Samael's mouth felt slightly dry after talking so much. Seeing that Liu had already fallen asleep, he slowly closed his eyes, surrendering to the weight pulling at them.
As soon as he fell asleep, Samael felt his consciousness being dragged into the Dream Realm.
That sensation had already become familiar.
Awakened belonged to both worlds.
Sleeping meant crossing the border between them.
Normally, Samael would awaken in Bastion.
But this time…
Something was wrong.
In the middle of the transition, he felt his anchor being dragged away by force.
The sensation was instantly terrifying.
It felt as though invisible chains had wrapped around his soul and were pulling him farther and farther away.
Very far away.
The force behind it was colossal.
Absolute.
Completely beyond his comprehension.
For a brief instant, Samael remembered the Category Five Gates in America.
And he remembered that Nightmare Gates could pull on the anchors of the Awakened.
"They're moving my anchor…"
The thought crossed his mind as the pressure intensified.
Then—
Everything went dark.
Samael slowly opened his eyes.
And found only darkness.
A black vastness stretched as far as the eye could see.
There was no sky.
No stars.
Only darkness.
Small beams of light occasionally appeared in distant points across the horizon, flickering in and out like silent lightning.
That world felt dead.
Silent.
And absurdly ancient.
Samael remained still for a few seconds before observing his surroundings.
It was a colossal wasteland.
Flat.
Infinite.
And scattered across that black expanse were Nightmare Creatures.
Countless of them.
Some small.
Others gigantic.
Some juvenile.
Others so colossal they looked like living mountains slowly moving through the darkness.
The diversity of ranks was absurd.
Some creatures made Samael feel like he might be able to fight them.
Others…
Just looking at them made his instincts scream in terror.
— How are the weaker creatures not extinct in a place like this…?
The question escaped his lips involuntarily.
Then he noticed something behind him.
A structure.
Samael slowly turned his head.
And froze.
— A… graveyard?
The colossal structure stood silently within the darkness.
The black walls rose well over eight meters high.
They looked ancient.
Far too ancient.
On the horizon, behind the graveyard, a gigantic yellow tree stretched upward into the black void of the world.
It was so colossal it looked as though it supported the horizon itself.
Even in that lightless kingdom, it was still possible to see thanks to the occasional beams of light that cut through the darkness.
Samael quietly entered the graveyard.
The inside was silent.
There was no wind.
No sound.
Only thousands of white flowers spread across the dark ground.
And at the center of everything…
A single gravestone.
It stood over six meters tall.
Immense.
Solemn.
Absurd.
Samael slowly approached it.
Then read the words carved into the black stone:
[Within this kingdom rests the body of the Daemon of Repose, Rime.]
His mind froze.
He reread it.
Then reread it again.
But the words remained the same.
Rime.
The Daemon of Repose.
Samael had read about her death before.
But he had never known where it happened.
And now…
Apparently, he had found her tomb.
The feeling was surreal.
Traces left behind by Daemons were things that seemed to belong only in Sunny's story.
To the Fate attribute.
Not to him.
"This shouldn't be happening to me…"
Slowly approaching the gravestone, Samael raised his hand and touched the cold stone.
— Who would build a gravestone for a Daemon…?
Then another possibility appeared in his mind.
"Could it be… Rime herself?"
The idea sounded absurd.
But at the same time…
Strangely plausible.
Then Samael immediately remembered another figure.
Ariel.
Ariel's Tomb had been built by Ariel himself.
The silence of the graveyard seemed to grow even heavier.
— The Daemons really were eccentric…
He murmured softly.
He observed the surroundings once more.
There was nobody there.
No creatures.
No movement.
— The others' anchors were probably dragged somewhere else…
Circling around the massive gravestone, Samael found something unexpected.
A portal.
Its energy felt familiar.
It connected to the Kingdom of War.
Samael's eyes widened slightly.
— Is this… a Citadel?
Curiously, the discovery no longer shocked him that much.
His shock had already been completely consumed by the fact that he had found the tomb of a Daemon.
Even so, he spent some time exploring the graveyard.
Searching for inscriptions.
Hidden passages.
Memories.
Anything.
At one point, he even dug beneath the gravestone.
And immediately felt guilty afterward.
Because the tomb was empty.
— There's nothing here…
The disappointment in his voice was obvious.
Samael slowly left the graveyard.
His legs trembled slightly.
But strangely…
He could smell the faint scent of wet roses.
And it eased his fear.
Returning to the black wasteland, Samael once again observed the beams of light cutting through the horizon.
They appeared randomly.
And vanished just as quickly.
Every time one of those beams struck a Nightmare Creature…
It was instantly incinerated.
Without resistance.
Without struggle.
Erased from existence.
A chill ran down Samael's spine.
— If one of those hits me… I'm dead.
As he slowly walked through the wasteland, trying to understand that impossible realm, he noticed something even stranger.
A colossal creature.
Its presence was overwhelming.
Samael suspected it was at least a Great Nightmare Creature.
Then—
Something happened.
The monstrous body began to shrink.
Its aura diminished violently.
Until only a creature equivalent to the Awakened Rank remained.
Samael immediately stopped.
— What the hell is this…?
But before he could process it—
Another creature, small and insignificant, began to change.
Its presence exploded.
Its body grew.
Expanded.
Became colossal.
Unfathomable.
A monstrous pressure flooded the wasteland.
Samael swallowed dryly.
None of that made sense.
It was as though the ranks themselves were unstable in that place.
As though that realm freely toyed with the laws of the world.
Then his eyes slowly returned to the colossal yellow tree in the distance.
No creature dared approach it.
All of them merely orbited around the tree.
Like planets revolving around a sun.
And hanging from the enormous golden branches…
Were gigantic fruits.
Beautiful.
Hypnotic.
But absolutely no creature dared touch them.
The fear Samael felt at that moment was irrational.
Instinctive.
Primal.
Somewhere else, absurdly far away from both America and the Kingdom of Rime…
A beautiful woman with blue hair silently gazed at the horizon from the balcony of her house.
The night wind gently swayed her long hair while her blue eyes remained distant.
Haru slowly closed her eyes.
Then she felt something familiar.
A faint despair being absorbed by her Aspect.
She remained silent for a few seconds.
Before smiling melancholically.
— Where have you gotten lost this time… lost boy?