Lord Of The Lost

A voice snapped through the silence, filled with dread.

"Sophia! Get out of there!"

It was Black Swan.

Her tone left no room for argument.

Sophia hesitated.

"What's happening?"

Black Swan's answer hit like a blade to the gut.

"We were wrong."

"It wasn't the players."

"It wasn't the Scarlet Troupe."

"This is what caused the fall of the God of Dreams."

Sophia's heartbeat thundered in her ears.

"Then why didn't He wake up?"

Black Swan's reply was quieter now, almost reverent.

"Because He didn't want to."

"The God of Dreams had the chance to resurrect. But He chose to remain asleep."

"He is using His own Dream Realm as a barrier, to keep that thing out."

"And now… it's getting in."

A Desperate Escape

Sophia's voice trembled.

"But how can I leave?"

A voice, steady yet distant, answered her—

"Don't be afraid, Sophia. This is just a dream. You are favored by the witch. You must believe that you can wake up and return to the maze."

But she hesitated.

"What about them? What happens to everyone else?"

"You can't save them."

The words hit like a knife.

"Changhu Town is about to collapse. In the Dream Kingdom, death becomes an absolute truth; irreversible, permanent. Once they become part of this place, they will disappear forever."

Sophia clenched her fists.

"Is there no way to bring them back?"

"Unless the God of Dreams allows it… but He is barely holding on. He has no power left to interfere."

The truth left her hollow.

"We can't go on like this…"

The Playwright's murmur barely broke the silence.

She had never seen darkness this deep.

It wasn't just an absence of light—

It was a force that devoured everything, drowning reality itself.

Something from the outside had invaded their world.

For the first time, she felt true fear.

She turned and ran into the corridor, vanishing into the shadows.

William's instincts screamed.

He clenched his fist and swung at the writhing mass, trying to halt its advance.

Useless.

His blow passed through it, as if he were punching air.

The darkness continued spreading, an unstoppable tide.

He didn't waste another moment.

He chased after the Playwright, deeper into the unknown.

William reached the deepest chamber.

The candlelight was dim, barely illuminating the space.

At the center—

A bed.

And upon it lay the polluted, eroded remains of the God of Dreams.

He resembled a bird, yet not quite.

He had no legs.

His body was covered in fluffy, curled feathers, thick as a mist.

His beak opened—

And from his mouth, dream bubbles floated into the air, one after another.

Bubbles within bubbles, reflecting each other in an endless cycle.

The room was filled with them.

They clung to the walls, hovered in the air, wrapped around the god like chains of unreality.

For a moment, William simply stood there, absorbing the surreal sight.

The space felt unstable, time and gravity distorting with each breath.

He felt weightless, like he was floating through a dream.

Objects expanded and shrank.

Shadows flickered in and out of existence.

Reality wavered, bending like a fever dream.

For a second, it felt like he was walking through a hallucination, like he had swallowed poisonous mushrooms.

Alice stood before the bed, motionless.

She was trapped.

The moment she laid eyes on the God of Dreams, her mind had been seized by the vision.

Her gift was powerful, but it came with a cost.

Her talent for fantasy made her incredibly sensitive—

Once she believed in something, she fully embraced it, body and soul.

Now, standing before a being beyond comprehension, her gift had become a curse.

She believed too deeply.

And because of that, she was sinking into the dream itself.

Her magic should have flourished in a place like this—

But the God of Dreams' presence had completely suppressed her power.

This god, lying in his own decay, was still stronger than her imagination.

And now, it was pulling her under.

The Playwright no longer cared about Alice.

She fell to her knees, pressing her forehead against the bed, fingers reaching under the pillow.

She pulled out a book—

A loose-leaf collection of every play ever performed by the Scarlet Troupe.

And every play that was yet to be performed.

This was the record of every stage carefully constructed by the God of Dreams.

Her voice was soft, almost trembling, like a devout believer whispering a desperate prayer.

"My God… please, do not wake up."

"Please… continue to sleep."

"Please… watch over me in your dreams."

Her hardened face softened, for just a moment, into something holy.

Then—

She opened the book.

One page.

Two pages.

Three pages.

With each turn, a play card appeared—

Brilliantly painted, beautifully detailed, each one a piece of a world long gone.

The stage of dreams, bound in ink and paper.

But the question remained—

Would it be enough to keep the dream alive?

The Awakening of a Sleeping God

A surge of violent, overwhelming energy erupted—

One after another, each aura more terrifying than the last.

The characters and figures from every play came to life.

It was like Pandora's Box had been unleashed.

Scenes from past and future performances collided, descending into reality itself.

Power surged through the space—so vast, so raw, that it stabilized the once-collapsing room.

The narrow chamber exploded with blinding light, turning darkness into day.

William shielded his eyes—

The sheer brilliance of their presence made it nearly impossible to look directly at them.

Every figure, every stage, carried a power beyond comprehension.

And then—

The bubble-spewing creature on the bed began to change.

Where its bubbles had once been dull, filled with black and gray death,

Now, colors bloomed.

The bubbles shimmered—vivid, radiant, bursting into hues that reflected every possible dream, every lost future.

And its body, once frozen in lifeless slumber, began to move.

---

The creature had no legs—

But its wings were lush, layered with countless tiny feathers, each one an intricate, delicate strand.

Before, every single feather had been curled inward, as if burned by an unseen fire.

But now—

One by one, the feathers stretched open, shaking off the black and gray corruption.

William's breath hitched.

"This was His plan all along."

This was the power the God of Dreams had deliberately left behind.

---

A Prophetic Death?

It was almost unbelievable.

This was a god who could see the future.

A god who had mastered prophecy—

And yet, He had died in the last great war of the gods.

How could a deity skilled in foresight not avoid His own destruction?

How could someone so adept at self-preservation fall to fate?

Even though He was not as great as the original Sun and Moon Gods,

He was still one of the most unique among all the divine beings.

For over 200 years, He had shaped the world from the shadows.

The Scarlet Troupe had been His stage—

A carefully orchestrated force, subtly guiding the fate of powerful creatures.

Calcifer had once spoken of Him—

"He loved tragedy."

"He crafted coincidences, wove them into reality."

And in the end, that love for tragedy became His downfall.

When the Scarlet Troupe's secrets were exposed, they were hunted down—

Destroyed by countless forces.

Only the Troupe Leader vanished without a trace.

But now—

William understood.

This was no accident.

This was His plan.

Did He foresee His own death?

Or was this all just part of something even greater?

Either way—

The arrangement He left behind was now activating.

The Playwright turned the pages of the book faster and faster.

Each flip summoned another wave of power, each play spilling forth an unstoppable force.

Dozens of brilliant lights shot up, piercing through the heavens and earth, radiating through the small town.

Even those far away could feel it—

A force beyond their comprehension, something so vast, so ancient, it made their very souls tremble.

But was this enough?

No.

The darkness that had been gnawing at this dream for a thousand years found an opening.

And it would not let go.

For centuries, this darkness had been waiting, pressing at the edges of the Dream Kingdom.

Like raging ocean waves, endlessly eroding an isolated island.

The island had been on the brink of collapse.

And even though new pillars now stood to reinforce it,

It was only temporary.

The darkness surged.

It crashed into the confined space, determined to drag Him out of His sleep.

It wanted Him to wake up—

But not as He was.

It wanted Him changed.

It wanted Him to be warped, twisted, devoured.

The Playwright knelt before her god, hands trembling.

She knew—

This was not a battle for mortals.

This was a war between things far beyond them.

Still—

She would not let her god be taken.

She reached into the void—

And pulled forth a single, radiant object—

The [Anchoring Pen].

Only then did William realize—

The patterns on the quill were almost identical to the feathers of the God of Dreams.

But unlike the curled, burnt feathers of His body,

The quill was pristine, pure white and slender, its structure almost perfect.

Not a single strand curled inward.

It was straight, refined, elegant.

Like a swan among a flock of fallen creatures.

The quill rose on its own, untouched.

Then—

It floated toward Him.

And the moment it touched His body—

The God of Dreams stirred.

His feathers vibrated, a ripple of life shuddering through Him.

The black and gray corruption on His body peeled away.

The true color of His feathers shone through—

Radiant.

Ethereal.

Like woven starlight.

His wings unfurled, stretching wide for the first time in centuries.

A soft, luminous glow spread across the space.

Each movement of His feathers felt like the fluttering wings of an angel.

The dream was shifting.

And soon, the entire world would change.