The next day in the dream was unlike any other.

  The white walls had dissolved.

  At first, they fell like dust — a shimmer of static melting into air — then the world came alive.

  But this wasn’t the Utopia I saw during my initiation.

  This was the world expanded.

  Color. Wind. Texture.

  I wasn’t standing on the plain anymore.

  Beneath my feet, the soil breathed.

  Grass moved in waves, each blade reflecting sunlight like a thousand mirrors.

  And I wondered how a world could feel so alive inside a dream.

  The air smelled faintly of rain, and still my mind whispered — this was all artificial. A machinery I still couldn’t comprehend.

  The sun felt sentient — like it was watching me, analyzing every move.

  And maybe it was.

  The more I live here, the less I want to return.

  I like it here — how it makes me feel: alive, powerful, and finally free from the echoing voices of the waking world.

  But my musings had to end. I was still here on a mission — to “uplift” a reality I never even connected with.

  Then — movement.

  Something stirred between the trees. Not bird. Not animal.

  A fluttering patch of dark, with eyes that blinked like dying pixels.

  Its wings folded inward, turning inside-out each time it circled.

  [Entity Detected: Grimbat – Rank D]

  The katana flared alive in my hands.

  The first swing met air. The second cut through shadow and sound.

  The Grimbat split into ash.

  No time to rest — the enemy didn’t wait for turns.

  I slashed and moved, lost in the thrill.

  The system kept pinging, data flashing across my vision.

  [Target Neutralized — Reward: +30 Coins | Sync +2%]

  [Target Neutralized — Reward: +20 Coins | Sync +5%]

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  [Target Neutralized — Reward: +50 Coins | Sync +20%]

  They kept coming — creatures like hybrids of wild boars and mammoths.

  The system called them Behamoths.

  Echo Deer gliding without hooves.

  Weavers stretching silver filaments across the trunks.

  Each kill left faint static snow drifting through my vision.

  And somewhere in that static, I remembered a line the system once sent me:

  Keep climbing.

  But now the climb felt hollow.

  What was I even climbing toward?

  The question echoed — unanswered.

  Somewhere behind the trees, a voice shouted:

  “Wait—! Stop—!”

  I turned toward the noise.

  A Dreamer lay pinned beneath an Echo Deer, its antlers burning with white fire.

  He wasn’t fighting — just shielding his face, bracing for impact.

  I moved before I could think.

  One clean strike split the creature. It dissolved into static rain.

  The boy blinked through the fragments.

  “Thanks,” he managed. “Guess I wasn’t built for wildlife.”

  “Name?” I asked.

  “Akai,” he said after a pause, as if testing the word.

  He brushed ash from his jacket.

  “You new?”

  “No.”

  “You?”

  He hesitated. “No—yes. Actually, I don’t know.”

  “Don’t know?” I asked.

  “Yeah. This place is new to me, but I’m not new to the Night Lattice.

  Before this, I was inside the white walls — fighting something called a Phantasm.

  And now… I’m here. Didn’t even know you could meet others.”

  “In that case, even I’m new,” I said.

  “My first day here. Just finished calibration. Didn’t know we could meet either.”

  The wind pressed silence between us as we walked through the metallic forest.

  Light bent strangely — shadows stretching where there was no sun.

  “What brings you here?” I asked.

  “Did you also end up bruised before stumbling in?”

  He shook his head. “No bruises. I received a notification.

  It said it could grant me what I wanted.

  And yeah, I know it might’ve been a trap — but what it offered meant more to me than my own life.”

  “Can I ask what that was?”

  I wasn’t sure where this sudden boldness came from — maybe the reflection I’d chosen for this world was changing me.

  He looked away first.

  “I came here hoping I could find something… or someone. Some proof, maybe.

  That she’s still somewhere.”

  “She?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. My—”

  Before he could finish, the air trembled.

  Every sound — wind, hum, even breath — froze.

  Then a low resonance rippled through the ground.

  The trees flickered, roots glowing pale white.

  Akai’s eyes widened — and then he vanished. Just like that.

  I barely had time to process his disappearance before new hostiles emerged, fiercer than before.

  In the Night Lattice system logs:

  An anomaly had occurred.

  Though corrected, the repercussions were unknown.

  Player meet was never meant to happen — not before Arena Events.

  [Environmental Disturbance Detected]

  [Analyzing...]

  [Anomaly Source: Dreamer Amaya]

  [New directive: Block any further Participant Meets before Arena]