Chapter 383: The Dream of Eternal Sleep

"Noelle, do you remember how long we've been here?"

Two figures trudged across an endless wasteland of ash, a plain that seemed to stretch without end. Beneath their feet the ground was a bed of soft ashes where all things had long since burned to nothing.

Time itself had grown indistinct here. There was no light, no sound, no magic, no trace of void energy. It neither ran too fast nor too slow. It had simply ceased to matter. Without any reference, Sieg and Noelle could measure the passage of days only by their own bodies and the dwindling readings of their alchemical devices.

"Twenty-four days, seven hours, eight minutes... but I've lost count of the seconds," Noelle answered after a pause, her voice heavy with fatigue. "We're being drained of all our energy, like sponges soaked with water in the middle of a desert..."

Even in human form, the blood of dragons carried immense reservoirs of power, reserves far beyond those of any other race. Normally, such excess was a strength, lending them resilience and dominance. But here, in a realm utterly barren, their nature became a crushing weakness.

Their vitality bled away into the emptiness around them, a drain no willpower could resist. This world devoured power without end. Neither Sieg nor Noelle could say how much more it would demand before they could resist it no longer.

"Good. Keep your mind sharp. Keep walking," Sieg said with a faint smile, resting a hand on Noelle's head. "At this scale, it'll barely feel like we're moving, but we just need to keep heading in that direction. And if you feel hungry, let me know. We still have enough rations for now. Efficiency is what matters."

Sieg looked calm, even unhurried, but beneath his facade, his condition was worse than hers.

The magitech circuits in his body had been grafted there through his living dragon armor and weren't innate. Unlike a true dragon, his control over his power was crude, and his reserves were leaking in an unstoppable fashion. Even his armor had become dead weight.

His weakness ran deeper than Noelle's, though he did his best to conceal it. Their supplies, not meant for such an inhospitable environment, were dwindling fast. The emptiness pressed down on them without mercy.

Still, it was better than when they had first stumbled into this desolation, wandering blind. With a direction in mind, there was a chance that they might yet survive.

On the 17th day, 18th hour, 36th minute, and 7th second since their arrival here, Sieg had caught a flicker of light: a dim, impossibly small point. Yet, in this abyss of utter blackness, even the faintest glow was unmistakable.

Light meant energy. Here, where nothing remained, it meant change.

Without change, they would only wither into husks, their corpses wouldn't even rot—there were no microbes, no microorganisms around to cause decay.

But the pinprick of light barely seemed to have changed even after more than ten days of marching. It was too small, too distant. Even Sieg began to wonder if it was some cruel mirage, a false hope set to mock them.

"What good is worrying about that? I still have matters I need to handle outside. I'm not dying here."

He shook his head sharply, imitating Wang Yu's mannerisms, then pressed down on Noelle's back gently to urge her onward. If Wang Yu were here, he would focus entirely on marching forward, leaving no room for doubts. Sieg, however could not silence his thoughts so easily.

"Brother, is that light... growing larger?"

Noelle halted, uncertainty and hope mingled in her voice.

Sieg blinked, then narrowed his gaze. The glimmer really did seem to have grown. It was twice as large as before—still small, but enough to kindle hope in his numbed heart.

"Let's go!"

Sieg grinned. Their steps quickened.

On the forty-second day, after seven hours, fifty-six minutes, and countless seconds, they finally reached the source of the light.

Both dragons were gaunt, the majority of their supplies gone. Their wills alone had allowed them to stave off collapse. Fatigue chained them down, but their minds remained clear.

"Brother, we're close," Noel whispered, tugging his sleeve, her joy unhidden.

"Mm."

Sieg's own joy was edged with suspicion. Something about the light was wrong.

Upon the ashen plain an aged figure sat cross-legged, his gaze lifted toward the endless black sky.

Beside him burned a single lantern, casting the only glow in this whole wide world. That light had guided them here.

Around him lay several bodies, emaciated, unmarked, their flesh shriveled until their organs had failed. Death by starvation, inevitable and final.

"Ah... more poor souls have wandered into this place," the old man said, lowering his head as Sieg and Noelle approached. His voice was apologetic, sorrowful. "Did you follow the glow, as they did? I'm sorry. This is no sanctuary. The light was never what you thought—it is only what it gives."

His words struck Sieg like a blow. These were his worst suspicions confirmed. The glow had no true radiance. Staring into it did not sting the eyes, and magical sight could not sense it at all.

"The Lighthouse," the old man said, lifting the lantern. "That is the name of this curio. Ironic, is it not? A beacon that never goes out, yet it cannot guide a single soul from this prison. Neither them... nor you."

The light was no energy, no fire, no hope. It was merely the property of a curio, which provided light that would never go out. The world remained as barren as before.

"...It's alright." Sieg gently touched Noelle's shoulder, motioning for her to sit. The light may have been a trick, but the man was real—real enough to speak, at the very least. That meant something.

His gaze drifted over the corpses. There were five bodies: human, elf, dwarf. Four wore matching garb, and their insignia struck a chord of recognition in him.

"Explorers. The second wave—after Morningstar's destruction, those who sailed again into the Endless Sea."

He bent down, studying their clothes and crests, and knew he was right. These were members of the old expeditions from ages past. He had found their corpses.

"You know of them?" the old man asked softly. "They were brave. Curious. They told me tales of the world beyond. I shared mine in return. And in the end... they accepted their deaths."

"Yes," Sieg said gravely. "I knew of them, and I never thought their path would end here. Elder, who are you? And what is this place? Is escape possible? If not, please at least tell me the story of this land."

The old man smiled faintly. His form was faint, as if he were an untouchable projection from another layer of space.

"Of course. Long has it been since any outsider came here. If it were my choice, none ever would again—there ought to be no more needless deaths. Since you stand before me, the least I can offer is my tale."

He cleared his throat. "If you know these folk, then your era must be close to theirs. You call those who came from the stars 'abyssal beings', do you not?"

"That's right."

Sieg's eyes widened, not having expected such a connection.

"There must be more than one civilization in this world. We were the former; you are the latter. So it should be. As for me, you may call me Frol, the God of Dreams, deity of the previous race of sentient beings."

The old man's first words struck Zieg like a hammer blow. Civilization: the weight of that word alone was crushing. The previous civilization? The implications alone were suffocating.

"Your response has been much swifter than ours. When those abyssal beings first appeared in our time, we granted them far too much time to grow and develop. By the time we had mustered a resistance, it was already too late. One such abyssal being had grown beyond reckoning.

"To it, our kingdoms were as fragile as children's blocks. Even legends could not lay a finger upon it, and the gods themselves could scarcely restrain it. It had learned too much, far too thoroughly. Our civilization perished in a hopeless, agonizing resistance."

The old man's voice was calm—eerily calm, as though he were not recounting something he had himself witnessed.

"All was lost. Nothing could stop that great cephalopod-like horror. We were weaker than playthings, incapable even of drawing its blood.

"But at least you exist now, don't you? And perhaps we did not leave behind nothing at all. The City of Sin, the explorers called it—ruins and remnants testifying that we once lived. And in truth, our end was not entirely without vengeance."

As he spoke, a thread of anger crept into his voice, mixed with a curious bout of laughter. Zieg listened in silence, his own mind descending into a maelstrom of confusion.

"The wrath of a civilization was the last gift we left to that being: a dream from which it will never awaken, an eternal prison.

"These abyssal creatures learn too much—so much that even they cannot discern which knowledge will become their undoing. We could not wound it with our own strength. So we used its own power against it.

"One of its abilities was that of occupying the void. I never knew precisely how, but it could seize a portion of the void and use it to warp the material world. It was among its greatest powers. But it was that very ability that undid it. In that state, nearly immune to divine power, it finally became vulnerable to my touch.

"I, together with the last survivors of our civilization, wove a ritual. Before it could unmake everything with its strength, we forced it into a dream.

"That dream was of the final day of our civilization's end. Its power was limitless, but its will was laughably frail. It had learned too slowly. Only at the eve of our destruction, with its own help, could I bind it in this dream—a dream indistinguishable from reality.

"And because its power could shape itself, because the void it occupied made thought into truth—when it failed to distinguish dream from reality, it was finished.

"It entered a cycle. Again and again, it dreams of the day it annihilated civilization. Each destruction resets the world to its beginning, and the cycle repeats without end."

Here the old man sighed faintly.

"Regrettably, I was only able to trap it in this mingled prison between dream and reality. I was unable to take the next step of dragging it into the deepest abyss of the void. Its body's instincts proved stronger than its will.

"Its husk clung to the material world. It latched onto it with its tentacles, and by sheer instinct split the dream-wrought world in two. One half became this barren wasteland. The other, the place where that last day replays endlessly, possesses all the energy.

"These two worlds exist to bar my influence. Its power tore me apart. My body remains with the world of energy, inert without thought; my consciousness lingers here, able only to see and to speak.

"But time is no foe of mine. My faithful remain, shadows in the ceaseless cycle. In this realm of dreams, they are as real people. So long as it endures, I too will not perish. I will wait and watch until its destruction is finally complete.

"You call it the Tidewall, don't you? That barrier is a phenomenon resulting from its body anchoring itself to the material world to resist its fall. The Tidewall is its anchor to the material world."

Sieg's eyes flashed. So this was how the Tidewall came to be... Then Wang Yu and Avia had to be in the other half of this sundered world.

"Tell me, how did you come here?" asked Frol. "Those before you entered only through accidents I cannot fathom. Perhaps that Morningstar you detonated tore open a fissure in its anchor. This sealed world has cracks now, yet only in one direction. You may enter, but you may never leave."

The weight of those words pressed upon Sieg, but he answered all the same.

"It was the doing of a so-called Dragon God..."

He began to recount what had happened.

"Wait," Frol interrupted sharply, frowning. "You must be mistaken. A god would never harm its own children. And how could, how would, your so-called Dragon God open the rift to let you fall? That power, the force that sustains the Tidewall, belongs only to that abyssal monstrosity."

At those words, Sieg froze. His mind, staggering from all the revelations to date, snapped into crystal clarity.

Yes... why? How did the Dragon God know of this place? Why would it act thus? And most of all—how did the Dragon God ever become a god in the first place?