That night, as promised, I entered Rastan’s dream.
After confirming from a distance that he was spending a peaceful time in a beautiful place, I turned around and closed my eyes.
Normally, when I changed someone else’s dream, it was nothing more than altering the appearance seen within the dream, like redecorating the interior of an old house.
‘The dream owner’s worries and fears are merely covered by my ability, but they still exist deep underneath.’
So the curse embedded in Rastan would also be hidden somewhere in this mental world.
With my eyes closed, I focused on sensing the foreign pulse quietly beating beneath the beautiful scenes I had created.
And it didn’t take long to find it.
‘…Found it.’
After moving far enough away from Rastan, I tore open the peaceful dream world slightly, as if lifting the flooring laid over the ground.
Then behind it, a desolate and gloomy landscape unfolded.
‘It’s over there.’
Leaving the beautiful dream behind and heading toward that landscape, the foreign pulse I had occasionally felt became much stronger.
Thanks to that, I was able to follow its direction without difficulty.
Countless bones, indistinguishable as human or animal, were scattered across the ground, and in the sky where the sunset had nearly faded, crows cried ominously.
In the distance, black smoke was rising, as if something were burning.
‘Was Rastan’s hell like this?’
After walking through such a place for some time, I finally discovered the source producing the steadily strengthening pulse.
Woooong— woooong—.
On the rugged wasteland, inside a dry, small cave, a sword was embedded in a pile of stones, emitting that very pulse.
‘This is it!’
As I approached, the sword began to tremble violently, resonating. Seeing such a convulsive reaction, I was certain. This was the curse itself.
‘Those demons must have manifested the curse as a sword and embedded it here.’
Without hesitation, I grabbed the sword’s hilt.
Kiiiaaaaaaaak—!!!
The moment I grasped it, a piercing, high-pitched scream rang out, as if tearing into my eardrums.
“Ugh…”
At the same time, a fierce sandstorm suddenly began to rage. It felt as if it were desperately trying to stop me.
For something to resist me in this mental world, which was my domain, it had to be an extraordinarily powerful force.
‘No wonder even Rastan couldn’t remove it and had to suffer from it for so long.’
The sandstorm grew increasingly violent and sharp, and at some point, the wind began to slice into my skin like blades.
‘Ugh, it hurts…!’
In an instant, multiple wounds like dagger cuts appeared across my body.
Since this was a dream, my body wasn’t actually being injured, but the pain itself was vivid.
Had Rastan suffered like this as well?
In any case, since this was a dream world, I should have been able to change this entire environment however I wished.
However, right now, I was focusing all my attention on holding onto the violently shaking sword, leaving me no room to change the situation.
Because I could feel the wildly trembling sword slowly trying to burrow deeper into the ground.
A sound like massive thunder roared. It was the sound of the earth shaking and splitting deeply.
Kugugugugung…….
‘Where do you think you’re going…?!’
I clenched my teeth and gripped the sword tightly.
If I let go now, the sword would completely disappear into the ground and become impossible to find.
‘Then removing this curse will become far more difficult.’
Meanwhile, the blade-like wind grew even fiercer, wrapping around my body and cutting into me.
No blood flowed since this was a dream, but with sand entering the wounds, it truly felt like my entire body was being brutally slashed apart.
Even saying it felt like my skin had been completely peeled off wasn’t enough to describe the pain.
“Aah…!”
Tears flowed on their own from the unimaginable pain.
But I couldn’t give up here.
Enduring the storm, I gripped the sword tightly with both hands and pulled upward with all my strength.
“Ugh…”
I clenched my teeth, but my hands trembled from the strain.
“Come out, come out…!”
In the dream world, I was no different from a god. So within this dream, my command was absolute, something all existence had to obey.
The sword trembled violently, as if exerting strength to resist being pulled out, but no matter how much independent power it possessed, this was still a dream world.
Even if the command went against its will, no matter how hard it tried, it was ultimately impossible for it to resist me here.
At some point, I felt the sword, which had been forcing its way deeper into the ground, lose some of its strength.
‘Now!’
I gathered my last remaining strength and pulled the sword.
Then the deeply embedded sword slowly began to come out from its place.
‘…!!’
As the sword was pulled free, the resonating hum stopped, and the horrifying scream and sandstorm ceased as if they had been a lie.
Then it seemed as if a white light began to emit from the sword…
‘Huh?’
The sword, now completely turned into light, slowly disappeared as if being absorbed into my body.
“W-why did this come into me…?”
Flustered, I looked down at my chest where the sword had disappeared, when suddenly it felt as if cold water had been poured over my entire body.
At the same time, my heart dropped with a heavy thud.
Just as I was about to think about why this sword had entered me, and why my body was reacting like this.
A sudden realization struck my mind.
‘Before becoming human… I was a dream demon?’
From the distant past, memories suddenly surfaced of when I had lived as a dream demon, possessing the ability to freely manipulate and alter others’ dreams.
It was absurd, but those memories didn’t feel unfamiliar.
‘These are definitely my memories.’
In a daze, I recalled those memories one by one.
Within those ancient memories, I saw myself secretly in love with the noble high-ranking demon Rastan, no, Leviathan.
Despite being nothing more than a low-ranking demon, a mere dream demon, I had harbored feelings for that magnificent, noble, and beautiful Demon God.
As Rastan had said, among demons, not only love, but even friendship or camaraderie didn’t exist.
That was only natural. Such emotions couldn’t exist in hell.
However, for some reason, I, as a dream demon, had come to love Rastan.
Perhaps because I was a low-ranking demon with unimpressive abilities, there had been room for such human-like emotions to take root.
‘Certainly, at first, it was a feeling that began as admiration.’
Of course, love was something absurd for a demon, so I couldn’t confess to Rastan, nor could I speak of my feelings to anyone in hell.
Because of that, I gradually began to dream of escaping hell.
‘I heard that even demons can go to heaven if they accumulate enough good deeds. At that time, would I be able to tell him that I like him? Ah… but for that, he would also have to go to heaven.’
There was no way that I, a mere low-ranking demon, could ever become someone connected to Rastan, a highest-ranking demon.
Yet my feelings for him grew uncontrollably day by day within my heart.
‘If a demon were to possess the emotion of love, then perhaps at that moment, they would already no longer be a demon.’
It was exactly as Rastan had said yesterday.
Since love wasn’t an emotion that a being belonging to hell could possess, I, who had come to harbor such emotions, quickly grew weaker.
My innate ability as a dream demon remained the same, but it meant that the vessel containing it had grown weaker.
And among demons, where the strong devouring the weak was natural, a weakened demon wasn’t someone to be helped, but merely prey.
One day, while desperately running and hiding to avoid other demons who sought to torment and exploit me, I discovered Rastan fighting several high-ranking demons alone.
‘Wow, it’s Lord Leviathan!’
I quickly hid myself nearby and watched them.
The high-ranking demons, who looked to number nearly ten, had surrounded him in battle formation. Filled with rage, they shouted repeatedly.
“Traitor!”
I could guess why they were calling him that.
‘It seems Lord Leviathan has been persuading or attacking other demons lately.’
It did feel somewhat unusual that he was attacking fellow demons.
But then again, wasn’t there no such thing as camaraderie among demons? Rather than extreme individualism, perhaps selfishness would be a more accurate term.
Because of that, even though they were of the same kind, fighting and killing each other wasn’t unheard of.
‘Traitor, what a joke. As if demons ever had loyalty to begin with.’
I scoffed inwardly.
‘Our Lord Leviathan wouldn’t lose even if ten of you attacked him at once!’
Sending him encouragement in my heart, I began watching the small battle.
I wanted to see his arrogant face as he easily finished off those demons and looked down at their fallen bodies.
But something was strange.
‘Huh? There’s no way his attacks would be that weak.’
