Dream Realm. No-Man's Woods.
In a confident attack, Candida gripped her burning spear tightly and dove down, rapidly diving at her enemy. The shining flame left a trail of fire in the air that refused to go out.
At a wave of the knight's hand, the stone spikes that had been waiting for their moment burst from the ground, exploding in unchecked growth.
An instant before the stone spikes could pierce the angel's body, she swung her spear. The burning tip cut through the dark stone like a hot knife through butter.
Seeing this, the knight could only smirk. It had been a long time since he'd had to deal with such a stubborn Somnisian.
Breaking through the forest of thin stone spikes, she managed to see the knight staring intently at her. His indifferent calm only infuriated her further.
Stopping at the stone spikes, she swung her spear and struck them with the blunt side. In an instant, hundreds of stones, engulfed in flames, poured down like a flaming rain toward Veridicus.
In an attempt to defend himself, Veridicus once again bent the space around him, forcing the stones to land around him instead of falling on his body.
But that was a mistake.
Seeing what Veridicus had done, Candida smirked and rushed toward the sleeping boy. Hovering over the unconscious body, she turned part of her golden armor into strong ropes that wrapped around the boy themselves and pressed him against the angel's body.
Having made sure the puppet was still firmly attached to Lucius, Candida beat her wings and flew away, leaving Veridicus in a fiery cage.
Meanwhile, Veridicus desperately tried to find a way out of the trap he had fallen into.
Surrounded by unprecedented fire, he did the first thing that came to mind. Grabbing the air with both hands, he tensed and tried to pull them apart. Expecting the pillars of flame along with space itself to stretch and part, he was shocked by what happened.
Or rather, it would be more accurate to say: nothing happened at all.
Despite his overwhelming power and centuries of experience, for the first time he felt… powerless.
The fire simply ignored his power.
Using his true form would only make his situation worse, because the Somnisian's fire consumed… absolutely everything. And his incorporeal, misty form would certainly not be an exception.
But then the knight saw something that horrified him.
The pillars of fire surrounding him began to grow right through the air, leaving him less and less space with each second. Where the thin tongues of flame passed through the air, cracks remained. Not in the air – in the void itself, in space. Meanwhile, the heat of this fire slowly killed the knight. Not his body – his soul.
The situation seemed hopeless.
Standing amid the pillars of fire that struck his soul even without direct contact, the knight slowly began to despair. Centuries of his existence would be burned into nothingness because of a chance encounter with an inexperienced Somnisian. Truly, an incredible humiliation…
But then he came to his senses when he remembered that there was still "earth" beneath his feet.
Knowing its true nature, he felt nauseated for a moment at the thought of digging through it. And yet, he had no choice. Dropping to his knees, he plunged his hands into the "earth" and turned his limbs into pitch-black mist.
He hastily dissolved the knight's shell, returning to his true, formless essence. Seeping between the granules of the "earth" like smoke through fingers, he escaped the fire.
Flying out of the ground as a mist opposite the fiery cage, he turned his gaze to the empty sky, where a long streak of fire hung, stretching straight to the horizon. If he wanted to catch the accursed angel who had almost killed him in such a stupid way, he had to follow this path.
Knowing he needed to hurry, Veridicus rushed forward, chasing the growing streak looming above him, while simultaneously turning back into a knight.
Unlike the Somnisians, for whom transformation was almost a primary ability due to their nature, for the Aletherions this power was beyond their capabilities.
Even for Veridicus, considered one of the rare exceptions among his race, one of those who had managed to overcome this weakness, it was immeasurably difficult to transform and maintain a form.
This time, he had no opportunity to complete his transformation into a knight. Instead of strict, sharp-edged armor, his body and armor were blurred and covered in his misty aura.
At his mental command, a large part of his aura separated from him and began to move alongside the ghostly knight. As the first outlines began to form, a sharp spiral horn burst from the moving black cloud, and the creature hiding in the darkness immediately began to ram the leathery trees so as not to lag a single step behind its running creator. Blood from the trees sprayed in all directions.
Looking toward his creature, Veridicus grunted and jumped into the cloud.
In an instant, a dark purple alicorn soared into the air, saddled by a misty knight. The eyes of the flying steed gleamed predatorily red, and its burnt wings were folded at its sides, covering the legs of its rider.
The distorted neighing of the alicorn echoed through the void. The knight stretched out his hand to the side and, using his power over space locally, made the air solid under the steed's hooves while simultaneously pushing it, giving it even more speed.
The streak burned in the void, showing no sign of dying out. On the contrary, it slowly spread, burning reality. He flew above the streak, and the further he went, the wider it became. Its edges pulsed, tearing at the void.
And then the knight understood. This was not just flame. This was a spatial fire. And if it were not stopped, the Dream Realm would be doomed.
***
Pain.
Unbearable agony.
Candida had known its source from the very beginning. Her own spear was slowly killing her.
The spearhead – the second fragment of her soul, torn away in just a few pathetic minutes. And now this weapon was slowly burning its creator.
All Candida could do was hold the spear as far away from the sleeping boy as possible, so as not to kill him.
And yet, the damage had already been done to her.
Her perfect snow-white wings and golden armor had been cruelly transformed. The edges of her burned plumage curled and blackened into charcoal.
The golden armor melted slowly. Sizzling drops dripped from the edges of the plates and fell downward.
Her mind grew clouded. Every movement came with a "I can't".
"Dead. He's definitely dead. With that fire, it can't be otherwise…"
With a blurry gaze, she looked at the spear and quickly looked away.
"Cursed spear… Dispel it? No, not yet… But I need to rest. Just a few seconds…"
But those thoughts vanished the moment she heard a distant sound. A distorted, blood-curdling horse's neigh. The kind that makes the blood freeze in your veins.
A wave of goosebumps ran down Candida's spine. Alarmed, she turned around – and saw.
The Aletherion was flying after her.
Before she could react, dozens of familiar stone spikes rushed toward her from all sides. But unlike before, these did not grow from the ground. They appeared right in the air.
In an instant, a stone point pierced one of Candida's burned wings. A cry of pain escaped her lips, and she began to fall.
Lucius's unconscious body swung on the ropes like a sack of bones, every movement echoing through her burning ribs. The spiritual threads holding the puppet snapped one by one.
Candida beat her remaining wing, dodging another attack. Useless. After dodging one more spike, she crashed back into the depths of the No-Man's Woods with a heavy impact, raising a cloud of dust.
Breathing raggedly, the Somnisian rose after the landing. Panic overtook her.
Candida threw the spear away, forcing it to pierce a tree. The faces on the trunk, tormented by eternity, twisted in pain as the cursed flame engulfed the wood.
Stepping as far as possible from the fire, constantly glancing back at the approaching rider in the sky, Candida recalled the ropes that bound Lucius, turning them back into part of her armor. Catching the boy before he could fall, she lowered him to the ground.
With horror, she saw the pitiful state of the puppet. Its entire outer shell was completely mutilated; most of the soul-threads connected to the sleeping Lucius were torn, barely holding his dream together. Worst of all, the fragment of Candida's own soul that served as the puppet's core had seriously dried out.
One more disturbance of the peace, and this would mean not only the end of the dream, but the irrevocable loss of part of herself.
Meanwhile, the enraged Veridicus launched another attack. No more games.
The entire area was suddenly enveloped in a bottomless darkness in which Candida could not even see her own body. The only source of light was the all-consuming flame of her own spear.
The madman had used his own aura to separate them all from the rest of the Dream Realm with an impenetrable barrier.
Candida's entire body froze in horror as dozens of Veridicus's spawn began emerging from the abyss. Creatures that looked like they had escaped from eldritch nightmares.