Simple man with his overpowered army

Chapter 84: Remember what once you dreamed

Lud wakes up covered in sweat and breathing heavily. He asks "What was that?" and tries to collect himself for a moment.

He mutters "Let’s think for a moment, I just saw a dragon of titanic size rise up from the ground and shake the whole Lostwood forest along with Elysium. The chaos that ensued was on a level I’ve never seen, and then... what then?"

Lud thinks and thinks, but the last thing that he can remember is a man laughing cynically. "Just like in... that dream I had before... Perkele. But what was that about?"

Then Lud decided to get off the bed, open the curtains and look outside. It wasn’t Elysium that he saw, it was the dreamscape that he saw when that one peculiar dream ended. He scratched his head for a moment to collect himself, but then he heard the door open and a familiar voice saying "I thought that it was you. How have you been? I know this will be a little hard to understand, but you are currently dreaming."

Lud looked and the voice belonged to the person he was expecting. Samael.

He responded by saying "Yeah I know. Just like last time."

Samael looked confused and asked "Last time? The last time we met was at the banquet while I was..."

Lud interrupts Samael and says "No, last time you showed me around this dreamworld. The places like... wait... why can’t I remember?"

Samael puts a hand on Lud’s shoulder and says "I think you are confusing some dream with, well, this dream. Don’t worry, it happens quite often. You think you’ve seen one dream and think you know what happens, and by believing it will happen, boom, it will. Well, sometimes it is a flop because that is how dreams are, but you get what I mean."

Lud says "No I... I felt like I was aware like this back then. It’s... It’s like I am back in time somehow..."

Samael says "I think you are just confusing this with some dream like I said. But don’t worry, I’ll get you up to speed. Now why don’t we go out and look around."

Lud hesitantly says "Right" and follows Samael to the hallway. There he sees the same kind of gruesome image of people he knows lying dead. He says "This is... just like back then..."

Samael says "I guess you saw a dream that manifests similarly now thanks to your imagination."

Lud says "Right" and continues to follow Samael to the end of the hallway and the same sight comes out like back then. Lud doesn’t know what to think.

Samael asks "Can you tell me the things that you think you know of the world of dreams?"

Lud says "Sure" and starts listing things he thinks he remembers.

"You suffer from reverse dreamer syndrome, which means the real you exists in this dream realm and the dream you in the real world. This also makes it possible for you to have a ’lucid dream’ in the real world and change the world according to your imagination.

Then there is Un’I who keeps this place stable and continues to expand it evermore as she mostly slumbers for the titan dragon... What was his name again? No matter.

In this dreamworld there is supposed to be a forest of frozen lightning with different types of those things.

There is this sea of marbles that are remnants of Maumar’s former dreams.

There are places that are easy to enter and some that need more preparation, like peeling an orange? Where does the orange come from? Anyways...

There was this place that changed when Song Bai ascended. Bronze towers? Was that really the case? It was then that you told me that the appearance of material in the dreamworld can be quite deceiving.

Those combinations of synthetic and biological... were quite a sight at that moment... Many different ways. Many different... What were they again?

I... I think I also felt something quite strange when gazing at that place. Something... strange. Like something in this dreamworld change us at that moment. Or was it earlier? Later? Damn it is hard to remember.

Something more about ’dreamshaping’ than both gods who dream and some dreamwalkers can do...

There is a place that has six fundamentally different rivers converging in a spiral to the sky to some island, I think? The island is restricted from entry, if I recall... And only Un’I can grant entry.

But wait... if Un’I constantly sleeps in this dreamworld, then how are we supposed to... I’m getting off track.

In that realistic dream you and I compared notes on who would come on top. People of Lutah or the dream sentinels. And that brought the topic of did Elysium’s machines enter dreams like these, and you answered that some from Elysium do, but they were few.

There was this... time dilated sea that didn’t let people from the surface enter or the people of the sea exit. You would mention how it is highly chaotic and time can move, but it depends on the spot? Sword strikes that still show on the water’s surface.

Then you showed me... this place... You called it... the whispering woods if I remember correctly. I was compelled to go in, but just as I only glanced at it and felt the pull to go inside, you grabbed me and we journeyed to another place.

But why do I feel like... I’ve been lost in those woods before? But if it was a dream... and in that dream, I first dreamed of dreamland with you... if so then... *urgh* my head hurts."

Samael grabs Lud’s shoulder and says, "It seems that you are about to wake up, so this will be where we separate for now."

Lud asks in desperation "What I described... Was it only a dream or do they exist in this dreamworld as well?"

Samael smiles and says "Yes. We’ll talk later."

This vague answer made Lud panic, before he woke up on his comfortable bed in sweat. Zenith would soon come to wake him up, but before that, he tried to remember what just happened.

He remembered talking to Samael, but... he had a hard time remembering what they talked about.

In the dreamworld, Samael stared at the distance and muttered to himself "Either his dreams being somewhat accurate is just a coincidence, or...

That my time is about to come."