Chapter 253: The Dream Beneath the Dream

The forest was screaming- not with the voices of monsters, and not with the cries of the students. The scream came from beneath the battlefield itself.

It rose through the soil, passed between the roots, and crawled into the sky like something enormous waking from a nightmare.

Silas stood in the middle of the distorted forest, pink threads stretching from his fingers in every direction.

The threads passed through trees, through monsters, and through empty air. Some connected to his allies. Others vanished into places that did not exist.

The entire battlefield was wrong.

The trees were too tall, the shadows moved against the light, the ground shifted whenever nobody looked directly at it, and above them, the sky had begun to crack like a painted ceiling being pulled apart from the other side.

Neil stood near the center of Valecrest’s formation, his weapon raised.

"Everyone stay together! Do not trust anything you see!"

A low-rank monster charged from the trees. Peter prepared to attack, but then the monster disappeared. A second later, it emerged behind him.

Peter spun around and struck it with a blood-coated fist, causing the creature to shatter, but the pieces did not fall. They floated in the air, slowly turning into black smoke.

"That’s not normal."

"Are you slow? I just said we are in an illusion," Alpha replied, staring at Peter like he’d lost his head. He stood several meters away, his body surrounded by a faint shimmer.

His Camouflage ability had deepened, and the illusion could no longer fully recognize him. Because of that, the false world around him was beginning to lose its shape.

Alpha looked past the forest, where he could see the real battlefield beneath the illusion.

A massive domain stretched around them like a sealed world. At its center was a gigantic eye buried beneath layers of false reality.

The Horned Chimera was merely its guardian; the five B-Rank monsters were extensions of its power, and the low-rank horde was nothing more than countless distractions.

The true enemy had not appeared yet. It was watching, learning, and waiting.

Alpha’s expression hardened.

"The battle hasn’t started."

Chloe glanced at him. "What do you mean?"

Alpha pointed toward the Horned Chimera.

"That thing was only testing us."

As if responding to his words, the A-Rank monster stopped moving. Its body began to collapse inward, as the six arms folded into its torso. Its horns cracked, while its limbs twisted into long, thin shapes.

The creature’s body became a mass of black flesh and red eyes.

The remaining B-Rank monsters also froze, their bodies trembling. Then their heads turned toward Silas at the same time.

"Well, that’s rude," Silas said with a smile.

The monsters opened their mouths, but no sound came out. Instead, the forest began speaking through them in a thousand voices that soon became a million.

Some were young, and some were old. Some sounded human, while others were too strange to belong to anything born in the real world.

[WELCOME, INTRUDERS.]

The system window appeared before every student.

[ILLUSION DOMAIN: SECOND LAYER ACTIVATED.]

[COMBAT PARAMETERS ALTERED.]

[VISUAL INFORMATION MAY NO LONGER BE TRUSTED.]

[HOSTILE ENTITY PREPARING TO MANIFEST.]

Neil’s face became grim.

"Second layer?"

Silas tilted his head. "Does that mean there’s a third?"

Nobody answered.

The sky cracked further as something moved behind it. Its shape larger than the forest, and larger than the tower. Its silhouette pressed against the false heavens, its fingers dragging across the cracks from the other side.

The students felt its presence, causing some to stumble backward, while some struggled to breathe. Even the strongest among them felt the pressure settle over their bodies.

The Horned Chimera had been terrifying, but this was different.

This was the feeling of being noticed by something that had never needed to fear anything.

Chloe stepped forward, her aura erupting, causing the pressure around her to break apart.

"Whatever is coming," she said, "it can come."

Silas looked at her. Then at Alpha.

Alpha’s eyes remained fixed on the sky. His Camouflage shimmered again. For a brief moment, he saw the truth.

The domain was not simply creating illusions. It was feeding on their perception- every fear, every hesitation, and every false image they accepted as real.

The more they fought the illusion, the stronger it became. The domain wanted them confused. It wanted them exhausted. It wanted them to attack shadows while the real enemy remained untouched.

Alpha clenched his fist.

"We cannot fight this normally."

Silas’s smile widened.

"Good."

A thread wrapped around his wrist while pink light spread through the forest, piercing the false scenery.

"I was getting bored of normal."

The silhouette behind the sky pushed harder.

CRACK!

A huge section of the illusion shattered.

For one brief instant, everyone saw what lay beyond it- a black ocean, an endless field of floating eyes, and at the center of it all, a colossal creature curled around the domain’s core.

Then the illusion repaired itself.

The forest returned, the sky became whole, and the monsters moved again, but the students had seen enough.

The battle was no longer about defeating the creatures in front of them. It was about finding the thing controlling the world around them.

And somewhere inside that false reality, the true monster had finally awakened.

[FINAL COMBAT SEQUENCE PREPARING.]

[OBJECTIVE UPDATED.]

[DESTROY THE DOMAIN CORE.]

[WARNING.]

[FAILURE WILL RESULT IN PERMANENT MENTAL CORRUPTION.]

Silas read the final message, only to burst out laughing. He laughed as if the system had just offered him a challenge he had been waiting for. He hadn’t even used his other skills or his full strength.

It was time to show them real power. To the world, he was one of the S-Ranks, just a bit stronger than most. But in reality, he was an SSS-Rank. In Ancient times, he would be known as an Exalted Child of a god, a being beyond a demigod.

There was more mystery surrounding beings with ranks of S to SSS, and Silas knew it. But now wasn’t the time to think about that. It was time to traumatize the monster beneath the false reality.

"Alright."

His threads spread farther, and the forest trembled.

"Let’s see who gets to keep their mind."