The fire had burned low in the brazier, its glow sinking into shadows that clung to the corners of the room. Bari sat curled on the edge of his bed, knees to his chest, staring at the floorboards as though the right pattern of knots and scratches might reveal that all of it was a mistake.
Father could not be gone.
Broken Sword — the man who had split mountains and carved legends with the sweep of his blade — did not simply vanish into the dark. He was too strong, too unyielding. Heroes like him didn't die. Not in stories. Not in the tales whispered to children before sleep.
And yet… his grandmother's voice still echoed in the chamber, steady but heavy, like a stone cast into deep water.
"Your father has perished."
The words dug into him. He wanted to shout, to deny them, to tell Nephis and Grandmother they were wrong. But he could not. His chest was tight, his throat raw, but no sound came. All he could do was sit in silence, jaw clenched so hard it hurt.
Across the room, Nephis had fallen asleep at last, her face wet with tears. She had curled against the pillow the same way she used to curl against their father's side, small and fragile in the vastness of the bed. Bari had kept himself awake, watching her, guarding her in the only way he knew how.
He would not cry. He couldn't. Father's last words — always the same, always unchanging — lived inside him: Protect Nephis. If he broke, if he let the grief consume him, then who would stand between her and the world?
But the night pressed heavier and heavier on his shoulders. His eyes burned, his lids dragged downward. A strange fatigue, deeper than any exhaustion he had ever felt, seeped into his bones. He fought it, clutching at the mattress with white-knuckled fists, but it was useless.
It was not sleep that claimed him — it was something colder, something that felt like a hand slipping into his mind and closing its fingers around his thoughts. His heart quickened, but his body betrayed him, sagging against the sheets.
The last thing he whispered, so low no one could hear, was a hoarse, stubborn vow: "…I'll protect her. Always."
And then, with a shuddering breath, the boy who refused to cry slid into the clutches of a Nightmare.
***
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial…]
Bari dreamed of a cave.
It was vast and hollow, its ceiling swallowed by shadow so deep it seemed the world ended there. The walls pulsed faintly with a sickly glow, revealing shapes suspended in rows upon rows—cocoons. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Bound in glistening strands of silk that caught the dim light and reflected it like wet glass. They swayed gently in a current of air Bari could not feel, whispering against one another in dry, rasping touches. Some twitched. Others were terribly still.
Then—something shifted.
The sight unraveled. The cocoons vanished, one after another, as though erased. First in dozens, then in hundreds. Whole rows blinked out of existence, consumed by an invisible tide. In moments, the endless cavern was empty.Bari froze, breath caught in his throat. The cocoons hadn't fallen. They hadn't burned. They had simply… vanished, one after another, until nothing was left.
He replayed it in his mind, the way the emptiness had spread like ink spilled across paper. It wasn't destruction. It was reversal. The thought struck him sharp and certain: The world was moving backward. Time itself was rewinding!.
And then the voice returned, closer this time, resonant in his bones
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial…]
The cave reformed around him. This time he was not watching from afar—he stood within it. In front of him, a single cocoon hung low, its surface trembling faintly, as though something alive strained against the silk.
Bari took a step forward, wanting to help whoever was trapped within.
That was when he heard it.
Clinck~
The sound came from behind him, sharp as crystal struck against steel. Another click, closer now, accompanied by a delicate chime, like shards of glass brushing together.
He turned, and from the shadows it emerged.
A spider crawled forward on glassy limbs, made entirely of crystal, no bigger than a spoon. Each movement caught the cave's faint light and scattered it into fractured rainbows. Its body was translucent, faceted like a gemstone, bending the glow into a thousand false colors. Its eyes were fragments of mirror, each one showing him back at himself, dozens of Baris staring into his own fear. His breath caught. He could not move.
And then— He woke up.
The cave was gone. He was sitting upright in the warmth of his bed, light spilling through the window.
His heart thundered, his palms were slick, but when he looked around… nothing was wrong.
The brazier glowed merrily. Nephis laughed from the other side of the room, chasing a scrap of cloth like a child at play. His grandmother hummed softly beyond the door, her voice unshaken, strong as ever.
Bari exhaled, long and shaky. Just a dream. Just a nightmare.
Yet, as he rubbed his eyes and let the morning in, something strange tugged at the edges of his awareness.
The mirror by the washbasin caught his eye. Not polished silver, but flawless crystal, refracting the light into rainbows. The glass of the windows—crystal. The goblet on the bedside table—crystal. Everywhere he looked, where glass should have been, only crystal gleamed back.
He frowned. Odd. Strange. But the warmth of the fire, the sound of Nephis' laughter, the comfort of his father's voice calling faintly from the hall… all of it smothered the thought before it could take root.
Everything was perfect.
And yet, when he looked at the faces of those he loved—Nephis, Grandmother, even Father—something in their smiles felt… different. A little too warm. A little too bright.
Almost as though they weren't smiling for themselves at all, but for him.
***
At first, he let himself sink into it.
The world was warm in a way it hadn't been for days, weeks, maybe forever. The fire in the brazier burned high and steady, its light chasing shadows into the corners. The halls outside rang with life, servants laughing and bustling, not with fear but with joy. He could hear his grandmother's sure, calm voice guiding them, not weighed down with sorrow, but bright, serene, almost radiant.
Nephis was laughing.
That was what caught him most. His sister, who had not laughed once since the news, not even before—she was always quiet, reserved, serious beyond her years. But now she was chasing him with a strip of cloth, a banner of their clan, her eyes shining as though nothing had ever touched her. She stumbled, giggling, and for the first time in what felt like eternity, the sound filled the chamber like sunlight.
It was perfect.
Too… perfect.
And yet… he remembered.
The memory pressed against him like a weight, unshakable. He had seen it—heard it. His grandmother's steady words, the suffocating silence, Nephis's face buried in her knees, wet with tears. His father was dead. He had sat on his bed, gripping the mattress until his knuckles bled white, whispering that vow—protect her, always.
He had dreamed of a cave.
He had dreamed of cocoons, of silk clinging to the walls, of a spider made of glass that stared into his soul.
Hadn't he?
Bari blinked, hard, staring down at his hands. They looked the same. He clenched them into fists. They felt the same. His chest ached with the same grief—but here, it was muffled, dulled, as if the memory itself were being wrapped in silk and hidden away.
Was this real? Or was that real?
The laughter tugged at him again, drawing him out of the thought. Nephis smiled at him, bright, carefree. She had never smiled like that. Not for him. Not since Father—
Bari shook his head. No. That wasn't right. Father was alive. He heard his voice just now, hadn't he? Didn't he?
But then why could he still hear his grandmother's words echoing inside him, carved into his bones?
"Your father has perished."
He swallowed hard, jaw tight, a faint unease crawling up his spine.
Everything was perfect. So why did it feel like a dream he wasn't supposed to wake from?
***
The days blurred together in golden light.
At first, Bari told himself he had only been tired—too tired, too consumed by grief. Perhaps he had dreamed of loss. Perhaps the shadows and silence had been nothing more than a nightmare of a frightened boy. Because now, everything was as it should be. No—better.
Father was here.
Not just a flicker of his presence, not the hollow echo of a memory, but flesh and blood, standing in the courtyard with a sword slung across his back. He laughed easily, his voice carrying like thunder. When Bari raced to him, Broken Sword would sweep him into the air as though he were still small enough to fly. At dinner, he sat with them—sat with them, a thing that almost never happened—and told stories of fire and steel, of foes cut down and legends forged.
And Nephis… Nephis laughed. She clung to their father's sleeve with wide, untroubled eyes. She tugged Bari by the hand through the halls, pulling him toward games she had never cared for before. She glowed in a way he had never seen, as though the sharp, quiet Nephis he knew had been smoothed away into something softer, brighter, easier.
Bari smiled. He tried to believe it. For a time, he even let himself.
But the unease never left him.
It was in the way Nephis's laughter sometimes rang hollow, like a bell made of glass. It was in the way Father looked at him too often, always there, always watching. That was the strangest part. Father had always been gone—on hunts, in the Dream Realm, chasing horrors across ruined worlds. He remembered because it hurt, how could it not? When he was home, his presence filled the house like fire—but it never lasted. His shadow was one they all had learned to live without.
Here, though, he never left. He walked the halls at dawn. He sparred in the yard at noon. He sat by the fire at night, smiling with the calm certainty of a man who had nothing left to fight.
It should have been everything Bari wanted.
But wasn't it wrong?
He remembered, didn't he? Father was never there to sit by the fire. He had never once walked him to bed, never once lingered to play, never once laughed without a weight in his eyes. He remembered yearning for it, aching for it. And now, when it was given to him, it tasted strange, like sweet fruit that hid rot beneath the skin.
Bari stared at them sometimes—his sister with her too-bright joy, his father with his too-easy smile—and felt the cave pressing on the edge of his thoughts again. The cocoons. The glass spider. Watching. Waiting.
He swallowed the thought. He forced himself to laugh with Nephis, to smile when Father ruffled his hair. But at night, when the halls went quiet, he would lie awake and wonder—
Had he dreamed the grief? Or was he dreaming this?
***
It happened on an ordinary afternoon, or at least it seemed so.
Nephis had been running through the yard, chasing a ball Father had gifted her. She laughed as she darted after it, her black hair flashing white in the sun. Bari had been close behind, racing to catch her—always close, always watching, because that was what Father had told him to do. Protect Nephis.
But then she stumbled. The ball rolled too close to the stones, and her foot caught on the edge. She fell hard, skin scraping along the courtyard tiles. A small cry left her lips, sharp and fragile.
Bari's heart lurched. He was already moving toward her when Father's strong hand stopped him, firm on his shoulder.
"Let her be," Broken Sword said gently. "She'll stand on her own. She's strong in her own way."
Bari froze.
The words echoed inside his skull like a strike of thunder. "Stand on her own…".
No. No, that wasn't right. Father had never said that. Father would never say that. His voice, real and raw and burned into Bari's bones, had always carried only one command: Protect Nephis. Never let her fall. Never let her stand alone.
Bari turned, staring up at the towering figure beside him. For the first time, he saw the smile too wide, the eyes too bright, the presence that clung too close. The unease that had gnawed at him for days slammed into place like shattered glass.
"You're not him…" Bari whispered.
The man tilted his head. "Bari—"
"You're not Father!" His voice cracked, rising like fire breaking through stone. He shoved the hand away and stumbled toward Nephis, shielding her with his body. Arms spread wide as if he was a protective shield. "My father would never say that! He told me—he told me to protect her! Always! Always!"
The courtyard shuddered. The golden light trembled and warped. The smile on his father's face fractured, cracks spreading across his skin like a mirror breaking.
Nephis looked up at him, her eyes wide—but for a moment when Bari looked back, he saw not his sister, but a hollow thing wearing her face, its expression too smooth, too polished, too wrong.
The grass beneath Bari's feet stiffened, turning brittle, blades cracking into crystal shards that cut at his skin. The air grew thin and sharp, every breath tasting of ash. Above, the sky groaned like breaking ice — fractures of light racing across its vast dome until whole swathes of blue shattered, raining fragments of glass down like frozen rain.
The sun itself flickered, dimming into a pale, broken lantern behind the storm of falling shards.
Firelight guttered cold in the distance, the warmth of hearth and home collapsing into ash. Laughter and song warped into a hollow wail, as if the dream itself was crying out in its death throes.
And through the ruin came the hiss of silk unraveling, long and slow, like a spider spinning its last, desperate thread.
From the ruins of the false world, something stirred. The glass spider stepped forward, its many legs glinting, its body reflecting fragments of what had once been his home. In each jagged pane, Bari saw his father smiling, Nephis laughing, his grandmother radiant. All of them promises. All of them lies.
And at last, he understood, this was truly a dream, a nightmare.
The lie could not hold.
As his father's false words faded into silence, the perfect golden halls around Bari began to tremble. Cracks split across the walls like lightning, running jagged lines through fire and stone. Nephis's laughter warped, stretched thin into a shriek, while their grandmother's serene smile shattered like glass falling from a window.
And through it all, Bari's blood boiled.
His fists clenched until the nails dug into his palms, his vision blurring red with fury. His chest heaved, every breath burning, every muscle locked in defiance. How dare it? How dare this wretched thing take his father's face, Nephis's warmth, and twist them into hollow puppets?
"You—" his voice broke with grief and rage, "—you dare mock them?!"
The floor fractured beneath his feet as the crystal spider descended, rushing from the shadows of the dream, its glass legs cutting like knives through the collapsing world. It lunged, fangs flashing like shards of frozen light.
Bari roared, raw and wordless, and thrust his hand out. The force of his will burned brighter than the dream itself, tearing through the illusion. "You'll pay for this! You'll die for this!"
His fist slammed into the spider's face, and the world shattered.
The false paradise exploded into fragments — golden light splintered into cold shards, laughter broke into silence, and everything collapsed into darkness.
***
He woke to suffocation.
Bari gasped, but his mouth filled with dust and silk. His body was bound, hung upside down in the cavern of cocoons. His vision spun dizzily as he struggled, crystal threads tightening around his chest. Below, the glass spider — small now, no larger than a hunting hound — skittered up his legs, its translucent limbs weaving more silk, layer by layer.
Revulsion surged through him. With a violent twist, Bari tore his arm free and swung wildly, knocking the creature from his body. It tumbled to the stone below, chiming like shattering glass before it landed on its spindly legs.
Bari hit the ground hard, his lungs screaming for air, his arms and legs shaking as he pulled himself up. Across from him, the spider watched in silence. Its mirrored eyes reflected not just his body, but his doubts, his grief, his weakness.
It twitched, and the cavern flickered — a new illusion trying to take hold. For a heartbeat, Bari saw his father again, reaching out a hand. He saw Nephis, smiling, safe and whole. His chest ached with the temptation to believe.
"No." His voice was ragged, trembling — but it did not break. "You're not them... You'll never be them!"
The illusion shattered before it could form.
One step. Then another.
The spider hissed, its legs scraping against the stone in a frantic, clicking rhythm. With every movement it spun threads of glimmering silk, weaving illusions that wrapped around Bari's mind. Shadows bent. Faces appeared in the dark — his father's smile, his sister's laughter, his family whole and untouched.
Each step Bari took sank him deeper into the web, the illusions tugging tighter, pulling him towards the lie. Lies that promised everything.
But then—
CRASH.
The world splintered like glass, shards of false light scattering into the void. Bari's foot slammed down, shattering the dream.
"Not my father."
The spider shrieked, weaving again — another illusion rushed in, his sister crying, calling his name, chains dragging her back.
CRASH.
Shards rained down in a storm of fractured light.
"Not my sister."
The spider screamed louder, desperate now, weaving faster. Threads wove into a perfect scene of his family together, their faces warm, their voices gentle. The life he had lost. The life he wanted.
Bari's teeth clenched. His next step came down like judgment.
CRASH!
"Not my family!"
His foot slammed into the spider's crystalline body. It screamed — a high, brittle shriek — as its form splintered into a storm of shards. Fractured light burst outward, scattering into the cavern like the death throes of a star.
The cavern shook and all that was left was Silence.
And then the voice came, cold and absolute:
[You have slain an Awakened Terror, Mirage Strider.]
[Wake up, Bari. Your nightmare is over.]
[Prepare for appraisal…]