When Hao Ren awoke from a string of bizarre dreams, it was still the middle of the night.
He shook his head and climbed out of bed, only to find the bright moon hanging high outside. Its clear moonlight filtered through the thin gauze curtains and spilled into the room, illuminating it vividly. The familiar furniture and objects cast hazy shadows under the moonlight, leaving patches of strange shapes across the floor.
Many of the pieces of furniture still bore Little Merman's tiny tooth marks.
Hao Ren rubbed his head, doing his best to clear it. He had dreamed a whole mess of strange dreams, and those bizarre scenes were still flashing through his mind, leaving him somewhat dazed. He could only vaguely remember seeing scenes from the Dream Plane again—or perhaps he had really connected to the Dream Plane for a brief moment. He dreamed that he had returned to Horleta and stood with Becky and Ofra atop the shattered peak of the Dragon Ridge Mountains, watching the mad Firstborn continually break free from the earth's restraints as endless tentacles and the Tide of Blood surged through the valleys. Later, he dreamed of Tanagrus, where the surface of that golden star was covered in the remains of the completely dead Firstborn tentacles. Those ancient remains, which resembled mountains, seemed to come alive again, slowly surging across the horizon. Finally, he even dreamed of Drom—the planet plunging into the sun amid raging flames. The Firstborn's enormous body burst through Drom's crust, as though it had suddenly hatched from an eggshell and broken open its cradle, transforming into a terrifying giant flower that bloomed furiously across the universe. Even sunlight could not kill it.
Those bizarre dreams repeated themselves many times, until they finally jolted him awake.
"A nightmare?" Hao Ren