# Chapter 35: The Nightmare Manifests
The Hunter's roar was not a sound of mere fury; it was a violation of physics, a sonic wave that warped the air and cracked the very stones of the Weeping Obelisk. The shockwave hit Konto like a physical blow, driving him flat against the ground. The world swam in a haze of purple and black, the creature's psychic presence a crushing weight on his mind. But through the agony, a sliver of his Dreamwalker's focus returned. He wasn't just feeling the creature's hunger; he was feeling a thread of control, a cold, clinical will directing the beast. He pushed past the pain, past the fear, and followed that thread back to its source. And he found her. A mind he had touched before, in the fractured dreams of the city's elite. A mind filled with a twisted, maternal compassion and a bottomless well of sorrow. The Somnambulist. She was here. She was the one piloting the monster. And she was smiling.
The realization was a cold spike of adrenaline in the midst of his torment. He tried to shout a warning, but only a strangled croak escaped his lips. The Hunter, its movements unnaturally fluid for something so immense, took another earth-shattering step. Its violet eyes burned with an intelligence that was far more terrifying than mere animal hunger. It wasn't just a monster; it was a weapon. A guided missile of flesh and nightmare aimed directly at Konto's soul.
Liraya scrambled to her feet, weaving a shield of hardened air just as a whip-like tendril lashed out, cracking against her construct with the force of a maglev train. The shield held, but the backlash sent her stumbling, the air crackling around her. "Edi, status!" she yelled over the creature's guttural roar.
"Its physical density is off the charts!" Edi's fingers flew across his console, his face pale in the glow of the screen. "My kinetic attacks are just splashing against it! It's like punching a black hole!"
"It's not fully here!" Anya shrieked, her voice thin with terror but sharp with clarity. "It's phasing! Part of it is still in the dreamscape! That's why physical attacks are useless! I need to find its anchor point, its connection to our reality!"
But there was no time. The creature raised another tendril, this one ending in a cluster of crystalline shards that began to glow with a sickening purple light. Anya screamed, "Get down!"
Liraya didn't hesitate, tackling Edi and Anya behind the remains of a shattered stall as a barrage of psychic shards exploded where they had been standing. The projectiles didn't just impact; they erased. Stone, metal, and enchanted cloth vaporized, leaving behind gaping, reality-warped holes that shimmered with a nauseating, oily light. The air smelled of ozone and burnt sugar, a scent that clung to the back of the throat.
From his knees, Konto watched the destruction, his mind a maelstrom of pain and fear. The Hunter was toying with them, testing their defenses. He had to warn them. He had to tell them who was pulling the strings. He focused his will, pushing a single, desperate thought toward Liraya, a fragile telepathic whisper in the storm of psychic energy. *Somnambulist.*
Liraya, catching her breath behind the ruined stall, flinched as the word echoed not in her ears, but in her mind. It was Konto's voice, strained and broken, but unmistakable. She risked a glance over the wreckage. The Hunter was turning its massive head, its myriad eyes scanning the chaos. It was looking for them. For him.
"We can't fight it here!" Gideon's voice crackled through their comms, a lifeline of gravelly calm from his vantage point high above. "The market is a deathtrap! The architecture is unstable, and it's amplifying the creature's reality-warping field! You need to get to the open plaza! Lead it out!"
"And get picked off in the open?" Liraya shot back, her hands already glowing as she prepared another spell. "We need a plan, not a suicide run!"
"The plan is to not get crushed by a falling building that's suddenly decided to become a carnivorous plant!" Gideon retorted. "Edi, can you disrupt its connection? Anya, give me a path!"
Anya squeezed her eyes shut, her small body trembling. "Left… through the spice merchant's stall… then hard right. The path is clear for… for seven seconds."
"Seven seconds is all we need," Liraya said, her voice hardening with resolve. She looked at Edi. "On my mark, you throw everything you have at that thing's feet. Not to hurt it, to blind it. Disorient it."
Edi nodded, his knuckles white on his console. "I can create an EM-psychic feedback loop. It'll be like a flashbang for its senses. But it'll take a moment to charge."
"Then you have a moment," Liraya commanded. She turned to Konto, who was struggling to rise. "Konto, stay with me. Who is the Somnambulist?"
He managed to push himself up onto one elbow, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "Leader… of the Oneiros Collective. A healer… corrupted. She thinks… she's saving us." The effort of speaking sent a fresh wave of dizziness through him.
The Hunter let out another deafening roar, and the very ground beneath them began to soften and flow like tar. A nearby stall, one that had been selling shimmering dream-essences, began to writhe. Its wooden frame twisted into gnarled, claw-like legs, and its canvas awning flapped open like a pair of leathery wings. The market itself was becoming an extension of the monster.
"Now, Edi!" Liraya yelled.
Edi slammed his hand down on his console. A device on his belt whined, building to a crescendo before emitting a silent, pulse of energy. It washed over the Hunter, and the creature staggered back, its many eyes blinking in unison. It let out a confused, furious hiss, its form flickering violently at the edges.
"Go!" Gideon barked.
Liraya grabbed Konto by the arm, hauling him to his feet. He was dead weight, his legs barely supporting him. "Anya, with me! Edi, cover our six!"
They burst from behind the stall, sprinting into the nightmare landscape. The path Anya had foreseen was already collapsing. A stall selling cursed trinkets sprouted metallic jaws that snapped at them as they passed. The air grew thick and heavy, smelling of damp earth and decay. Anya darted ahead, her small form weaving through the chaos with an eerie grace.
"Right! Now!" she screamed.
They skidded around a corner, nearly colliding with a group of Arcane Wardens who had their backs to them, firing crackling bolts of Aspect energy at the creature. The Wardens were being torn apart. One Warden was lifted into the air by a shadowy tendril and squeezed until his armor buckled and his Aspect Tattoo sputtered and died.
The Wardens, seeing the new arrivals, turned their weapons on them. "Halt! Unregistered Weavers!"
"Are you insane?" Liraya snarled, ducking under a wild energy bolt. "We're on your side!"
The Hunter, recovering from Edi's pulse, fixed its gaze on their new position. It ignored the Wardens, its focus absolute. It raised a massive, clawed hand, and the ground between them erupted. A chasm of swirling, purple-black energy opened, cutting them off from the plaza.
"They're not the enemy!" a voice boomed. It was Valerius, Konto's former mentor, his face grim but determined. He lowered his staff. "Wardens, focus fire on the creature's legs! Try to slow it down!"
The reprieve was momentary. The Hunter slammed its other hand down, and the chasm sealed itself as quickly as it had appeared. The sheer force of the act sent a tremor through the market, toppling what few structures remained standing.
"It's herding us," Konto rasped, his mind finally clearing enough to process the creature's tactics. "It's not just trying to kill us. It's driving us somewhere."
"Where?" Liraya demanded, shielding them from a shower of debris.
"The obelisk," he breathed, his eyes widening in horror. "It's driving us back to the Weeping Obelisk."
The Weeping Obelisk, the nexus of the market's power, was now glowing with a malevolent violet light, the same color as the Hunter's eyes. The runes etched into its surface pulsed in time with the creature's movements. It was an anchor. The creature's anchor.
"Edi, the obelisk!" Liraya yelled. "That's its connection point!"
"I see it!" Edi shouted back, his fingers a blur. "But I can't get a clear shot! The energy field is too volatile! I need to get closer!"
"Then we get closer," Liraya said, her jaw set. She looked at the beleaguered Wardens, at the terrified criminals hiding in the shadows, at the impossible monster tearing their world apart. They were all trapped in the same nightmare. "Gideon, we need a diversion. Something big."
There was a pause, filled with the sounds of destruction and screams. "Understood," Gideon's voice finally came back, heavy with reluctance. "Brace yourselves."
A moment later, a section of the market's upper level, a hundred meters away, exploded outwards. Not from the monster's attack, but from a controlled demolition. Gideon, using his Earth Aspect from afar, had brought down a ton of steel and concrete on the far side of the Hunter. The creature roared in annoyance, its head swiveling to face the new threat.
"Now!" Liraya yelled.
They ran. They ran through the heart of the chaos, a desperate sprint towards the glowing obelisk. Valerius and his remaining Wardens laid down covering fire, their blue-white bolts of energy a stark contrast to the monster's purple corruption. For a fleeting moment, they were allies. Criminals, cops, and mages, united against a common enemy.
The Hunter, distracted by Gideon's attack, didn't see them coming. They reached the base of the Weeping Obelisk, the air thrumming with raw, untamed power. The stone was hot to the touch, and the runes seemed to writhe beneath their fingers.
"Edi, now!" Liraya commanded, placing herself between Konto and the creature.
Edi slammed a different device onto the base of the obelisk. "Uploading a neutralization sequence! It's going to try to fight back! I need thirty seconds!"
The Hunter turned back to them, its attention recaptured. It let out a screech of pure rage that shook them to their bones. It knew what they were doing. It charged.
Anya grabbed Konto's arm, her eyes wide. "It's too fast! We won't make it!"
Liraya stood her ground, her hands weaving a complex pattern in the air. A wall of shimmering, golden light erupted between them and the charging beast. "Then we'll just have to hold it."
The Hunter hit the wall with the force of a meteor. The golden light cracked and splintered, but it held. Liraya cried out, the strain evident on her face. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and her Aspect Tattoo flared with blinding intensity.
"Ten seconds!" Edi yelled, his eyes locked on his console.
The monster battered against the shield, each blow sending a fresh wave of pain through Liraya. The ground around them cracked and buckled. The obelisk pulsed wildly, fighting Edi's intrusion.
"Anya, what's it going to do next?" Liraya gasped.
Anya's face was a mask of concentration. "It's… it's pulling back. It's going to unleash a full-power blast. It will overload the shield in… three… two…"
"Liraya, get down!" Gideon roared through the comms.
But she couldn't. If she dropped the shield, they were dead. She poured every last ounce of her energy into the construct, her vision starting to tunnel.
The Hunter opened its maw, a sphere of pure, annihilating purple energy coalescing within.
"One!" Anya screamed.
The blast never came.
Instead, the creature froze. Its massive body went rigid, its head tilting in a gesture of confusion. The violet energy in its mouth dissipated. The psychic pressure in the air vanished, replaced by a sudden, chilling silence.
Konto felt it first. A shift in the currents of the dreamscape. The cold, clinical will that had been directing the Hunter was gone. In its place was something else. Something new. Something ancient and terrifyingly familiar.
He pushed himself up, his eyes locked on the monster. It wasn't a hunter anymore. It was a puppet whose strings had been cut. And a new puppet master had taken hold.
He reached out with his mind, a desperate, final probe. He brushed against the creature's consciousness, and what he found made his blood run cold. It wasn't the Somnambulist anymore. The connection was still there, but it was being hijacked, overridden by a far more powerful, a far more sinister presence. A mind he knew only from whispers and nightmares. A mind that resided in the highest spire of the city.
Arch-Mage Moros.
The Hunter's eyes, once a burning violet, flickered and changed. They became a cold, calculating gold. The creature looked down at Konto, not with mindless hunger, but with a chilling, analytical curiosity. It was no longer a simple beast sent to kill him. It was a tool being used to send a message.
A voice, smooth and powerful, echoed directly in Konto's mind. It was a voice of absolute authority, a voice that bent reality to its will.
*You have been a nuisance, Dreamwalker. But you have also been useful. You have led me to the source of the infection. Now, watch as I cleanse it.*
The Hunter raised its hand, but not towards Konto. It pointed a single, massive claw towards the fleeing form of Kaelen, who was still dragging Belly through the chaos at the edge of the market.
*The traitor first. Then, the corruption. And then… you.*
The creature began to shrink, its form collapsing in on itself, the shadow and teeth and impossible geometry folding into a single, dense point of golden light. It hovered for a moment, a silent, deadly star, and then shot off towards Kaelen with impossible speed.
The message was clear. The hunt was over. The judgment had begun.