Blood leaked through the gaps in its mane.
Ariel rested his right hand against his knee.
He wiped the bloodstains from the corner of his mouth.
Never in the past eight years had he beaten the lion into such a state.
However strong he could become, this lion was just as strong.
Ariel leaned on his knee to stand up.
His reddish-gold eyes met the majestic lion’s tattered golden pupils.
Yet Ariel felt as if…
It was smiling.
A silver monster beaten within an inch of its life was actually offering him a smile.
“What the hell are you laughing at…” Ariel snorted, a laugh breaking through his frustration.
“ROAR—!”
The lion’s remaining strength erupted in that single instant.
Ariel, however, slid underneath its belly like a falling star.
SZZZT—!
Two crossing heat rays shot forth, disemboweling the lion and melting it into liquid droplets that scattered across the ground.
Clatter…
Ariel propped himself up to sit on the ground, gasping heavily as he watched the giant beast that had accompanied him through his entire childhood vanish inch by inch behind him.
He had won.
Two thousand nine hundred and twenty nights.
This damned silver big cat was finally dead…
The corners of Ariel’s mouth curled up uncontrollably.
He shouldn’t have to dream this damned dream anymore; he could finally get a solid ten hours of sleep, and maybe even explore adolescent male human ergonomics in his dreams…
BOOM!
Darkness broke into dawn, and a white light engulfed the void.
Ariel’s eyes blurred, and when he regained his senses, he found a red moon hanging high in the sky.
An unfamiliar moon…
He was standing in a boundless, pure white hall.
Countless towering pillars rose beside him, stretching straight up beneath the distant sky, directly beneath an hourglass suspended under the red moon.
Dust-fine grains of sand flowed backward, turning into swimming fish, flying birds, or long-extinct ancient creatures, reflecting fleeting images the moment they converged at the bottleneck.
A person clad in a red bodysuit was running at impossible speeds until their flesh peeled away into white bone.
A man wearing a ridiculous cowl was holding a young corpse, roaring silently in a rainy alleyway.
Two planets were colliding, yet a red-and-blue figure shoved one of the planets away, only for someone in the deepest darkness of the universe to slowly open their eyes, Omega-shaped trails of fire burning within them…
There was even a wall of light extending for tens of thousands of light-years like a Great Wall.
On this side of the wall was order; on the other side, void.
Countless images rose and shattered in the golden stream of sand, so fast that even Ariel’s super vision could only catch fragments.
Trillions of living beings, floating and sinking within the hourglass.
What the hell am I dreaming about?
Ariel’s rationality spun rapidly with the support of his super brain.
After the nightmare ended, it was followed not by a sweet dream, but this?
Of course, maybe that damned lion had dropped some DLC teaser before dying, so these things were all just…
“You’ve finally arrived here, my friend.”
Ariel turned around abruptly.
The reddish-gold light in his pupils had not fully faded as he swept his gaze across the empty hall, finally landing on a shadow on the armrest of a throne.
A cat.
Ariel: “…”
To be precise, it was a round-faced, golden-eyed Burmese cat with dark brown fur, the tip of its tail hanging lazily and swishing side to side.
“…Did you just talk?” Ariel was expressionless.
“It’s me talking.” The cat licked its paw pads.
“Who are you?”
The cat jumped down from the armrest, cheerfully wagging its tail, and looked up at the youth who towered dozens of times over it.
“I am Moge.”
“…Moge,” Ariel repeated.
“Moge.”
“You’re a talking cat.”
“Excellent observation skills.”
“You’re squatting on a chair that looks like it belongs to a god, licking your paw.”
“Licking paws is a feline instinct.”
“Where is this place?”
“This is the Dreaming,” it raised its face, “the hotbed of all that is born, the graveyard of all that is unborn.
It is the realm of sleepers and the cage of those yet to awaken.”
“…Can you speak human language?”
“I am speaking human language.” Moge flicked its tail displeasedly.
Ariel looked around the white hall, the red moon overhead, the inverted hourglass, and the white mist tumbling around them.
“Alright, Moge,” he squatted down.
“You say this is the Dreaming.
I can accept that this is a dream.
But what I need right now is—”
“You are a chosen child,” Moge interrupted him.
“Uh…
well, you don’t seem like a child anymore.”
“Last time I saw you, you were only thi—is small.”
It raised a front paw, gesturing in the air to a height roughly up to its own shoulder.
“A chosen child,” Ariel repeated expressionless.
“Yes.”
“Then can you pair me with an Angewomon?
LadyDevimon works too.
What’s the deal with handing me a Burmese cat?”
“Wh…
what?” The Burmese cat trembled.
“Nothing.”
“So you’re that lion.” Ariel’s voice turned cold.
“I am not.”
“You’re not.”
“I am not.”
“Then what are you?”
“I am the temporary administrator of the Dreaming.” Moge scratched its head with its tail.
“I’m responsible for guarding the door for the Lord of Dreams.”
“What about the lion?”
Ariel growled softly, “It plagued me for eight whole years.
Do you know the consequences of depriving a growing male teenager of deep sleep long-term?”
“But it also kept you from having any other nightmares for those eight years, didn’t it?”
Ariel froze.
It seemed that was true…
Aside from that giant silver-white cat…
He had never had any other dream.
For eight years, his sleep had only two states…
Fighting the lion, or absolute, dreamless darkness.
“……Coincidence,” Ariel snorted.
“It wasn’t a coincidence.
It protected you for eight years, allowing you to grow to where you are today.”
“Protected?” Ariel laughed out of sheer anger.
A silver monster that chased and bit him every week, ensuring his sleep never exceeded four hours…
“That really is the most aggressive bodyguard in the world,” Ariel sneered.
“I thought Slade Wilson was absurd enough, but turns out there’s an even more absurd one in my dreams?
Is this the second service package my uncle bought?”
“Your uncle has nothing to do with this,” Moge remained unmoved.
“Judging by the outcome, it accomplished what it was supposed to do.”
“No nightmare came close to you in these eight years.
Your strength grew to the point where it was enough to kill it…”
Its words came to an abrupt halt as Moge was lifted by the back of its neck by a single hand.
“Eight years ago, that lion appeared in reality.” A golden light flickered in Ariel’s eyes, divinity and ferocity pouring out like liquid mercury.
“If I had failed eight years ago…”
“What would have happened?”
Moge dangled in Ariel’s hand.
“If you failed, it would have just been a dream,” the cat said unhurriedly.
“A good cry, and then forgetting what you dreamt.”
“The essence of the trial was never to survive, but to never give up.
In eight years, you never stopped resisting it.
I suppose that is the true reason why you were chosen by ‘Dream’.”
Ariel released his grip, his pupils returning to a clear amber.
Moge gracefully shook out the fur at the back of its neck and jumped onto the steps at the base of the throne.
“You’re really strong.
If I were a normal cat, my neck would be broken,” it evaluated.
“You aren’t normal,” Ariel said expressionlessly.
“Yes…
I am indeed not normal.”
Ariel surveyed his surroundings.
The Dreaming.
The hotbed of all born and unborn things.
Morpheus.
The name surfaced from the depths of his memory.
Lord of Dreams, Endless family.
“So what do you mean?
Mr.
Moge, calling me here…
what do you want me to do?”
“Do you know about prophetic dreams?”
“I’ve occasionally heard the old ladies in Smallville mention it during book club.” Ariel spoke without turning red or batting an eye.
Meeting the Maine Coon-like ‘keep playing dumb’ look beneath his feet, Ariel’s mouth twitched, and he grunted crossly:
“Freud said it’s the subconscious reassembling reality, Jung said it’s the resonance of the collective unconscious…”
“Of course, if you’re telling me about prophetic dreams in the literal sense…
considering I’m currently standing in an impossible hall chatting with a talking cat…
I can accept it,” Ariel said calmly.
“That’s good.
Saves a lot of explanation.” Moge raised a front paw, pointing toward the inverted hourglass overhead.
“Those images you saw…”
“Are the future.”
“To be exact…
all possible futures.
Born, unborn.
What will happen, what might happen.
Shadows cast by the past and fate yet to solidify.”
“Before all things fall asleep, they are first dreamed.”
Ariel remained silent.
He recalled the fragments he had seen in the stream of sand earlier.
“And right now…
the Dreaming has lost its ruler.”
“Morpheus,” Ariel filled in.
“You know him?” Moge froze.
“I know a lot of things.
Continue,” he said.
“…He was sealed away,” Moge muttered.
“It’s been a long time.
So long that I can’t determine the exact duration.”
“In short, the Dreaming lost its order.”
“Nightmares began to spiral out of control.”
“Small-scale nightmares don’t matter.
Everyone has bad dreams, and most nightmares dissipate on their own when dawn arrives.”
“But powerful nightmares…
they project into reality…”
“Project into reality?” Ariel was stunned.
“Yes.
Natural disasters.
Supernatural events.
Doom on a fateful scale.
One person dreaming of a flood won’t actually trigger a flood.
But when a sufficiently powerful nightmare accumulates to critical mass in the Dreaming…”
“It overflows from the dream, layering over reality.”
“When that happens, the dreamer will not wake up.”
“Because the dream has become reality.”
“Then…”
Ariel tested the waters, “Does a nightmare emerge first, projecting onto fragile minds to form a prophetic dream, or does human fear coalesce into a nightmare?”
Moge: “Your question is like asking whether the chicken or the egg came first.”
“Then as long as I don’t dream, or just ignore them, won’t that solve it?” The youth furrowed his brows.
“Ariel…
that’s not how it works…”
Moge shook its head.
“A long time ago…
much longer than your world’s recorded history…
a thousand cats had the exact same dream at the same time.
In that dream, cats were the masters of the world.”
“Humans were shrunk down to palm size, lived in cages, and ate canned food fed to them by their cat masters.”
“I suspect you’re slipping in your own agenda,” Ariel complained lamely.
“In any case, when a thousand cats believed in that dream at the same time, the world truly changed for a brief moment.”
“In that instant that lasted less than a second, humans really shrank.
Cages really appeared, and cats really sat on thrones.”
“Although a cat woke up the very next second, saw actual cat food, lost the collective resonance, the dream receded, and the world restored itself.”
“Yet that second was real.”
“The essence of dreams is another form of reality.”
“A dream powerful enough will devour the waking world.”
“This is the principle behind nightmares coming true.”
“Nightmares will continue to grow and expand within dreams…
its existence spreads like ripples into the dreams of all life connected to it.
These ripples are prophetic dreams.”
“If the ripples continue, the nightmare’s tier will constantly escalate—from a small town to a city, from a city to a planet, from a planet to the universe, until sooner or later, all of reality is dragged into the deep sea of dreams.”
“Ariel, my friend, my hero, my idol, the mission to save the world is entrusted to you.
I think you are the next King of Dreams.”
Ariel turned on his heel and walked away.
“Where are you going?”
“I want to get a late-night snack.”
“Don’t go!
I can share my dried fish with you.
I still have some Sand of Dreams on me, you can eat as much as you want!”
“Thanks for the offer.” Ariel waved his hand without turning around.
“High-difficulty work like saving the universe should be handed over to my future brother who wears his underwear on the outside of his pants.
I’m just a minor with severe procrastination.
“Wait!”
“Wait, wait, wait!”
The little cat chased after him.
“At least hear me out!”
“I heard everything.
Thanks for your lion bodyguard service.
Next time I need a prophetic dream, I’ll burn a stick of incense.
Now please tell me how to wake up.
I’m hungry, I want to eat a late-night snack.”
“You can’t wake up!”
Ariel stopped in his tracks.
“The red moon hasn’t reached the horizon yet.” Moge ran up to his feet, out of breath.
“Before the red moon sinks below the horizon, you cannot leave the Dreaming.”
The youth looked down at the dark brown Burmese cat at his feet.
“Are you imprisoning me?”
His voice was very calm.
So calm that all the fur on Moge puffed out.
“It’s not imprisonment!
It’s the rules!”
“Time in the Dreaming is synchronized 1:1 with the real world.
The red moon is the clock…
you enter the dream when it rises, and you wake when it falls.
It’s the same for everyone.”
“You haven’t answered my question,” Ariel said suddenly.
“What question?”
“What can you provide for me?”
“Remember what I said…
the Dreaming contains all born and unborn things.” Moge breathed a sigh of relief, looking up at the inverted golden sand-fall overhead.
“What I can provide for you…
is also prophetic dreams.”
“In dreams, you can see in advance the futures that might descend upon you.
Before they come true, you will be able to see their shadows.”
“You effectively gain one more chance than everyone else in the world.”
Silence fell over the white hall for a long time.
Ariel stood in place, something shifting rapidly in his pupils.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“In here are unformed dreams and future fragments.” Moge pointed his tail toward the white walls churning around the hall.
“They are also projections of items, knowledge, and power…”
“…that already exist, or are about to exist, across the multiverse.”
“Theoretically…”
“You can get anything.”
Ariel looked toward the fog.
He saw a golden helmet suspended in the mist, several multi-colored rings hovering beside it.
The Helmet of Fate, power rings of various colors.
Yet Ariel’s gaze was drawn to something deeper within.
Some lanterns.
Emerald lanterns suspended in the middle layer of the mist…
“What’s that?” Ariel asked instinctively.
“Oh.”
Moge looked along with him.
“Oa’s Central Power Battery.”
No wonder he, an Eternal, was drawn to that thing…
If his memory served him right, the energy contained inside that thing could destroy the universe.
Ariel’s mouth twitched—his current mood was like an innocent bystander watching a certain blue robotic cat pull a galaxy-destroying bomb out of a four-dimensional pocket…
Even so, Ariel’s super vision couldn’t help but peer deeper, reaching a line of…
Text?
Loneliness + Alienation + Fear + Despair + Self-Worth + …
Ariel’s pupils shrank abruptly.
The moment his super brain saw that equation clearly, it began to shudder…
Not because he couldn’t understand it.
On the contrary, he understood it too quickly.
That line of formula was trying to embed itself into his cognitive framework.
It was trying to be…
SMACK!
A tail whipped across the back of his head.
Ariel lurked back abruptly, fine beads of cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.
“What are you doing?!” He whirled around to glare at the cat.
Moge squatted two meters behind him, its tail raised high, turned into a Spinosaurus-like shape.
“You almost lost yourself in the mist.”
“Before you have enough Sand of Dreams, do not explore deeply.”
“The more you try to explore the mist, the more the mist wants to devour you.”
“You will become part of it, floating inside forever.”
“As a projection.”
“An exhibit.”
“You wouldn’t want to be viewed as an exhibit by others, right, Ariel?”
Ariel remained silent.
Was it really his own doing?
If he guessed correctly about that line of formula just now…
—The Anti-Life Equation.
This damn place even had that?!
“Let me get this straight.”
“You want me, a sixteen-year-old Kansas high school student, to be periodically summoned to this white room in my sleep to fight nightmare monsters that pop up out of nowhere.
If I win, the monster turns into golden sand and flies into that funnel overhead.
When the funnel thinks I’ve accumulated enough points, I get to take stuff from that fog wall that could swallow me at any time.”
“Roughly speaking, yes.”
“And if I fail to defeat these nightmares, or if no one fights them…
they’ll turn into real-world disasters the next day.”
“Correct.”
“And the only benefit for my participation is…
I get to occasionally sneak a peak at my future in my dreams?”
“Of course, that’s a perk for all dream heroes,” Moge praised wholeheartedly.
“A very succinct summary, Ariel.”
“As expected of you, I’ve already become your fan.”
Ariel looked up at the hourglass.
The illusions reflected by the golden sand were too fast and fragmented, so he stopped trying to capture specific images.
“Am I the only one?”
“No, the Dream God selected six people.”
“You’re the first to pass the trial.”
Ariel looked down at the cat.
The red moon hung in the sky, silently shifting toward the horizon.
“Who are the other five?”
“You’ll meet them…
well…
of course, that depends on whether they can defeat their guardian beasts tonight, like ancient griffins, bats, and the like—”
“Wait…”
A look of joy flushed onto Moge’s face.
“She’s here, Ariel.”