The sky above the Dreamscape had shifted.
Where once there had been an endless, surreal canvas of starlight and drifting constellations, there now churned a massive storm of shadow and light—fractured lightning tearing across a blood-red horizon. The winds howled with ancient voices, warning of collapse, of undoing. The Dreamstorm had awakened.
Elias stood at the precipice of a shattered cliff, overlooking the heart of the Dreamscape below. What had once been an ethereal paradise was now splitting apart. Islands of memory drifted like debris in a cosmic sea. Towers that had once represented lost hopes cracked and crumbled. And in the far distance—he saw it: the Citadel of Silence, where Lyra's final fragment was kept.
His fists clenched at his sides.
Now that he remembered everything—his role, her sacrifice, their creation—he could no longer stand by.
He had chosen to hold the Dreamwell within himself. And with it came power.
Not power as in strength, but awareness. He could feel every dream fracturing. Every soul losing its tether. The Dreamscape was collapsing because the paradoxes were converging. Too many realities intersecting, too many versions of truth trying to exist at once.
And the Citadel… it pulsed like a wound in the distance.
"I'm coming, Lyra," he whispered.
A voice answered him—not hers, but familiar.
"You won't reach her in time."
Elias turned sharply.
Out of the storm's swirling mist stepped a figure clad in obsidian armor, its surface shifting like oil under moonlight. His face—unlike the Dream Echo—was not Elias's. But his presence radiated the same essence. A different fork of destiny.
"You're one of me," Elias realized aloud.
The figure gave a slow nod. "I am what you would've become if you had let go of mercy. If you had embraced control over compassion. I've ruled my version of the Dreamscape, and it has not broken… until now."
The dark version of Elias drew a blade made not of metal but of memories twisted into sharp edges. "I came to stop you from making the same mistake again."
"This isn't a mistake," Elias replied. "This is salvation."
The winds roared. The ground beneath them cracked.
And they clashed.
It wasn't a battle of bodies, but of realities. Every strike was a collision of opposing dreams. Each movement sparked memories—lost lovers, broken promises, sacrificed futures—being torn and rewritten. The storm above mirrored their conflict, splitting the sky with shrieks of warring timelines.
But Elias had something the other didn't.
Hope.
He wasn't fighting to win. He was fighting to heal.
With a surge of will, Elias let go of fear. He opened himself fully to the Dreamwell within him. The storm responded—not with destruction, but with clarity.
Visions poured out of him—of all the versions of himself that had struggled, fallen, endured. He saw their hands reaching out from the void. Not to stop him—but to help him rise.
The dark Elias hesitated. The blade trembled.
And then… it shattered.
With a final burst of light, the shadow was gone—absorbed into Elias, accepted rather than destroyed.
The Dreamstorm calmed, if only slightly.
But the Citadel still called.
He turned once more toward it, his heart steady.
The final confrontation was near.