Lord Of The Lost

The Demon Wolf froze, ears pricked, gaze sharp.

His head snapped toward the battlefield of the gods, searching for the source of this anomaly.

And then—

His eyes locked onto a single deity.

The God of Dreams and Prophecies.

This land, now claimed by the Sun God, had drawn other gods into its grasp, forcing them to bring their divine realms with them.

Among them—

The Dreamer.

A god who saw the future in visions.

A god whose dreams foretold the end of all things.

The Demon Wolf gazed into that dreamscape, and what he saw was impossible.

He was not alone in the dream.

Another wolf—

A second Demon Wolf.

And that call…

It did not belong to the past, but to an unknown future.

A future so distant it should have been impossible to hear.

Yet, the call had reached him.

This was unthinkable.

The path of the Demon Wolf was a mutation, a divergence from the structured paths of the gods.

Only a Demon Wolf's own will could shape another like him.

Not even gods who stole divinity could steal the complete path of a Demon Wolf.

The gods had forged their own paths through countless trials, reaching the pinnacle of divine authority.

Their control over these paths was absolute.

Without a god's permission, a Divine Path could not function.

This control extended downward:

High-tier paths derived from Divine Paths

Mid-tier paths derived from high-tier paths

Low-tier paths derived from mid-tier paths

This structure encompassed nearly every power in existence.

If the gods joined forces, they could strip all Transcendents of their power, turning them back into ordinary mortals.

But the Demon Wolf's path was different.

A mutation.

A path that had never been fully released.

Even when similar paths emerged, they would need to mature to a certain level before they could catch the Demon Wolf's attention.

And now—

He had heard a second wolf's call.

Across time.

Across the war.

Across the future.

Something was changing.

Something that even the gods had not foreseen.

To the First Demon Wolf, lesser extraordinary beings were beneath his notice.

They were fleeting shadows, mere footnotes in history.

They did not matter.

Because His final path was nearly complete.

All that remained—

Was to hunt the darkness born of the Primordial Moon.

With that thought, the First Demon Wolf changed course.

He abandoned his search for the ancient moon and instead headed toward the kingdom of the God of Dreams.

And then—

He entered the god's dream.

At first, there was nothing but drifting bubbles.

They floated in the void, some small, some large, each one holding a scene upon its delicate surface.

They were visions.

Some showed the past, others the present, and some—fragments of the future.

The First Demon Wolf observed in silence.

Every event tied to this god manifested here.

And yet—

These bubbles were fragile.

They appeared suddenly, shimmered for a moment, then—burst into nothingness.

Again and again.

An endless, futile cycle.

And within one of these ephemeral visions—

The Fading Troupe

The First Demon Wolf recognized it immediately.

The Scarlet Theater, a troupe founded by the God of Dreams more than a century ago.

A theater of tragedy, born to perform sorrow and despair.

But something was wrong.

The troupe never endured, vanishing like waves swallowed by the sea, or like these fragile dream bubbles, appearing and bursting in an eternal loop.

Why would the God of Dreams create something so pointless?

It was a strange contradiction, even among the gods.

But it was not worth his concern.

The First Demon Wolf turned his gaze to the God of Dreams himself.

And he saw the truth.

The god was dying.

His form was fractured, barely clinging to existence.

Every bubble of prophecy that formed was not an act of divine foresight, but the desperate, gasping breaths of a being on the verge of death.

Each vision was like the wheezing of a broken bellows, heavy and ragged.

The god was too far gone to even notice the Demon Wolf's presence.

And then—

Darkness crept over the dream realm.

A force that even gods could not illuminate.

A nightmare swallowing the Dreamer himself.

The God of Dreams, the very lord of prophecy, was now trapped inside his own endless nightmare.

The First Demon Wolf's gaze shifted, locking onto a single bubble.

Upon its smooth, rippling surface—

A play card floated.

"Dragon Slaying."

He narrowed his eyes.

Again and again, he studied it.

And finally, he understood.

The call he had heard was not a direct summoning.

It was merely a signal, a medium, like a voice echoing through a distant telephone line.

He, the First Demon Wolf, did not have the power to foresee the future.

But his existence was a hidden anomaly.

Even the gods of prophecy could not see his fate.

And yet—

Somewhere beyond time, someone had called out to him.

And the key lay within this play card.

The First Demon Wolf turned once more to the dying God of Dreams.

The god's form was crumbling, his divine light fading beneath the relentless encroaching darkness.

This was the kind of darkness that even the sun could not banish.

A force of pure, inescapable night.

And yet—

The First Demon Wolf did not want it.

He stared at the darkness with the expression of one who had seen a vile disease—something so repulsive that instinct itself rejected it.

Without hesitation—

He turned.

And he ran.

As he rushed out of the dream, a shadow split from his form.

A reflection, yet something entirely separate.

Like a wolf and its mirror image, the two ran in opposite directions, each growing farther and farther apart.

Until—

The First Demon Wolf vanished, leaping toward the Primordial Moon, leaving the world behind.

By the time the War of Gods reached its conclusion:

The second sun was destroyed, its fall carving out the Lost Labyrinth.

The God of Dreams fell, his remains warping into an endless dreamscape, fusing with the labyrinth itself.

His final resting place could only be entered by those who were meant to find it.

And then—

The shadow left behind by the First Demon Wolf lay dormant.

For centuries, it slept.

Until, one day, in a distant future—

The call came again.

The shadow opened its eyes.

And it descended once more.

To pick up the young Demon Wolf.

Alice and the Power of Fairy Tales

Alice's love for fairy tales isn't just a passing fancy—it's etched into her very soul.

As a child, she stumbled upon Alice in Wonderland and was utterly enchanted. The whimsical world, the curious adventures—everything about it made her heart race with joy. She was so fascinated that she immediately ordered her servants to fetch every other book written by the same author.

That night, a mountain of books landed before her. But instead of more fantastical tales, she received a dozen dry, dense mathematics books. As it turned out, the brilliant mind behind her beloved fairy tale was actually a mathematician.

Alice, however, was not a fan of numbers.

The moment she flipped through the complex equations and indecipherable formulas, her pupils practically had a seismic meltdown. For the first time, the young princess felt the world's sheer malice pressing down on her.

"If I ever become the eldest princess," she vowed, "I'll abolish these cold, heartless subjects and replace them with simple, beautiful fairy tales!"

Alas, imagination is a wonderful thing—but reality is merciless.

Despite the shifting tides of industrialization, the British royal family still held significant power. However, Alice's chances of ever ascending the throne were slim. And if she had been sent to school, she would undoubtedly be at the bottom of the class, locked in an eternal battle for last place.

Luckily, her noble status spared her from the torment of academics. That, at least, was a blessing.

Alice wasn't naive, just deeply devoted to her dream world. She constantly envisioned breathtaking fairy tale landscapes, nurturing a belief so strong it eventually became her greatest talent: [Fantasy].

What Alice imagined, to some degree, became real.

Because she loved fairy tales.

A simple yet profound truth: fairy tales could shine into reality.

This belief made her an exceptional writer, something even the playwright had to admit. But the two couldn't be more different in their artistic visions.

The playwright despised Alice's fairy tales, growing increasingly critical of her work.

Unfortunately for Alice, this playwright wasn't just a grumpy critic, he was also incredibly powerful.

As a Level 10 player, Alice had decent resistance, but there was a catch: all of her magic was sealed by the playwright. His weapon? An enchanted anchor pen that could rewrite reality itself.

With a stroke of his pen, he could dictate cruel truths:

Alice cannot use magic.

Alice cannot sleep.

He couldn't control her thoughts, but he could manipulate her actions through extraordinary effects.

Worse still, if Alice ever entered an Advent State, he could forcibly eject her, logging her out of the world. But here was the real problem: upon logging out, her descended body would transform back into her real body.

And to log back in, she needed to be in a sleep-like state.

This bizarre restriction effectively trapped her outside the real world.

Alice hated this.

Before she reached the maze, she had fallen into the hands of the Witch of the Wilderness. Now that she was here, she had fallen into the grasp of the troupe.

Had she come all this way just to be a glorified prisoner?

Not only had she been Sleeping Beauty in the real world for over half a month, but now her actual body had disappeared as well.

She couldn't help but wonder, what kind of chaos would this cause outside?

Would the British royal family declare World War III over her disappearance?

The thought was both terrifying and, strangely, a little exciting.

While Bai Lan spoke with Alice, a sudden explosion of cheers and applause erupted outside.

The audience's enthusiasm lingered, their applause echoing for an unusually long time.

The fourth act of the play was coming to a close.

The dwarves were disbanding, the troupe members were wrapping up.

Soon, those troublemakers would be backstage.

Alice's eyes gleamed.

"The situation is urgent, we need to kill the playwright, now!"

She had spent enough time in this cursed troupe. At the very least, she had figured out their basic abilities.

Now, it was time to turn the tables.