The approach to the Nightmare Gardens was visible from dozens of kilometers away. What should have been a lush forest region was instead covered by a dome of swirling darkness that seemed to pulse with its own malevolent life. Lightning that wasn't quite lightning flickered through the dark clouds, and occasionally, shapes that definitely weren't natural moved through the shadows.
"Cheerful place," Borin commented as their transport circled the perimeter. "Really gives off that 'welcome to paradise' feeling."
"The corruption has spread significantly since last week," their guide, Morpheus the dream-walker, observed. He was a tall, ethereal figure whose form seemed to shift between waking and sleeping states—sometimes solid, sometimes translucent, always unsettling to look at directly. "The fragment's influence is manifesting more physical nightmares instead of just psychological ones."
Evon studied the dark dome through the transport's reinforced windows. His Eyes of Fate showed him glimpses of what lay within—landscapes that shifted between beauty and horror without warning, creatures that existed only because someone had once feared them, and at the center of it all, a fragment of Yena's essence that had been corrupted by exposure to pure terror.
"How many people lived in that area before the evacuation?" Yulia asked, her elven sensitivity making her visibly uncomfortable even at this distance.
"About fifty thousand," Quendor replied, consulting the mission briefings. "Three major towns and dozens of smaller settlements. They managed to get most people out, but..."
"But not everyone," Seraphiel finished, her angelic senses picking up traces of fear and despair from within the dome. "Some chose to stay. Others were... unable to leave."
"Unable how?" Evon asked.
Morpheus turned toward him, his dream-shifted features showing an expression of genuine sympathy. "The fragment doesn't just manifest nightmares, Evon. It traps people in them. Some of the residents have been living their worst fears on repeat for weeks now. They're still physically alive, but mentally..."
"They're gone," Titania whispered, her fairy nature making her especially sensitive to emotional trauma. "I can feel their terror from here."
The transport couldn't penetrate the dome's boundary, so they had to land several kilometers away and approach on foot. The moment they crossed into the affected area, the change was palpable. The air itself felt thick with dread, and shadows seemed to move independently of any light source.
"Stay close to me," Morpheus advised as they walked toward the dome's edge. "My nature allows me to navigate dream-logic, but even I can be overwhelmed if we encounter too many overlapping nightmares at once."
"What exactly are we going to face in there?" Evon asked, drawing the Blade of Fate. The sword's elemental energies seemed muted here, as if the nightmare energy was interfering with his connection to the four goddesses.
"That's the problem," Morpheus replied. "We don't know. The manifestations are drawn from the deepest fears of everyone who was ever in the area. Could be anything from childhood monsters to existential terror made flesh."
They reached the dome's boundary, a wall of dark energy that rippled like water but felt solid to the touch. Morpheus placed his hand against it and closed his eyes, his form becoming even more translucent as he extended his dream-sense into the nightmare realm.
"I can feel her," he said after a moment. "The fragment. She's at the center, in what used to be the town of Millbrook. But she's... screaming."
"Screaming?" Naia asked through their bond.
"The fragment has been exposed to so much pure fear that it's trying to purify terror itself," Lyria explained grimly. "But you can't purify an emotion. You can only amplify it."
Morpheus stepped through the boundary, his form flickering as he entered the nightmare realm. "Follow me quickly, and whatever you see, remember that it's not entirely real. Dream-logic applies here—if you truly believe something can't hurt you, it usually can't."
### The Garden of Fears
The landscape beyond the dome was a constantly shifting hellscape of interconnected nightmares. What had once been a peaceful forest clearing was now a maze of twisted trees whose branches reached out like grasping fingers. The sky overhead flickered between different colors and configurations—sometimes a normal blue, sometimes the sickly green of diseased sunlight, sometimes the complete absence of any sky at all.
"Stay together," Evon said, activating partial Destiny Resonance to maintain his connection to the goddesses despite the interference. "And try not to think about anything you're afraid of."
"Easier said than done," Borin muttered, hefting his war hammer as shapes began to move in the peripheral darkness.
The first nightmare manifestation they encountered was almost comically mundane—a giant spider, easily the size of a house, with too many eyes and fangs that dripped venom. It was clearly someone's arachnophobia made manifest, but no less dangerous for being predictable.
"I've got this one," Quendor said, breathing a controlled stream of dragonfire that engulfed the spider. But instead of burning, the creature seemed to absorb the flames and grow larger.
"Fire doesn't work on fear," Morpheus explained quickly. "You have to confront it logically. Spiders aren't actually dangerous at that size—their respiratory system wouldn't function."
The moment he spoke those words, the giant spider began to gasp and wheeze, its movements becoming sluggish as dream-logic took hold. Within moments, it collapsed and dissolved into shadow.
"Interesting," Veyra observed through their bond. "So we fight with reason instead of force."
But the next manifestation was more challenging. A figure emerged from between the trees that made Evon's blood run cold—himself, but wrong. This other Evon had eyes like black holes and carried a sword that looked like it was forged from crystallized despair.
"Your fear of becoming what you fight," Morpheus identified immediately. "Very common among heroes."
The shadow-Evon spoke in his voice, but the words were all wrong: "You think you're saving people, but you're just collecting power. Soon you'll be just another tyrant, forcing your will on the world."
"That's not true," Evon said firmly, but he could feel doubt creeping into his mind.
"Isn't it?" the shadow-version continued. "You've already accepted the role of world-master. How long before you decide what's best for everyone, whether they agree or not?"
The shadow-Evon attacked with familiar techniques, but each strike carried the weight of Evon's own self-doubt. Fighting it was like fighting his own reflection, and every successful defense only made the nightmare stronger.
"Stop fighting yourself," Morpheus advised. "Accept the fear, acknowledge it, but don't let it control you."
"I am afraid of becoming a tyrant," Evon said aloud, lowering his sword. "But being afraid of it means I'll work harder to prevent it. Fear can be wisdom if you use it right."
The shadow-Evon flickered and smiled—not the predatory grin it had been wearing, but something more like approval. "Good," it said in Evon's voice, but warmer now. "Remember that." Then it dissolved peacefully into light.
### Deeper into Madness
As they pushed deeper into the nightmare realm, the manifestations became more complex and disturbing. They encountered a school where the teachers were made of living chalk and the lessons were written in screaming; a hospital where the patients were hollow shells and the doctors performed surgery with rusty tools; a playground where the children never aged but their games grew progressively more violent.
Each nightmare had to be confronted with its own logic. Some could be reasoned away, others had to be accepted and integrated, and a few simply had to be endured until they lost interest.
"The fragment is close," Morpheus said as they reached what had once been Millbrook's town square. Now it was a circular area surrounded by buildings that defied physics—some were upside down, others existed in multiple dimensions simultaneously, and one appeared to be built entirely from crystallized sadness.
At the center of the square was a fountain, but instead of water, it overflowed with liquid fear—a substance that looked like oil but moved like smoke and whispered constantly in voices too quiet to understand.
And hovering above the fountain, surrounded by swirling manifestations of every terror the human mind had ever conceived, was Yena's eighth fragment.
This piece had been more thoroughly corrupted than any of the others. Instead of her usual golden light, it pulsed with colors that shouldn't exist—shades of fear and despair that made looking at it directly painful. Tendrils of nightmare energy reached out from it constantly, seeking new fears to manifest and amplify.
"She's trying to heal the fear," Naia said sadly. "But she doesn't understand that some emotions aren't meant to be eliminated."
"Fear serves a purpose," Sythara added. "It keeps people alive, makes them cautious. Without it, they'd be defenseless."
"But too much fear..." Lyria trailed off as they watched the fragment pulse brighter, and new nightmares began to spawn around the fountain.
### The Heart of Terror
The nightmares guarding the fragment were unlike any they had encountered. These weren't personal fears made manifest—they were universal terrors, the deep anxieties that all conscious beings shared. The fear of death, of being alone, of meaninglessness, of pain without purpose.
"We can't fight these with logic," Morpheus warned as shapes of pure existential dread began to circle them. "These fears are too fundamental. They're part of what makes us conscious."
"Then we don't fight them," Evon decided. "We accept them."
He walked toward the fountain, ignoring the whispers of terror that tried to fill his mind with visions of everything he had ever lost or might lose. The nightmares reached for him with claws made of crystallized anxiety, but he didn't flinch away.
"Yes, I'm afraid of dying," he said aloud. "I'm afraid of failing the people who depend on me. I'm afraid of losing the people I love. I'm afraid that nothing I do will matter in the end."
The nightmares paused, confused by his acceptance.
"But I'm more afraid of letting fear control me," he continued, reaching toward the corrupted fragment. "Fear is information, not instruction. It tells me what's important, what's at stake. It doesn't tell me what to do about it."
His hand touched the fragment, and immediately he felt Yena's consciousness—lost, confused, overwhelmed by an emotion she had never been designed to process. Holy light wasn't meant to understand terror; it was meant to provide comfort in the face of it.
"It's okay," he whispered to her through their bond. "You don't have to cure fear. You just have to help people be brave despite it."
The fragment's pulsing slowed, then shifted back toward its original golden hue. Around them, the nightmare manifestations began to fade—not destroyed, but integrated, accepted as part of the natural spectrum of conscious experience.
As Evon carefully stored the eighth fragment, his Eyes of Fate activated to reveal another relic piece—this one embedded in the fountain's base, where it had been absorbing and filtering the liquid fear.
"Eight down," he said as the nightmare dome began to dissipate around them, revealing the normal forest landscape underneath. "Five to go."
The evacuated residents were already beginning to return, their nightmares faded but their dreams enriched by the experience of surviving their deepest fears.
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