A soundless tremor ran across the dreamscape.
At first, no one noticed. Then, the sky cracked.
From the farthest reaches of the dream, black clouds began to spread. They moved like smoke underwater, thick but fluid, rolling over buildings, streets, and light itself.
They didn't block the moon, though; they frad it. A perfect circle of silver, suspended like a spotlight above the world.
Every soul felt it. Every mind slowed.
Astros halted mid-step, guiding the last group of citizens out to a safer place. He turned toward the sky, frowning.
"...What is that?"
The civilians behind him huddled instinctively.
In the coliseum, Kardrax and Hypnos clashed. Blood and thread danced around them.
Then the air stopped moving.
The black clouds poured into their space, thick as tar. The mont the darkness touched Hypnos, his pupils vanished. His eyes burned white.
Kardrax gritted his teeth.
Crest and Airi stood before the library. Its tall doors lood like an invitation to their final destination.
Then ca the cold.
Crest looked up fast.
"Is that him? Mammon?"
Airi didn't answer. Her hand clenched around her sword's hilt.
A single thought slipped through: Maybe it was a mistake to split...
But she crushed it. No. She wouldn't back down now. Not after Bel berated her. She tightened her jaw, nodded to herself, and marched forward.
In the Glass Garden, light died.
Bel watched the colored shards around them fall still. Regulus went rigid beside him.
"It's him," the ghost murmured, voice low. "He's coming. We have to hurry."
Bel said nothing, only looked up toward the moon frad in black. He felt the pull. Sothing massive was around them.
Back on the stage, the silence was king.
The floating theater cracked open.
Aurus didn't move as the marble beneath him shattered and fell into the void below. The air twisted. The rows of seats tore loose, rising and orbiting the center like debris around a dying star.
The whole battlefield shifted. Gravity forgot itself.
Puppets, once seated, floated in chaotic spirals. So still held their poses. Others twitched, glitched, blinked with white light in their eyes.
The dream had changed.
Aurus looked around, calm. Then slowly, he looked up.
The smoke parted.
And there he was.
A giant of black armor, rising from the darkness like a god pulled from the core of a dying world.
No face. Only a jagged helm with a burning gold slit across it. His body was obsidian and gold, carved in strong shapes. Every inch of him glead.
Six arms floated at his sides like executioners waiting to move, each ending in segnted fingers that resembled sharpened claws or marionette manipulators.
Behind him, a structure of bone and thread spun slowly, reaching into the void above.
The Slumbering King in his grandeur.
The broken stage drifted through, turning slowly in the void, carried by no wind. Aurus stood at the center, surrounded by floating debris, puppets, and shattered rows that now orbited like moons.
He stared up at the towering form of the Slumbering King.
"So," Aurus muttered, voice calm despite the situation. "You finally show your true colors."
He grabbed his sword.
"That form... that's worth going all out."
The blade began to rise. tal scraped gently as he pulled it from its sheath. Not all the way. Just slow, steady, controlled.
The pressure ca back instantly.
Like a crash of wind and weight, it rolled out from him. The air bent. The puppets near him cracked. The very space around the blade began to ripple and blur, like heat waves twisting the world.
Then one of the King's floating hands opened, and the pressure dropped.
Gone, instantly, as if it never existed.
Aurus froze mid-draw, his blade now three-quarters out.
The Slumbering King's voice ca like a whisper made of cold iron.
"Tireso. That sa pressure again... We will do fine without it."
Aurus stayed still. Eyes narrowing. He thought:
He blocked it? No... I still feel my power...
His gaze flicked to the side. The area around his sword was still distorted.
Then it's not my power that he stopped.
He looked back up.
The King's helt showed two gleaming lights at the place of his eyes.
"Human. Foolish human. Too blind to see. Too proud to accept. You think this is a war? This is not a war. It is the closing act of a story you never understood."
His arms began to move. Not fast, just slow, like gears turning, a clockwork was the best comparison.
"Your first mistake was thinking that demons and humans were on equal ground. You compared yourselves to us. You thought Sacred ant safe. In your system... Archdemons match Sacreds. The Hero matches a Demon Lord. But there is sothing missing."
He raised all six arms.
The puppets floated upward like they were caught by invisible strings.
More appeared. Dozens. Hundreds.
So landed around Aurus.
He saw new, yet, familiar shapes.
Regulus. Airi. Kardrax. Copied in glass and thread, their eyes glowing white.
"The Hero is human," the King said. "And humans... are not part of the balance. You are re variables between us and Gods. Your existence resu in being a vessel."
A low tremor filled the space.
"Let show you what stands above and below your place. Let show you the true might of a Demon Lord."
All six hands clenched.
A wave exploded.
The battlefield broke. A ripple of force tore through the stage, pushing through Aurus like a tsunami of wind and will. Debris flew, space itself seed to fold.
Aurus gritted his teeth and jumped back, his boots landing on a floating stone chunk.
Then the battle began.
Aurus moved first.
He vanished from the floating rock he stood on. The pressure he left behind exploded like a cannon. The stone cracked, shattered, thrown out in all directions.
His sword ca down fast, clean, sharp, perfect.
But the Slumbering King didn't move.
Two of his skeletal fingers caught the blade. The mont froze. Then a soundless blast erupted. The air cracked, a wave of destruction vaporized puppets and broke platforms.
The world shook, but the King stayed still. Not a scratch.
The blade stopped, trapped between fingers like it had hit steel.
But it was rely a problem for Aurus.
He dropped low, spinning fast. He opened his hand, fingers flat, and slashed like a blade. His aura surged with the motion, shaping his strike into a cutting wave.
One flick. One hand.
A flash split the space like lightning. It didn't co from the King, but from the sky. A golden line cut across the battlefield like a divine guillotine. Aurus jumped back, forced mid-swing to dodge.
Before he landed, dozens of puppet warriors attacked.
Blinding fast, every one of them burned with sacred power, old or new. A mage unleashed a storm of spears. A swordmaster cut the air itself. A beastkin fired a cannon made of light.
Aurus didn't block. He didn't dodge.
He jumped forward.
His aura roared.
The wave of pressure around him bent reality; every attack broke on contact. Swords cracked, magic fizzled. The warriors were blasted away or erased instantly.
He raised his sword and swung.
The pressure lashed out like a blade of wind. It erased an entire row of puppet soldiers in one swing.
More ca. The King lifted one arm. Space twisted again. Platforms spun like gears. Gravity flipped.
Aurus dropped to one knee, planting his blade deep into the stone to stay grounded.
Then a shift. A glitch in reality.
His vision blurred. His balance tilted. It felt like he was moved but hadn't moved. The next instant, he was slamd by a wave of unseen force.
It sent him crashing through a dozen floating rows. Dust and shattered stone filled the space. Blood ran down his cheek. He wiped it away without care.
He smiled.
The King raised both arms. Hundreds of puppets rose, their bodies rging, combining into sothing massive: a giant knight, covered in golden runes, glowing from within.
It roared. Then it fired.
A massive blast shot forward, burning white and gold.
Aurus didn't blink.
His aura flared and split the blast in two, then his sword moved once.
The puppet knight cracked. Shattered. Gone.
The world twisted again. Behind him, illusion threads stretched like spider silk. They tried to wrap him, into mory loops, false futures, perfect lies.
But he didn't stop. His aura burned everything.
Every step was like a torch. Illusion, magic, tricks—they lted before him. He cut with and without his sword. He blocked without moving.
And still, the King attacked.
Six arms moved like a dance, like a ritual. They summoned clones—Airi, Regulus, Kardrax. They ca from all angles. They cast, they charged, they scread.
Aurus cut them down.
But as he tore them apart, sothing in his expression was showing.
Joy, pure joy.
He moved like a storm given shape, his smile carved into the fire of war. One wide sweep of his hand, no blade needed, cut through the thick smoke and the broken puppets.
The pressure around him exploded outward like a shockwave, bending air, cracking stone, pushing the floating debris away.
The platform beneath him trembled. Rows collapsed, hundreds erased in one horizontal strike.
But thousands more ca.
They fell on him like a flood of steel and light. And for one second, one absolute second of stillness, he didn't raise his guard.
He simply smiled.
"Thank you."
His voice rose, clear as thunder, yet his lips never moved.
"To all of you... I'm sorry. I wasn't the man I thought I was. Not a leader. Not a savior. I wanted a fight, and I used the world as an excuse."
He closed his eyes.
"But in this mont, I can't hate him. That Demon Lord... he gave this. This feeling."
The aura around him grew impossibly dense, pulling gravity toward his body like a collapsing star. The air warped. The lines of the world cracked.
"So thank you, gods."
He opened his eyes. Fire danced in them.
"For giving soone who can make feel alive."
Aurus stepped forward,and the world trembled.
His aura burst like a wave, raw and endless, swallowing light and shadow in one breath. The space cracked. The dream itself groaned under the pressure.
Then ca the light.
A surge of energy erupted from his body, too massive to asure, like a second sun born in the middle of the battlefield.
It swept outward, tearing through puppet warriors, shattering platforms, bending what little reality remained.
Reviews
All reviews (0)