Liam, without hesitating any longer, opened his System.
[ENTITY DEVOURING SYSTEM]
Host: Liam
Age: 15 years
[SKILLS]
OBSERVATION [LVL 1]
PROTECTION OF MEMORIES [LVL MAX]
PSYCHIC SENSITIVITY [LVL 1]
TELEPATHY [LVL 1]
DREAM DOMINION [LVL 1]
[SYSTEM SYNCHRONIZATION 25%]
[MISSIONS]
[GUIDE]
Liam's eyes scanned the interface with absolute focus, his pupils moving line by line as his breathing slowed slightly. When he saw the skill he had obtained, he knew he had hit the jackpot, and without hesitation, he selected it to learn its effects.
DREAM DOMINION [LVL 1]: Allows the user to enter the dreams of themselves or anyone who knows them. Within dreams, the user may control the dream as long as the dream's owner allows it or does not realize that it is a dream (if the target realizes they are dreaming, part of the control is lost). The user can affect reality from within dreams; damage or other effects inflicted on the physical body are transferred at 25% of what is received in the dream to the target in the real world, or to the user themselves if they so desire.
Liam couldn't help but let out a low sigh, bringing a hand to his face as he leaned his head back slightly. Not as powerful as Freddy Krueger himself, but he appreciated every small improvement the system granted him. Liam couldn't imagine how difficult it would be to live in this world without the system.
His gaze dropped to the synchronization percentage. Liam noticed how the system synchronization had increased by 5% over the past few years; he tilted his head slightly, thoughtful. Unfortunately, there was no new update, and it seemed to be increasing more slowly than during the first two years with Carrie. Liam suspected this worked like gaining experience in a game—the higher the percentage, the harder it would be to increase it further.
With a mental gesture, Liam closed the system. His shoulders relaxed slightly as he thought about testing his new ability that very night when he fell asleep; with this skill, he could practically make use of all 24 hours of the day.
Liam hugged Carrie, now asleep, carefully adjusting her against his chest. A small smile appeared on his face as he felt her calm breathing, before he closed his eyes and let himself drift to sleep.
A few minutes later, he found himself asleep, already inside his own dream. He opened his eyes slowly and looked around with curiosity; it seemed like he was inside his own house.
"Let's see what I can do."
With that, Liam unconsciously raised a hand and watched as the surroundings slowly began to change, the walls blurring until his home transformed into BlackSpot.
"Well, changing locations works."
Liam nodded, satisfied, crossing his arms for a moment as he evaluated the environment.
"Now let's try changing only small things."
He extended his hand in front of him and slightly furrowed his brow. He imagined a wall, and it materialized easily—solid, real. He tried more varied things: creating paths from nothing, changing materials, making objects appear anywhere. Everything was possible, each action responding to his will without resistance.
"Now let's test an idea I have."
The atmosphere seemed to tense slightly. In front of him, a human figure began to materialize. It was Cuervo, whom he and Carrie had killed three years ago.
Liam slowly walked around him, examining Cuervo carefully. He stood still, eyes clouded, lifeless, his body rigid like a statue.
"Hmm, it worked. Now let's try giving orders. Fight me."
At that command, Cuervo moved immediately. His body reacted like a puppet following orders alone, advancing without emotion or expression.
Liam prepared himself, slightly bending his knees and raising his guard. He blocked a hook from Cuervo with his forearm, the impact traveling through his arm like a dry vibration. The next instant, seeing Cuervo's guard lowered from the recent strike, Liam attacked with a left jab, his fist extending precisely and landing cleanly, forcing Cuervo to step back slightly.
But Liam did not expect a kick at that moment.
Cuervo rotated his hips and launched the attack to his left, the impact striking Liam's liver and causing intense pain.
The pain on his left side knocked the air out of Liam for a moment. His torso contracted involuntarily and his expression tightened as he absorbed the blow. The strike had been clean, precise, with no wasted force. It wasn't a wild kick, but a mechanical execution.
Even so, Liam clenched his teeth and stepped back half a step, reflexively bringing a hand to his side.
"Tch…"
There was no time for more.
Cuervo advanced immediately—without emotion, without haste, without anger. Every step was calculated to close the distance just enough. His guard rose again automatically, compact and perfect.
Liam raised his arms, expecting another direct strike, shoulders tense, but Cuervo changed rhythm.
A right feint.
A diagonal step.
Then a short hook to the body.
Liam managed to lower his elbow to block it, the impact rattling his side and vibrating through his bones. Before he could respond, Cuervo rotated his hips and launched an ascending elbow that passed centimeters from Liam's chin, slicing through the air.
"…" Liam suppressed the urge to counterattack, lips pressed together and gaze locked.
That was his first mistake.
Cuervo left no openings. Every time Liam thought "now," it was already too late.
A low sweep attacked his lead leg. Liam jumped on reflex, muscles reacting before thought, but he lost balance in the air. As he landed, Cuervo was already there: a direct kick to the thigh, dry and controlled. The muscle spasmed in pain.
Liam took another step back. His breathing became uneven, his chest rising and falling more heavily.
He wasn't being overwhelmed by strength.
Nor by pure speed.
He was being read.
Every one of his movements seemed anticipated half a second before it existed.
Liam launched a fast combo: jab, cross, low kick. His shoulders rotated decisively. Cuervo blocked the first, deflected the second with his forearm, and caught the leg with surgical precision.
Before Liam could regain balance, the fragment of Cuervo twisted his torso and shoved him with his shoulder, using Liam's own center of gravity against him.
Liam fell to his knees.
Not violently.
Efficiently.
He stood back up immediately, breathing hard, eyes burning, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
"Again," he ordered firmly.
Cuervo obeyed.
This time, it was worse.
The pressure never dropped. Every attempt Liam made to change tempo was neutralized. If he sped up, Cuervo forced him into solid defenses. If he retreated, Cuervo hunted him down with short steps and body attacks.
Blows to the ribs.
Kicks to the thighs.
Minimal shoves that broke his posture.
Nothing flashy.
Everything devastating.
Liam began to understand.
He wasn't fighting an opponent…
He was fighting centuries of mistakes already corrected, techniques refined until nothing unnecessary remained.
Finally, a cross from Cuervo slipped past his guard and grazed his temple. It wasn't strong, but it was enough to make him turn.
Liam stopped.
He raised a hand.
"Enough."
Cuervo froze instantly, motionless, as if his power had been cut off.
Liam breathed deeply, leaning forward slightly, hands resting on his thighs for a second, sweat dripping from his face. His side hurt, his leg, his arms… but more than anything, his pride hurt.
He looked at Cuervo standing before him and realized… without their overconfidence, he would never have been able to kill one of them, and without Carrie, he would already be dead by Cuervo's hands, weapons or not.
"…I still have a long way to go."
It wasn't frustration.
It was clarity.
For the first time, he truly understood the real distance that still separated him from true mastery.
And that, instead of breaking him, only ignited something deeper in his gaze.
He would take advantage of this place to train every night with characters he remembered as masters of combat, slowly clenching his fists as he observed the space around him, feeling how the dream responded to his will.
Thus, he would refine his own combat experience over time; moreover, he knew that if he didn't wish it, the damage he suffered here wouldn't transfer to the real world. That certainty brought him peace, allowing him to fight for hours without fear of serious injuries, without the weight of physical consequences upon waking.
With that, Liam took a deep breath, rolled his neck from side to side, and adopted a combat stance, trying to test other characters he remembered. He evoked faces, movements, names—figures from movies, martial legends, even people who, in theory, should exist in this world. However, after a long time attempting with several of them, he frowned as he noticed the pattern: they did not fight like true combat experts. Their movements were clumsy, incomplete, limited. They fought only with what Liam himself had experienced, or with styles similar to those of people he had fought in his past life.
That was when he stopped, slowly lowering his arms, and realized something important: Cuervo and probably Barry, the other psychic vampire, were special. He brought a hand to his chin, thoughtful, as his gaze drifted into the void of the dream. After thinking for a while, an idea began to take shape in his mind.
The system was called the Entity Devouring System. Liam hadn't needed to consciously devour any entity for it to function, and now he believed the reason was deeper. His eyes narrowed as he gradually understood that the system probably consumes part of the target's soul when they are killed to extract their abilities.
As a consequence, it seemed to leave small fragments of those entities somewhere within him—remnants of their essence, their memories, their accumulated experience. Liam clenched his fist tightly, feeling a mix of unease and fascination at the thought that, thanks to his new ability, he could now use them for training.
It seemed that if he wanted to train with other combat experts in the future to further expand his experience, he would have to invade some dreams. The idea drew a slight, twisted smile from him, fully aware of how complex that could become.
But first, he would need to make them aware of his existence somehow. That thought made him click his tongue, mentally evaluating the possibilities.
"Well, I'll leave that for the future. For now, I still have two experts with hundreds of years of experience to train with."
With that, Liam adopted his stance once more—body relaxed but ready, gaze firm and focused. He continued his training throughout the entire night, repeating movements, correcting mistakes, pushing his limits again and again, until finally the dream world began to fade and he woke up the next day, his mind sharper and his body carrying an experience only he knew he had gained.