Chapter 1657: Story 1657: The Dreaming Flame
The world no longer slept—it dreamed.
And in its dreaming, the cracks began to hum.
Each fracture across the land pulsed faintly, carrying a rhythm not of life or death, but of memory reborn. Beneath the surface, something vast breathed in slow intervals, as though the planet itself had begun to remember the moment it first burned.
Zara awoke again to the sound of whispers beneath the wind. They weren’t words, but echoes—melodies of what once was, and what might be again. Her hand brushed the soil, and she saw brief flashes through her mind: the first sunrise after the war of ashes, the laughter of children before the undead tide, and then—fire. Always, the violet fire.
“Zara.”
Damien’s voice grounded her. His eyes were darker than before, as though the crimson in them had absorbed too many nights without sleep. “The pulse says something’s moving beneath us.”
The newborn pulse shimmered faintly beside them, its tone a trembling hum.
The Sixth dreams… and when it dreams, the boundaries thin. The flame remembers the world before creation—when all was one rhythm.
Zara frowned. “You mean it’s trying to merge everything back into chaos?”
Not chaos, the pulse corrected. Origin. But the cost would be everything you’ve rebuilt.
The ground shuddered violently. Across the horizon, a fissure split open, releasing a blinding surge of violet and gold. From within the chasm rose a monolith of glass and flame, carved in symbols no one alive could read. Around it, the air distorted like a feverish mirage.
Damien drew his blade, though even its glow seemed dull in the monolith’s presence. “We stop it before it fully wakes.”
Before Zara could answer, voices began to spill from the monolith—familiar voices.
Her mother’s laughter. Her brother’s final cry. Damien’s oath from the battlefield.
Each sound twisted, replayed, reversed.
Every flame remembers who fed it, the voices whispered. And the Sixth was born from you.
Zara staggered back, clutching her head. “It’s pulling from our memories!”
The newborn pulse flickered wildly. It’s not attacking—it’s searching. The dream is trying to rebuild itself through you.
Damien gritted his teeth. “Then we end the dream.”
He leapt forward, driving his blade into the monolith. The impact sent shockwaves through the valley. Cracks spread across the structure—but instead of breaking, it bled light. Streams of violet energy poured from it, forming shapes: the same shades they had calmed before, now reborn and unified into one towering silhouette.
You bound me to your world, the flame murmured through the shape’s mouth. Now I bind your world to mine.
Zara stood beside Damien, her wings unfolding with renewed brilliance. “Then we burn the dream before it burns us.”
Together they released their joined pulse—crimson, silver, and gold intertwining once more. The energy tore through the shade, striking the monolith. The world screamed as the dream fractured.
When silence returned, only a faint whisper lingered in the wind.
You cannot kill a dream. You can only wake it.
Zara looked at Damien, her eyes hollow but resolute.
“Then we find where it sleeps.”