This was all a dream?
Everything—the sensation of escaping the dream world, crossing the dinsional rift—had been nothing more than an illusion?
The Shadow quickly scanned its surroundings.
Only one presence was here. The irregular.
The newly ascended god, who had gathered the wishes of countless souls, was nowhere to be seen. Nor was her sister, the other Constellation.
What first seed like a crisis was, in fact, the perfect opportunity.
A thick, black liquid burst from the Shadow’s form.
If it was just this one irregular… he would be easy prey.
How foolish.
The Shadow’s lips curled into a twisted grin.
This was it. It would capture the irregular.
With enough extracted information, finding her location would be simple.
The raw power of corruption spread, distorting the very fabric of the dream.
“What—what the hell?!”
The human boy, who had confidently appeared, stumbled backward in shock.
The Shadow’s grin widened.
The feats he had perford using Dream’s Authority were, even in the Shadow’s eyes, impressive.
To manipulate dreams in such a way—uniting the power of mortals, toppling an evil god, and forging a new divine being from sheer will…
No other dinsion had displayed such an advanced use of this power.
But that was all.
His mistake was coming here alone.
The boy quickly activated multiple commands through Dream’s Authority.
Firewalls, counter-hacking asures.
A cascade of defensive protocols ignited, forming barriers against the corruption.
‘Pointless.’
But the corruption spread anyway, seeping through the firewalls, tainting them pitch black.
Dream’s Authority itself was already being warped and twisted by the Shadow’s encroachnt.
No matter what the boy did, the outco had already been decided.
“Gaaah! No, no!”
The human boy flailed, arms outstretched in a feeble stance.
The Shadow expanded—engulfing him.
The dream was consud by corruption.
*
“Prince~, this guy is smiling.”
“Looks like he’s having a nice dream.”
Anti-Abyss Prison.
Inside the massive glass chamber—resembling an enormous water tank—the shadowy figure subrged in the Abyssal Sludge grinned faintly.
The first ti I encountered the Abyss, I had been completely unprepared.
It possessed a unique ability that nullified my powers, leaving struggling to counter it.
With the Demon God’s assistance, I had managed to break through its defenses with overwhelming force, but I never truly found a way to deal with its absurd regeneration.
So, I made it a weekly raid boss in [Akashic Archive], ensuring that players would continuously hunt it down.
As long as players defeated it before it could recover enough power to escape the dream-world prison, it would remain sealed.
Since then, my investor deities and I had prepared for the possibility that the first Abyssal Sludge’s ally would launch another attack.
A higher-dinsional entity with similarly absurd abilities might strike at any mont.
So we built this.
Ji-Hye and the Magitech Engineer conceptualized it,
Our investor deities provided the frawork with their divine Authorities,
And our Constellation fueled it with Dream’s Authority—
A prison so absolute that even an Abyssal being with special abilities could never escape.
And just as expected, the second Abyssal Shadow we captured was now utterly powerless inside.
Trapped within the prison, subrged in the dream's power, it was lost in its own illusions.
“It’s confird—this one’s from an entirely different dinsion,” Ji-Hye said, analyzing the Abyssal Shadow.
We had never been able to properly restrain the first Abyssal Sludge. It had been sealed inside the weekly boss system, leaving us with no way to study it.
But this ti, we had captured one completely.
And fortunately, we had two specialists for this kind of research—Ji-Hye and the Magitech Engineer.
“I’m pretty sure the power that shattered your Dream Domain ca from this thing… Let’s call it Shadow Two for now?”
Ji-Hye crossed her arms.
“It’s similar to the corruption the evil god used, but… this is on another level. It doesn’t just nullify divinity and divine Authorities like Shadow One—it actively devours them, growing stronger as it does.”
So, if Shadow One had the ability to nullify divine power, then Shadow Two was sothing even worse—an entity capable of corrupting it.
That explained how it had managed to break my raid boss system so easily.
If Ji-Hye hadn’t brought Beydia to help…
“Thank you, my dear Princess of Wisdom. If you hadn’t awakened Beydia’s power, this could’ve been disastrous.”
“Oh, please~, it was nothing, Prince.”
Ji-Hye blushed slightly and turned her head away.
She tried to hide it, but I could see her lips twitching with amusent.
“I only used a story you had prepared beforehand.”
So that’s why she had taken the first draft of Tystina’s story.
I had wondered what she planned to do with it—
But it turned out she had shown it to Beydia, soone deeply connected to Tystina, and used it to awaken her power.
It was exactly the kind of solution I’d expect from the Goddess of Wisdom.
“Honestly, even I didn’t expect Beydia to transcend like that.”
Every single player present had witnessed her resolve firsthand.
They had experienced her story, felt the weight of her emotions.
Their collective will and wishes had ford her divinity.
A power so imnse that she obliterated the rampaging evil god in a single strike.
“Well… if you’re that grateful…”
Ji-Hye clasped her hands together, fiddling with her fingers.
“Would you grant one wish?”
A wish…?
Sothing about that made a bad mory surface.
“I—I’m really sorry about before! I promise that won’t happen again!”
“…Of course, I’ll grant it. After all, it’s thanks to you that we even captured the Abyssal Shadow.”
It wasn’t a term I was particularly fond of, but…
What Ji-Hye had accomplished far outweighed my hesitation.
If she hadn’t been here, not just [Akashic Archive] but the entire continent could have been in danger.
Leaving Ji-Hye to continue analyzing the Abyssal Shadow, I stepped out of the prison.
Right now, I had more pressing concerns than the captured Abyssal entity.
Like the fact that the ga’s main storyline had just gone completely off the rails.
I had set up the evil dragon Beidos as the final boss, and everything had been going smoothly—
Until Beydia appeared and completely resolved Tystina’s arc.
The official storyline had spoiled itself.
This was a disaster.
As I stepped outside, I was imdiately t with dozens of figures.
Each of them radiated imnse power.
“Our hero, the Curator, has arrived!”
“The one who felled the evil dragon that even the Mythic Age could not defeat!”
“The architect of an era, who has raised hundreds of thousands of champions! Even the gods cannot mock such an achievent!”
“…Ahaha.”
These were the Constellations.
Beidos had been powerful enough to threaten even them.
His resurrection had been a crisis even in the Celestial Realm.
So it made sense that they’d welco like this.
“A toast to our hero!”
“To the Great Guardian of the Archive!”
The last ti I brought back an Abyssal entity, these guys had tried to drag into a banquet.
Back then, Beydia and my investor deities had saved by redirecting their attention.
I glanced around.
But…
Where the hell is everyone now?!
“W-Wait! Hold on a second—!”
“Co, co! Join us!”
“Your mortal body looks weak! We must train together, yes?”
In the end, I had no choice but to be dragged away by them.
***
"Is it... finally over...?"
The investors had finished handling the battlefield clean-up.
The Constellations’ victory banquet had also co to an end.
The long, exhausting day that had begun with my eting with Tystina was finally over.
Only now could I finally escape the Celestial Realm and return to my quarters.
As soon as I stepped inside, I collapsed onto my bed.
But there was still one more person I needed to thank.
The one who had made all of this possible.
The master of Dream’s Authority.
“…It’s finally over, Constellation.”
My Constellation.
“…Constellation?”
But no matter how long I waited, there was no response.
As if… sothing had happened.
“Constellation?”
A sinking feeling gripped my chest, and I shot up from my bed.
Ever since the Shadow’s corruption, since capturing that thing and locking it away in the prison, I hadn’t spoken with my Constellation.
No, more accurately—I had been too caught up in everything to even check.
What if sothing had happened back then?
What if the corruption that had flooded the battlefield had spread through Dream’s Authority, reaching my Constellation?
I bolted upright.
I had forgotten the most important presence of all.
Imdiately, I expanded Dream’s Authority.
And ascended toward my Constellation’s domain.
Creak—
I pushed open the door to the deepest part of their realm.
[The Dreamteller is rolling around, curled up, muttering, ‘I am a useless matsutake mushroom.’]
I froze.
There, in the center of the room, was sothing small and round.
[The Dreamteller mumbles, ‘I am just a matsutake mushroom… I can’t do anything…’]
…What the hell was I looking at?
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