The stars were gone.
Not just absent from the sky, but erased. Like someone had taken a blade to the heavens and carved them out, leaving behind only silence. In this silence, two figures stood in the middle of a garden that had long since forgotten what life meant.
Lucius shifted his weight, his boots crushing dead petals into dust. The sound barely registered against the stillness. Beside him, Aiden stood quietly, the flickering remnants of his recent nightmare still lingering behind his eyes. His shoulders were tense, his breath uneven, but his hand stayed firm on the hilt of his blade.
They'd both seen the truth now. Nytherion's world wasn't made of flesh and blood. It was woven from emotion, memory, and dreams. The Forgotten Garden was merely a prelude. A waiting room of broken minds.
"You said she collects people," Aiden said after a long silence, voice low. "But how does she control all of this? These… memories, dreams…"
Lucius didn't answer right away. He stared at the fractured petals growing from the wings, each displaying fragments of lives stolen by Nytherion. He knelt down, touching one. The image shimmered—an old man in a rocking chair, surrounded by children.
Then the petals blackened, and screams replaced laughter.
"She plants a virus in the brain," Lucius said finally. "It's called the Memoriz. It doesn't destroy memories—it rewrites them. It finds your strongest ones, infects them, and uses them as prisons."
Aiden's brows furrowed. "But what's the purpose? Why not just kill?"
"Because this isn't about death," Lucius said darkly. "It's about erosion. She wants to erode you until you forget who you are. Once your identity collapses, you become hers."
Aiden's eyes narrowed. "And what happens if you resist?"
Lucius smiled bitterly. "She puts you in another memory. Again. And again. Until eventually, you give up."
Aiden clenched his fists. "So what's the plan? If we can't fight her here, and the Shadow Orb doesn't work…"
"There is one thing we haven't tried," Lucius said, rising slowly. "The laws of this world are shaped by thoughts. Intention. And dreams… can be merged."
"Merged?"
Lucius looked at him seriously. "If two people inside the Dreamworld focus on the same thing—truly focus—their dreamscapes will begin to resonate. And if they align for even a second… their worlds collide."
Aiden blinked. "Collide how?"
Lucius pointed at the broken sky. "The Dreamworld is like a house of mirrors. Everyone's in their own room. But if we smash the glass between ours… we create a shared space. A collision. It's unstable, but it's real enough for us to move together."
Aiden stared, slowly understanding. "So if we both think about the same thing at the same time…"
"Our worlds become one," Lucius finished.
Aiden hesitated. "And that helps us… how?"
Lucius's expression was grim. "In a shared Dreamworld, we have a single reality. A hybrid space. And if we kill Nytherion there—if we defeat her inside the dream she thinks she controls—we might break the chain. No dream, no infection."
Aiden's eyes widened. "You think that'll work?"
Lucius looked out toward the horizon. The flowers were swaying despite the stillness. The air vibrated, subtle but undeniable.
"It has to," he said.
They stood in silence for a long moment.
"Alright," Aiden said finally. "What are we focusing on?"
Lucius met his gaze. "The one thing she fears most."
Aiden's breath caught. "…The Author."
Lucius nodded. "Think of him. Picture his voice, his presence. The quill scratching on paper. The click of his fingers. Anything that reminds you of his control."
Aiden's eyes flicked shut.
Lucius did the same.
And then, like a tectonic shift beneath the surface of thought itself—the world groaned.
The sky blinked.
Cracks formed in the air like broken glass. Trees twisted. Wings lifted from the ground and hovered like spirits with nowhere to go. The dream was tearing at its seams.
And then came the roar.
It was not from a beast. Not from Nytherion.
It came from the dream itself.
A shriek of dissonance as two realities collided. Lucius's throne of shadow bled into Aiden's hallway. His house merged with a ruined battlefield. A classroom fused with a throne room of nightmares. The flowers burned blue and purple, caught in a violent whirlpool of thought.
And at the center of it—
Lucius stood, gripping his cracked Shadow Orb with one hand, eyes glowing with spectral fire.
Aiden appeared beside him, his sword humming with resonance.
They had done it.
They had created the Collision World.
A hybrid of both minds. A volatile space that was no longer under Nytherion's control. Her trap had rules. This place didn't.
And that terrified her.
She appeared not with whispers—but with a scream.
The sky peeled open like paper, and Nytherion descended.
Her body flickered between dream forms—angelic, monstrous, childlike, skeletal. The wings behind her pulsed erratically, unable to decide which memories to weaponize.
Her voice was fractured. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"
Lucius stepped forward, his face hard.
"We brought reality into your lie."
"You think this gives you power?" she hissed.
Aiden raised his blade. "No. It gives us a chance."
Nytherion screeched, and the dream twisted. The ground became liquid. Screams poured from flowers. Old voices whispered temptations—memories of warmth, of comfort, of things they'd lost.
But they held.
Because now, they were together.
Lucius moved like a phantom, his shadows syncing with Aiden's momentum. A blade of pure shadow formed in his hand, and for the first time—Nytherion flinched.
This wasn't her realm anymore.
The battle raged. A collision of forgotten emotions and burning resolve. They were inside the mind—but it was a battlefield just the same. Every attack cut through lies. Every wound on Nytherion ripped a piece of her dreamcraft away.
Aiden's thoughts began to bleed into Lucius's, and vice versa. They saw fragments of each other's memories—shared pain, mirrored rage, similar losses.
They weren't just allies now.
They were co-authors of this dream.
And finally—
Lucius leapt high into the air, blade aimed at her heart.
Aiden followed, aura burning like a second sun.
Nytherion screamed.
"You can't kill what was never alive!"
Lucius's voice was cold as death.
"Then die inside your own lie."
And with a final slash, they struck her down—
The sky exploded into white.
Her wings dissolved.
The dream… cracked.
And then—
Darkness.
Silence.
And a voice.
A new voice.
Familiar.
"You've broken her dream," it said. "But you're still in mine."
Aiden's eyes widened.
Lucius turned slowly.
"No," he said softly. "Not yet…"
The voice chuckled. Calm. Measured. Like pen scratching across paper.
"We'll see."