Once more, I raised my hand.
"Osu."
A pulse of force rippled from my fingers, scattering the swirling spores around me like ashes in a storm. They couldn't put me to sleep, but I still didn't know what else they might be doing. My skin tingled, my nerves felt… off.
The kid pouted like a brat denied candy.
"Man! Why didn't you fall asleep? You looked into my eyes andI used my censer. This isn't fair!"
He pouted harder, clutching the censer dangling from a long, dark chain. With a childish grin, he began to swing it side to side, slow and steady, like he was trying to hypnotize me, except his movements were twitchy, erratic, completely unhinged.
Then he leapt into the air with all the grace of a marionette on broken strings.
The censer arced overhead like a falling star, crashing down toward me like a meteor hammer. I raised my arm in time to block it. The impact thundered against my guard, a shock running up my bones, it was heavy, yes, but not enough to break me.
I countered.
Left hand raised.
"Hiku."
The world bent to my will. The boy was ripped toward me like a puppet on a snapped cord.
I threw a right hook, aiming to end it in a flash of violence,
but pain slammed into my arm mid-swing.
Not a strike. Something else. Something that threw off my rhythm.
And in that instant of broken tempo, he slipped through.
The censer whipped upward with a clang, striking my chin and sending me flying. My vision cracked like glass. I tumbled through the air, slammed back down, breath torn from my lungs in ragged gasps.
Pain again. Deep. Sharp. Wrong.
What the hell was this kid's ability?
I coughed, wiping blood from my mouth. "Tell me, boy. What's your name?"
He tilted his head, eyes glinting.
"Somnus Rakiel."
Shit. That didn't tell me anything.
But that surname… Rakiel. Loretta's bloodline. A Royal.
Somnus started spinning his censer above his head. Faster. And faster. It blurred, becoming a ring of gold light howling through the air.
I clasped my hands together, willing Essentia into form. Black rods of raw energy lanced forward. I didn't expect them to hit,I just needed to force him out of his rhythm. Close the distance. Bring him into my space.
But he released the censer before they could land. It howled like a banshee as it collided with my chest. My body folded around the blow. I crashed through the wall of a rotted building like a missile, dragged through broken wood and crumbling stone.
I lay in the rubble, heaving.
I'm getting my ass handed to me.
I forced myself to my feet, fury burning in my limbs. I needed a distraction. Something to shake his tempo.
Clasping my hands again, I whispered, "Hiku."
This time, I didn't release it immediately. I fed it. Let it grow fat with energy. When I finally threw it, the orb hovered inches from me, radiating power.
Somnus stared at it, eyes wide, caught like a moth in flame.
It imploded.
He was dragged into the singularity, his body sucked into the world I'd created.
My world.
"Hiku."
I pressed my palms into the orb, letting it spin me inward until I was there, too. The dreamscape.
Somnus stood dazed, looking around.
"What… is this place?" he asked, eyes scanning the shifting void.
I exhaled, leveling my gaze.
"Call it… a dream."
That smile. Beautiful, but haunting. Menacing. His whole aura shifted. He took a new stance, lower, faster, tighter. Like he'd just woken up.
He darted forward, censer spinning. I moved, but it bent unnaturally, curving toward me as though possessed. It wrapped around my waist, tight, dragging me toward him. I dug my heels into the dream-earth, fighting the pull,
Then his eyes opened.
And I saw myself in them. Every sin. Every secret. Every shameful truth I'd buried in the blackest corner of my heart.
He saw it all.
Those eyes weren't just for sleep. They were for revelation.
"Uzai…" he whispered.
Damn it.
I ripped myself free of the chain and roared,
"Heavenly World Destruction!"
The ground quaked. Somnus was lifted into the air as boulders rose with him, orbiting his body and encasing him in a spiraling tomb of stone.
I gasped, chest heaving. "Finally…" I muttered, watching the sphere shrink tighter and tighter.
"Die, bastard."
Dust. Nothing left.
I didn't celebrate.
Because a kick came from nowhere, cracking into the back of my knees and bringing me down.
Was that an illusion?
"Ou, is that your trump card? Sorin Uzai?" he mocked.
I spat blood and shouted, "Osu! Don't speak the name of a clan you know nothing about!"
He was blasted away, but caught himself mid-air, laughing.
"Nothing? My master holds the eyes of all your brethren. But yours… yours are special."
No. No, he can't,
"LAZARUS!!" I screamed, fury breaking me.
Every vein in my body flared. My skin pulsed with rage.
This boy… was under Lazarus.
"Hiku!" I dragged him to the floor with gravitational force, my hand crushing his throat. I slammed him into the dream's surface and threw everything I had into a storm of punches.
He vanished.
A kick cracked into the back of my head. I hit the ground face-first, teeth grinding.
I was losing the field. I could feel it. The dream was weakening.
"What the hell are you doing?" I growled.
He twirled the censer, slow and smug.
"Red Moon Dance. You're under an illusion every time you try to hit me."
My jaw clenched. Cheats. All of this was cheating. How the hell do you fight a ghost?
The dream collapsed.
We were back in the streets of the Unlawful Zone. The scent of soot, the chaos, the blood,it returned all at once.
I got to my feet, fists shaking. Even if I couldn't see through him, I could beat him.
I locked eyes with Somnus. His were wide now. Fully open.
"Osu." I coated my hands in Essentia, black flame curling around them like boxing gloves.
"I will not be taken down by a lackey of Lazarus."
We charged.
"You're truly my worst matchup," he muttered, voice finally above a whisper.
I didn't hear him.
I only heard the censer's hum.
And the roar of blood in my ears.
My fist met his stomach. A clean hit. He flew.
I followed,
Another gut punch, this time airborne, carrying him higher.
"Osu!!"
A final uppercut. The impact echoed like an explosion. His body spun midair, ragdolling.
But of course, he wasn't finished.
He slammed the censer into the ground, BOOM ,and a cloud of spores burst out, drowning everything. I couldn't see. My mind blurred. Sleep clawed at me.
Then,
CRACK.
The censer struck my chest again, waking me.
This wasn't just sleep. It was something else.
Before I could react, the chain wrapped around my legs and yanked me down.
He followed through, censer aimed for my chest. I rolled just in time, feeling the blow crack stone where I'd just been.
I fired Essentia rods. Most missed.
But one hit.
His foot.
He grimaced.
Finally. A reaction.
I stood, hunched, vision swaying. Every breath a war.
Then I saw it.
Ryai.
Standing in front of me. Weapons made of pure fire impaled into his back. Dozens.
He stumbled forward, crying. Whimpering.
I caught him. "Ryai,what the hell, what happened to you?"
He couldn't speak. Only coughs. Only pain.
No… this had to be an illusion. It had to be.
Though it was, I didn't have time to think.
The censer smashed into my skull. The world went black.
Somnus staggered forward, each breath a ragged rasp clawing its way from his lungs. His chest rose and fell like the tides of a dying sea,rhythmic, but with no promise of return. Blood dripped from the puncture in his foot, each crimson drop a cruel metronome counting down the seconds until he collapsed. The Essentia rod was gone now, dissipated into the void, but the damage remained,jagged and raw, burning with each faltering step.
His censer, once swinging like a pendulum of control, now dragged behind him like a shackle. The golden shell scraped the shattered pavement, its gentle metallic hum no longer hypnotic, but mournful. A dirge for a body at its limit. For a mind slipping into the thing it once weaponized.
He limped through the desolate corridors of the Unlawful Zone, where shadows danced on broken walls and silence pressed in like fog. The twisted silhouette of Lazarus's lair loomed in the distance, bathed in a dull red hue like a dream bleeding into a nightmare.
But the dream was too far.
His vision blurred, twisting and bending. The world around him pulsed, not with life, but with sleep,the kind that devoured willpower, blurred memories, and numbed pain. A yawn slipped from his lips, unbidden and childlike. He blinked hard. Once. Twice.
No use.
Somnus collapsed to his knees, his body trembling as it finally betrayed him. He reached out, fingers grazing the cold ground as if begging it to hold him upright. But gravity whispered lullabies, and exhaustion answered with open arms.
He fell.
The Unlawful Zone swallowed him whole,its most unpredictable trickster now still, asleep on the jagged earth, the censer's chain coiled loosely beside his fingers like a snake finally resting.
For the first time in his life, Somnus had fought without illusion.
And it had nearly cost him everything.
...
The streets of Rakiel murmured with unease. Shadows stretched long over crooked stone and half-lit lanterns flickered against the creeping dusk. The air here always felt heavy, like a secret whispered too many times, too close to your ear.
Erenyx walked with purpose, the tattered hem of her cloak brushing the dusty cobblestone, her hood drawn low over her glowing locs. The city watched her without eyes. Her steps, steady. Her heart, calm. Until,
Thud.
Someone bumped into her shoulder, stumbling backward with a surprised gasp. The impact jolted her hood from her head, revealing the moonlit fire of her hair and the eerie, commanding glow of her eyes. They shimmered like divine judgment, impossibly sharp and haunting.
The boy who hit her froze.
His skin was cracked like weathered stone, veins running with sickly darkness. His eyes,pure obsidian, devoid of anything human,widened in awe and terror. He took a step back, lips trembling.
"T-Those eyes…" he breathed.
His voice was thin, desperate, brittle.
"My master would truly love me… if I brought him those."
A gust of wind passed between them like a blade.
Erenyx didn't move. Her expression didn't change. But in that moment, everything around them seemed to hold its breath.
The boy didn't realize he was shaking.