While the Nightmare Flower bloomed within the dreams of others, making them go through one nightmare after another, feeding on their pain and suffering.
Each nightmare was more horrific and worse than the one before it.
Guided by their memories, it awakened their deepest fears that they had buried within themselves before twisting them and feeding them with pain to make them worse than anything they had experienced in their lives.
But it did not succeed with everyone.
Whether it was Leona, who found herself seeing a strange vision at that time.
One worse than any nightmare that this flower could create.
And another person.
In a beautiful green grassy field surrounded by many trees, blue flowers grew from the fertile ground, their petals still clinging to each other as if refusing to separate.
Amid all of this was a young man with bright blond hair and yellow eyes like sunlight, staring at the flowers on the ground while his lips moved in a faint murmur.
"Am I inside a dream now?"
Elliot turned his head, his eyes scanning the place around him, while looking at this artificial world.
He raised his hand and scratched the back of his head with a puzzled expression on his face.
"Yeah, I think I’m dreaming."
As a final confirmation, he tried to think of the familiar system screen, but no matter how much he thought, it did not appear before him... which confirmed his suspicions.
As doubts began to creep in, he lowered his hand and let out a long, tired sigh.
"This is happening again."
He remembered the last time when something similar happened and he found himself inside a beautiful dream... a dream where he found his real parents and reunited with them.
Where he discovered that they had not abandoned him... at least in the dream.
But in the midst of all that, it seemed that Elliot had adapted to the dream itself, and awakened a new ability.
A passive ability that granted him partial immunity to mental effects.
Unlike Caius’s Mind Anchor, Elliot’s ability was limited to his own power only, without any additional support from the Relic.
At that time, it was only strong enough to realize that he was inside a dream created by a corrupted demon.
And now it was exactly the same thing.
And for that reason as well, Elliot had never felt the influence of the Overlord of Puppets on him... because it was too weak compared to him, unlike the Mind Anchor which was a Rank 5 Relic.
But here, things were different.
His eyes were drawn to the green space around him while his mind analyzed the current situation.
’If something pulled me into this place, then that means the others are like me as well.’
’Did a monster attack us while we were sleeping or what happened?’
But if that had happened, he was certain that Caius would have woken them up before it even reached them.
So either they were all asleep now or Caius simply did not sense it, which meant that whatever happened had bypassed his strange sense that detects everything most of the time.
He raised his head and looked at the clear blue sky of this world.
"I need to find a way out of this place."
With that, he stepped forward, choosing a random direction.
Even with this random choice, he knew that he would end up in the place he needed to be in the end.
Because no matter what created this place, it was still his dream in the end... well, that was what the books he read after the train incident said.
’Let’s assume this is like what the books described.’
After all, this was only the second time he ended up like this, and it still felt very strange to him.
Well, even he himself was strange in the end.
It was true that he was curious about Caius and where he came from, but he was even more curious about himself.
He was not a fool to not realize that he was very strange... more than Caius himself.
Whether it was his possession of four complete abilities, each of them considered powerful on its own and something to be envied for, or his ignorance of his true origin.
But no matter how much he searched and tried, even using the capabilities of Sivrax, he found nothing in the end... not even the simplest clue.
With every step forward, he left traces on the green grass while passing by these strange flowers.
No matter where he looked, they filled the place around him, making them suspicious.
’It looks suspicious.’
With that thought, he waved his hand and some flames spread across the ground, devouring the grass and even the flowers themselves.
But even after destroying dozens of them in an instant, nothing happened around him.
He stared at the rising trails of smoke for a few moments before muttering
"...This won’t be simple."
He shook his head in disappointment as he continued moving.
He walked and walked, until finally something familiar appeared in his sight.
There on the horizon, a small hut stood in the middle of the grassy field, with smoke rising from the chimney above its triangular roof.
The marks of time were clear on its walls, indicating that it was very old.
Elliot remained calm as he stared at that place, only a few words escaping his lips.
"So this is not a pleasant dream."
...
Outside, inside the ruins of the collapsed building in this ancient city.
Caius sat at the end of the corridor overlooking the outside, his back leaning against the wall while stretching his legs forward.
The place around him was dark.
For a moment, it might seem like night, but the sun should still be shining at this time.
Well, at least under normal circumstances.
He looked to the side where the collapsed wall was, staring into the distance with boredom, while the sound of rain and flowing water filled his ears.
There, the world was drowned in this powerful storm while the sound of thunder echoed louder and more frequently than ever.
’Looks like this will last a long time.’
Even after hours had passed, the storm showed no signs of ending.
"Yaawn..."
Caius yawned as he covered his mouth with his hand while tears formed at the corners of his eyes.
He lazily turned his head toward the rooms where the others were sleeping.
’Shouldn’t those idiots be waking up by now?’
With that thought, he pushed himself up to stand and stretched his stiff body from all that uncomfortable sitting.
"Mmm..."
Staying like this for a few hours without doing anything made him feel bored, and that led to drowsiness.
Normally, he would absorb essence stones to raise his rank and pass the time, but now there were not many left, and absorbing them would not benefit him much.
So he decided to stop doing that and keep them... who knows, he might need them at some point.
He turned and began walking toward the room where Elliot and Kyle were sleeping.
It only took a few moments for him to be there, standing near the two sleeping figures on the temporary bed, annoyance on his face.
"Damn it, how long are these people going to sleep?"
He looked between Kyle and Elliot before choosing Elliot and heading toward him.
Then without hesitation, he poked the sleeping hero between his ribs using his foot.
"Hey, get up... you lazy kid."
But unexpectedly, Elliot did not react, which made Caius annoyed, so he increased the force in his foot.
"Good morning, hero. You’ve had enough sleep."
Even with that, there was no response.
Caius frowned as he pulled his foot away.
’Is there something wrong, or is he just messing with me?’
The latter was a possible option, so to confirm, Caius raised his foot and then, with some force, kicked the sleeping Elliot between his ribs.
That action made his body move slightly from the force and fall off the bed... of course, this would not hurt him in any way... after all, he did not use much force.
At worst, he would feel slight pain in his ribs when he woke up.
But Caius did not care about that because a dangerous expression formed on his face in the next moment.
He stood there staring at Elliot for a few moments before turning his head to Kyle and doing the same thing to him.
Even Kyle, who was known for having light sleep and waking up from the slightest things, did not react after receiving a direct hit.
For a few moments, he stood there staring at the two sleeping figures before letting out a very long sigh accompanied by a few words.
"Fuck... Fuck everything in this place."
But in the next moment, Elliot’s sleeping body moved while his peaceful expression changed into slight pain as he placed his hand on his ribs... exactly where someone’s kick had landed.
"Damn it, why does this spot hurt?"