Dream

At night, the moon shone brightly in the sky, illuminating the surrounding land as if it were covered in silver frost.

In the lonely night, several figures stood scattered across the roof of an ancient high-rise, like tufts of weeds, their arms hanging limply at their sides.

Arthur walked quietly through the place, a trace of bewilderment in his eyes.

He seemed to have lost his senses, unable to perceive his surroundings. He could only follow a vague, instinctive premonition and walk toward some unknown destination.

He passed an ancient high-rise. It was old and dilapidated, as though centuries had worn it down. All the facilities that had once been intact had fallen into ruin and could no longer be used.

As he walked quietly onward, the space behind Arthur began to blur.

A terrifying ghostly female face appeared on the wall behind him, wearing a horrifying, mysterious smile.

She watched Arthur in silence, then slowly stepped forward. A withered arm reached out toward him, as if trying to touch the person ahead.

"Got... you..." Her rotten, cracked lips parted, and she spoke in a trembling, excited voice. It was as if she had found the most exquisite delicacy in the world. Her eyes brimmed with greed and yearning.

Hearing faint shrieks and howls from behind, Arthur instinctively raised his head in confusion and looked back.

Behind him lay a deep darkness. The space seemed warped, rippling in waves.

Within the darkness, a bright point of light gradually appeared. As Arthur watched in bewilderment, pair after pair of eyes suddenly opened.

They were filled with greed and yearning, and boundless negative emotions seeped from them.

Hiss... hiss... hiss...

Strange sounds gradually came from the darkness, and a terrifying woman's face suddenly appeared before Arthur.

Darkness engulfed his eyes. The next moment, Arthur's consciousness sank into the black and could no longer sense anything.

"Another one of those dreams!"

Arthur's quiet murmur sounded in the room. A trace of confusion and lingering dread remained in his eyes.

"What were those terrifying ghosts, those unfamiliar high-rises and that land?" he muttered, troubled by the mystery.

Lately, Arthur had been dreaming about strange things.

In his dreams, he saw familiar yet unfamiliar high-rises, as if they had been abandoned, ancient and dilapidated.

The land was littered with corpses and terrifying beasts, along with those fearsome ghosts that haunted the entire world.

The world was filled with terror. Arthur wandered through it alone, drifting about as though in a dream, until he died in the dream and it finally ended.

"This definitely isn't an ordinary dream." Thinking about what he had seen, Arthur spoke to himself, his previously dazed gaze gradually clearing.

A single nightmare could be dismissed as a coincidence, no matter how vivid or complicated it was.

But having the same dream for more than ten days in a row could hardly be explained as coincidence.

And the dream felt so real, as if it weren't a dream at all, but a place he had truly experienced.

Outside, daylight began to rise, and a new day dawned.

He stretched out his arm and looked at the sky. A powerful premonition suddenly rose within him.

The truth behind everything in that dream, along with the truth behind certain other matters, would soon be revealed to him.

He got up and stepped outside. Fresh air washed over him, and Arthur quickly made his way to the training ground to begin the day's practice.

He had always been a disciplined person. Although ordinary training was no longer of much use to him, he still got up early every day to train, wasting not a moment.

After half a day of training, Arthur felt the changes in his body and the Life Energy within him, which had barely increased. He couldn't help feeling helpless.

"Ordinary training is becoming less and less effective."

The Chip monitored his body in real time. Arthur looked at his progress, which had barely changed at all, and felt helpless.

The Knight Breathing Technique had more or less run its course by now. If he wanted to make rapid progress, he would have to try another method.

"Should I volunteer to go to the battlefield?"

The thought flashed through Arthur's mind, then he quickly dismissed it.

Going to the battlefield voluntarily was too risky for him right now. Arthur didn't want to take that path unless he had no other choice.

"I'll wait a little longer... If I still haven't found another way, I'll apply to go to the battlefield."

Thinking this, Arthur returned the longsword in his hand to the weapon rack and left.

At night, the lights around him gradually dimmed. The silence was unnerving.

Arthur sat quietly at his desk, thinking about a few things.

As he pondered, time flew by. Before he knew it, a long while had passed.

A sharp cry suddenly came from outside, jolting Arthur out of his thoughts.

He instinctively tried to turn toward the sound, but was horrified to discover that his body was completely immobile, as if something had pinned him in place. He couldn't break free.

"What's going on?" Terror filled his heart. He felt as though all his strength had vanished, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't move at all.

In the corner of his right eye, a shadow crept closer, gradually taking on a distinct shape.

A terrifying, rotting face slowly materialized within the darkness. Its black eyes were full of yearning and envy as it glared at Arthur with hatred.

Under Arthur's gaze, the ghost let out a chilling laugh and advanced toward him, slowly but surely.

A terrifying sense of danger rose in his heart. Arthur felt a chill spread through his body, as if he had been engulfed in a cold, sinister force.

"Move!"

As the terrifying ghost approached, Arthur strained every muscle, as if trying to squeeze the last bit of strength from his body.

Yet no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't move even a fraction. Some unknown force seemed to have taken hold of him, leaving him paralyzed.

A huge claw struck Arthur's chest, leaving a gash that streamed with blood.

Smelling the blood, the terrifying ghost's withered face twisted into an expression of satisfaction and greed. It stared at Arthur, and its enormous mouth flew open.

In an instant, its mouth stretched impossibly wide. It lunged toward Arthur's head, seemingly intent on biting it off in one snap.

"Ah!!!"

A scream rang out.

A pale green glow slowly emerged from Arthur's body. At the last moment, it broke him free of the paralysis and shoved the terrifying ghost away.

Arthur's skin flushed slightly, and his presence turned fierce in an instant.

This was what happened when the Life Seed erupted. At the critical moment, Arthur had decisively activated the Life Seed inside him, releasing his Life Energy. In the space of a heartbeat, he had regained the ability to move.

Arthur felt stronger than ever, as if he had an inexhaustible supply of strength.

Without hesitation, he swiftly drew the Cross Sword at his waist and charged straight at the terrifying ghost.

A flash of sword light swept past. The ghost in front of him seemed to be made of air as the blade cut it in half, as if it had no substance at all.

Yet even after being cut in two, the terrifying ghost seemed completely unharmed. It retained its former shape and slowly rejoined in midair.

"No, something's wrong!" Seeing this, Arthur finally realized that something was amiss.

"Chip, scan my surroundings and transmit the scene directly to my mind!" he ordered.

The Chip responded instantly, using the information gathered through his body's senses to relay a detailed picture of his surroundings to his mind.

The results left Arthur frozen.

According to the Chip's scan, there were no ghosts around him. The empty room contained no other living beings besides himself.

"Is this an illusion?"

The thought crossed Arthur's mind. Then the terrifying ghost in front of him let out a horrible howl and lunged at him, violent and ferocious.

"Damn it!" Arthur dodged with a sidestep and evaded the attack, maneuvering around the ghost in the small room.

Although he was sure it was an illusion, he didn't dare risk finding out what would happen if he died in it.

After all, even an illusion could be deadly, especially one as bizarre as this.

The terrifying ghost looked horrifying, but it wasn't particularly fast compared to Arthur.

As Arthur hurriedly dodged its attacks, the intense unease in his heart grew heavier and heavier.

Tsk...

A faint footstep sounded behind him, drawing Arthur's attention.

He turned to look behind him, and the sight made his blood run cold.

He saw that, at some point, the small room had filled with faces. Every one of them was rotten, each more horrifying than the last.

As if sensing Arthur's gaze, the ghosts gradually turned their eyes toward him. In an instant, they were all staring at him, wearing chilling smiles.

Darkness engulfed his vision. Before Arthur could think any further, his consciousness abruptly cut off, plunging him into deep darkness.

"Where... am I?"

Arthur's consciousness slowly stirred in the hazy darkness.

A dark space stretched before him, shrouded in mist that concealed everything within.

And in that darkness, Arthur was the only light.

A clear radiance poured from his body. His entire form was crystalline and translucent, pure and bright beyond compare.

"Is this... the depths of my soul?"

As Arthur awoke, a faint ripple spread through the surrounding space. A strange resonance made him immediately understand what was happening.