The moment Kafka's head hit the pillow, the world dissolved.
There was no gentle descent into sleep, no peaceful transition. It was an instantaneous, jarring shift in reality. One moment he was in his sterile, monitored room in the Third Division base; the next, he was standing in an endless, dead-grey desert under a bruised, starless sky. Cracks, glowing with a faint violet light, spiderwebbed across the barren ground. In the distance, jagged mountains, sharp as broken glass, pierced the horizon.
This was the Domain of the Monarch. The dreamscape. His new classroom.
And his teacher was waiting.
Sung Jin-Woo stood before him. Not a shadow clone this time, but his true, physical self. The pressure, even in this psychic space, was immense. He wasn't radiating killing intent, but his very presence was an aura of absolute authority. He wore his familiar black coat, his hands in his pockets, his expression a mask of cold, regal disappointment.
"You were reckless," Jin-Woo began, his voice not a sound but a direct thought imprinted onto Kafka's consciousness. There were no pleasantries. The lesson had already begun.
"I saved a life," Kafka countered, his dream-self standing taller, bolder than he ever would in reality. This was a battleground of wills as much as it was a classroom.
"You revealed a critical ability in a non-critical situation, surrounded by hostiles," Jin-Woo retorted, his logic cold and sharp as ice. "You displayed a tool from my arsenal to the very people who wish to understand and dissect it. That is not heroic. It is a tactical blunder of the highest order. It invites scrutiny. It creates complications."
He began to circle Kafka slowly, a predator examining its flawed, impulsive offspring. "The Vice-Commander, Soshiro Hoshina. He is intelligent. Perceptive. Dangerous. You have now placed a seed of the truth in his mind. A seed he will nurture with suspicion until it bears the fruit of a conclusion that I do not wish him to reach."
"He thinks the power is mine," Kafka argued. "A contamination."
"For now," Jin-Woo conceded. "But men like him do not stop at the first answer. They dig. Your lie has bought you time, nothing more." He stopped directly in front of Kafka, their dream-selves just feet apart. "Your control is pathetic. You acted on instinct, and your sentient power, your 'Blackwing', obeyed that base, emotional impulse. Control is not about letting your weapon act for you. It is about holding a legion of demons on a leash and allowing only the precise one you require to bite, at the precise moment you command it. You are still just a brawler."
He raised a hand. "Arise."
From the cracked ground all around them, shadows began to rise. Not Kaiju. Not beasts. Hundreds of his elite Shadow Soldiers. Armored knights with glowing violet plumes. Nimble assassins with daggers of pure night. Hulking infantrymen with tower shields. They formed a silent, disciplined army, their collective gaze fixed on Kafka.
"Your opponent today will be them," Jin-Woo stated, his tone flat. "All of them."
Kafka's dream-self stared in horror. "You want me to fight… your whole army?"
"Do not be absurd," Jin-Woo said with a flicker of contempt. "Fighting them would be your execution. You are not fighting them. You are surviving them. Your lesson for tonight is Evasion and Perception. You will learn to move not like a rampaging Kaiju, but like a whisper. A ghost. Your Blackwing gives you the potential for speed and stealth. But your mind is still that of a clumsy human."
He pointed a finger at Kafka. "You will stand in the center of that circle. My army will attack you. You are not permitted to use any offensive abilities. You cannot form blades, you cannot throw spikes, you cannot even form a punch. You may only use your power to augment your movement, create shields, and evade. You will survive for five minutes. Begin."
It was not a request. A wave of force, emanating from Jin-Woo, paralyzed Kafka for a second as the entire Shadow Army turned and charged.
Kafka's mind went blank with panic. He was in the center of a tidal wave of death. Swords, spears, and axes, all honed in a thousand battles across countless gates and another world, were descending on him.
"Armor!" was the only thought he could form.
Blackwing erupted, flowing over his body, forming a thick, defensive carapace. In the same instant, a dozen swords and spears slammed into him.
*CLANG! KRACK! SHATTER!*
The shield was strong, but not strong enough. He felt the phantom pain of a dozen blades piercing his flesh. He was thrown back, his dream-body riddled with spectral wounds. And then, he was standing in the center again, perfectly whole, the army resetting its charge. The dreamscape allowed for endless resets. Endless pain without the release of death.
"Pathetic," Jin-Woo's voice echoed. "Your first instinct was to become a wall. A wall is a stationary target. It is meant to be broken. You must become the wind, not the stone. Again."
The army charged. This time, Kafka forced himself to move. He used his power to augment his legs, pushing off, trying to find a gap. But the soldiers were too numerous, their formation perfect. He was a bull in a net. He was cut down in seconds.
Again.
He dodged a spear, only to be impaled by a sword from his blind spot. Reset.
Again.
He created a localized shield to block a blow, but three other attacks hit him from different angles. Reset.
Pain. Failure. The cold, unimpressed judgment of the Monarch. It was a cycle of pure, psychological torment. He wasn't just being trained. He was being broken down, his every brawling, head-on instinct being brutally beaten out of him.
'I can't do it!' he screamed in his mind, after what felt like the hundredth reset. 'They're too fast, too many!'
[You are thinking in three dimensions,] Jin-Woo's voice cut in, not with sympathy, but with sharp critique. [You are a man on the ground. But your power is not bound by such limitations. You have a shadow. It is your anchor. It is your pathway.]
His shadow? What did that mean?
The army charged again. This time, instead of just dodging, Kafka looked at his feet. At the patch of darkness he cast upon the cracked, glowing ground. It was his. Part of him. And since the elixir, it felt… different. Deeper. He could feel its connection to the Monarch's vast, abyssal power.
An assassin's dagger was inches from his eye. Desperate, he didn't just try to move his body. He tried to move his essence. He willed himself into his shadow.
The world turned inside out.
He wasn't standing on the ground anymore. He was in it. He was in a cold, quiet, timeless space. The Domain of Shadows. For a brief, disorienting moment, he saw the battlefield from the perspective of every shadow in the desert at once. He saw the assassin's blade pass harmlessly through the space he had just occupied. He saw the knight's sword miss. He saw every angle, every movement.
He felt a familiar, silken tether. The shadow of a lone, distant mountain. With a thought, he was pulled towards it.
He erupted from the mountain's shadow, a kilometer away from the charging army, his heart pounding in his dream-chest. He had done it. A Shadow Exchange. The Monarch's signature movement skill. It was clumsy, instinctual, and it had drained half of his spectral energy, but he had done it.
The entire Shadow Army stopped. They turned, as one, and looked at him.
From the center of their formation, Jin-Woo watched, a single, almost imperceptible nod of his head.
[A flicker of potential,] his voice stated in Kafka's mind. [The wind has learned it can become the storm. Now, the lesson truly begins. Again.]
The army didn't charge. This time, they simply dissolved into the ground, melting into a single, vast shadow that began to rush across the desert floor towards him, a tsunami of pure, annihilating darkness. There was nowhere to run.
Kafka looked at his own shadow, then at the distant horizon. He was no longer just learning to dodge. He was learning to move through the very fabric of the world, a concept he had never imagined. His nightmare classroom had just expanded, and the curriculum had become infinitely more terrifying, and infinitely more exhilarating.