His breath came to a halt as that voice entered his ears, and he jumped back in fright right after. In the corner of his eye, he saw the lava spear strike the nightmare stalk, but the attack was futile. It collapsed and lava splashed all over, yet not even the smallest mark appeared.

It was too late.

Beside the tree, he saw space ripple slightly, and two freakishly long arms appeared. But creatures from the terror realm are never that humanoid… No, that’d be too easy.

What followed was a thin torso but no head, instead a single eye on its chest looked around and locked onto him at first glance. And right behind, out came its legs, all four of them. They attached to a hip at right angles to one another, a pale brown akin to pottery, yet somehow retaining the softness of unfired clay, it walked on four mis-shapen feet which appeared like a cross between a dog and a horse.

Whilst not a terrifying visage, the oddity as it walked, or perhaps crawled to be more precise, absolutely disgusted him.

“Ah, you do look absolutely deeeeelicious. Don’t bother running, you belong to meeeee!” He couldn’t see any face, but somewhere on its body clearly emitted that sound. Even worse, this thing was a true gold tier. Still, he had something capable of killing one, did he not?

With a scared facade, he continued to retreat and watched the thing hold one of its long arms to where its head ought to be. As though it laughed at his actions, and it was in those few moments that he struck.

He retrieved the lantern in a flash, and didn’t even hesitate to release as much power as possible to strike the terror realm lord.

A hasty and decisive action granted rewards, and in that moment he caught a momentary glimpse at the thing’s body as it noticed a flash of light stabbing towards it. There was no attempt to dodge, and perhaps it already figured out how it made evasion impossible. It was not useless though, after decades in the terror realm it not only strengthened its mind, but its soul. Almost a requirement in that world without physical form…

And so, when the beam cut him in two, his soul hung together by a thin sliver. The absolute barest of connections, still, it was enough to survive with. And in that single moment, something which couldn’t even be described as a millisecond, its hysterics transformed.

“You… You… YOU! Get back heeeeeere! All of you, capture that dragon!” Hundreds of previously unconscious beasts rose from the ground, all with some part of their body transformed into a pink substance. All stared right at him, and knew only one thing here could possibly save him.

A blast of psychic power rocketed right by him and blew up a mound of snow next to him. That hit would’ve knocked him out easily… He had to run while the thing was still disoriented.

It howled and the hundreds around him charged, without a moment’s wait, his spirit sent him flying upwards and he repositioned with a Jump seal before repeatedly jumping in the air to get back as soon as possible. He didn’t care if the spirit complained about the excessive consumption, his mental space constantly shook from frightening reverberations which just barely missed every other second.

The soul damage it sustained had not been light in the end. And if it was doomed, then it absolutely had to destroy the little nuisance who caused it.

It stumbled forward for a second, and struggled to move its body properly. When its arms moved, they flew off in a random direction, and all its legs moved separately. But even so, it pushed forward, stumbling back and forth to either side at all times.

And even so, it maintained a frightening speed towards the fleeing dragon. As it howled and released its mana to even greater limits, the pink sky around them descended. His mental space shook from its very presence. “The realms are colliding… How old was that stalk?” He knew a gold tier creature could never replicate this feat… But in truth the nightmare stalk’s final ability was to facilitate this.

To merge together a portion of the real and dream realm, resulting in a haven where those formless beings may finally gain a body and enter a world unbound. As the two realms collided, and a merger began, he saw numerous limbs pierce the veil and attempt entry.

This invasion was not sudden in the slightest, their lord had prepared a large army at least a week in advance.

And of the figures which entered, at least 90% of them were steel tiers… None were actually that weak either, their mana on par with the sloth and tiger at a minimum.

A burst of mana suddenly repelled the connection between the two realms, greatly slowing the merger, and at the same time a few hundred bolts of red lightning arced past him, each precisely striking one of the figures attempting their entry and cut off any limbs which had formed in reality.

The massive wyvern’s wings flashed past him and impaled the terror realm lord in an instant, the thick protrusions on its wings jammed right through its abdomen and the surroundings changed in an instant. A stormy plain covered the mountain, on it a large manor withstood the endless downpour and frightening bolts littering the grassland. With the wyvern’s mental space directly placed on top of the creature, both its body and mind could no longer escape, the damage to its soul weakened both far too much in the end.

“What happened to just a few days old?” The wyvern glared at him, infuriated by what could have been a complete demolition of his forces built up the past couple months.

“There was a second stalk in one of the trees. It was impossible for me to sense… Sorry. I wasn’t able to destroy it in time.”

“And this thing?”

He didn’t hide the truth, and simply stated, “I used the last bit of power in my tool.” The wyvern nodded with a heavy huff, and turned back to the being beneath him which barely struggled against the dual weights.

It was now that the dragon finally saw the descension of a mental space, a creature who achieved an Adept Mind palace. It was nothing like the cheat he used through a powerful bloodline, and the scale could not be compared.

Unlike his own descension which appeared as an image placed over his head, this mental space directly warped reality. The bolts of lightning blinded him and its heat radiated even at a distance, yet the large multi-floored manor remained standing as hundreds of bolts struck its walls constantly.

He could not make out the material, but the walls had been painted a light brown, whilst the tiles above complimented it with an extremely dark grey, almost black in nature. Numerous windows coated the walls, and lights allowed him to notice dozens of bookshelves which covered the large building, not to mention some smaller, windowless buildings littering this main compound.

A gravel pathway led to a set of large crimson doors with golden handles and door knockers. But what stood out most to him were the plants, flowers and bushes with leaves of rain and petals of lightning. Unlike the blue lightning which struck the plain, he noticed a myriad of coloured sorts of the flowers. Yellows, browns, greens, blues… And reds.

The wyvern lifted up its other wing, the bone tip glowed with arcs of blue lightning, but he saw sparks of red appear before covering the entire thing in rings of the coloured lightning. However, as the woozy terror lord saw what was about to happen, it willingly tore its body in half to escape the bone pierced through it, screaming in pain whilst barely dodging the descending attack.

Even then, one of its legs completely blew off from the residual power of that blast. When the wyvern saw this, he immediately built up a collection of lightning in his mouth, prepared to flatten the surroundings and ensure this enemy’s death. But once more, the physically inept lord took a route that neither expected!

Hysteria in its laughter and screams, both saw it leap towards the wyvern’s face. It’s arms lashed out at the manor, doing anything to attack. A crazed attack with no order, rhyme, nor reason. It only sought to pull down the opponent alongside itself, and finally, the wyvern knocked it off before a spear of mixed lightning blasted from its mouth. Its point stabbed through the spot where the terror realm lord’s head ought to be, and both saw it spasm ever so slightly before dropping to the floor, lifelessly.

However, the wyvern’s manor had not escaped unscathed. Walls had been shattered, tiles ground to dust, even some bookshelves broken and books torn to shreds. Not to mention how part of the garden, full of those beautiful lightning flowers, had been damaged or reduced to budding forms.

Was this the danger that dream realm creature’s possessed? A method to damage and break parts of one’s mental space? It frightened him, thankfully its disoriented state made all of those ranged attacks missed.

The wyvern slowly drew its mental space back in, but clearly winced at the same time, whether from the work required to repair it or some sort of actual damage was unknown to him. It looked at him with disappointment for a few moments, but returned to apathy right after.

“Your tool requires souls does it not? Take it.” His lord spoke in Draconic to hide what they both knew, at the same time, he accepted that hiding things was just pointless. Not to mention, it was stupid, as he’d been given such a powerful thing.

With the lantern pulled out, he watched as a few motes of light from the surroundings flew into the lantern, as well as one the size of his head from the lord itself. As all were devoured the empty lantern gained a small ember with it finally igniting from the lord’s soul… It was only slightly larger than before all this occurred.

“Its soul was as strong as a mithril tier beast’s… That was the true reward from the Sage?” There was no other way a dragon of his level could acquire such a tool. And even now the wyvern wondered what its clan hid from him about that Sage… Just what sort of thing was in that battlefield for the dragon to be rewarded so?

He quickly packed away the lantern and looked at the body on the ground, his mana sight revealed nothing within. Besides a type of grey flesh which composed its whole body, the form taken by this lord contained nothing of interest.

“The two realms have yet to fully merge, until then we cannot harvest the hearts of these things. The second stalk you mentioned is further south?” As both clearly sensed the waves of blatant mana, it was no surprise when this gold tier prompted him over it. With a nod, they travelled over, albeit him struggling to keep up in any way.

Unlike the two steel tiers… He was so horribly slow compared to the wyvern he didn’t doubt that he appeared to be crawling in comparison.

Once there, he took a closer look at the verdant oak and the stalk within. Relatively unharmed, the numerous beasts manipulated by the terror realm lord had long since lost any semblance of sanity. Everything which failed to escape effectively transformed into zombies which only answered to beings of the terror realm.

However, this wasn’t so bad. Given enough time, they’d integrate with the terror realm to the point of growing body parts associated with the dream realms, at which point they could be harvested for delicate organs which both of them greatly desired.

In effect, these beasts had become the first herd of cattle from the dream realm.

“This stalk is pretty old, it’s no wonder you didn’t find it whilst searching either. It will finish merging soon, when the critical phase is reached I will ensure that only a thin pathway is left intact. You will be responsible for keeping the number of terror realm creatures in check.” As the wyvern explained his role in all this, the pink shroud above them thickened and stained the already faintly coloured snow even further. The two realms completed their collision quite a while back when the sky changed in colour, but this environmental effect declared a conclusion to the merging as well.

However, as the world itself appeared dyed, the wyvern released a net of red and yellow lightning, and he saw as the pinkness was somehow pushed back while it expanded. No longer did his mental space shake, and the wyvern only continued.

A massive set of six spell rings appeared in front, and something about the result intensely vibrated the surrounding mana and even space, he watched as the new spell formed a semi-transparent bubble around the grown nightmare stalk. In a way, it reminded him of the film which covered the vacuoles on the stalk.

Once fully covered, mana around him settled to its original gentle form, and he no longer sensed the nightmare stalk in front of his eyes.

“Very simple, as you can see. Go around and collect the hearts of all those dream world creatures I killed, deliver them to my cave later.” He gave a slight bow to the wyvern and looked backwards to see several semi-corporeal beings littering the surroundings.

He didn’t look towards the flying lord as they left, and so, missed the look of confliction on the wyvern’s face. But at the same time, a pained and angered expression bubbled up on them. The dragon’s senses took note of their departure, but by far focused on the future of this current place.

So this would be his job and home for the upcoming months? Given that he could likely hold onto some of the hearts from beings in the future, this was a pretty good deal all things considered. As for nabbing some of the steel tier’s hearts, it was an idea he never even considered. There was no way the wyvern didn't have a full list kills from the Nexus, making it impossible for him to take anything for himself.

Besides, he’d already received a huge boon in the way of a node tree and the wyvern’s blood.

Now he just had to get rid of that habit of almost killing himself…