This world has an immeasurable number of dimensions; all possible outcomes exist, real, compared to others.
Above this fractured tapestry of reality sat Heaven and Hell.
And yet, beyond even these, there exist other realms.
Lesser known. Far stranger. Realms like the one from which my Regalia draws its power.
The Dream.
A realm not bound by logic or time. The Dream is where all desires, pure or corrupted, fragile or monstrous, are made real.
It exerts itself subtly upon Earth, weaving itself into our reality, making it possible, however faintly, for dreams to come true.
But its gifts are not without chains.
The Dream remains tethered by the cruel irony of its own nature: it can only create within the confines of illogical wishes.
Fantasies, not futures.
Within it, I can wish or desire for any possibility, or impossibility.
And while Heaven destroys such hopes passively, erasing futures with divine indifference, The Dream… it remembers.
It permits. It allows the dreams of all beings to persist, even long after they are broken.
The Dream manifests fully what is imagined.
My Regalia lets me perceive those dreams, lets me peer into that unknowable storm of longing.
I looked down at my trembling hand.
Mana spilled from my fingers like radiant mist, vibrating with impossible force, so much power that even the air recoiled.
Malachi stood before me, brows furrowed in concern. His eyes didn't leave my hand.
"Kivana… I don't think you're okay," he said, his voice low and gentle. "Something's happening to your power."
I exhaled, lowering my arm to my side. He was right, of course. I just didn't want to admit it.
Preparing for the wedding had gone… terribly. I only wanted to try one last time, to see the dreams of mankind again.
But I've come up short. No longer can I reach into the stream of desires.
The fragments are gone. I am blind in the one place I always saw most clearly.
Nicholas might be lost in this world. Or worse, his future has vanished altogether. The world's pulse has gone silent.
Malachi stepped forward and took my hands in his. His palms were warm and firm, reassuring.
"It's okay," he whispered. "You have me. I can still see desire. I can still control it."
Malachi…
He was kind. Naïve, maybe. A little delusional, definitely. But kind all the same.
For that, I truly do love him.
"It's useless, Malachi," I murmured. "It seems I'll need to do something else to prepare."
His brows lifted. He looked up. "You don't mean…"
We stood in the center of a vast dead field, protected by a shimmering dome of mana.
Malachi often used this place to test spells and push his limits. It was isolated… durable enough for what I intended.
He sighed, stepped back several paces, far enough to avoid being harmed.
Then I opened my chest.
From my soul, my mind, and my body, something emerged. A creature.
Mythical Beasts are born from the deepest truth of the self.
They share mind and soul with their host, but when it comes to the body, they only inherit what belongs to the spiritual essence.
In that way, Mythical Beasts do not simply reflect their masters. They are them, only filtered through a lens too ancient to explain.
Mine… was a reflection of my truest self.
It burst forth from me like a storm, a dragon of incomprehensible beauty and force, violet-scaled and massive, each scale gleaming like a star scattered across a black sky.
Four mighty legs bore cracks brimming with spiraling spiritrons. Its fanged maw glistened, teeth long and impossibly white.
On its forehead, two horns curled backward in a spiral, etched with glowing runes.
Its wings, titanic, radiant, alive, flapped once, folding inward as it landed before me, sending a pulse of raw spirit energy through the dome.
It lowered its head. I stepped forward, smiling softly, and placed a hand on its rough, starlit snout.
"Fly high above. Watch. Search for any and all enemies, hostiles, or monsters," I whispered. "I want you to eat them all."
It didn't hesitate.
With a thunderous beat of its wings, it launched upward, shattering the boundaries of space-time, vanishing into the sky in a blur of violet fire and spiraling runes.
Its summoning created a vortex of spiritrons, raw soul particles surging outward in every direction. Thankfully, the mana dome contained the worst of it.
If it hadn't… the walls of the Spirit World might have collapsed under the pressure.
Not that it would've caused anything too catastrophic.
I just prefer the walls between worlds to remain firm for a little while longer.
This world is already far too connected to the spiritual beyond.
And I can feel it…
That pressure. That presence. From the other side, growing stronger by the day.
Nicholas.
He would face a future bathed in wrath, despair, and pain, suffering unlike anything this world has ever known.
That was the last vision I saw.
Him, crying, arms wrapped around darkness so thick, it swallowed even his soul. That image… has haunted me for months.
I must do everything in my power to prevent that outcome. Not just for him, but for everyone.
Even if it means tearing apart the Heavens or bending the rules of fate.
A curse is coming.
A cataclysm that will unravel more than just reality, it will strike the hearts of the people, split their hopes apart. I pray… that we recover.
This world, it's unkind to the weak and merciful only to the strong. But there is one truth that redeems even the cruelest of realities:
Reality is harsh. It is unloving. It is cold.
Which is precisely why… one must have hope in something. Anything. Even when the outcome is uncertain.
I let out a breathless laugh, tired and small.
"Malachi… I think I'm turning into a liar."
He didn't hesitate. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close.
"Don't be afraid," he said. "The future is fine. We'll all be fine."
Malachi.
An optimist at heart. Naïve. Foolish. Brazen.
Arrogant and unruly, yet gentle, considerate, and unshakably kind. Comforting, even when the world is burning.
But… Malachi has a flaw. A deep, quiet flaw that defines him more than any of his strengths.
He's reliant on me.
And that may be what ultimately breaks us both.
Devotion, a chain which binds those willingly to a cause, a person, a thing, ultimately causes the end.
It's a feeling that will doom him to forever run to me, to comfort me. Regardless of that, I endure it.
It's not his fault. It's mine.
I like it. I like that he relies on me, that he suffers for me, that he lives for me.
It fuels me beyond reason, beyond sensibility, to the point where I believe that maybe, just maybe, it won't damn him.
That's my sin.
While he bore one marking him a lover boy, I bore a mark etched onto my very soul.
It screamed at me, yelled, berated me, with that singular sentence.
"You're evil," it would scream, even as I fought for good.
Malachi hugged me tighter.
"The future," he said softly, "I promise you, dear, it will reveal only light."
In all my life, I was convinced Malachi could never break a promise.
However, just this one, this one I believe he won't keep.
I'm sure of it.