I have watched countless nights fall across worlds, and I have learned that the quiet before a great trial is never truly calm. It is only gathering itself.
As the final prayers were spoken and the last preparations made, the High Priest stepped forward beneath the Sanctuary's vaulted stone and raised his hand. His voice carried gently, not with command this time, but with care.
"Rest," he told them. "All of you. Tomorrow, the ritual begins. Steel and spirit alike will be tested. There is no benefit in exhausting yourselves before fate has even opened its eyes."
Reluctantly, the gathered warriors dispersed. Some returned to their tents, others to the stone quarters prepared for them. Murmurs lingered in the air, low and anxious, as if the Sanctuary itself whispered back at them. Erias stood among the last to move, both swords at his sides, shoulders heavy.
When he finally lay down, sleep came not as darkness, but as drifting.
He did not dream as mortals usually do. There was no confusion, no broken images. Instead, the world softened, thinned, and then opened.
He stood within the Dream Realm.
The sky above him was not a sky at all, but a vast canvas of silver and violet, folding in on itself like thought made visible. Towers of memory stretched in the distance. Rivers of light flowed without sound. And at the center of it all, high upon a throne shaped from mist and stars, Dream worked.
Erias watched as Dream extended his hands toward a great wound in the realm itself. A tear, jagged and dark, cutting through the fabric of the Dream Realm like a scar that refused to heal. Light poured from Dream's palms in slow, deliberate strands, weaving reality back together thread by thread. Each motion was careful, controlled, as though even he could not afford to be careless.
Erias felt small standing there. Smaller than he ever had on Vvralis.
He turned and realized he was not alone.
The Nightmare General stood nearby, his towering form casting a long shadow across the glowing ground. His presence was heavy, intimidating, yet steady. Not hostile. Not kind. Simply immense.
"Just how powerful is the lord of this realm?" Erias asked quietly, unable to tear his eyes from Dream.
The Nightmare General regarded him for a long moment before answering.
"You ask that question because you have begun to understand that power is not measured the way mortals believe," he said. "Very well. I will tell you a story. One you are not meant to hear, but one you must."
His voice shifted, deepening, and the realm around them seemed to listen.
"When the first mortal was born in another world far from this one," the Nightmare General began, "they were fragile creatures. They feared the dark. They feared the silence. They feared what waited behind closed eyes. Dream saw this, and he acted."
He gestured toward the vast realm around them.
"He created the Dreamborn. Beings born of thought and wonder. They walked the dreams of mortals and gave them hope. Inspiration. The courage to wake and face another day."
Erias listened, transfixed.
"But hope alone is not enough," the Nightmare General continued. "So Dream created us. The Nightmares. We were not demons. We were not evil. We were trials. We revealed fear so mortals could confront it. We gave them strength by forcing them to face what they wished to flee."
He paused, the memory heavy.
"At first, there was balance. Dreamborn and Nightmare alike served the same purpose from different sides of the same truth."
The sky darkened slightly.
"But one among us," the Nightmare General said, "was too powerful. A living nightmare. Stronger than any other. He assisted Dream alongside seros when Dream first shaped our kind. Yet he went beyond his role. He stopped testing mortals and began to terrorize them. He became a god of fear unto himself."
Erias felt a chill.
"Dream intervened," the Nightmare General went on. "He did not destroy the living nightmare. He locked him away in the deepest part of this realm, where he could harm no world again."
The Nightmare General's voice hardened.
"But before he was sealed, the living nightmare whispered to others. He convinced some of us that the Dreamborn walked as though they were better, purer. He promised power if we stood against them. And so… we did."
Images flickered in the air. Dreamborn and Nightmare clashing across dreamscapes. Mortals tossing in sleepless agony.
"The war spread," the Nightmare General said. "Mortals across worlds could no longer sleep. Dreams became battlefields. Nightmares multiplied. Dream watched his realm unravel because of our defiance."
He bowed his head slightly.
"To end it, Dream erased some of the Nightmare Generals entirely. Others he scattered, forcing us into solitude so we could never gather again. He weakened the Dreamborn as well, so they would never rise to challenge us in another war."
Erias slowly exhaled.
"And the living nightmare?" he asked.
"He argued," the Nightmare General replied. "He claimed Dream had gone too far. Dream did not listen. He sealed him in the deepest abyss of this realm, where he remains to this day. Unable to escape. Unable to be heard."
The Nightmare General looked back toward Dream, still repairing the tear.
"Because of this," he said, "Dream is feared even among beings far older than your gods. He is merciless when balance is threatened. And he never acts without reason."
Erias stared at the tear being mended, light knitting darkness together.
I guess there are beings stronger than the gods of Vvralis, he thought.
Suddenly, instinct screamed.
The Nightmare General moved.
Erias felt it before he saw it. He twisted aside as a massive shadow swept past where his head had been. The Nightmare General's strike missed by inches.
Good, the Nightmare General thought.
Erias barely had time to recover before another attack came. He dodged again, heart pounding, his movements sharper than they had ever been. The Nightmare General pressed him, relentless but measured, forcing Erias to react rather than think.
"You sense better now," the Nightmare General said as Erias narrowly avoided another blow. "You are not the boy Seros first trained."
Erias stumbled, rolled, sprang back to his feet. Each motion felt faster, cleaner. Something inside him burned brighter.
The Nightmare General stopped suddenly.
He stared at Erias' chest, where the faint spark of dream-energy pulsed more clearly now.
"It grows," he said.
Erias felt the pull of waking, the Dream Realm beginning to thin around him. He bowed instinctively.
"Thank you," he said. "Both of you."
Seros stepped from the forest of memory where she had hidden herself, her presence calm and steady.
"Rest," she told him gently. "Tomorrow will demand everything."
The world faded.
When Erias vanished, Seros turned to the Nightmare General.
"The dream in the boy grows strong," the Nightmare General said. "What happens if it becomes a flame?"
Seros watched Dream continue his work, silent for a long moment.
"Only Dream knows," she said at last. "And even he may not yet know the answer."
Above them, the tear closed a fraction more.
And beyond the Dream Realm, on Vvralis, dawn crept closer to a ritual that would change far more than one boy's fate.
I watched it all, as I always do.