[Aspirant… Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial.]
The unfamiliar voice did not echo.
It simply existed — inside and outside him at once — and then it was gone.
Sunny opened his eyes and found himself standing.
There was no transition between sleep and awareness. No fading dream, no rising consciousness. One moment there had been darkness behind his eyelids.
The next—
This.
"What… is this?"
The words left him quietly.
Sound did not behave properly here.
The ground beneath his feet appeared solid, yet it did not resemble any substance he recognized. It was black — not the absence of light, but a dense, reflective black, like countless sheets of tinted glass layered infinitely atop one another. Each layer seemed separated by a hairline seam of pale luminescence.
Far in the distance — if distance existed — the layered black dissolved into a faint, foglike glow at the horizon.
There were no landmarks.
No wind.
No temperature.
Even the concept of direction felt optional.
He shifted his weight experimentally.
The surface held.
But it did not feel like standing on something.
It felt like standing on the idea of something.
Slowly, he lifted his gaze.
And immediately wished he hadn't.
The space above him defied structure.
It could not be called a sky.
Light radiated from impossible angles. Clouds formed and dissolved in seconds, reshaping into geometries that made his eyes strain. Brightness pooled in shifting masses — now resembling auroras, now resembling something architectural, like the vaulted ceilings of a cathedral built for beings too large to comprehend.
Shapes moved.
Not drifting but re-configuring.
As if reality were continuously rewriting itself.
His brain tried to categorize what it was seeing.
Failed.
Tried again.
Failed harder.
A sharp spike of pressure bloomed behind his eyes.
He lowered his gaze instantly.
"Not helpful," he muttered.
Information overload.
The mind protects itself by narrowing scope.
He focused on the ground again.
Black. Layered. Endless.
'Is this what a First Trial looks like?'
Everything he knew about the Nightmare Spell resurfaced automatically — underground rumors, fragmented survivor accounts. First Trials were usually structured simulations. Historical wars. Siege scenarios. Survival landscapes populated by Nightmare Creatures.
People woke inside someone else's body.
They fought.
They survived or died.
This—
This felt like being placed inside an unfinished thought.
His instincts reacted before logic did.
Something was wrong.
Every survival reflex he had cultivated over years of violence began firing warnings.
You are not supposed to be here.
You are exposed.
You are observed.
He looked down at his hands.
They were his.
The scars matched. The faint irregularity on his left knuckle where a fracture had healed imperfectly. The subtle tremor that had plagued him before—
He flexed his fingers.
No tremor.
He stilled.
Slowly, deliberately, he drew in a breath.
His lungs filled fully.
No strain or fatigue.
The exhaustion of two sleepless years was completely gone.
His mind felt… clear.
Not sharpened artificially by stimulants.
Not narrowed by hyper-focus.
Clear in a way he had almost forgotten was possible.
His perception moved smoothly instead of in jittering fragments.
He rotated his shoulders once.
They did not stiffen or ache.
The restoration was absolute.
For a fleeting moment, something close to relief surfaced.
Then it dissolved into suspicion.
The Spell did not grant gifts without context.
"Fine," he murmured. "You've reset the hardware. Now what's the catch?"
Questions formed rapidly.
Where is this?
Is this symbolic? Literal? Constructed memory?
He suppressed them.
Analysis without data is noise.
The Spell, cruel as it was, followed rules.
Twisted rules, but rules nonetheless.
If he was here, he had been given tools.
He closed his eyes briefly and focused inward.
'Status. Information. Self.'
The air in front of him shimmered.
Lines of glimmering runes unfolded like threads of pale fire weaving themselves into coherent patterns.
Sunny's eyes narrowed.
"I've never seen this script."
The symbols were alien — sharp angles interwoven with flowing curves, nothing resembling any modern language.
And yet—
He understood them perfectly.
Not through translation but through direct comprehension.
Meaning bypassed literacy and implanted itself directly into cognition.
He did not like that.
Understanding without learning felt invasive.
His jaw tightened slightly as his gaze moved downward.
Name: Sunless
True Name: —
Rank: Aspirant
Soul Core: Dormant
Memories: —
Echoes: —
Attributes: [Fated] [Mark of Divinity] [Child of Shadows]
Aspect: Temple Slave
Aspect Description:
A slave is a useless wretch with no skills or abilities worth a mention. A Temple Slave is exactly the same, except much rarer.
Silence stretched.
"…What."
He reread it.
Then again.
Then once more, just to confirm the Spell had not rearranged the letters into mockery.
Temple Slave.
Not a warrior.
Not a sorcerer.
Not some assassin.
A Slave.
And not even a functional one.
Just a rare variation of useless.
He exhaled slowly through his nose.
"Of course."
Strangely, he did not feel anger.
Not yet.
The Aspect explained nothing about the environment. It did not clarify why he stood inside what looked like a fractured cosmology.
It simply informed him that whatever this trial entailed, he would be entering it with no inherent advantages.
He dismissed the Aspect window and shifted to Attributes.
If the foundation was weak, perhaps the modifiers were not.
[Fated]
The strings of fate wrap tightly around you. Unlikely events, both fortunate and catastrophic, are drawn to your presence. There are those who are blessed, and those who are cursed. Rarely both.
[Mark of Divinity]
You bear a faint scent of divinity, as though brushed by it once, long ago.
[Child of Shadows]
Shadows recognize you as one of their own.
He stared at [Fated] for several seconds.
"Yeah," he muttered dryly. "That explains a lot."
Improbable events clustering around him.
That fit.
But this—
This did not feel like a probability skew.
This felt intentional and deliberate.
As if he had been placed here, not drawn here.
[Mark of Divinity] was theoretically useful in sacred territories — enhanced sorcery, access to certain domains. He saw no temples. No shrines. No sorcery-based Aspect synergy.
So it was completely useless for now.
[Child of Shadows]—
He glanced around.
There were no shadows. Not even his own.
The ground reflected light without casting absence.
'Interesting.'
He dismissed the runes.
When he looked up again, the sky had changed.
Now it resembled a vast blue expanse threaded with luminous currents — auroral ribbons twisting around invisible axes. A moment later it shifted into radiant brilliance, almost architectural, like halls that might once have belonged to gods.
If they were still alive.
Six gods, by prevailing theory.
War. Storm. Beast. Heart. Sun. Shadow.
Highest rank: Divine.
If Divinity was attainable, then gods were simply those who reached the summit first.
And yet—
They were dead.
Opposed by entities called Daemons.
Weaver. Ariel. Mirage. Rime. Destiny. Nether…
He paused.
"…What was the last one?"
A faint irritation prickled at his thoughts.
He knew it.
He had read it.
Weaver, Ariel, Mirage, Rime, Destiny, Nether and—
Oblivion.
'Right.'
Strange.
He often forgot that name.
A subtle pattern of shifting light above formed what almost resembled a face.
Two bright nodes.
A curved distortion beneath.
Watching.
His gaze dropped instantly.
The sense of observation intensified.
He waited.
Nothing happened.
No monsters.
No voice.
No timer.
Just endless black beneath and incomprehensible heaven above.
"…Now what?"
Confusion began thinning into Boredom.
He was not afraid.
He came here expecting blood.
Instead, he had been placed in abstraction.
"What am I even supposed to do?" he muttered. "Contemplate existence? Walk until something decides to kill me?"
Silence.
No guidance or visible objective.
'Alright then.'
Standing still achieved nothing.
He chose a direction arbitrarily — though direction itself felt meaningless — and took a step.
The surface did not ripple or react in any way. It simply accepted him.
He took another step.
Then another.
The horizon did not grow closer.
But he kept walking anyway.
Because in every environment — no matter how alien — stillness was worse than movement.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
There was no way to measure time.
At first, he tried.
He counted steps. Counted breaths. Counted the rhythm of his stride — left, right, left, right — assigning arbitrary numerical value to motion in the absence of a clock.
He reached six digits before stopping.
One hundred thousand steps.
Then more.
The number lost shape somewhere along the way. It became noise.
Time here felt like it did not pass.
He walked.
And walked.
And walked.
He began observing patterns — not in the landscape, because there was none — but in himself.
The first anomaly was endurance.
He did not tire.
His muscles registered use. He felt the contraction and release in his thighs, the extension of calves, the subtle strain in tendons. There was mechanical feedback, the sensation of stamina depleting incrementally as it would during prolonged exertion.
But depletion never reached consequence.
It never crossed into fatigue.
He could still feel effort, but effort never punished him.
It was like being allowed to simulate exhaustion without experiencing it.
The second anomaly was metabolic absence.
No thirst.
No hunger.
No dryness in his throat.
No tightness in his stomach.
He swallowed experimentally.
There was no air.
He froze mid-step.
There was no breeze.
No pressure. No movement across skin.
He inhaled slowly and his lungs expanded.
There was nothing entering them.
No oxygen. No atmosphere. No resistance.
And yet—
His body functioned perfectly.
His heart remained beating.
His mind remained clear.
He exhaled.
Nothing left him.
The realization caused slight panic and fear.
This environment did not permit biological failure.
He could not starve.
He could not suffocate.
He could not collapse from exhaustion.
"It won't let me die," he murmured.
That thought settled heavily.
Because it implied containment.
This place was constructed to preserve him.
Preserve him for what?
He lifted his gaze again briefly.
The sky — if that word still applied — continued its impossible metamorphosis. Heavenly radiance bled into apocalyptic distortion. Vast luminous halls became writhing abstract geometries. Shapes resembling wings dissolved into teeth-like silhouettes, then into flowing constellations.
Creation and annihilation alternating seamlessly.
His best working theory began forming quietly.
This was not some place or terrain somewhere in the world.
This was infrastructure.
The Nightmare Spell behaved with structure. It assigned roles. Simulated histories. Generated enemies.
Like a system.
Like code.
"Maybe," he muttered dryly, "I'm standing inside the loading screen."
It was absurd to compare an incomprehensible cosmic phenomenon to entertainment software.
But the analogy held unsettling weight.
Games had environments.
Rules. Errors. Glitches
What if this was one of them?
What if something had misaligned?
The thought was preposterous.
But so was walking through vacuum without dying.
He continued forward.
Hope surfaced briefly — thin and unwelcome.
Maybe something will change.
He laughed at himself.
Hope was a cognitive hazard. It distorted decision-making. It encouraged passivity disguised as optimism.
Still—
Even he understood that endless stasis was not a trial.
It was a delay.
And then—
There was change.
He nearly missed it.
A faint disturbance beneath his feet.
A line.
It cut across the black glass surface like a vein of silver crystal embedded within obsidian. Thin at first. Barely perceptible. Curving gently in a wide arc.
He stopped walking.
Kneeling slightly, he traced it with his eyes.
It was not drawn on the surface. It looked as if it was inside it.
Threaded between the infinite layers like a crack filled with light.
He straightened slowly.
For the first time since arriving, the environment had responded with variation.
Without hesitation, he began following the arc.
The curve widened gradually. The silver line thickened, growing more defined the farther he moved along it.
Soon, another line intersected the first.
Then another. And another.
Veins of crystal threading through the black infinity.
He paused and studied the pattern.
The intersections were not random.
There was a direction — subtle, but detectable — where density increased. Where lines crossed more frequently, where the glow beneath the surface intensified.
A convergence point.
'Finally.'
He did not deliberate further.
He adjusted his trajectory toward the growing complexity.
At first, he walked faster.
Then—
He began to run.
His body responded immediately. Fluid. Efficient. No breathlessness. No drag.
The boredom that had dulled his senses began cracking under stimulation.
Movement felt purposeful again.
The safe environment — if it could be called safe — had softened his vigilance. He recognized it even as he accelerated.
He did not care.
He needed friction.
Needed resistance.
Needed something to push against.
How long had he been here?
Days? Weeks?
Concepts without reference had no meaning.
A creeping doubt had begun forming earlier.
What if this was not his trial at all?
What if he was misallocated? Misplaced?
His Aspect was useless here.
His Attributes were passive and context-dependent.
Nothing he had been given seemed applicable.
It felt like being handed tools for a battlefield while trapped in an empty void.
Frustration — subtle at first — began sharpening.
His patience had eroded long ago.
He had endured emptiness in the real world and he would not endure it here.
The silver lattice grew denser ahead.
Lines overlapped and crossed. Wove into something almost geometric.
He increased speed.
The black ground reflected his motion like polished glass beneath a racing shadowless figure.
He sprinted harder.
If this place would not deliver the trial to him—
He would run toward whatever was hiding at its center.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
At some point, he realized the sky had changed.
Not in the usual way.
Not another transition between impossible auroras and divine geometries.
This time, it did not morph.
It settled.
The space above became pitch black.
Not dark like night, but dark like absence
The endless white glow at the horizon shifted as well. It no longer resembled fog or mist diffusing through layered glass. It condensed into something sharper. The glow became prismatic — a spectrum unfolding across the horizon in subtle gradients of color he could name and others he could not.
He slowed to a walk.
Something was coming.
His instincts had never misfired.
They were not warning him of danger.
He lifted his gaze.
And saw something descending.
It was small. Roughly the size of his head.
That fact disturbed him more than anything else.
Something capable of altering that sky should not be that size.
At first glance it resembled an orb — condensed light folding inward on itself. But as it descended further, its structure became impossible to stabilize in perception.
It was layered. Rotating. Segmented
Rings intersecting through hollow centers.
A model of an atom, perhaps.
Or a solar system.
Or something far older.
It was not emitting light. It was bending it.
Colors clung to its surface and slid off in refracted arcs.
For a brief, irrational moment, he had the impression that the entire sky had collapsed into that single object. That it was not descending — it was simply condensing into a form he could perceive.
He rejected the thought immediately.
He preferred absurdity to incomprehension.
The object kept coming closer.
Without conscious decision, he reached out and extended his fingers toward it.
He was expecting resistance. Heat. Energy. Pain. Any feeling.
Instead—
He was met with resonance.
A vibration traveled through his arm the instant his skin met surface.
And then—
He was thrown backward.
His body folded awkwardly, skidding across the black glass ground before coming to rest. He rolled once and forced himself upright.
The object hovered where it had been.
Unmoved.
He tried to focus on it.
Really focus.
To assign structure. Function. Meaning.
He failed.
Every descriptor that came into his mind dissolved before solidifying. It was as if language itself was rejected by proximity.
He stepped forward, or rather tried to.
His feet no longer touched the ground.
He was suspended. Neither pulled nor pushed — simply displaced from gravity.
His body tilted slightly.
And then—
Something inside him shifted.
Not muscle. Not bone. Not organ.
Something much, much deeper.
Something foundational.
A sound like cracking stone reverberated through the void.
And he felt—
A tearing.
It was not physical pain, but something close to subtraction.
As if a layer of existence had been peeled from him.
He dropped hard.
He sucked in air instinctively—
Still none.
He opened his runes. The symbols flickered into existence.
They were not the same as last time.
Name: Sunless
True Name: —
Rank: Aspirant
Soul Core: Dormant
Memories: —
Echoes: —
Attributes: —
Aspect: Temple Slave
Aspect Description: Slave is useless wretch with no skills or abilities worth a mention. A Temple Slave is just the same except much rarer.
His Attributes were gone.
No warning.
No explanation.
He did not have time to react and found himself lifting off the ground again.
This time higher.
The crackling intensified.
Another rupture.
This one felt even deeper.
The runes appeared again automatically.
Their gold surface — once textured like polished brick — now bore fractures. Hairline cracks splintered through the glyphs. The gold faded, draining into pale white.
Name: Sunless
True Name: —
Rank: Aspirant
Soul Core: Dormant
Memories: —
Echoes: —
Attributes: —
Aspect: —
Aspect Description: —
His Aspect was gone.
Not suppressed.
Erased.
He fell again.
Impact no longer registered fully.
He forced himself upright, movements uncoordinated — as though the body he inhabited no longer obeyed instinct.
He lunged at the object.
His fist passed through nothing. Or everything.
He could not tell.
He rose again.
Another fracture.
Name: Sunless
True Name: —
Rank: —
Soul Core: Dormant
Memories: —
Echoes: —
Attributes: —
Aspect: —
Aspect Description: —
Rank removed.
Another drop.
Another ascent.
Another tearing.
Name: Sunless
True Name: —
Rank: —
Soul Core: —
Memories: —
Echoes: —
Attributes: —
Aspect: —
Aspect Description: —
Soul Core removed.
He hit the ground.
But this time—
He wasn't injured. At least in a way he could register. He felt hollow.
As if scaffolding had been stripped from inside him.
He tried to stand. His legs responded slowly but still managed to step forward again.
Lifted once more.
This time he did not fall.
He hung suspended before it.
His thoughts began dissolving at the edges.
Concepts loosened.
Language fragmented.
The object pulsed.
No visible movement.
No sound.
But something changed.
Distance thinned.
It felt closer without approaching.
He saw it.
Not with eyes.
With something else.
He could not describe what he saw because description requires separation.
There was no separation.
There was no distance.
There was no—
—
Nothing.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
He was not awake.
He was not asleep.
He was not dead.
He was not absent.
He walked.
Through no space.
With no ground beneath him.
A glow emanated from his form — not light, but authority.
The same spectrum that had once stained the horizon now radiated from him directly.
Calm and unhurried.
Each step felt inevitable.
He walked as though something fundamental bowed in acknowledgment.
After several steps—
He vanished.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Sunny slowly opened his eyes.
A reinforced ceiling greeted him. A single light bulb hung from it, swaying ever so slightly.
He stared at it in silence.
'Is it over?'
Fragments drifted through his mind.
A glass floor.
A sky that would not stay still.
Silver lines carved into something that was not quite solid.
And then—
The Thing.
His thoughts stalled.
He did not want to remember.
'I should check my runes.'
Before he could summon them, a voice cut through the room.
"Finally awake? Sleeping beauty?"
Sunny pushed himself up on his elbows.
A woman sat across from him on a cheap plastic chair.
She was striking. Short raven hair framed a pale, flawless face. Icy blue eyes regarded him with lazy amusement. Her navy uniform was crisp, silver epaulets catching the light. Three stars rested on her sleeve.
Three stars.
That meant she was an Ascended.
'Wait. An Ascended?'
"Is he still dreaming?" she muttered, tilting her head slightly.
"I'm… awake," Sunny said, still dazed.
She studied him for a moment.
"What's wrong? Never seen a woman before?"
"I have seen plenty," he replied automatically. "But none as beautiful as you."
Silence.
Sunny blinked.
'…What?'
That wasn't—
His lips had moved on their own!
He stiffened.
The woman stared at him for several seconds.
Then she laughed.
"Well. I see you haven't met many Awakened. By our standards, I'm below average."
Sunny frowned.
'That's below average?'
"As your soul core develops, your body sheds imperfections," she continued casually. "It becomes harder and harder to find an unattractive Awakened. Especially among the strong."
Her gaze swept over him once more.
"In any case," she said, standing up, "welcome back to the land of the living."
A faint smile tugged at her lips.
"Congratulations on surviving your first Nightmare, Sleeper Sunless."
…
'Sleeper Sunless,' he repeated inwardly.
Technically, he was a Dreamer. That was the official term. But people preferred "Sleeper." It was simpler.
When a Dreamer's spirit entered the Dream Realm, the body was left behind — unconscious, unmoving — until the trial ended.
And if they survived, they Awakened.
"I am Ascended Jet," the woman said calmly. "You may call me Master Jet. For the past three days, I've been assigned to monitor you during your Nightmare."
Three days.
"So I was out for three days…" Sunny muttered.
Jet tilted her head slightly.
"Closer to three hundred."
He looked up at her slowly.
"What?"
"You were inside your trial for more than a year. Awakened rotated shifts to keep watch over your body."
'One year?'
The words did not settle.
They hovered somewhere above comprehension.
It had definitely not felt like a year.
There had been no sun to track.
Just endless walking.
And the Thing.
His fingers curled slightly against the thin mattress.
"Well," Jet continued casually, as if discussing the weather, "you've been through enough. You should rest. I'll be waiting outside the station."
She paused at the doorway.
"Don't take too long."
The door shut behind her with a quiet click.
________________________________________________
Sunny stood beneath the weak stream of water longer than necessary.
The police station showers were purely functional — cracked tiles, a faint sting of disinfectant in the air, a rusted drain that gurgled every few seconds like it was clearing its throat. Nothing about the place invited reflection.
And yet he stayed.
Master Jet had mentioned something about "washing off the scent of the Nightmare."
He didn't know what that meant.
Still, he scrubbed harder than needed.
When he finally stepped out, he dried himself slowly, movements distant and automatic. The mirror was fogged over. He wiped it clear with his palm.
A familiar face stared back.
Raven-black hair. Pale skin. Dark eyes.
Unchanged.
At least at first glance.
His gaze lowered.
The scars were gone.
Every cut. Every fracture. Every mark that had once proven he'd survived something that should have killed him.
Gone.
His skin looked untouched — as though it had never been broken, never been stitched back together in haste.
That unsettled him.
He flexed his fingers. Strength moved beneath the motion, subtle but undeniable. Not explosive. Not wild.
As if his body had been re-calibrated instead of repaired.
And yet something felt incomplete.
When someone cleared their First Nightmare, the Spell made it known. It dragged them into the Soul Sea. It announced their survival. It appraised them — formally, unmistakably.
There had been none of that.
No descent into an inner ocean.
No vast voice pronouncing judgment.
He had simply woken up in a hospital bed like someone recovering from a long illness.
The absence of ceremony bothered him more than any spectacle would have.
'Did the Spell forget me?'
Impossible.
Unless that place had never truly been his trial.
The memory of the Thing brushed against his thoughts — that radiance that hadn't been light, that presence that hadn't felt alive in any ordinary sense.
He stepped away from the mirror.
'Enough.'
He summoned his runes.
They unfolded in front of him with quiet precision, hovering as though anchored to invisible structure. The glow they emitted wasn't gold or silver. It felt deliberate — like something complete rather than merely bright.
They didn't look inscribed.
They looked assembled.
Placed exactly where they belonged by something that understood structure at its roots.
He forced himself to read carefully.
Name: Sunless
True Name: Luca
Rank: Dreamer
His breath stalled.
'A…A True Name?'
True Names were rare. Saints had risen and fallen without ever receiving one. They were marks of narrative significance, acknowledgments that someone's existence carried weight beyond the ordinary.
And he had been granted one in his First Nightmare.
If that had even been a Nightmare.
He read it again just to make sure it wouldn't disappear.
It didn't.
A quiet unease settled in his chest.
He continued.
Soul: Dormant
Memories: [Doomsayer's Ensemble]
Echoes: —
A Memory?
That made even less sense.
He hadn't killed anything. He hadn't even fought something.
He focused on the Memory.
Memory Rank: Awakened
Memory Tier: I
Enchantments: [Resonant]
[Resonant]: The ensemble's power will grow with its owner.
Grow with its owner.
Most Memories were static. Fixed in strength, capped by rank and tier. This one implied progression. Development. A design meant to scale rather than stagnate.
He summoned it.
The clothing formed around him seamlessly, fabric settling against his skin as if it had always belonged there. Black. Clean. Refined without being ornate.
He looked at himself in the mirror again.
He didn't look stronger.
He looked composed.
Like someone who had already accepted the shape of his future.
That unsettled him more than brute force would have.
He dismissed it, and the fabric dissolved without resistance.
Steam still clung faintly to the mirror when he summoned his runes again.
Attributes:[Voidheart][The Last Comfort][Shadebound][Fate's Consort]
He started with the first.
[Voidheart]:
You are one with the dark. As darkness and shadows surround you, your existence grows denser, stronger, more difficult to diminish.
Denser and stronger.
He flexed his hand again. No visible change. No surge of obvious power. But beneath his skin there was a quiet certainty — as though the absence of light would not weaken him but reinforce him.
The dark had always been something he moved through carefully.
Now it felt like something that would move with him.
He shifted to the next.
[Shadebound]:
Your senses are entwined with shadow. Through darkness, you may hear, see, and feel that which lies beyond ordinary perception.
He activated it cautiously.
The bathroom did not change — and yet it did.
The shadows beneath the sink layered into depth. The corners of the ceiling seemed subtly extended. He became aware of residual heat where someone had stood earlier. The vibration of water traveling through pipes behind concrete. The faint pulse of electricity in the wiring overhead.
The world hadn't grown larger.
His access to it had.
The information pressed against him from too many angles at once. He severed the connection before the nausea could worsen, though a dull pressure lingered behind his eyes.
That ability would require discipline.
He moved on.
[The Last Comfort]:
You are a presence that finds souls at their breaking point and grants them peace when nothing else remains.
He read it twice.
It didn't promise strength. Didn't mention enemies or defense.
It spoke of souls.
Of peace.
The wording was careful. It did not specify whether that peace was temporary or final. It did not clarify whether it was offered or imposed.
It simply stated that when nothing else remained, he would be there.
A faint chill settled in his chest.
He continued.
[Fate's Consort]:
The strings of Fate draw tight around you, binding your path to its weave. You are not merely touched by destiny — you are entangled within it.
Entangled.
Before, [Fated] felt inconvenient. Like the world occasionally nudged him toward trouble.
This felt structured.
As if events were not random but arranged.
Being touched by fate was incidental.
Being entangled suggested reciprocity.
The world would not merely react to him anymore. It would do more.
His gaze lifted.
Aspect: Primogenitor
Before Law, before Concept, there was the Primogenitor.
From it arose all Fundamentals and every Concept that bindeth existence.
It is the source of reality itself, the authority from which all Laws descend.
All things are subject to it.
However, the Absolute yieldeth itself not at once, but in measure befitting one who would command creation.
It wasn't described as a weapon.
It was described as origin.
Authority through primacy rather than dominance.
Innate Ability: Omnimorph
It does not shield — it responds.
Whatever is imposed upon the bearer, whether force, influence, affliction, or erasure, is endured once and remembered.
In time, that which once prevailed finds diminishing purchase.
The greater the imposition, the longer the reckoning. Omnimorph does not prevent the first trial — it ensures the next is never the same.
This ability required survival.
The first time, he would suffer it.
After that, resistance would form.
Proportional resistance.
The greater the threat, the longer the adaptation.
Not immediate and definitely not effortless.
Earned through endurance.
Then came the final ability.
Aspect Ability: [Adaptation]
The Primogenitor reshapes its foundation in response to imposed phenomena, altering its nature to reduce future vulnerability.
Reshapes its foundation.
Foundations defined identity.
If the foundation shifted often enough, what remained constant?
He stared at his reflection again.
Human.
For now.
A grim thought surfaced.
Death was a phenomenon.
An absolute one.
Could he adapt to death?
Was he immortal?
The idea did not comfort him.
He scanned the runes again and noticed what was missing.
No counter for soul fragments.
No tier denoting aspect rank.
An aspect's rank defined its ceiling.
He had no visible ceiling.
Finally, his gaze settled on the last line.
Flaw: Clear Conscience — You cannot lie.
No metaphor. No grandeur.
Just a rule.
He tested it quietly.
'I hate cooking.'
The words refused to form. His throat tightened, as though rejecting the attempt before sound could exist.
Absolute.
He dismissed the runes.
The bathroom returned to stillness. Fluorescent light humming overhead. Cracked tiles unchanged.
The world looked exactly the same.
He had wished for death.
Instead, he had been given immortality.
'Is this some sick joke?'
If something tried to erase him, it would succeed once.
After that, it would struggle.
The thought felt less like reassurance and more like a clause in a contract he didn't remember signing.
He dressed in the issued tracksuit and looked at himself one last time.
Ordinary.
That was the goal.
Live quietly.
Enter the Dream Realm.
Return.
Awaken.
Work somewhere small. Cook. Serve. Continue.
He reached for the door handle.
And paused.
Because somewhere beneath the surface of his calm, he already understood—
Nothing about this was ordinary.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
A few minutes later, Sunny was wearing a clean, police-issued tracksuit and heading toward the cafeteria.
The fabric felt stiff and unfamiliar against his skin, still slightly warm from the dryer. It didn't fit him perfectly, but it was intact, unpatched, and free of old stains. That alone made it feel strange.
Master Jet was waiting at one of the metal tables, two trays of steaming synthetic food placed neatly in front of her.
Sunny glanced at the cheap gruel and sighed inwardly.
It wasn't much different from what he used to eat in the outskirts — pale, thick, nutritionally balanced and spiritually empty. For some reason, he had expected his first meal after becoming a Sleeper to be more… celebratory.
Something symbolic.
Instead, it was paste in a tray.
Still, food was food.
He sat down and began to devour it without hesitation. Whatever dignity he might have cultivated in the past year evaporated in the face of raw hunger. His body had been asleep for too long.
His stomach clearly hadn't forgiven him for it.
"What are you thinking about?"
Sunny choked.
The question caught him mid-swallow. His mouth began to open automatically — the reflex to respond immediate and dangerous. He clamped down on it with sheer will.
Silence.
One second passed.
Then something pressed against his mind.
It wasn't a voice. It wasn't even a clear sensation. Just pressure — like a hand slowly closing around his thoughts. The discomfort sharpened into pain, bright and invasive.
His Flaw.
He endured it for another heartbeat.
Then another.
The pain intensified, not chaotic but insistent, as if reality itself rejected the idea of him withholding truth in direct response.
He exhaled sharply.
"I was thinking that it would be a perfect moment for you to ask me about what I am thinking," he said at last.
The pressure vanished instantly.
Jet stared at him.
"…Alright. Are you almost finished with your food?"
Sunny nodded and resumed eating, slower now.
"Then I'll begin. As per protocol, I am obligated to inform you of a few things. It's mostly a formality. First of all, concerning your Nightmare…"
She glanced at him and sighed, the official tone softening slightly.
"You are entitled to receive free psychological counseling. No matter what traumatic experience you have encountered, there is no shame in asking for help. Your mind is as important as your body — it's only right to keep it healthy. Are you interested?"
Sunny shook his head.
He didn't trust himself to speak casually about that year. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Jet shrugged.
"As you wish. You can also talk to me, if you prefer. Was it very hard?"
How was he supposed to answer that?
Hard didn't cover it.
Terrifying didn't either.
But his Flaw allowed a simple truth.
"It wasn't that bad, actually."
Jet studied him for a moment, then nodded.
"That's a good attitude. I won't pry any further. Us outskirt rats are way more resilient than people think."
Sunny blinked.
"Master Jet… you grew up in the outskirts?"
She grinned.
"What? You can't tell because of my exquisite manners and polished exterior?"
He examined her more closely. The uniform. The insignia. The posture.
"I couldn't tell at all."
Her grin softened into something quieter.
"There aren't many of us," she said before he could even ask. "Among the Awakened, I mean. You could count them on one hand."
As expected.
The Spell didn't favor the poor. It didn't compensate for starvation, violence, or a lack of education. If anything, it amplified inequality. Those who started with advantages tended to keep them.
Which made the three stars on her insignia far more impressive than they looked.
"So… what happens now?" Sunny asked. "What else are you obligated to tell me?"
The winter solstice was only weeks away.
That meant his first journey into the Dream Realm was approaching whether he liked it or not.
Jet leaned back slightly.
"That's basically it. There are some additional hoops — mostly paperwork involving family consent and guardianship. But I've read your file. None of that applies."
Sunny didn't react. There was nothing to react to.
"The only thing left," she continued, "is deciding how you will prepare for your first journey into the Dream Realm."
She glanced at her communicator and grimaced.
"I must say, your luck is exceptionally bad. There isn't much time at all. First of all, you're free to do whatever you want. No one is forcing you to make a specific decision. You can prepare on your own. Or not prepare at all. Party until the lights go out."
Sunny had no idea how to party, and even less desire to learn.
"However," Jet added calmly, "I would advise against that."
She folded her hands on the table.
"As a Sleeper, you are entitled to enroll in the Awakened Academy. You'll receive food, lodging, and access to preparatory classes. It's late in the year, so you won't absorb much before the solstice. But some preparation is better than none."
She paused.
"More importantly, you'll meet most of the people who will enter the Dream Realm alongside you."
Her tone shifted subtly.
"Some of them may become your companions for life."
Sunny understood the unspoken half of that sentence.
'And some may try to end that life once we're inside the Spell.'
Companions in the waking world did not always remain companions inside a Nightmare. Desperation had a way of rearranging loyalties.
"So," Jet asked, watching him carefully, "do you want me to take you to the Academy?"
Sunny considered it.
Interestingly, his Flaw remained silent. This wasn't a question of truth versus lie. It was simply a choice.
He looked down at his empty tray.
Free lodging.
Free food.
The decision was practical.
"Yeah," he said. "I want to go to the Academy."
It wasn't ambition that drove the answer.
It was survival.