Chapter 67: I Am A Dragon [1]

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While eating, Louis gazed out at the twisted, dark sky beyond the cleansed zone, his eyes drawn to what appeared to be an emerald moon. Indeed, it was a completely green moon, one he had never seen before. He had read and heard that Fantasy Fields served as portals to parallel worlds, fragments of another dimension merging with the physical realm through Dimensional Rifts and the Dimensional Labyrinth.

Thus, it was not uncommon to witness strange celestial bodies from time to time, unfamiliar constellations, planets, stars, and even moons. Most agents eventually grew accustomed to the bizarre sight. Yet to Louis, this meant far more than a simple portal to another dimension.

As he stared at the emerald moon, something seemed to whisper inside his mind. Voices cracked through his psyche, even though he had taken his pills… he should have been fine.

He should have been—but he wasn’t.

“What?”

Then he felt warm liquid trickle from his nose. He was bleeding. A sudden, searing headache struck him with such force that he nearly collapsed on the spot. If not for his enhanced body, reinforced through countless cultivation methods, including those that strengthened his head and brain, he might have blacked out completely.

“Ugh…”

“Louis?!” Mirai noticed immediately and rushed to his side. “W-What’s wrong?!”

“His Eternal Garden… We’ve disturbed the Eternal Garden…” Louis began muttering incoherently, vomiting blood as his body trembled violently, as though gripped by unbearable cold. “The Gardener… The Gardener…!”

“W-What?” Zorba stared in confusion. “He was perfectly fine a second ago…! Lord Louis!”

“Catrise! Can you do something?!” Anastasia cried as Catrise dropped what she was cooking and hurried to her master’s side.

“Master Louis! H-Hang in there! T-This is…! He’s suffering some kind of Mind Attack!” Catrise realized instantly. “That’s… did he stare somewhere for too long?”

“He… he was looking at the sky, just the sky,” Mirai said, voice trembling. “I don’t know what’s… going on— Eh?”

Before she could finish, dark green vines began sprouting from Louis’ body, emerging from his pores and writhing toward them.

“W-What’s this! A Curse?!” Catrise gasped. “No! Prince Louis! W-We have to bring him—no, if we move him outside, the others might get infected— What do we do— Ah!”

Catrise quickly summoned her Soul Weapon and transformed it into a stake. She drove it into Louis’ Fantasy Heart and infused it with radiant golden light.

FLASH!

♢♢♢♢

“Wake up! Louis! Wake up already!”

“Ah!”

Louis’ consciousness snapped open. He found himself standing within the ashen desert of his Fantasy Heart’s Realm.

Niflheim stood before him, shielding him beneath a dome of ice as countless dark green vines infiltrated from every direction.

“What’s…! What is this? Niflheim?!”

“You fool! Why did you stare directly at a Grievance?! Do you have a death wish? You lack both the power and the tenacity to survive that alone!”

“I was… staring at a Grievance?”

Louis’ eyes widened as he watched the vines assault the ice dome, shaking it relentlessly. Cracks spread slowly across its surface, the Entity was breaking through.

“Moments ago I was…”

The memory returned gradually. He had finished eliminating the Entities, purified the area, and sat down to eat with his subordinates while awaiting the VPI Lab results.

But at some point, he had become captivated—almost entranced—by the emerald moon hanging in the corrupted sky.

And that was when it began.

Something had looked back at him. That single meeting of gazes had turned his mind inside out. His Fantasy Heart had been invaded, and now his Consciousness was under siege.

If this continued, his Soul would erode swiftly and become one with the Grievance!

“The damn moon was a Grievance?! Are you kidding me! I should’ve taken Robert’s warning more seriously…!”

Louis cursed himself for dismissing Robert’s comment as a mere curiosity. There was a reason the Plant Monsters gazed at the moon each night, likely worshiping the Grievance that had breathed life into their existence.

Grievances ranged from City-Ending Threats to God-like Abominations, and every single one was tremendously dangerous. Louis had played with fire without realizing it, and now he was paying a price he hadn’t even known existed.

RUMBLE!

The ice dome shattered further, cracks spreading everywhere. Dark green vines covered in golden spikes pressed forward, trying to infiltrate. The greatest instinct of all Grievances was consumption, and this one, perhaps without even conscious intent, was aiming to devour Louis.

And what they craved most were Fantasy Hearts.

“Louis, we have to fight them,” Niflheim urged. “Cut the vines before they spread across your Fantasy Heart!”

“Yes, that’s the only option,” Louis agreed. He seized the Ashen Frost Sword Heart beside Niflheim and poured all his Power, Aura, Intent, and even his Consciousness into it, solidifying it into a blade of pale light. In his other hand, he summoned the Soul of his White Lance.

Sword and lance in hand, Louis stood ready as the ice dome finally exploded.

CRASH!

Countless vines surged toward him and Niflheim. Louis glanced back at her for a moment, concern flickering in his eyes. “Don’t worry about me!” she shouted. “I’ll assist you—just this once! So go all-out, fight with everything you have, or you’ll die, Prince Louis!”

Louis nodded and leaped forward. He swung his blade, unleashing Sword Energy that sliced through the vines. With his spear, he thrust again and again, piercing the onslaught and delivering devastating blows that obliterated many at once.

Yet more vines poured from the sky without end, blotting out the night sky and its constellations beneath an endless canopy of writhing tendrils.

They attacked relentlessly, seeking to coil around him and drag him down. Louis dodged and weaved with all his speed, cutting through as many as he could. He watched Niflheim conjure sword strikes with her Sword Aura, freezing vines solid before shattering them.

No matter how many they destroyed, more arrived, endlessly.

“How can I destroy them all? They’ll never stop coming!” Louis shouted. “Should I destroy the Grievance itself? That’s impossible!”

“Yeah, it is impossible in your current state,” Niflheim admitted with a sigh. “But you have me. So we might as well…”

“What? You’re suggesting…?!” Louis was stunned by what Niflheim implied.

“No, you won’t wield me,” she clarified. “But I will… use more of my power. Tisha has used me to cut hundreds of Entities and many Grievances. I am not inexperienced. Grievances are incredibly resilient. The way to harm them is by targeting their Consciousness Domain. They are born from twisted desires, memories, emotions, and more. Their ’Soul’ is a vast Consciousness they spread everywhere. Whoever gazes upon them and cannot resist is consumed. So you hurt them by cutting that!”

Niflheim rose into the air, growing to an enormous size. She froze and sliced through the vines with terrifying speed, mowing them down while Louis rode atop her, swinging his glass-like sword and cutting through everything in reach. Yet the Grievance adapted quickly, forming countless eyes that attempted once more to consume Louis’ mind.

“Nnngh! G-Get out of my head!”

Louis roared. The Gravewalker suddenly manifested within him. Ashes rained from above, covering the vines and reducing them to dust.

“…What?!”

He hadn’t even known he possessed such power… but perhaps within his own Fantasy Heart, anything was possible as long as he envisioned it and poured his Mind and Imagination into it.

A Fantasy was born from Imagination, but only through Delusion and Madness could it become an Obsession powerful enough to birth a Fantasy Heart.

Louis wasted no time. He swung his sword forward. Ashes gathered into a massive shockwave, slicing through the eyes in a single devastating arc.

BOOOM!

A colossal explosion erupted as the ashes—each a small Ash Trap Rune—detonated on contact, shaking the Grievance’s Consciousness ever so slightly.

“That actually worked… but I hadn’t even taught you how to do it yet! You figured it out on your own?”

“I don’t know if I figured it out. I just attacked by thinking my strike could destroy that thing. It didn’t—but at least it hurt it.”

“…That’s right. This is your Fantasy Heart. In this realm, you are a god. One of the ways to overcome a Grievance’s Consciousness Infiltration is by exerting your own Consciousness and expanding it with all your Emotions and Desires. You must have an unyielding spirit and unrelenting determination.”

“Or an obsession so powerful that I’ll do anything to achieve it…”

Louis smiled. The ashen desert beneath him trembled violently as something enormous surged upward, tearing through the vines with razor-sharp claws and roaring with monstrous fury.

“ROOOAAARRRR!”

Niflheim was startled, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. She had called Louis a “god” here, but this was not what she meant.

And yet… it was astonishing that he could conjure such a being purely from his own Obsession.

“A Dragon!”

It was a dragon, glorious and majestic, covered in silver scales, with four feathered wings where each feather gleamed like polished silver. A long neck led to a large, sharp pair of jaws, six glowing golden eyes, and a crown of golden horns.

This was how Louis envisioned his Dragon Form: magnificent, drawing from both his mother’s appearance and the depictions of his grandfather in Yggdrasil’s ancient history books.

This was his Obsession.

His Delusion.

His Fantasy.

A dragon soaring through the skies.

“No matter what the world says, no matter what fate does to stop me, I will never cease moving toward my goal. I am a dragon, and I will claim my birthright at any cost! Grievance or not, I care nothing for a clump of disgusting weeds. Begone from my sight—right now!”

The dragon roared with earth-shaking might, unleashing a massive breath attack. A blinding white beam of destructive energy surged forth, a pillar that consumed all the vines in an instant, obliterating even the roots embedded in the sky, disintegrating everything with a single strike.

BOOOMMM!!!

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