...
"Watch out!!" Ezizh growled, cutting through three tentacled things with one claw sweep.
"Get to the-...bleuk!!"
I saw it happen like it was in slow motion.
One of the madness-tendrils pierced through Ezizh's back, straight out of his chest.
Tasi froze mid-flight.
Blood.
Ezizh coughed, his body flickering. Even his nightmare form trembled like a candle about to go out.
"Ezizh!!" Tasi landed beside him, hands shaking as she caught him in her arms.
He looked at her.
He still smiled.
"Tasi," he said. "Protect Grey. Help him reach the Eye."
Her lips parted. No sound came. Her eyes were wide, pupils shaking. And still, she couldn't speak.
He reached up and touched her cheek, claws gentle despite the chaos.
"I'll meet you at the top," he whispered with a wink.
And before she could react, he shoved her hard toward me.
"GO!"
I caught her mid-fall. "Ezizh...."
He turned back, tendrils of dark energy whipping around him like a storm.
Then I heard him chant.
A prayer. Deep and Forbidden. It burned through the air.
"Endless One… Keeper of Dream and End... I offer my essence.
Not for glory.
Not for vengeance.
But to devour what defiles your domain.
Grant me the mouth to unmake."
The clouds turned black. The Eye blinked. A new sigil formed in the sky.
"AHHHRRRGGGHHH....!!"
Ezizh screamed as his body twisted....
He grew to astonishing size.
He became something else entirely.
[LORD OF NIGHTMARE CONTRACT: STATUS--> VOID]
[ENTITY NO LONGER CAN BE DETECTED]
The Lord of Nightmares was gone.
What stood in his place was a Leviathan made of void, broken halos, and eyes that didn't belong in any reality.
The Devourer of Dreams.
Tasi stared as I dragged her with me, dodging blasts of madness around us.
She wasn't talking. Not even trying to fly.
Her hands trembled. Her lips moved slowly.
"…say… Grey…" her voice cracked, barely a whisper, "…he loved me, didn't he?"
I didn't answer. I didn't need to.
She gave a shaky laugh.
Not happy. Not sarcastic.
It sounded like something tearing apart.
"I knew it… I knew it all this time. These eons… and I still...."
She bit her lip. Tears started falling, fast.
"....I still acted like a child. Like it didn't matter."
Her voice dropped lower. Just for herself now. Not for me.
"He argued with me, fought me, teased me, stood by me through everything… and I just played dumb.
I pretended I didn't notice. I didn't want to notice… because if I did, I'd have to admit it to myself."
"That I loved him too."
Her fists clenched around my shoulders.
"And now he's gone. Because I wasted all that time being a coward.
I was scared of ruining what we had. Scared that if I said it, it would become....real"
"And now.....Now I can't even hold him again.
Can't hear him argue with me one last time.
He's just gone...."
She looked at her shaking hands like they were someone else's.
"These hands could have held him sooner.
Could have touched him without blood.
But I was so wrapped up in my own ego, my pride, my stupid little games...."
She sucked in a breath, then exhaled a laugh that sounded more like breaking glass.
"Hate....I hate myself....."
I didn't stop flying.
I didn't say a word.
Because I knew exactly where this was going.
Her eyes slowly rose to the sky, now hollow.
She smiled through the tears.
"It's okay… I'm going to join him.
He won't be alone anymore."
"Endless One... Keeper of what once was and what could never be... I offer you my essence not to create, but to complete.
I ask for no future. Just one last chance… to reach him."
Light burst around her.
She changed.
Her body stretched, shimmered.
Wings of radiant feathers bloomed from her back.
Her form elongated into a luminous serpent, woven from starlight and sorrow.
The Weaver of Dreams.
She didn't look at me.
She just wrapped her wings around me once. Gently picked me up with her mouth and soared.
Straight to the top.
We got there in seconds.
She tossed me upward.....my body landing with a thud just short of the Eye.
I turned in time to see her fall.
Not like a body. Like a feather.
Like something returning to where it belonged.
Back into the madness.....
To Ezizh...spiraling back down to the battlefield.
Right into his waiting claws.
The Weaver and the Devourer fought together.....
Against the endless spawn of madness.
Not as rivals.
But as they were always meant to be.
Two halves of a single, broken bond.
They wouldn't survive....
But they weren't running anymore.
They had found each other.
Even if it was in their last moments.
[FAIRY OF DREAMS CONTRACT: STATUS--> VOID]
[ENTITY NO LONGER CAN BE DETECTED]
With that Last Glimpse, I turned towards the altar where the Eye is Sealed
As I entered the Alter, the Gates closed behind me and the Seal on the Eye Shattered...
'As I guessed it, god of Thousand Forms himself wants me here, doesn't he....'
I thought as I saw the Eye float to me,
That Gaze....it was eerily Familiar, almost as if I knew it closely...
The Chamber walls glowed with Sigel as the altar lit up, calling me....
Without further wasting time, I quickly climbed the altar as I sat on it cross-legged, and started refining the EYE.
It should be how I can absorb, right..?
Nevertheless, I can feel the chamber is now overflowing with Madness and...Dream Qi?
I didn't have time nor the luxury to doubt it, I just started Cultivating and Absorbing the Qi along the way.
------
1 Year and 4 Months Later~
The chamber opened.
I stepped out into the Forbidden Lands, fully naked, with long hair and a heavy beard.
The air was still. But the rot lingered.
Down the mountain, the battlefield remained frozen in decay.
Corpses of creatures long twisted by madness littered the land, half-dissolved.
And in the center, where they made their final stand, nothing but shattered silence.
Ezizh.
Tasi.
They weren't forgotten.
I could feel the madness coursing through my veins, like Qi... like Mana...like my own blood.
In this 1 year, I've absorbed much of Madness and Dream Qi, finally breaking through and now becoming Immune to Madness.
Mastering the basics of Madness manipulation and a few advanced concepts, but all in all, it was a really fruitful secluded cultivation.
As I am lost in my thoughts, I hear notifications from the system,
[DING!]
[HOST HAS BROKEN THROUGH MADNESS LIMITATION]
[CALCULATING PROGRESS.....]
[1ST SEAL SYMBOL MASTER —> 2ND SEAL SYMBOL MASTER —> 3RD SEAL SYMBOL MASTER]
[3RD —> 4TH SEAL SYMBOL MASTER]
[BREAKTHROUGH....!!!]
[4TH SEAL SYMBOL MASTER —> SOUL SYMBOL MASTER]
[LOW —> MID —> HIGH TIER]
[BREAKTHROUGH....!!!]
[SOUL SYMBOL MASTER —> HEAVEN SYMBOL MASTER]
[MENTAL CULTIVATION: HEAVEN SYMBOL MASTER (INITIAL)]
[NIWAN PALACE: SMALL WORLD (INITIAL)]
I grinned. Two full realms in one retreat.
Without the Eye and this place, it wouldn't have been possible.
I looked down at my palm.
The Eye was there, embedded into my skin, in Bill's sigil.
As I stood in the silence, I could feel the essence......Their essence.
Shattered and smeared...but they are present here....
I knelt to the earth and pressed my hand to the ground.
With a deep breath, I channeled my Qi through the Eye as it opened and glowed.
The Three Lobes turned as they changed colors.
"Rise…rise and return from the Forgotten Lands…"
The soil vibrated.
The madness responded, threads of Madness stitching together two immense pools of Energy with my Dream Essence....
Dream and Nightmare. Hope and Despair.
Woven into form by my WILL.
"BORN AGAIN!!!"
A blinding light.....The madness howled. The earth shook.....
I grinned as I watched them reborn,
Falling into my arms. Weak and exhausted...
[DING!]
[ENTITIES DETECTED: DO YOU WISH TO ACCEPT THE CONTRACT?]
"
They collapsed against me, breathing softly.
[CONGRATULATIONS HOST!]
[YOU HAVE ACQUIRED FIRST FAMILIARS]
[FAMILIAR COUNT: 2/2]
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: MASTER TAMER]
I closed my eyes. Felt the Dreamlands sway.
And I let go.
.
.
.
.
.
[DREAMWALK: COMPLETE]
I snapped upright in my bed. Back in the Waking World.
The Codex closed and drifted down to my waist.
I stood up and stretched.
Flexed my fingers.
Still felt the madness humming in my bones.
I opened the system to check my Qi cultivation.....
'Well, well, well, it was all according to my plan'
I chuckled as I saw the stats for Cultivation and True Power...