The Night That Devours the Dream

The clash between the newly added boss monsters made for a truly dazzling spectacle.

Crowley wielded the power of darkness.

Hecate poured the power of the elements into her blades and swung them in blazing arcs.

Lilith, meanwhile, went down against the two monsters without offering so much as a token resistance.

More than forty Liliths had already been game-overed. Over thirty of them had fallen to the same S.E.N monsters.

Ryu Hwi accounted for barely ten.

And even that was only because he kept dodging the S.E.N monsters and other spawns that kept cropping up, prioritizing evasion over speed.

Seyril's Blessing was doing its job fending off the mental erosion, and fighting with one ear cocked toward Intuition Lv3 was proving genuinely effective.

The problem was that the erosion only grew stronger with time.

The damage kept accumulating, and the power of the erosion itself was ramping up. Forty clones had fallen, which should have weakened the field — but the fuller the moon rose, the stronger Lilith's power became in its own right.

"For now……. How many are left before the whole field comes down?"

Lilith's field blanketed the entirety of Legend of Lambda.

To sustain it, she had stationed her clones at their respective anchor points. Noel pulled the location data on the fly, feeding it to Ryu Hwi, and from that data he worked out the most efficient way to collapse the field.

YggON marked several spots on the map, tracing the flow of "power" in an easy-to-read diagram — clusters where the interconnected energy pooled before spreading outward again.

While the S.E.N monsters tore the battlefield into pandemonium, Ryu Hwi methodically smashed the field's linchpins one after another.

Four left.

Once Lilith's field was stripped from Legend of Lambda, he would be free to move far more easily.

After that…….

A small doubt surfaced in his mind.

Isn't this going a little too smoothly?

By his own prediction, Lilith's power was tied to the "full moon" — and true to that theory, her power was now nearly at its peak.

Even now, the system's warnings wouldn't stop ringing.

But factoring all that in, something about her approach still felt half-hearted. Lilith had to be feeling her clones dropping one after another. And yet — no reaction at all.

Is she cooking up something else?

His opponent was S.E.N. There was no telling what they might pull, so he couldn't afford to let his guard down.

All he could do was press forward with maximum caution.

Noel, mid-broadcast, warned Ryu Hwi of the incoming S.E.N monster.

S.E.N monster Loki had been built using the data of the traps once deployed in Divine Comedy's Asgard.

He fell short of Hecate or Crowley in raw combat power, but his special ability — Traps — made merely facing him an ordeal. Ryu Hwi would rather fight Crowley or Hecate any day than deal with Loki.

He ran without so much as a glance back.

If he handled it carelessly, it might look like he'd predicted Loki's arrival — but the direction he was heading was dangerous enough in its own right that, with any luck, the deception would hold.

That was how badly he did not want ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to fight Loki.

Watching him through the broadcast, Noel thought, At least fake a fight, you coward! — and yet, at the same time, she understood why he was doing this.

Her other personality, "5555," had designed the thing, but honestly? That thing was just plain unfair.

Since it had come to this, the only option was to sell it through the broadcast.

The monster that materialized was smaller-bodied than the other two S.E.N monsters.

A translucent, slime-like thing no bigger than a young child — it exuded no menace whatsoever. Nobody would ever guess that Ryu Hwi had fled at full throttle just to avoid fighting it.

The chat, in fact, was nothing but "looks weak," and Noel breathed a sigh of relief.

"Only when it's Loki."

Ryu Hwi answered Noel with perfect nonchalance and pushed his speed even higher.

* * *

"Delete."

A hideous scream echoed through the cavern.

That made three Deletes.

"The soul was erased either way. They just won't be coming back as a gamer, that's all."

"Better than living with a parasite latched onto your soul, isn't it?"

He remembered all 108 names on the list. If anything went wrong, Jucheongwang would back them up.

Whatever happened, anything was better than living with a horrifying parasite welded to your soul.

That was why Ryu Hwi could use Delete without a moment's hesitation.

"Anyway — one anchor point left to break the field, then?"

Roughly fifty Liliths remained in the game labyrinth. More than half had already been game-overed.

With the anchor points destroyed, the power was no longer distributing evenly, and the field was fraying badly. Bring down only the clones at the last remaining site, and this cursed field would finally collapse.

And yet, somehow, an eerie premonition gnawed at him — unnaturally so.

His gut instincts had a habit of being right at times like this, so Ryu Hwi racked his brain for anything he might have missed. Nothing came. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ Lilith's ability was Reverie — the illusion of dreams.

His analysis: her power turned the field itself into a "dreamspace," letting her manifest whatever she wished or invade her opponent's mind in the form of nightmares.

Could she be hiding something beyond that?

The possibility was more than real. Even Hecate or Crowley would have been holding a trump card in reserve.

But Lilith's clones fought Delete with everything they had.

Lilith had no separate main body — each and every one of the 108 was Lilith herself. If she had a trump card, shouldn't she have played it long ago?

Or were some conditions still unmet?

Ryu Hwi glanced up at the sky without thinking.

His guess: for Lilith to exert her full power, it had to be a night with a full moon overhead.

That guess, at least, would hold true.

"YggON, what time is it in Human Realm time?"

Three minutes to midnight.

Thirty minutes in game labyrinth time.

"Let's hurry."

Factoring in the aggro he'd draw from flying monsters, Ryu Hwi unfurled Aeroload once more.

He had to bring down Lilith's field before midnight. He couldn't say why — but the premonition was there.

"Took you long enough."

Waiting at the final anchor point was none other than Noir Lilith.

"I've worn myself thin waiting. Playing with nothing but your other clones the whole time — you're making me jealous, you know."

Behind Noir Lilith stood a temple.

A ruined temple — ancient civilization remnants preserved in Legend of Lambda's lore.

"Are you alone?"

Everywhere else, Lilith's clones had gathered in threes and fours. Here, there was only Noir Lilith.

"Well, yes. I knew perfectly well you were going around destroying the field's anchor points, so I came to the last one myself. I sent the girls who were stationed here elsewhere."

"So you intend to face me alone?"

"Mmhm."

The warnings rang out in rapid succession.

Watching Ryu Hwi resist the erosion, Noir Lilith ran her tongue slowly across her lips.

"I wrote it off as a half-baked skill that borrowed its looks from DQ — but it seems you can actually withstand my erosion."

Even with Ryu Hwi clearly holding out against it, she showed not a trace of tension.

"Well, if we fought as things stand, I'd have a hard time winning. Combat was never my strong suit. What I'm confident in is…… hmm, finding the things other people hate, perhaps?"

"……"

"Such a shame, really. If you and Noir had been very close privately as well, I could have shown you a face twisted with rage and despair."

"Unfortunately for you, I don't much care about any of that."

Ryu Hwi was a grown man in his prime, but romance and love had never interested him much. It hadn't always been that way — but the sweet emotions had worn away and vanished during his years dying slowly in the depths.

"No need for long speeches. I'm going to erase you from that body."

Light gathered in Ryu Hwi's hand.

"Delete…… Intuition, and now Delete. You do have a taste for the horrifying skills, don't you? Well, drawing a UR in the first place was horrifying enough."

Even facing Delete, Noir Lilith remained utterly composed. Her reaction was different ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠from all the other Liliths. Did she alone possess something special?

"You've been so preoccupied with my 'erosion,' haven't you?"

"……?"

"Erosion is certainly the most convenient tool in my kit, but…… forgetting about 'Manifestation' while you fixated on erosion is a colossal blunder."

Lilith's Manifestation, at its best, could materialize skills or items based on her own experience.

Frankly, it wasn't a very threatening ability.

That was what Ryu Hwi had believed, all this time.

Or rather — that was what Lilith had guided him to believe.

"I'm sure you've noticed: the night of the full moon is when my power peaks. But that doesn't refer to 'erosion.' It refers to—"

Noir Lilith stretched both hands toward the sky.

"Manifestation of Nightmare."

A black moon rose.

The instant Ryu Hwi saw the jet-black moon climb into the heavens, a terror beyond anything he'd ever felt seized him.

"What did you do?"

"And here I heard you were quick on the uptake. Apparently not?"

Noir Lilith laughed, delighted, as she watched him falter.

"Exactly what it sounds like — I 'manifest' the nightmare. I use my power to 'manifest' the very existence you find most horrifying."

The black moon spread its sinister stain across the sky.

"Normally, Manifestation of Nightmare fails more often than not — the target's fear stays too vague to take shape. But during the last erosion, I read your fear. No — perhaps I should say, the source of your hatred."

"……!"

"I already know about that existence, you see. I heard it from 'Britra' himself. Tonight is the full moon, when my power is at its absolute maximum — with every condition in place like this, failure is nearly impossible."

Ryu Hwi's nightmare.

The source of his hatred.

"Now then — show me your nightmare…… hm?"

The black moon hanging in the sky began, at last, to dye the violet heavens.

"What…?"

Baffled by a reaction she had never anticipated, Lilith looked up.

The nightmare was, above all else, a power of Reverie — of "manifestation" through dream. A power belonging to the dream could never, in turn, erode Lilith's own field.

And yet now, the impossible was happening.

"That's absurd! Why is my Reverie being eroded?!"

Devouring the false dream, the true night descended.

Ryu Hwi's trembling had not stopped from the moment he sensed its approach. Gritting his teeth, he glared at Lilith.

"You tried to manifest something even you couldn't control."

"……!"

Thanks to Intuition's warning, he could grasp, roughly, what kind of situation this was.

Something slumbering beyond the far side of the abyss had detected an attempt to create a likeness of itself.

And so it had descended in person.

The "night" born of humanity's grudge.

Hair dyed the color of ink-black void, embodying a darkness without a single ray of light.

The dress draped upon that body seemed to symbolize the night sky itself.

And the night that had descended upon this world revealed golden rings glittering in its eyes.

All of it — everything — was swallowed by the night.

* * *

Noir Lilith was more baffled by this impossible phenomenon than anyone.

Something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Her field no longer retained even its form.

When two fields collided, a struggle broke out as each fought to impose its own laws. This time, there had been no such process — Lilith's field had simply shattered, one-sidedly.

It meant the gap in power between Lilith and the being born of Manifestation of Nightmare was simply that vast.

"Impossible."

Noir Lilith gritted her teeth.

"Something manifested from my own nightmare, and yet……"

She unfurled her Reverie, attempting to erode that night shrouded in darkness.

"……?"

What she saw in that instant was endless darkness.

A night sky over an abyss without one ray of light.

Nothing existed there at all.

The "night" sensed that someone had tried to erode it — and turned its golden-ring-glittering eyes toward the source.

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠moment their eyes met, the soul of Lilith, latched onto Noir's, was annihilated in an instant.

She never even knew what hit her.

Without understanding what had happened, or what was becoming of her, one of Lilith's souls simply slipped away into nothing.

Heca……te…….

Consciousness fading, Lilith's soul looked up at that beautiful night.

What…… what have you…… created…….

A night of matchless beauty and utter darkness, of intoxication and terror at once.

The nightmare melted away.