The dream shattered like brittle glass under unseen pressure.
It had been Valerian's creation—an illusion woven from the recent memories of Kastis's soul—but now, it was torn apart by something far older, far stranger.
From the cracks in the mist, from behind the fractured veil of dream, a figure emerged.
A man stepped forth.
He wore a mask—dull, dragon-shaped, with horns chipped and eyes dimmed as if the fire behind them had long since died. Mist curled around his silhouette, swallowing every detail of height, build, or skin. His form flickered—sometimes tall, sometimes hunched, then fluid and formless. He was man, smoke, and shadow all at once.
Valerian was cast out. As if the dream had rejected him.
The illusionist soul being—once master of this space—was now nothing more than an observer, denied entry.
Inside the dream, Kastis became aware.
Not just aware—lucid.
He stood within the dreamscape, grounded in a consciousness that didn't belong in dreams. His senses buzzed. The fabric of sleep loosened around him. Before him, the masked figure turned slowly, as if responding not to sight, but recognition.
The man did not speak first. Instead, his presence spoke for him.
An aura—like the pressure of countless unanswered questions—settled over Kastis like a weighted veil.
Then came the voice.
It was soft. Yet beneath that softness was something… primordial. A voice not made to be heard, but understood.
"The mind births monsters even the gods dare not imagine," the voice said, words rippling through the dream like a stone cast into still water. "I merely hand them a mirror."
Kastis tried to speak, to ask, Who are you?, but no sound came out.
The figure moved. The mist around him surged like liquid thought. He turned toward Kastis as if. As if Kastis was somebody else, though he had no eyes to see.
"I alone can do this," the voice continued, more distant, more real. "To sacrifice my power willingly. To burn myself into fiction and rise as truth. I was born from the question the gods feared to ask. I am the lie that became real. I will remain—and I will return."
The words struck something inside Kastis. An ancient echo he never remembered hearing.
Then, like a stage curtain being torn away, the dream collapsed.
The mist twisted, rewove itself—and from its threads, another dream bloomed.
But this one hurt.
Kastis sat on a park bench, holding a phone. The sky was gentle. The wind hummed with life. A small girl, no older than two, giggled as she weaved between his legs, crawling and stumbling with the chaotic joy only a child could possess.
"Dada, what are you doing?" she asked, peering up at him with wide eyes.
Kastis—older, his hair streaked with gray and wisdom—smiled gently.
"Just reading, what about you?"
She giggled, flopping onto her belly. "I'm in a spac—"
The dream cracked—violently.
The warmth, the air, the light—all shattered like a brittle illusion. His daughter's laughter was stolen mid-sentence. The colors bled into gray, and Kastis could do nothing but watch as that fragile world, the world he had yearned for in silence, was torn away.
Then came another vision.
A being towered over a crumbling world. Its form was not humanoid—its limbs resembled mountains, its skin layered in stone and roots and sediment. It held the world in its arms, as if it were both guardian and prisoner.
Its voice came slowly, as though it had to carry its own weight to speak.
"You must hurry, Unknown… I fear I can hold it no longer."
It looked at Kastis—but not really. It looked through him. Past him. Toward someone else.
"To hold the world… is to feel its weight break you. Creation does not end with birth—it endures in burden. So please… win. Let this cycle prevail."
As the final syllables fell like stone into silence, the dream collapsed once more.
Then came the flood.
Memories—real or not, he couldn't tell—surged like a tidal wave:
He sat beside a woman with silver hair and gold gentle eyes as she gently stroked his…
He worked out at a gym, showing a teenager how to adjust their form.
He lay on a couch with his wife and daughter, huddled under a warm blanket as laughter echoed from the television.
He wandered the streets alone. Then a girl—his childhood friend—found him.
He sat around a dinner table with parents who looked at him like he mattered.
He played cards with them under a flickering light.
He lived… and loved… and lost.
Each image was a shard of a life both remembered and longed for.
Then—
He fell.
Kastis's body hurled itself from his bed—an uneven, jagged slab of rock he had affectionately named Bed-rock. His body collided with the ground, harsh and real.
Mud caked his cheek. Sweat trailed down his temple.
His breath came in ragged bursts, as if he had just escaped drowning.
He clawed at the memories, trying to hold onto them before they vanished.
But they slipped through his fingers—like mist.
And somewhere, in the farthest corners of his fractured consciousness, the masked man's words echoed again:
"I am the lie that became real. I will remain—and I will return."
Kastis lay there for a moment—his chest rising and falling as his soul clawed its way back into waking life.
The dreams had left something behind. Not just fragments, but a weight in his bones, as though something deep inside had shifted—grown heavier.
He slowly pushed himself upright. The cool mud clung to his back, sweat slicked across his neck, and a dull throb pulsed behind his eyes.
His hand trembled slightly as he raised it.
He didn't speak. He didn't need to.
The moment the thought crossed his mind, the world responded. The air shimmered faintly before lines of text carved themselves into existence—etched not on stone or screen, but suspended in the air as though the world itself had paused to let him see.
His personal system display opened like a wound in reality, revealing numbers and symbols that pulsed with a light too faint to be divine—but too alive to be human.
[SOUL STATUS: KASTIS]
Soul Brightness: Dim
Esper: 1
Pathway: ???
Sequence: 0/8
Soul Energy: 117/500
Shards: 13
[Soul Shard Inventory—1st Order]
Shards held within the soul. Items may be formed through direct resonance or ritual fusion.
•Fang Knife
Origin Shard: Beetle Fang
Type: Weapon—Dagger
Rarity: 1st Order
Effect: Increases backstab damage by 10%—with a 5% chance to inflict bleeding on low-ranked enemies.
"The beetle strikes not when watched, but when forgotten."
•Silk Thread
Origin Shard: Moth Silk
Type: Utility Tool—Grapple Cord
Rarity: 1st Order
Effect: Can be launched up to 10 meters. Silent when used in shadows or fog.
"Even the smallest thread can tie down giants… if the light looks away."
•Eye Gem
Origin Shard: Watcher Eye
Type: Charm—Perception Aid
Rarity: 1st Order
Effect: Improves dark vision and movement detection slightly.
"It does not see the world as it is… but how it might move."
•Ash Bracer
Origin Shard: Wolf Bone
Type: Armor—Fire-resistant Bracer
Rarity: 1st Order
Effect: +5% fire resistance. Slight burn effect on melee weapons.
"The flame still remembers its last breath."
•Mist Vest
Origin Shard: Mist Bug Shell
Type: Armor—Stealth Lightwear
Rarity: 1st Order
Effect: Slightly boosts evasion and muffles sound in natural fog or mist.
"There is no armor greater than going unnoticed."
•Echo Stone
Origin Shard: Echo Shell
Type: Utility—Sensory Tool
Rarity: 1st Order
Effect: Emits vibration pulses for echolocation. Limited range.
"It listens louder than it speaks."
•Scale Guard
Origin Shard: Drake Scale
Type: Armor—Shoulder Guard
Rarity: 1st Order
Effect: +3% physical resistance. Nullifies minor elemental attacks every few hours.
"One scale, one shield, one warning."
•Wanderer's Wick
Origin Shard: Burnt Wick
Type: Charm—Anti-Illusion
Rarity: 1st Order
Effect: Slightly improves resistance to illusions or mental interference. Glows near cursed zones.
"Light is fragile, but so are lies."
•Phantom Echo-Shard x1
Type: Charm- Phantom Earring
Tier: 1st Order
Description: A shard without origin—neither dream nor memory. It hums faintly in silence and reacts when no one is watching. Causes momentary déjà vu and time skips when held. Cannot be stored in normal containers.
[Uncommon & Special Fragments]
Items that do not conform to standard shard classification. Effects are unstable or unbound.
•Dream Fragment x1
Type: Soul Memory (Unstable)
Tier: Unknown
Description: A hazy memory—torn from an unknown timeline. Integration is dangerous but may unlock resonance with lost traits or visions.
"An echo of something forgotten… or something not yet born."
•Mirror of the Unknown God x1
Type: Identity Relic
Tier: Unknown
Description: A shard so distorted that its essence loops infinitely inward. Cannot be analyzed. All attempts to read metadata result in corrupted glyphs.
"Bound to something that never existed—yet always will."
•Cracked Memory Core x3
Type: Stabilizer
Tier: 4th Order
Description: Fragments used to anchor consciousness during soul trauma or illusion shock. Can be consumed or slotted into soul structures.
"Your mind is a mirror. These are the glue."
•Essence Residue x47
Type: Raw Material
Tier: 1st Order
Description: Scattered remnants from slain low-tier monsters. Weak, but usable for crafting or minor soul enhancements.
"Ashes of fear, bones of instinct."
Kastis blinked.
There was something new pulsing in the corner of the interface—something he hadn't seen before. It glowed with a gentle hum, a rhythm almost like a heartbeat.
He tapped it.
[Trait Acquired – Lucid Bound]
You have stared into a dream not made by mortals and awakened with your mind intact.
+5% resistance to illusion-type soul interference
Unknown effects when interacting with mirror-bound entities
Kastis exhaled sharply.
"Lucid Bound…" he muttered, eyes narrowing.
The dream hadn't just shown him memories—it had marked him. That figure, that masked being… whatever it was, it had left a trace. Or maybe it had reawakened something already inside him.
He scanned the Shards again. The Mirror of the Unknown God flickered—its description unreadable, blocked by static glyphs and unreadable runes.
His instincts screamed at him not to touch it.
Naturally, his fingers hovered over it.
Before he could act, however, something deeper stirred inside his chest. A pulse—not physical, but soul-deep—like a heartbeat echoing from another world.
He clenched his fists.
It was time to move. Time to understand what these dreams truly meant. But first, he needed power—and these Shards were the first step.
"But I must advance to Sequence One…" he murmured, voice low, strained, as if speaking it aloud made the danger more real. "Or these Shards will tear me apart before I even understand what I've become."