Chapter 57 The Dream Ends Here

Some truths do not break you. They unmake you.

They reached the outskirts of the corrupted zone by dusk. But dusk had no meaning here.

The sky pulsed like bruised skin. Trees twisted in unnatural directions, their trunks knotted together like bone cages. Branches dripped dark sap that steamed when it touched the ground. The air was thick, humming with something that didn’t belong.

A hill in the distance flickered—appearing, disappearing, like breath caught between realities.

“Don’t look too long,” Patrona warned. “It’ll start to look back.”

Revoli tugged at Kai’s sleeve. “Did that rock just breathe?”

He didn’t answer. It might’ve.

They moved in silence, blades and batons drawn. The ground beneath them felt like dried muscle—warm, wrong, unwelcoming.

“This place hates us,” Skye whispered.

“No,” Fara said, quiet and steady. “It hasn’t noticed us. Not yet.”

They found what was left of the shrine—a crater of scorched stone, rimmed by whispering pillars carved with glyphs that bled light when stared at too long. Fossilized bones were half-buried in the rock, reaching out as if they’d tried to crawl away.

Then the first creature appeared.

It rose out of the earth like oil through skin—shaped like a man, but twisted. Its head faced backward. Its eyes were deep voids, flickering with false memories. When it opened its mouth, the voice that came out was Kai’s.

“You left them. You died a coward.”

Revoli threw the first bomb.

It didn’t explode. It screamed—and dissolved into ink that retreated into the ground.

“I hate this place,” she muttered, loading another.

The next attack came from above—figures dripping from the sky like molten wax. Boneless, mouthless, with too many elbows. Their movements looped and glitched as if reality couldn’t decide how they were supposed to exist.

Then came the sounds: wet slaps, gurgling growls.

The fish-creatures arrived from a ravine nearby. Glimmering eyes. Gills opening. Slippery limbs that glistened. Too long. Too thin. Like nightmares that crawled out of the water and decided to stay.

“They’re not of this world,” Patrona hissed. “They’re summoned.”

Skye clutched Kai’s arm, trembling. “I never liked the ocean…”

“You’re not alone,” he said, stepping ahead to shield her.

A fishman lunged. Kai struck midair with a fighting stick—full force. Bone cracked. The thing flew into a tree, snapping the trunk.

Another came behind. He spun and struck again—elbows, knees, jaw. Blood hit his face, but he didn’t blink. Didn’t break.

More came. He fought like a storm—movement fluid, strikes precise, relentless. His batons cracked through cartilage and cursed bone. He took hits and kept going. Blood down his arms. Across his mouth. From his nose. From his ears.

Still, he stood.

Still, he struck.

Skye stared. “You’re bleeding inside.”

Kai grit his teeth. “I’m holding it together.”

A fishman leapt at her—she dodged, pivoted, sliced through its throat and spun into the next. Her strikes were clean. Silent.

Patrona dropped beside her, blade flashing. “Nice form.”

“You’re not bad either,” Skye growled, guarding her flank.

Revoli hurled a bomb. Fara caught it mid-air, amplified it with magic, and flung it into a cluster. The explosion lit the crater like sunrise.

“Boom,” Revoli muttered, leaning into Fara.

“Stay with me,” Fara whispered. “Just a little longer.”

Her spear rose. Her three tails flared. Her body shimmered—out of sync with reality.

“Fara!” Kai called.

She didn’t answer. Her power surged. Her barrier curved the world around them, warping space to protect them all.

Her third tail pulsed—then a fourth began to form.

Kai froze. “No…”

Her hands trembled. Her skin glowed. Beautiful. Terrifying. And all Kai could think was:

I’m going to lose her.

Then something hit him—hard.

Ribs cracked. He flew sideways, crashed into stone, arm bending wrong.

The creature above him whispered with his wife’s voice. “Why didn’t you try harder, Kai?”

A blade slashed across it.

Patrona.

She stood between him and the thing, shaking, bloodied, but unrelenting.

“You broke me once,” she snarled. “That means I still have something left to lose.”

She stabbed again.

The creature fell apart.

The air shattered.

Fara’s barrier blinked out.

Everything went white.

In that white, Kai stood alone.

A woman stepped from the fog. Ashen skin. Eyes heavy with shadow. A red veil across her shoulders.

He knew her.

“You…” he whispered. “You were there. On Earth.”

She smiled. “I was your doubt. Your silence. The last breath you never let out.”

“Malrissa.”

She nodded. “You should’ve stayed asleep, Dreamwalker.”

Kai stepped back. “You’re not real.”

“Neither are you,” she replied.

She touched his chest.

The pain vanished. The sky opened.

“You’ll wake up soon.”

When the sky turned purple again and the horrors vanished, Kai lay beneath a tree.

Fara’s hand on his chest. Skye holding his head. Revoli shouting his name.

He looked at them. He heard them.

And he knew.

This wasn’t a dream.

It never was.