A figure draped in crimson robes, his face hidden behind a porcelain mask.
Then he started to laugh like mainc.
"Hahahahaha!"
Slowly, every head turned toward the sound.
The figure in crimson robes withporcelain mask on his face took a step forward, moving with an unsettling grace. Dust swirled around him, framing his silhouette like the arrival of something far beyond human.
His gaze swept across the everyone, taking in everything—the cadets cowering, the professors standing on high alert but stillbehind the barrier, Ryen and Leo poised for battle.
Then, for a fleeting second, his eyes locked onto me.
I felt my breath hitch.
An invisible weight settled on my chest, cold and suffocating. My body tensed
instinctively, a primal warning screaming at me—this man is dangerous.
A heavy silence followed.
Then, his expression twisted into one of mild displeasure, like an artist unimpressed by his own work.
"Truly magnificent," he mused, his voice smooth yet laced with mockery. "Perhaps I underestimated Velcrest Academy. The best academy in the world, wasn't it?"
Despite his words, there was no admiration in his tone. Only contempt.
The figure turned slightly, arms still loose at his sides, as if what lay before him was not a battlefield, but a stage for a performance long overdue.
"And yet…" he continued, tilting his head, "this is the extent of your resistance?"
The crimson-robed figure's voice carried through the air like a knife cutting through silk—soft, but impossibly sharp.
Every cadet froze. The tension was so thick that even the faint breeze stirring the dust seemed hesitant to move.
Ryen took a step forward, his stance firm, though I could see the subtle tremor in his hand gripping his sword. Leo, beside him, twirled his bloodstained spear once and leveled it toward the masked stranger.
"Who are you?" Ryen demanded, his voice steady but filled with caution. "Are you the one who trapped us here?"
The figure tilted his head slightly, the motion eerily casual. "Trapped you?" he repeated with a faint chuckle. "Oh no, hero. I didn't trap you. I merely… invited you."
His tone was light, but every word sent a chill crawling down my spine.
An invitation? To what—our deaths?
"What do you want from us?" Leo spat, his aura flaring slightly. Even without mana in the air, his sheer presence carried force.
The masked man's laughter came again, softer this time, like the sound of glass cracking. "Want?" he echoed. "Isn't it obvious? I wanted to see it for myself—the next generation of so-called prodigies. The future protectors of humanity."
He raised his hand lazily, and with a faint hum, shadows began to coil around his feet. The air grew heavier, darker. The lingering fragments of light from fallen Specters flickered and died.
At the same time, from the distance I watched and also I know remember his identity.
The sadistic, pleasure-seeking killer.
Kai Foster.
In the original novel, Kai attack the academy in intent to kill a talented first year cadet that are going to join the academy.
And he did it.
He accompanied his goal by killing over half the first year cadet and left with satisfaction.
....And he was supposed to attack academy during the entrance examination and yet he didn't do it instead he trapped us here—in he's dream space.
It was only revealed in 3rd volume that Kai Foster was mastermind behind this incident when Ryen faced him.
This battle is going to be More dangerous then before.
Shit!
My stomach twisted into knots as the name echoed in my head.
Kai Foster.
A psychopath who delighted in bloodshed, a killer who didn't need reason—only opportunity.
In the original novel, his sudden attack on the academy had been brutal but short. He came, slaughtered, and left. No games, no traps. But this time... this was different.
He wasn't just here to kill us. He was playing with us.
The dream space—his dream space—was his domain. His rules. His world.
And that made him far more terrifying than the version I remembered.
Ryen's voice snapped me back to reality. "Everyone, get ready!" he shouted, stepping forward with his sword raised. "He's the enemy!"
Kai chuckled, his tone light, almost amused. "Enemy? Oh, come now. Such harsh words. I merely wanted to test the limits of your courage."
Kai flicked his wrist.
A staff materialized from beneath his cloak as if conjured from thin air.
Then, without any rush, he raised his staff.
A sickening chill ran down my spine.
He was going to finish the job.
I forced my legs to move.
"Stop—!" I shouted, voice raw, but my body screamed in protest. Mana flared, unstable and flickering, just enough to lift me from the ground.
But someone else got there first.
Ryen.
He moved in a blur, blade slashing downward with enough force to crack stone. Kai didn't dodge—he parried with his staff, one hand behind his back, expression still unreadable beneath that porcelain mask.
The shockwave from their clash blew debris outward, and I had to throw up a weak shield just to keep from being knocked over again.
Kai's head tilted, just slightly.
"Oh? You aren't scared? And here I thought. Must be because you are so talented."
Ryen gritted his teeth.
"Stop with your bullshit."
Kai's laugh was sharp, cold.
"That's not how you are supposed to talk with adult you know?"
And then he moved.
It was like the air gave way to him. He twisted inside Ryen's guard and slammed the end of his staff into the boy's stomach, sending him flying backward with a gasp.
Before Ryen even hit the ground, Leo was already in motion, spear spinning into a throwing stance.
"Leo, wait—!" I called out, but too late.
Leo launched it.
The spear shrieked through the air—lightning-infused, aimed with deadly precision.
Kai didn't dodge.
He raised one hand and caught it.
Just caught it. Fingers closing around the shaft like it was a stick tossed by a child.
He glanced at the weapon, then at Leo.
"Still playing support, I see," he said, cracking the spear in half with a slow, deliberate motion. "Unfortunate."
Mana detonated where the broken spear fell.
Leo had loaded it with a secondary spell—a trap.
But the explosion did nothing.
The dust cleared, and Kai was still standing, untouched, brushing soot off his shoulder like it was lint.
Then he pointed the cracked shaft at Leo like a wand.
And fired.
Not magic. Not even a spell. Just force.
Leo's barrier shattered on contact, and the boy crumpled with a sharp, involuntary grunt.
My stomach twisted.
Both of them—down. Not dead, but dazed. Wounded.
And yet… in the grand scheme of things, Kai Foster shouldn't have stood a chance.
He wasn't stronger than them. Not even close.
In fact, compared to Ryen and Leo, he was laughably weak.
Kai's talent? Just a low-grade dark mage. Dark Magic [B-] rank—barely above average. The kind of talent you'd see in dozens of cadets every year. It wasn't rare, it wasn't special, and it definitely wasn't supposed to topple two of the top talents in the academy.
Ryen was an A-rank sword prodigy. Leo, an A-rank spear user with lightning affinity.
Kai?
He was the kind of guy who'd be written off in the early chapters of any story—an obstacle, maybe a stepping stone at best.
And yet… here we were.
Ryen gasping on the ground. Same with Leo. Kai hadn't even broken a sweat.
So what made him so dangerous?
Two things.
First, experience.
This wasn't his first battlefield. While Ryen and Leo had been training under instructors, Kai had been out there in the world—fighting, killing, surviving. Every move he made had the sharpness of someone who had bled for it. His instincts were honed like a blade, precise and unforgiving. He didn't waste mana. He didn't hesitate. Every action he took had a purpose.
Second…
Artifacts.
From head to toe, the bastard was wrapped in enchanted gear—each piece customized, calibrated, and refined for war. His robe? Reinforced with multi-layered shielding spells. His mask? Probably blocked mental interference and gave him Illusion spell or maybe poison. That staff he conjured? Not a weapon—it was a cheat code, amplifying every scrap of his magic to levels far beyond his base output.
He was cheat villain of early chapters in the novel.
Kai Foster smiled behind his cracked porcelain mask, his gaze flicking lazily between the fallen Ryen and Leo.
The battlefield was dead silent except for the faint hum of his staff and the shallow, ragged breathing of those still standing.
"Pathetic," he said softly, his voice dripping with disdain. "Is this the best Velcrest Academy has to offer? Children waving toys, pretending to be warriors."
The words weren't loud, but they struck harder than any spell could have.
"Get up," Ryen hissed under his breath, forcing himself to his feet. Blood trailed from the corner of his mouth, but his grip on his sword tightened. Leo followed suit, wiping blood from his lip, his expression dark and unreadable.
Kai tilted his head slightly, amused. "Ah, that's better. The hero stands again. I was beginning to think you'd lost your spark."
Ryen raised his blade, the steel trembling faintly in his grasp. "You're not getting away with this."
"Getting away?" Kai echoed, chuckling. "You misunderstand, boy. You've already lost. I'm not here to *escape*—I'm here to watch you break. To kill all of you."
The shadows around his feet thickened, crawling outward like veins across the ground. The air shimmered, warping the space around him as if reality itself were bending to his will.
Dream Space.
Of course.
This wasn't just a battlefield—it was *his* domain.
In here, every rule favored him. Every inch of air obeyed his intent.
I clenched my teeth. "Everyone, stay away from him!" I shouted, trying to force my battered body upright. "He's using the Dream's core energy—if you fight him head-on, you'll just feed him more power!"
Kai's gaze flicked to me again. "Ah. So you've been paying attention."
He raised his staff, pointing it directly at me. "Let's see how long that sharp tongue lasts."
The shadows beneath him surged like a wave, racing toward me.
"Shit—!" I threw up a barrier instinctively, but the force of his attack smashed through it like glass. The impact sent me skidding across the ground, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth.
The moment my back hit the wall, I coughed, my vision blurring.
Ryen darted forward again, his sword blazing with faint golden light despite the mana-deprived air. "Move!" he roared, slashing down at Kai with renewed fury.
This time, Kai blocked—but not as effortlessly as before. The pressure from Ryen's strike forced him a step back, dust cracking beneath his boots.
Leo moved in from the side, spear sweeping low. "You're not the only one who can fight dirty!"
Their coordination—flawless.
For a moment, it looked like they had him.
Steel and shadow collided, sparks flying as the ground fractured under the weight of their combined attacks.
And then—
Kai *laughed*.
A sound too sharp, too wild.
"Beautiful," he said between blows. "But still so painfully naïve."
The staff in his hand pulsed once—and everything around him *stopped*.
The next instant, Ryen and Leo were flung backward, slamming into the far wall like ragdolls.
Time seemed to snap back into motion a heartbeat later, and Kai stood alone in the center, untouched, his cloak fluttering in the settling dust.
"Do you know," he murmured, lowering his staff slightly, "why I chose to trap you all here instead of killing you outright?"
No one answered. The only sound was the groaning of the wounded and the faint flicker of crumbling stone.
Kai looked around, almost disappointed.
"It's because killing you now would be… unsatisfying. Death is too brief. Too kind." He gestured to the air around him, the Dream itself bending like rippling water. "But here—here I can make you *watch* as everything you believe in turns to ash."
My heart pounded against my ribs.
He was feeding on emotion—fear, despair, anger. The Dream Space responded to him, amplifying those feelings into power.
If this kept up, he wouldn't just control the dream. He'd *become* it.
Kai lifted his mask slightly, revealing a cold smile. "Tell me, boy," he said, eyes locking with Ryen's, "how long will you keep pretending you can save them?"
Ryen didn't answer.
He just raised his sword again—bloodied, trembling, but burning with a faint golden light.
"I don't care who you are," he said through gritted teeth. "I'll cut through whatever nightmare you've created."
Kai's grin widened, delighted. "Good. Show me that defiance."
The Dream Space trembled. The walls warped, the corpses on the ground dissolving into smoke as the world itself began to twist.
A new battlefield was forming—one that reeked of blood, thunder, and madness.
And as the light around us shattered like glass, one thought echoed in my mind:
This wasn't a fight anymore.
It was a descent into hell.