Northern Shore of the Conquest Sea, Navaha.
In southern Navaha, at the harbor district, the twisted monster that had just been wreaking havoc in the night sky suddenly vanished. The knights, whose successful counterattack had just begun, found their follow-up attacks hitting nothing but empty air. They stared at the pitch-black sky in astonishment.
“It vanished… How could something so large just disappear?”
Standing atop a warehouse roof, the captain furrowed his brows, scanning his surroundings, desperately searching for any sign of the bizarre creature—but found nothing.
“Maybe that thing ran away? Our combined attack earlier inflicted substantial damage. Perhaps it realized it couldn’t win and fled,” Santos speculated from below, gripping the Holy Mother’s emblem.
Giorde, standing on another nearby building, responded firmly, “No, it might not have fled. That monster is a being of Shadow. It could have used some method to conceal itself. It might still be lurking right around us. Everyone, stay alert.”
“Concealed? Is that even possible? Such a huge creature—could it really just vanish?” Santos asked, somewhat incredulous.
“Do not underestimate it,” the elderly monk Weir replied gravely.
“A creature capable of inducing such widespread and powerful hypnosis must be at least White Ash-rank. It wouldn’t be surprising if it possessed large-scale concealment capabilities. We must remain cautious.”
Giorde nodded in agreement.“Father Weir is right. We must stay vigilant. I suggest we combine our detection abilities and locate that thing immediately!”
At Giorde’s suggestion, all four White Ash-rank Lantern Beyonders simultaneously activated their innate detection abilities, expending their spirituality to perform a wide-area mystical scan. Dorothy, overhearing this through a distant marionette, quickly ceased controlling the nearby small corpse marionettes, reverting them to ordinary corpses.
Their eyes glowing with a radiant light, the four carefully scanned the surrounding space. However, after some time, they still couldn’t detect any trace of the False Moth. Eventually, due to the exhaustion of spirituality, they reluctantly ceased their scan.
“There’s no trace… Is it because its Shadow spirituality is too dense, or has it already fled?”
Giorde murmured with a frown. In truth, both possibilities were partially correct.
At this moment, the False Moth was indeed no longer on the plane of reality, but its minions had begun quietly approaching the four Radiance Church members at the harbor.
In the unseen darkness beyond the detection of Giorde and his comrades, countless Sleep Decay victims, reduced to mere living corpses after their Dream Cocoons had been drained, shambled silently through the city’s alleyways. Converging from every corner of the city, they moved slowly toward the harbor, quietly surrounding the Radiance Church group.
These Sleep Decay victims, controlled puppets of the False Moth, were linked to it in their dreams. The False Moth provided them abundant Shadow spirituality, masking their presence. Facing such vast reserves of spirituality, the combined detection abilities of the Radiance Church group were utterly insufficient, allowing these Sleep Decay victims to approach unnoticed.
Silently and gradually, the Sleep Decay victims closed in from alleys and buildings, some even climbing onto warehouse rooftops to approach the captain from behind. However, as seasoned Sacrament Knights, their natural senses were extremely sharp—even without mystical abilities. Hearing suspicious sounds behind him, the captain swiftly turned around, pointing his blazing sword at the approaching Sleep Decay puppets.
Without hesitation, the captain attacked the ambushers behind him. Flames from his sword quickly engulfed the approaching Sleep Decay victims. The frail, corpse-like puppets burned quickly into charred husks, crying out painfully. Such feeble puppets would struggle against ordinary people, let alone against White Ash-rank Beyonders.
However, as flames consumed the attacking Sleep Decay victims, something unexpected happened. Among them stood one puppet slightly behind the others, untouched by the flames for now.
As the flames approached, silver radiance suddenly emerged from this victim’s eyes. With a horrifying shriek, silver cracks rapidly spread across his skull, before violently exploding from within. A burst of silver light erupted forth, and from this radiance, the massive translucent figure of the previously vanished False Moth shot out at high speed, directly toward the nearby captain!
With no one anticipating this sudden move, the False Moth reemerged from the exploding head of the Sleep Decay victim, instantly materializing its massive form. At such close range, it swiftly launched a surprise attack on the flame-wielding captain. Despite reacting with extraordinary speed, the captain failed to dodge fully due to the proximity of the assault. As the False Moth soared overhead, one translucent tentacle touched him directly, passing straight through his body.
“Ugh...!”
The captain’s eyes widened abruptly. Overwhelmed by sudden mental confusion, he dropped his flaming sword, clutching his head in agony as he collapsed onto his knees. He swayed unsteadily, the powerful urge to sleep pulling him downward, yet the power of Discipline forced him to remain awake, leaving him trapped in a chaotic limbo between consciousness and unconsciousness.
“Wade!!”
Seeing his companion attacked, Giorde cried out loudly, filled with shock and rage. He was furious at seeing his comrade fall and stunned by how abruptly the monster had appeared.
Yet, the current situation left Giorde no time to dwell further. Facing the False Moth’s sudden reappearance, he had to strike back immediately. Intensifying the flames on his blade, he leaped into the air, slashing at the monstrous entity. Below, Santos also readied the "Blessing" of Flesh and Blood.
However, just at this moment, the massive False Moth’s form again became transparent and faint, vanishing once more in an instant. The attacks from Giorde and Santos met nothing but empty air. Landing back onto the rooftop, Giorde glanced around in bewilderment, confusion evident in his eyes.
"Where did it vanish to this time…?"
"Be careful! That evil creature might have the ability to cross between realms—it may be shifting repeatedly between our realm and an unknown realm to evade our attacks!"
From below, elderly monk Weir shouted a high alert, appearing to discern something about the creature’s powers.
Hearing Weir’s words, Giorde was shocked, muttering in astonishment, "What… cross between realms?"
Before Giorde could finish his thought, from within a room by the roadside, a Sleep Decay victim let out a miserable scream. Silver radiance spilled from his eyes as his entire head suddenly exploded. From within this burst of silver light, the massive False Moth erupted once again. Its illusory body passed straight through physical barriers, phasing directly through the building’s walls and lunging toward Santos and Weir on the ground.
Caught off guard, the two tried desperately to dodge, but the proximity made it impossible for Weir to avoid being struck by the creature’s tentacle. Immediately after being touched, the elderly monk sank to his knees in a powerful wave of mental interference, overwhelmed by the amplified sleepiness previously suppressed by Discipline. Weir entered a confused state of unstable consciousness, causing the Discipline he had imposed earlier to lose its effectiveness entirely.
Without Discipline’s protection, the continuous waves of hypnotic influence emitted by the False Moth suddenly took effect. At that very instant, Giorde and Santos, the last two still active individuals, immediately felt an irresistible wave of intense drowsiness. They struggled fiercely, trying to rely on their willpower to resist the powerful urge to sleep—but it was utterly futile. Filled with frustration and despair, both inevitably sank into deep, irresistible sleep.
"This… is… bad…"
Finally, under the False Moth’s potent hypnotic influence and its ghostly ability to phase through dimensions using Sleep Decay victims as portals, all four members of the Radiance fleet fell into deep slumber. With the four incapacitated, the entire Radiance fleet—and indeed the entire city of Navaha—became a defenseless feast for the False Moth.
"Even Radiance cannot dispel the dreams brought forth by the Moth…"
"The moth drawn to flame… shall extinguish that flame in the end…"
"Now… it is time to feast…"
In the underground ritual chamber, the circle of sleeping Blackdream Hunting Pack cultists murmured identical words in unison. Even though the False Moth had emerged prematurely, it still possessed power remarkably close to Crimson rank. Such strength was far beyond what a handful of White Ash ranks could oppose. Therefore, this outcome did not surprise them—it was entirely expected.
Having incapacitated all four of its opponents, the False Moth began feeding in earnest. Its tentacles reached toward the unconscious four, and as they touched their sleeping bodies, their Dream Cocoons within the Dreamscape were forcibly drawn toward the False Moth.
Within the Dreamscape, the corresponding part of the False Moth extended four tentacles, opening four separate Dream Portals. Through these gates, four white Dream Cocoons emerged. Pulled along by the tentacles, the cocoons were swiftly attached to the False Moth’s abdomen, where countless cocoons already writhed. The False Moth would soon begin extracting their spirituality, leaving the four Radiance members as Sleep Decay victims—puppets and future gateways into reality.
Having absorbed these Dream Cocoons, the False Moth set its sights on fresh prey: the Radiance fleet ships docked at the harbor. It sensed numerous Dream Cocoons aboard, even more delectable than those it had already consumed.
Bang!
At that exact moment, a dazzling white light illuminated the night sky. From a darkened street below, a curved beam of bright white light soared upwards, accurately striking the False Moth’s wing and puncturing a small hole through it. Interrupted, the False Moth halted its flight toward the ships, turning instead toward the street from which the noise and the beam had emerged.
"There’s still a Beyonder? Who is it?"
"That light just now… what was that?"
The sleeping Blackdream cultists murmured simultaneously, bewildered. They quickly guided the False Moth toward the attacker, soon spotting a carriage on the darkened street.
Indeed, it was an ordinary rental carriage common in Navaha, drawn by a seemingly unaffected horse that stood still after galloping here from afar. The carriage doors remained closed, and the curtains, freshly drawn shut, were still swaying slightly, suggesting that someone inside had just fired the shot. Clearly, that brilliant beam of white light had come from within—but whoever it was inside had chosen to conceal their identity once again.
Having located the source of the attack, the False Moth in reality mercilessly spread its wings and dove straight down toward it. In mere moments, it passed through countless physical barriers and hovered above the carriage. As it flew across the carriage’s roof, its tentacles pierced through the wooden boards and extended inward, touching a living being within.
“Found you…”
“No matter who… no matter what Beyonder… you will dream…”
“Now… is the time of slumber…”
After successfully establishing contact in reality, the False Moth’s main body within the Dreamscape also began its standard process, employing its powerful hypnosis to forcibly induce sleep. Seeing that the horse pulling the carriage silently collapsed, the consciousness within the False Moth was certain that whoever was in the carriage was now deeply asleep.
As usual, the False Moth suspended in the Dreamscape’s Forest stretched out its tentacles, opening a Dream Portal. On the other side of this portal was the Dream Cocoon of the Beyonder within the carriage. The tentacle reached through the Dream Portal, ready to pluck the cocoon and absorb it.
Compared to ordinary humans, it far preferred the cocoons of Beyonders.
However, just as the False Moth’s tentacle stirred through the gate, an unexpected change suddenly occurred.
The False Moth, previously calmly hovering in the Dreamscape’s Forest, abruptly started trembling violently—as if a hand placed in water was bitten by something unseen. The tentacle quickly withdrew from the portal, but what emerged was no longer intact—it had been severed halfway! The missing half was nowhere to be seen.
“What happened?!”
“The Moth was attacked in the Dreamscape!”
“There’s something on the other side of the portal!”
Feeling threatened, the False Moth immediately attempted to distance itself from the Dream Portal, retracting its spirituality support and intending for the portal to naturally shrink and close. However, it was already too late. An immense and oppressive aura surged forth from the other side, and right after the severed tentacle was withdrawn, something had already come through to this side.
“——!”
A majestic roar resonated through the Dream Portal. Rather than closing, the gate expanded from the sheer power of the roar. Then, through the blurred, ethereal portal, a gigantic and majestic dragon’s head emerged, golden vertical pupils fixed firmly upon the twisted, grotesque False Moth. Following the dragon’s head came spiked ridges and enormous wings, and finally, sharp claws and a lengthy tail appeared.
Within the forest, a massive dream dragon—larger than even the False Moth—fully manifested through the widened Dream Portal. Immediately, the dragon spread its wings and charged straight toward the False Moth. Upon seeing this, the False Moth’s first instinct was to tremble violently and immediately turn to flee.
“How can this be?! It’s a dragon—the Dragon Lord from Hamelin Domain!”
The False Moth desperately tried to escape, yet its speed in the Dreamscape was utterly inferior to that of the dragon. Within just a couple of breaths, the dragon overtook the fleeing moth. Soaring directly above, the dragon seized the False Moth by its back with its rear claws and folded its wings, pressing the moth straight down toward the ground. Helpless beneath the massive beast, the False Moth was slammed violently into the earth, forming a massive crater.
The forceful impact nearly distorted the False Moth’s entire body, causing the Dream Cocoons it had recently absorbed—and not yet fully integrated—to detach from its abdomen, scattering across the forest’s grassy floor.
At the same moment, in reality, Giorde’s sleeping body twitched slightly, and he softly murmured in his dream.
“A dragon…”