Chapter 54: Demon of Dreams

How to Exit an Artificial Dream:

If you somehow find yourself trapped inside a dream or nightmare against your will, and you are still conscious for whatever reason, then congratulations—you’ve already made it halfway.

All that remains is to destroy the dream’s core.

What is the dream’s core?

As mentioned before, every dream is essentially a separate room with indestructible walls. You can’t force your way out… unless you’re ridiculously strong.

Every dream or nightmare revolves around a specific thing or emotion—fear, happiness, despair, and so on. For example, a nightmare where you’re being chased by a grotesque monster. In that case, it’s simple: all you need to do is kill the monster—or stop running and let it kill you. The artificial nightmare will collapse on its own.

It’s not limited to living beings. It could be something else, like drowning. In that case, you only need to surrender and let yourself sink… but you must not feel fear. If you do, the nightmare will be reconstructed from scratch, trapping you in an endless loop.

This applies to nightmares.

But as you know, dreams are built upon positive emotions—things we lost, or things we couldn’t obtain in life.

For instance, losing your daughter forever, only to find yourself trapped in a dream where you play and laugh with her. If you wish to leave, you must… kill her. She is the dream’s core.

However, everything I’ve told you so far applies only if you somehow remain aware that you are inside a dream. If you don’t, then someone else must enter and pull you out.

“What a detailed book,” I muttered as I continued flipping through the pages.

Until I reached a new heading, one that talked about certain creatures that possessed such abilities.

[Nightmare Flower]

[Demon of Dreams]

Rank 5 — Evil

This creature moves through the physical world in the form of a sphere of purple light, roughly the size of a human, until it finds its prey… or prey.

At that moment, it explodes into a purple wave and vanishes from the world. At the same time, anyone touched by that light is dragged into a dream.

A beautiful dream, one from which awakening by normal means is impossible… and at the same time, the creature feeds on your life.

Old Report:

Sixty-one years after the Great Migration, and the sealing of the rift to the Old Earth—before the rise of the four empires—

Small colonies began advancing northward to expand the safe territories… until one day, contact with one of them was lost.

The nearest exploration unit was dispatched. It took them several days to arrive, due to the lack of established routes at the time.

They expected to find torn bodies and devastation everywhere when they arrived… but—

There was no blood. No signs of battle. Only… silence.

Men and women—

At guard posts, around dining tables, even in their beds… all of them were sleeping peacefully.

Their bodies were intact… but without a pulse.

Only emptiness filled their chests, as if something had drunk their souls down to the very last drop.

Only three survived.

Two at Rank 3 and one at Rank 4… all of them submerged in a bottomless sleep.

After being transported and examined, the results showed that they were not asleep—they were trapped within a single, continuous dream that never ended.

And something was draining their lives from within the dream itself.

A person with the ability to enter dreams was brought in. When they breached that world, they found the three in separate dreams.

And between those dreams lay the Demon of Dreams, slowly devouring their lives.

In the end, they managed to extract the three alive.

Out of 2,350 inhabitants of that colony… only three survived.

That was not humanity’s first encounter with this creature… nor would it be the last.

From that day on, it was officially named [Demon of Dreams].

Methods of Dealing with It:

Being stronger than it, to the point where it cannot drag you into the dream world.

Possessing an ability or tool that grants high mental immunity.

External intervention by someone capable of entering dreams.

…

After sitting in the library for several hours and reading many other books, I finally left.

I walked back toward my residence as the sun of the next day began to rise.

As I walked, I thought about what I needed to do.

To be honest, the idea of telling Alicia about Lucas and what was going to happen—avoiding all the trouble—was tempting.

But it would be like saying:”Hello, Deputy Director. I’m an experiment with knowledge of the future… how? Well, it’s a bit of a long story…Let’s say this is my second life.”

Besides, I didn’t fully trust that woman’s intentions. She was… strangely understanding.

And when I remembered the rewards, Elliot received after saving the situation, I could practically feel my mouth watering. Yeah—I was planning to steal his rewards. It doesn’t count as stealing if he hasn’t gotten them yet.

In the end, I decided to stick to the words I’d said before.

I would exploit every piece of information and every event for my own benefit.

In the end, the only thing that truly mattered to me in this world was myself.

Everything else came second.

I arrived at the door of my apartment, still thinking about what to do next…I swiped my card on the door to unlock it.

I entered and closed the door behind me, pulling out my phone as I searched for a specific contact.

“That person shouldn’t be asleep at this hour.”

After a bit of searching, I found the number I was looking for and pressed the call button.

A faint ringing sound spread through the quiet room…

I waited for a while before it was answered.

When it was, the voice sounded just like last time—energetic and enthusiastic… Even though it’s 4 AM

[Hello, it’s been a while, my friend… did you finally miss me?] Red Eye said

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