Chapter 243: Dreamwalking [2.]

The moment the order was given, the Hive Mind began to work.

Kael immediately felt a strange energy entering his body, spreading through him with a sensation that was neither painful nor pleasant.

Then an overwhelming wave of exhaustion washed over him, hitting so hard that his entire body felt unbearably heavy, as though he’d spent weeks performing backbreaking labor without a single moment of rest.

His eyelids grew heavy, his thoughts became sluggish, and his consciousness began slipping away despite his attempts to remain awake.

Yet instead of falling into sleep, Kael felt himself moving.

He couldn’t describe it as traveling through space. There was no sensation of distance being crossed, no familiar distortion of space that accompanied his usual movement. This was something entirely different.

It felt as though he were passing through something tangible, yet at the same time there was nothing there for him to touch. The sensation was strange enough that Kael couldn’t even find a proper comparison for it.

"So this is dreamwalking," he muttered to himself. "I can’t say I hate it."

Compared to the violent tug he normally experienced whenever he moved through space, this was almost comfortable. There was no crushing pressure, no sensation of his body being dragged through a tear in reality. If this was what dreamwalking felt like, Kael could definitely get used to it.

Unfortunately, he spoke too soon.

A sudden force caught hold of him.

Kael’s entire consciousness was violently pulled sideways, the smooth sensation instantly becoming chaotic as he was dragged into something resembling a massive whirlpool. His body spun uncontrollably, the strange world around him becoming nothing more than a blur as he was tossed through the invisible current.

He couldn’t tell which direction was up or down anymore. He simply kept spinning until, after what felt like an eternity, the force abruptly released him.

Kael stopped.

He opened his eyes.

And found himself standing in the middle of a vast field.

For several seconds, Kael simply stared.

The grass beneath his feet was the color of strawberry cream, stretching endlessly across the landscape beneath a sky that looked like it had been painted with the soft pink shade of a doll’s dress. Even the trees surrounding the field seemed to have been pulled from the imagination of someone with an aggressively sweet taste.

Their trunks were pale, while their branches carried clusters of round, pale pink leaves that looked less like leaves and more like balls of soft fur. They swayed gently in the breeze, brushing against one another as a pleasant floral scent drifted through the air.

Kael slowly turned his head, taking in the bizarre landscape.

"Well, this is way too girly."

His expression became slightly strange.

"I didn’t expect Ezra to have this soft side to her."

He shook his head and quickly dismissed the thought. He hadn’t come here to admire the scenery. Whatever this place was, it existed inside Ezra’s mind, and somewhere within this strange world was the core he had been sent to find.

Kael closed his eyes and focused.

Almost immediately, he sensed something.

There was a faint presence somewhere in the distance, almost like a signal reaching out through the vastness of this mental world.

"That must be the way to the core."

He looked toward the direction of the signal.

No wonder Varek had said locating the core wouldn’t be difficult for him.

Without wasting any more time, Kael began moving.

The farther he went, the stronger the signal became.

That alone told Kael he was getting closer, so he continued forward, until he suddenly stopped

His eyes narrowed as he stared ahead.

There it was.

The core of Ezra’s world.

It sat at the center of a clearing surrounded by pristine softness. Pale trees formed a natural circle around the area, their fur-covered branches swaying gently in the wind while their strange pink leaves brushed against one another.

But Kael barely noticed any of it.

His attention was fixed on the figure lying at the center of the clearing.

Ezra.

Her core consciousness had taken the shape of her physical body. She lay peacefully upon the soft ground, dressed in a long dark robe that spread around her like spilled ink against the pale landscape. Her face was calm, her lips slightly parted, while her chest rose and fell in the slow rhythm of someone deep in an undisturbed sleep.

For a moment, she looked completely peaceful.

But Kael wasn’t looking at her.

His gaze had already shifted to the thing wrapped around her.

A massive serpent-like creature coiled around Ezra’s body in a wide circle. Its enormous body surrounded her as though it were guarding some precious treasure, yet the truth was far more disturbing.

It wasn’t protecting her. Rather, it was feeding on her.

Kael’s eyes narrowed as he kept staring, soon discovering that feeding wasn’t the only thing it was doing.

It was breeding.

Along the length of its body, clustered within the soft crevices where its scales pressed against Ezra’s skin, were hundreds of tiny eggs.

They were translucent and roughly the size of fingernails, each one pulsing with a faint inner light.

Then one of the eggs moved.

A thin crack appeared across its surface, and Kael watched as the shell split apart, a tiny white worm crawling out.

Its body glistened beneath the strange light of the mental world as it slowly twisted across the surface of the egg. It didn’t remain there for long. The moment it emerged, it immediately crawled toward Ezra.

Kael’s expression hardened as he watched the worm reach her skin. It burrowed inside and disappeared beneath the surface of Ezra’s pale skin with disturbing ease, leaving behind nothing more than a small, dark hole.

The wound didn’t heal.

Kael stared at it.

Then his gaze slowly moved across Ezra’s body.

Tiny dark holes covered portions of Ezra’s body, each one marking another place where one of those parasitic worms had burrowed into her consciousness. Some were fresh. Others had already begun to fade into the surrounding skin, yet none of them appeared to be healing.

Kael’s face immediately turned cold.

If that was how many holes were already visible on Ezra’s body, then how many worms had actually been bred inside her?

The thought alone was enough to make his expression darken further.

And the worst part was that even though Ezra looked calm and peaceful, as if just sleeping, he could feel her consciousness weakening.

Ever so slowly, it was growing dimmer.

Every passing moment, the thread of Ezra’s existence became fainter as the parasite continued consuming her energy and using what it devoured to produce more of those things.

Kael’s gaze settled on Ezra’s sleeping face, his expression growing serious.

He needed to do something.

And he needed to do it before Ezra’s consciousness became too weak to save.