Within the shadows cast by Kaldros, his motionless body was dragged silently through the ruined corridors. The runes carved into his skin flickered with faint sparks, but they remained dormant without a catalyst.
The rotting, blood-soaked walls and shattered machines slowly gave way to something else. The casino warped, reshaping itself into a sterile corridor of smooth concrete.
Grayson, spying, felt uneasy. Large vats lined the hallway along the walls—tubes filled with a glowing purple fluid. Suspended within each one floated humanoid figures, all bearing an unsettling resemblance: bald, etched with runes, their eyes closed in unnatural stillness. Some had feminine shapes, others male.
Grayson felt a jolt of confusion. He had always believed goblins to be tribal, primitive—nothing like this. The sheer sophistication of the scene shattered that illusion, unsettling him to his core.
An old work terminal sat at the edge of the vats. Beside it, a lone woman perched on a stool, her posture relaxed but purposeful.
From an ancient recorder nearby, a soft piano melody played — the haunting strains of Melody of Love, composed in 1903 by Hans Engelmann. The woman hummed along, her voice carrying a delicate, almost nostalgic tune that contrasted sharply with the sterile, eerie hum of the machinery around her.
She held a dagger in one hand, its tip glinting under the cold overhead light as she carved something into the bare flesh of a man slumped over the desk in front of her. The slow, deliberate motions matched the rhythm of the haunting piano tune still playing from the recorder.
At first, Grayson could only see the man's back, bloodied and motionless, but something about the frame, the hair, the scars…
His heart skipped.
No. It couldn't be.
Grayson's breath caught in his throat as Kaldros slowly got dragged closer, the truth unraveling like a bad dream. His eyes went wide.
"Drayke…?"
He slumped deeper into the shadow, disbelief flooding him like ice water.
"That's… that's Drayke."
His voice was barely a whisper, but the effect was immediate.
The woman's humming stopped.
Her head snapped up with eerie precision, eyes scanning the room like a predator sensing motion in the dark.
Grayson held his breath. Every nerve in his body screamed to run, but he stayed still, hidden behind the vat's cold glass. Everything he'd seen today: string-puppeted soldiers, the dead coming back to life, goblins wielding tech they shouldn't even understand—if he made it out of this alive, the military sure as hell better cover his therapy bills. Hell, they better throw in hazard pay and a damn vacation too.
~
Major Elise swooped down from the sky, her wings beating with purpose as she landed at the hotel entrance. With a strength that defied her graceful frame, she hoisted Ironheart as if he weren't three times her size and gently propped him up against the wall. Chunks of his obsidian armor crumbled and clattered to the ground, revealing glimpses of the man beneath; his skin pale, and streaked with sweat. The unbreakable giant had fallen.
The goblin forces outside began to crumble under the relentless push of the advancing soldiers. The tide was turning. More troops poured in, rallying at the hotel entrance, forming a protective wall around the three inside—Hawkins, Mirelle, and Haelwyn.
At the front of the charge, Colonel Solomon led with unmatched ferocity, the tip of his spear wreathed in swirling fire magic. He swung it in wide arcs, carving through anything that dared approach. For every goblin that fell, another took its place, but the battlefield was shifting. High Goblins emerged from the ruins, no longer the attackers, but the desperate defenders of their crumbling hold.
They stood where the First Brigade had been slaughtered, their boots grinding into bloodstained pavement. This wasn't about revenge—it was about making the dead matter. They wouldn't fall here. Not until every goblin that defiled this ground was buried beneath it. Not until the weight of the fallen was lifted—soaked in the blood of monsters.
~
Drayke sprinted through the streets, the weight of unreality pressing on his chest. Neighbors stared from windows, doorways, and porches—motionless, lifeless, like mannequins programmed to observe. Their eyes followed him, unblinking. This wasn't a neighborhood. It was a stage. A trap. How the hell was he supposed to tear this dream world apart?
He searched desperately for something—anything—out of place. Every dream had a nightmare buried inside it. Somewhere behind the smiles and perfect streets, the rot waited. If he couldn't tear the lie apart…
Then perhaps he'd have to become the nightmare.
He darted into an open garage, eyes scanning the shadows. A tire iron rested on a workbench, cold and unassuming. He snatched it up, feeling the weight settle in his hand.
It wasn't a sword—but it would do.
Now, he just needed to wreak havoc. To break the seams of this dream and let the nightmare bleed through.
One of the creatures strolled into the garage, its voice cheery and familiar, like a nosy neighbor from a sitcom rerun.
"Hey, Drayke. You know if you need anything in here, you can always just ask."
Drayke didn't even flinch. He turned, tire iron already in hand, and cracked it across the creature's face with brutal force. The thing staggered sideways, a gurgled sound escaping its throat as blood splattered against the garage wall. Without a word, Drayke stepped in, planted his foot, and rammed the iron through its ribs.
He didn't look at its face. He didn't need to.
Each crunch of bone beneath the metal echoed like breaking ice in a still winter, the final thrust driving straight into the heart. The creature shuddered once—then collapsed in a heap at his feet.
The weapon was slick in his hands now. Drayke stood over the corpse, eyes cold.
"George, the pie is done." A woman with a neatly pinned, old-fashioned hairstyle stepped around the corner to the garage opening just to freeze at the sight of Drayke standing over the body like a butcher mid-act. Her eyes widened, and she let out a sharp, horrified scream.
Smack. The sickening crack of her skull echoed through the garage, and Drayke flinched despite himself. With pause, he knew he had to move, so he drove the blunt end of the tire iron into her chest, burying it deep until it pierced her heart.
He kept reminding himself, they were NOT people. They were monsters wearing human skin, eager to slaughter him and everyone he cared about. This dream was nothing but a twisted illusion meant to break him.
The catalyst of this twisted world had to be the inhuman puppet master pulling the strings. Drayke had no trail to follow, no name to curse—just a rising certainty. He had to show them their illusion was crumbling. That something darker was festering in their perfect little utopia.
The neighbors began to gather, drawn by the scream—silent, wide-eyed, staring. His so-called friends and the woman pretending to be his wife stood among them, wearing the same hollow, unblinking expressions. All eyes on Drayke.
"Who's next?" Drayke snarled, spit flying from his lips like a rabid dog with the blood-slick tire iron gripped tight in his hand.
His wife broke down in sobs, trembling as the scarred man pulled her into his chest, whispering reassurances too soft for Drayke to hear.
The heavier one stepped forward slowly, hands raised like he was coaxing a wild animal.
"Drayke, it's me. Hamlett. Just drop the weapon, man. We can help you. This isn't you."
Drayke's grip only tightened.
As Drayke swung, Hamlett caught the tire iron mid-arc. His hand clamped around it like a vice, the metal shrieking as it bent under his grip. His head tilted unnaturally to the side, like a puppet reacting to a faulty command.
The others rushed forward to back him up.
With a grunt, Drayke drove his boot into Hamlett's gut, kicking the man aside and wrenching the weapon free. The tire iron was twisted now—shorter, jagged, more like a crude blade than a tool. Just the way he needed it.
Using the momentum, Drayke hooked the first man's arms with his left, dragging him forward into a tight pivot. With one brutal motion, he drove the jagged tire iron into the man's chest, then flung the body aside like it weighed nothing.
"C'mon! This can't be all you have!" he shouted—not to the people surrounding him, but to the sky itself.
As if responding, the clouds above peeled away. Daylight vanished in an instant, replaced by a cold, silver-lit night. A full moon stared down like an unblinking eye—watchful, judging, inhuman.
He'd felt this before—this weight, this twist of false choice. It echoed memories from his own nightmares, the ones that blurred the line between want and truth. This wasn't a revelation. It was the prologue. The tire iron in his grip shimmered, reshaping into the familiar form of his sword, heavy and grounded in reality—or at least, his reality.
Blood soaked his boots. Again.
Behind him, the illusion of a family—a life he might've had. Smiles, warmth, love sculpted in lies.
In front of him, the snarling masses of goblins, teeth bared and eyes glowing like embers. Both outcomes poisoned by a hidden hand. Both pages of a story he never wrote.
No. This was the plan all along.
They didn't care if it was a nightmare or a dream wrapped in sweetness. The point wasn't comfort—it was control. They just needed him trapped. Caged in a world where they pulled the strings and he questioned everything. That was the prison.
And now he saw it.
This wasn't some twisted chance. This was deliberate.
He clenched his fists, heart pounding with clarity. They wanted him docile, broken, obedient. Whether through love or terror—it didn't matter. As long as he stayed asleep.
He exhaled. A long, tired breath.
"I'm done playing your game."
And then he turned the blade inward, driving it into his chest.
He was still alive.
But the sky had changed—no longer day, nor night, but a suffocating eternal twilight. The colors bled into one another like oil on water, casting an otherworldly glow across the dreamscape. A crushing weight descended, invisible yet absolute, and Drayke collapsed to his knees. Then flat against the ground, pinned like an insect under glass. His limbs wouldn't obey, his breath shallow.
High above, in that liminal sky, an eye opened burning with a cosmic intensity that felt wrong. Not holy, not evil—just absolute. The kind of presence that didn't ask questions. What it told Drayke, without words, without sound, was simple:
"You don't get to die. Not yet."
Its will was a brand, searing itself into his heart. He could feel the damage to his chest begin to reverse; not with comfort or care like healing magic, but with sheer demand of a greater force. Bones mended, skin sealed, and his lungs were forced to breathe again.
~
Grayson launched out of Kaldros' shadow like a slingshot of fury and adrenaline. His boots hit the floor hard as he pointed a dagger at the woman by the vats.
"Hey, goblin lady!" he shouted, voice echoing in the sterile hall, "Hands off—that's our new recruit!"
His eyes were locked on her, not caring that he was standing in the middle of an underground lab filled with rune-covered clones in tanks. Drayke lay carved up on the table, and Grayson wasn't about to let some nightmare nurse keep her scalpel in him.
The creature transformed and it was... It was grotesque—like flesh folding and breaking all at once. Her mouth split open with rows of jagged shark-like teeth, but it didn't stop there. Her entire face began to unravel, splitting down her neck, chest, and stomach until her gaping maw stretched from head to waist.
Muscle tore as her limbs multiplied, six jagged arms cracking out from her sides and legs bending in unnatural directions. Her eyes sagged, melting down her malformed face, dangling like leeches.
The once-human shape was gone, replaced by a towering ten-foot abomination, its wet breaths fogging the glass of nearby vats.
Grayson blinked a few times questioning his own sanity. "Okay… that's new."
He flicked his dagger in hand and shifted into a stance. "Fine, let's dance, ugly."