An entire ordeal had passed, yet Asher sat motionless, staring blankly ahead with hollow eyes. Instructor Rock's voice droned on—lecturing them about procedures, strategy, survival. It might as well have been noise.
Asher couldn't bring himself to care.
There were a few things everyone wanted to forget. Every human must have a memory as such.
"Ah..." he winced, clutching his head as a sudden throb pulsed through his skull. He was no different. There was a part of his past—no, a phase—he would give anything to erase.
And yet… he didn't want to.
Because as painful as those memories were, they were also the last remnants he had of them.
"There's a reason I brought you all here."
Instructor Rock's voice cut through the air like a blade, snapping Asher out of his haze. His ears rang with the weight of the words, dragging his attention forward.
"Look closely," Rock continued. "And remember this. Some of you may recognize them. For those who don't—these are what we call the Hollow."
Asher turned his head, and his breath caught.
Rows upon rows of wheelchairs filled the hall, each occupied by a person who… wasn't truly there. Their faces were blank, eerily serene. No twitch. No tremor. Not a sound.
They didn't respond to the group's presence—not even a glance. As if life had passed them by and left their bodies behind to wait for something that would never come.
And then, something clicked inside Asher. A strange unease bloomed in his chest as he summoned his runes.
[Soul Veil]: Untouched by soul or scream, you walk cloaked in silence, feasting on the fading echoes of your kind made hollow by your very hand.
"...Made hollow by your very hand..."
His brows knit into a deep frown. He stared at the Hollow in front of him, unease turning into a slow, creeping horror.
He wasn't the only one disturbed. All around, other Sleepers stood in stunned silence, shifting uncomfortably under the weight of the truth before them.
If his guess was right...
'I get people's soul fragments when I kill them.'
It made a terrible kind of sense. He had killed an unknown Awakened during his first Nightmare. If all of that person's soul fragments had been absorbed into him...
Since awakened at that time could barely afford soul shards, it would make sense for a village awakened's soul core to only be filled this much.
"If you're lucky, once your spirit is destroyed, your body dies with it. But if not, you'll become just like them. Hollow."
Rock's gaze swept across the group, lingering briefly on Caster and Nephis before settling on Asher.
"So don't die out there."
As the Sleepers were guided to their individual rooms, a heavy sense of trepidation settled over Asher. His heart pounded in his chest, and a cold sweat clung to his palms.
Unlike the others, his fear wasn't just of the unknown. It was the weight of knowledge—of a future he wasn't supposed to see, and the burden of what that knowledge meant.
With a shaky breath, Asher climbed into the pod. The seat embraced him with a mechanical indifference, cold and rigid.
"I'm probably going to end up in the Forgotten Shore," he muttered to himself—not as comfort, but as raw probability.
The pod began to hum around him, machinery clicking into motion like the turning of a lock. As the lid began to close, sealing him in darkness, every creak of metal sounded making his heart jump.
Anxiety curled tighter around his chest.
Was he ready? He had trained relentlessly—pushed himself to the brink again and again. But was it enough?
The doubt clawed at him.
And yet... beneath it all, a flicker of something warmer stirred in his chest. A spark.
A shaky laugh escaped his lips.
"I did what I could," he whispered. "Let bygones be bygones."
A slow smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. For all the fear, he couldn't deny the thrill in his veins. The Dream Realm.
He was finally going to enter it—not as a reader, not as a spectator—but as a part of it.
The darkness deepened.
Then came a voice—bright, cold, and familiar. Follow current novᴇls on 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵※𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮※𝓷𝓮𝓽
[Welcome to the Dream Realm, Asher!]
[A/N: Guys, I am so sorry it took so long for the dream realm. It is definitely not normal for so many chapters in the academy. I am very thankful for everyone being patient and I'll tell this right now. The start of the dream realm will be slow but the plot twists will be crazy man. Trust]