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Chapter 90: Broken Dreams(Part 2)
🕑 Added 2025-07-16 13:00:19 +0000 UTCThe fog thickened. The beasts multiplied.
Baku moved through them like a phantom wrapped in silk and steel. His swordsmanship made a mockery of the chaos, cutting clean arcs through creatures that should not exist, each step measured with the poise of centuries honed upon endless slaughter.
The enforcers of the Dream Faction had long ceased their frontal assaults. They learned too quickly how futile it was to match blades with Baku in direct combat.
Instead, they hid deeper within the folds of the conjured dreamscape, retreating behind veils of broken space and launching attacks through mirrored angles. Jeron’s phantoms struck from impossible directions. Ryoha’s looping blades bent reality itself to try and catch Baku in repeating death.
A tactical retreat and a strategic assault. They wordlessly agreed to themselves.
And still.
None of it worked.
Baku’s sword was faster, his technique sharper, his experience deeper than the roots of this cursed mountain.
“Lucid Dream Sword Style, Fourth Form: Vanishing Thought.”
The blade vanished from sight, only its pressure remaining. With a single step forward, Baku seemed to carve through space itself, his cut appearing behind him rather than ahead. Three of Jeron’s armored constructs fell apart without realizing they’d already been struck.
“Seventh Form: Silent Tides Turning.”
He reversed his grip mid-motion, slicing upward through a collapsing knot of Ryoha’s illusions. Reality reasserted itself with a scream of broken light, phantoms unraveling into mist.
The beasts kept coming.
Smaller dreams, doglike creatures with needle jaws and too many eyes, fell like wheat before him. Larger, more grotesque shapes followed, writhing with tentacles or extra limbs with faces on them. All fed by the raw mist bleeding from the fissure beyond this domain.
And then came something different. Something familiar.
A Sleepwalker.
Humanoid in shape but towering beyond the rest, 20 feet tall, its body pocked with gaping pores that exhaled dream mist with every deliberate, ponderous step. It had no face. No mouth or eyes. Only smooth flesh stretched too thin over bones that didn’t belong to any world born of reason.
Around it, smaller beasts clustered. Drawn, herded, shepherded by the Sleepwalker’s mist. Where it moved, others followed. Where it stood, the air thickened with unreality.
Caldeon, watching from his distant perch within the fractured sky, felt his stomach tighten.
Even in this artificial world, a sleepwalker wasn’t prey. Not for enforcers trained to combat distortion. At least not easily.
“Focus it. Break it together.”
His orders rang out and Jeron and Ryoha responded without delay, pulling their laws tighter. More phantoms, more loops, more binding blades.
But Baku was already ahead of them.
He didn’t flinch as the Sleepwalker approached. He didn’t slow as its pores exhaled clouds of corrupted thought, trying to ensnare him in waking dreams.
“Kahuhu, you walk… but you never arrive.”
His words came light, almost playful, tinged with the first crack of rising laughter.
The blade gleamed once. Twice. A pattern too complex for the eye to follow, a rhythm born from battles fought within dreams older than this faction’s history.
“Sixth Form: Unwaking Spiral.”
The cut came from everywhere at once. Lines carved across the Sleepwalker’s form as if reality itself had decided to disapprove of its existence.
The creature staggered. Split. Folded inward. Its body unraveled like paper burned from within, pores collapsing, mist pouring uselessly into the void left behind.
Its lesser beasts scattered in panic.
Baku exhaled. The sparkling fog leaving his mouth seemed almost gentle by contrast.
“One shepherd down.”
A faint chuckle escaped him. Then another. His shoulders shook beneath the plated samurai armor, laughter slipping loose despite himself. Mirthless, joyless, something deeper, something predatory.
It had been too long. Too long since he’d danced through dream-beasts with nothing but sword and fury. Too long since this mountain’s song echoed so sweetly in combat.
Caldeon felt the chill creep up his spine.
It wasn’t the power that unnerved him. It wasn’t the swordsmanship or the ancient techniques.
It was the ease.
Baku didn’t look strained. Didn’t seem pressed. His movements carried no feeling of desperation. Only methodical precision, the efficiency of someone not fighting for survival.
But for exercise.
The gap in strength was widening.
Becoming clearer.
Ryoha hissed through clenched teeth. “Your orders, Caldeon.”
“Press on. He bleeds the longer this drags. Even swords have limits.”
He hoped. But somewhere beneath that hope, deep down, reality gnawed.
Baku stood now amidst the evaporating remains of the Sleepwalker, sword lowering slowly, armor untouched, black horn radiating menace, tinged blue while his robes still dusted with the monochrome ash of his own domain.
“If this is the best your little faction can manage…”
His voice carried through the dead mist like a knife pressed against the heart. A cold, callous, growing laughter beneath his tone.
“Then you should have brought more.”
The mist thickened again. The beasts hesitated. The ground beneath his feet cracked in slow recognition of his steps.
“Kuhuhuhu… Kahuhuhuhuhu!”
Laughter slipped free now without restraint.
“Dream beasts… Enforcers… Dominators… I’ve killed your kind alone on this mountain for centuries. Don’t you understand?”
Another step. Another crack in the fragile dreamscape.
“You cannot exhaust me.”
Caldeon felt sweat bead beneath his collar despite the chill. He didn’t show it. Not yet.
“Jeron. Ryoha. Prepare to escalate.”
“Understood.”
Behind them, the tether to the fissure pulsed. The corruption deepened. Dream Mist bled thicker into the cracks of this world, trying desperately to hold back the inevitable collapse.
It was only a matter of time before Baku would break this place.
The fog deepened. The beasts multiplied again.
From his perch within the fractured sky, Caldeon watched the battle below with a mounting, quiet dread.
This shouldn’t be happening.
They had prepared for Baku’s Tenet, accounted for his ancient experience, even baited him into this containment with precise calibration. Inside Endless Slumber, their rules reigned. Their artificial domain was supposed to grind him down, wear away his advantage with sheer pressure.
Yet…
Baku moved through the beasts like a scythe through brittle reeds.
Only Growing faster. Stronger. Louder.
Another click.
Another draw.
Another dream severed at its root.
They had abandoned ambush tactics. Now they bombarded him with spells in desperate rhythms, hurling distortion spheres, time-slashing edges, decay-encoded sigils. Threads of destructive laws twisted around his form like serpents trying to bind a dragon’s throat.
Baku’s blade whispered in reply.
Click
A flash.
The spells unraveled mid-flight, scattered like frightened birds.
Caldeon’s jaw clenched. His hand traced a deeper sigil across his palm, invoking one of Endless Slumber’s rules, a suppression layer, laid against Baku’s regeneration, smothering the natural recovery of devil blood inside this sealed world.
‘Let’s see how you fare now, relic.’
Baku paused only a breath. Then he laughed.
“Kahuhuhu… Kahuhuhuhuhu!”
The blood beneath his skin responded to the restriction.
The ache of centuries fighting alone atop this cursed mountain.
The countless nights buried in mist and claw and fang, cutting until his sword broke, cutting again with tooth, fist and bone.
The beasts continued to grow back then. The tides had never ended.
Neither had he.
His blade clicked back into its sheath with perfect precision.
His next step cracked the foundation of the dreamscape again.
“Lucid Dream Sword Style, Ninth Form: Painted Horizon.”
They couldn’t even see the strike. Only the aftermath.
Beasts crumbled. Space folded. Sword aura laced the air where his blade passed, like ripples dragging the world out of its sleep.
Ryoha’s eyes widened behind her helmet. “I-I can’t see it anymore…”
Jeron’s grip tightened on his halberd. “Neither can I.”
Caldeon’s fingers dug harder into his palm, blood trickling through.
More mist.
He called to the fissure beyond their domain, pulling raw dream haze deeper into the sealed world. It spilled through cracks like smoke through gaps in a broken mask, thickening the air until even the enforcers’ vision began to swim.
Haze.
Far from ordinary mist, from ordinary corruption.
This was the substance of nightmares, the marrow of sleeping gods’ bones, the breath of old horrors.
And Baku… moved faster still.
Click
Click
Click
Each sound like the ticking of some impending, inevitable clock winding towards their end.
“This is more like it,” Baku’s voice echoed through the mist, savage joy bleeding from every syllable. “You noble caretakers were far from enough to make my blood boil!”
A sword-draw cut down a charging monstrosity with a face split into quarters, its scream dying unheard beneath the sound of steel and laughter.
Another click. Another corpse.
Then the mist thickened beyond recognition.
And a shape floated free from its depths…
Not a dream beast or malformed flesh.
Something worse.
Something higher.
Humanoid. Slender.
Skin pale blue like drowned ice. Eyes closed beneath a brow untouched by thoughts.
It floated as if cradled by invisible hands, untouched by gravity, untouched by time.
Silent. Sleeping.
Caldeon’s heart froze in his chest.
“Impossible…” Jeron’s voice cracked.
“A…A Nightmare.” Ryoha’s breath hitched. “Caldeon, it’s inside the sealed domain!”
The most dangerous things born of fissures.
The apex of dream corruption. Beasts beyond reason, beyond cause, beyond cure.
And it was here.
Drawn by the haze.
Awakened by their tampering.
The Nightmare’s eyes slowly opened.
Grey, sparkling like crushed starlight.
No pupils, no kindness. Just endless hunger behind endless sleep.
Space bent around it, warping in ripples that broke geometry, that chewed sound, that fractured light.
It saw Baku.
Its skin flushed from pale blue to deep purple in a breath.
Muscle coiled beneath its flesh. The haze screamed in response, beasts falling into frenzies, lesser nightmares gnashing teeth against their own kin in terror or awe.
Baku… laughed harder.
“Ahhh, yes. YES. Now this feels like home!”
Another click. Another blur. Another line of slaughter.
His silver armor gleamed with pale blue aura beneath the monochrome sky, his powder blue robes fluttering like banners of some forgotten war.
“Come then, little Nightmare. Let’s see if you’re worth waking up for.”
The Nightmare moved.
So did Baku.
Their clash collapsed a portion of the dreamscape beneath them into spiraling roots of blue and grey. The ground bled upwards, becoming sky. The sky inverted into corridors of mist and glass. Reality began to scream under their feet.
Caldeon stepped back, heart racing despite himself. His enforcers faltered beside him, caught between awe and mounting dread.
“Caldeon!” Ryoha snapped, already realizing the truth.
“We can’t control this anymore!” Jeron shouted.
‘We…we were never in control,’ Caldeon thought bitterly. ‘Not over him. Not over this.’
He watched as Baku’s sword clicked again into place.
Another form. Another nightmare slain. Another fragment of the dream ripped apart by sheer will and technique.
The Nightmare roared without sound, warping the haze tighter, feeding the madness.
Baku only laughed louder, sharper, hungrier.
~~~
On the other side of the mountain.
Rain fell.
A narcotic drizzle of slumbering laws and numbing intent, each drop saturating the air with the heavy weight of exhaustion and slow oblivion.
Dozeuff smiled as the sky inside his Tenet: Mercy Is Wasted on Sleep bled down across the battlefield.
The droplets thickened, color dulled, and sounds warped under the influence of his law, peeling away certainty one lazy heartbeat at a time.
Shela felt it immediately.
Her limbs slowed.
Her breathing hitched.
Her thoughts… softened at the edges.
“See?” Dozeuff’s grin curled wider, the narcotic rain streaking harmlessly down his bare arms. His scythe swung lazy arcs through the air, trailing hunger behind its crooked blade. “Imp blood can’t withstand a Tenet like this. You should sleep, little half-breed. Sleep and leave your master to me.”
Shela’s fingers tightened on her sword’s hilt.
Her devil blood stirred.
Cold, icy, absolute.
The world around her… stopped.
Dozeuff blinked as the rain slowed around her body, drops hanging mid-air like suspended pearls.
Absolute Zero.
The law of her blood reacted on instinct, arresting the very function of his domain in a growing sphere around her. Where the rain halted, so too did the decay of her senses. The numbness could not enter. Time itself shivered and slowed beneath the suffocating stillness.
Dozeuff’s brow twitched.
“Innate ability…?” He scoffed. “Tch. Unexpected, but irrelevant.”
He moved forward without hesitation. His lazy posture belied the strength behind his steps, each stride cutting through the sluggish rain as his scythe swept with cruel precision meant to peel flesh from bone.
Shela stepped to meet him.
A precise, decisive strike.
Her sword caught his scythe’s crescent in a clean, economical parry.
Metal screamed and sparks hissed. The ground beneath their feet spiderwebbed with cracks.
Dozeuff’s grin stretched wider. “Oh? Still awake? Good. That means you can hear me clearly.”
He flowed into the next strike without pause, scythe reversing angles with practiced cruelty meant to bait her defenses open.
“She’s wasted on you, you know. That devil child. That ‘Hannya.’ You think protecting her matters?”
Shela answered with movement. Not words. Her sword met each strike with minimal effort, her footing exact, her breathing steady. The longer her blood flowed beneath Absolute Zero’s chill, the more her emotions faded to cold instinct.
Protect Hannya. Protect the sanctum. Protect the future.
“You’re just an imp. A servant. Half-blood trash licking boots. She’ll forget you once she’s grown into real power.”
Another strike. Another counter.
The narcotic rain thickened beyond her frozen sphere, his domain pressing harder.
“She won’t even remember you… once I’m done with her.”
“Not possible.”
Her sword twisted, edge sliding along his scythe to deflect it wide. She stepped inside his guard with mechanical grace, driving her sword’s pommel into his ribs hard enough to make him cough blood.
Dozeuff chuckled through crimson teeth. “That’s better. A little spirit…”
He vanished in a shimmer of narcotic fog, reappearing behind her with a cleave meant to bisect her spine.
Her sword locked into guard behind her without looking. The scythe’s blade howled against steel. Frost blossomed where the metal touched.
“You’re slowing down.” she said, her voice devoid of weight.
Dozeuff snarled. “Shut up!”
He ripped the scythe free with brute force and slammed his palm to the ground. Sigils bloomed, birthing a wave of hallucinations, shadow limbs clawing, faces of past kills shrieking, whispers meant to fray her mind’s edge.
Shela moved through them without pause.
Her sword whispered arcs of clean ice, dismissing phantoms as if slicing fog.
[Absolute Zero].
Decay halted.
Distractions froze.
And only duty remained.
Dozeuff’s patience thinned. “You won’t last long, little mutt. Your blood’s thin. Your strength borrowed.”
Her sword cut toward his throat. He caught it with bleeding palms, frost eating into his flesh. His grin wavered but did not break.
“You’re just a little doll pretending to fight. You don’t even hate me properly. How pathetic.”
“Hate requires emotion.”
Her knee drove into his gut. His ribs cracked. His feet slid.
Dozeuff spat blood and laughed again. “Good… That cold look… it suits you. Maybe I’ll keep you after all. Strip the imp away and start fresh. There’s nothing more satisfying than rebuilding trash into something worthwhile.”
Her sword rose again, blank and unhesitating.
He met it with his scythe, harder this time, forcing her back a step.
“You think you’re winning? You’re not. I can see it. You’re unraveling, bit by bit. Soon you’ll just be another corpse beneath my feet. Another wasted imp who never learned her place.”
Shela felt nothing from the words.
Her blood burned cold. Her thoughts emptied of everything except the mission.
Protect Hannya. Protect the sanctum. Protect the future.
Nothing else mattered.
Their blades clashed again.
Steel screamed beneath layered laws and raw will.
This time, it was Dozeuff who gave ground, boots carving gouges through the earth as Shela’s sword pressed forward with mechanical relentlessness.
Blood stained his teeth when he grinned.
“Good… good.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his glove. “But you’ve forgotten something, little mutt.”
Slowly, he peeled the black glove from his right hand. Beneath, four black stars gleamed faintly across his knuckles.
A proof.
“You don’t even know how far beneath me you really are, do you?”
He pressed that marked hand to his chest. His devil blood hissed in response, stirring his skin.
The ground trembled.
The rain thickened further.
From the cracked stone behind him, something uncoiled.
Nullath.
A serpent-like thing stretched from the darkness, easily the length of a small house. Its smooth, slick body shimmered like oil beneath the falling rain, limbs too long, too thin, ending in hooked claws that clicked against stone as it slithered free. Its featureless face bore only three luminous rings where eyes should be; red, white, grey. Blinking out of sync. A tongue like curling parchment flicked from its maw, each breath exhaling words that didn’t belong to any known language.
The air thickened with contradiction as it circled Shela, rings fixing upon her with alien patience.
Dozeuff exhaled slowly. “Nullath… my paradox given form.”
Shela’s Absolute Zero shuddered.
The creature’s presence alone frayed her law’s edges. Where once the rain hung motionless, droplets now began to fall again. Slowly, then faster.
The narcotic water kissed her skin, and with it came creeping numbness. Exhaustion. Mental haze pressed against her thoughts with renewed weight.
Her innate ability was unraveling.
Nullath’s mere existence suppressed the unnatural. Laws bent. Cold cracked. Boundaries thinned.
Dozeuff’s wounds closed as his devil blood surged beneath that freed restriction. His kind did not need laws to heal. They were born superior.
Bones snapped into place. Skin knitted. His smile only grew.
“You see it now, don’t you? The hierarchy. The gulf between us.”
He stepped forward, lazy and confident once more. His scythe dragged slow trenches through the dirt as Nullath’s rings pulsed behind him.
“You thought some trick of blood would let you stand equal?” His laughter came soft and cruel. “You don’t even understand what you’re fighting. What you’re guarding. You’re just an imp wearing stolen pride.”
Shela’s sword rose again. Two hands on the grip. Stance firm.
The rain touched her again, its poison sinking deeper now.
They clashed once more.
Dozeuff’s scythe swept low, fast, mean. Calculated for weakness.
Her blade parried, but not cleanly. Her timing, dulled by the creeping sedation, missed by fractions.
Steel kissed flesh.
Her right arm flew free in a spray of blood, spinning away into the rain before crashing lifeless to the stone.
Dozeuff laughed. “Hahaha! There we are.”
She staggered half a step, and looked down.
No pain. No fear. Just… recognition.
A single thought crossed her mind about the loss.
‘Unfortunate.’
That was all.
Her calculations updated mid-combat.
Her hand opened. Her grip adjusted. Left-handed now.
Adapt. Continue. Protect the sanctum.
Dozeuff’s grin widened at the sight of her calm. “Beautiful. Breaking just right.”
He lunged without hesitation. Fast, his scythe carved arcs of force through the corrupted air, each swing heavier, hungrier. His strength surged from deep within, the undeniable might of devil blood born pure.
Shela met him with clean counters. Functional and without flourish. But the creeping haze stole inches from her reach, moments from her reaction.
“You’re slowing down,” he mocked, blade crashing into hers. Sparks hissed against rain. “Your blood can’t fight forever. Your will isn’t enough.”
Her movements remained exact. Economical. Each step calculated to waste nothing.
But her speed… waned. Her strength… dulled.
Her thoughts… narrowed.
Protect Hannya. Protect the sanctum. Protect the future.
Dozeuff’s scythe caught her blade and wrenched it wide, forcing her back with brute weight.
“You’re unraveling, piece by piece. Soon you’ll lie quiet. And then…” His eyes gleamed with something vile. “Then I’ll show your master what becomes of servants who dare defy true devils.”
Her sword rose again, slower now.
“You speak too much.” Her tone remained flat, untouched by emotion. “Proceed.”
He snarled. “Gladly.”
He struck harder. Faster. His scythe tore through space, dragging lines of warped space behind each swing. Nullath circled like a predator scenting blood, its rings pulsing faster as it fed on the collapse of her law.
Rain fell freely now. Clouding her vision. Blurring her focus.
Each breath tasted of sleep.
Her blood burned colder to fight it. Her body obeyed. Her mind… emptied of all but the mission.
Dozeuff laughed as he pressed her back. “That look suits you. Hollow. Cold. Less imp, more corpse.”
Her sword caught his scythe again, but weaker. Her stance wavered beneath his strength.
“You think this matters?” he hissed, driving her back another step. “You’ll lose. You’ll fall. You’ll break beneath me like all the others.”
Steel rang against steel. Frost hissed beneath bloodied feet.
Shela’s devil blood screamed silently beneath her skin, fraying the world as it clung to purpose alone.
Protect Hannya. Protect the sanctum. Protect the future.
Nothing else mattered.
Comments
Butch Perterson
lol that summary grasped every part and nuance of this chapter perfectly 😂 And the word yammering has me dead 🤣 I don’t know why
Butch Perterson
lol you are completely right, any other being wouldn’t have dare dared to fight a devil head on and alone, especially if they weren’t sure they could finish it quickly. 😂 but a protag always has to try their luck! And VERY nice catch with that line there 🤭 who knows what that means, probably lazmer. And Baku only gets worse next chapter, they were 100% justified in exiling him 😭 also I plan on revealing how much she knows in the Baku side story soon!
Prent
Dream Faction: The battle against Baku will be one of strength vs skill, which we will win because we have so much strength Baku: This is a battle of strength vs strength AND skill. You don’t have enough of either. Also, poor Shela, having to listen to Dozeuff’s yammering
ShadowTycho
As awesome as Shela's resistance is, given that Dozeuff has wish magic and she doesn't this seems to be going the only way it could go with out intervention. I reread her section after I had that thought and its fun how that fact makes him seem even more cocksure. The resurrection of Chauncy also means this could end in tragedy for her. Exciting. I wonder what he means by "Strip the imp away and start fresh." Baku continues to show why he was put on the mountain in the first place. It clearly was the safest way to dispose of him at the time, and he has gotten so much more practice in now. I wonder how much of this sword style Hannya has for herself. I imagine coping Baku would yield great results, but he doesn't have a [dream body] so it seems like she could take the style so much farther.
