Chapter 123: A Dream?

Yawn~

Liam let out a yawn as he walked to the glass in the living room with a cup in hand. He had stayed up quite late last night and couldn’t even recall when he fell asleep.

Perhaps in the middle of a game?

That would be strange, though, since the hitman prided himself on being a night owl. Either way, he really did have fun last night.

He took a sip of his coffee and looked towards the city below him.

It looked really beautiful, especially when covered by the golden rays of the s.....

Liam suddenly frowned and looked down at the liquid in his cup; it really was coffee... but the problem was,

He hated bitter stuff.

Which meant,

"Damn it," the hitman let out as he looked ahead of him. In the distance was a small black dot, but as more time passed, the bigger the dot got.

No, rather than getting bigger, it would be more accurate to say that the thing, whatever it was, was getting closer.

"Damn it," Liam repeated as he quickly stepped back, and just in time, because the next second,

CRASH!

A massive figure suddenly crashed straight through the glass, landing at the far end of the wall.

Liam looked at the creature before muttering, "When the hell did we switch genre?"

The creature before him looked like something pulled straight out of an apocalyptic movie with mutated Zombies or something.

The creature seemed to have had its skin peeled off, with all the pink surrounding its body. It stood on all fours, with dagger-sized spikes running along the center of its back, all the way down to its tail.

Its ’face’ was completely devoid of any type of vision organ, and its mouth was filled with sharp teeth on every corner.

But the most surprising part of the encounter was,

"Found you, Zeeerrooo..." The creature spoke.

"Well, you don’t see that every day," Liam muttered, though he wasn’t too surprised; after all, this was simply a dream.

Looking down at himself, realized that he was now in his Zero persona, complete with his suit and all.

He wasn’t too surprised by the fact that one of the members of the Argent Ring already knew who he was.

Well, rather than having found out, it was more accurate to call this a probing session.

After all, he could control the dreams and subconscious, so he was using that as a means of finding Zero.

And if the hitman had to guess, everyone in Sterling City was going through the same probing right now.

Though, if this was indeed that Sleepy Man’s ability, then the entire situation was more troublesome than Liam had initially expected.

The monsters were a way for the Sleepy Man to collect information from their subconscious minds.

If this thing killed him here, then the Sleepy Man would have full access to his subconscious mind.

Which meant he couldn’t afford to let that happen until he found a way out of this place.

"Let’s get started then, shall we?" A katana appeared at his side, and he slowly drew it from its sheath.

The creature crouched lower, and the next second,

BOOM!

It suddenly disappeared, reappearing in front of the hitman. The creature then swiped its claw at his neck, cleanly cutting it off.

Or at least, that’s what it seemed like, but the next second, the form that the creature slashed through suddenly dissipated.

"Tag," Zero’s voice came from the creature’s side as he swung the blade towards its head, "you’re it."

THUD!

With a slash, the creature’s head fell to the floor, and Zero watched as it faded into a puddle before it disappeared.

"That takes care of that," he muttered as he sheathed his katana and placed a hand on his chin.

Defeating the monster didn’t mean that he was free of the sleepy man’s Factor... if it was that easy, then the man wouldn’t have been a Beta-Ranked awakened.

There’d be more of those monsters coming until he either died or broke out of this dream. Still, since he was alone in this dream, there was another problem.

Liam looked around the apartment as he wondered, "Where is everyone?"

That was strange.

He had fallen asleep in his apartment with everyone else. If Sleepy Man had somehow put the entire city to sleep, then the people who had been with him should have been dragged into this dream as well.

His question, though, was soon answered when an explosion suddenly went off outside, pulling the hitman’s attention towards it.

Calmly, he walked towards the broken glass, and his eyes immediately widened as he saw what was going on.

Just below their building was a massive wave of monsters, but that wasn’t what caused his eyes to widen; instead,

"WOOHOO!!!!"

Taking down these monsters was a giant blue mecha, with plasma swords in its hands, which it used to cleave through the wave of monsters.

And the one piloting it?

Eli.

Zero chuckled at the scene, realizing how cool his little brother was. Without a Factor, it was basically impossible to defend yourself within the sleepy man’s dream.

Unless you were someone like Eli, apparently.

The sleepy man’s Factor still relied on forming a dream world and usually, most people just go with the flow of their dreams.

Yet, there were quite a few who could actively control their dreams through lucid dreaming... and it seems his younger brother had figured out how to create a mech within this one.

It seems Eli wasn’t in any sort of danger right now.

Still, he needed to make sure that Zero and Liam remained two separate people. So, the next second, his black-haired self suddenly appeared beside him.

"Alright then." Zero walked closer to the edge of the broken glass and looked down. Without hesitation, he jumped down, leaving behind his clone who had transformed into Overdrive.

***

High in the sky, a sleepy-looking man with black hair looked down at the entire Sterling City.

"Doing this is such a pain," he muttered, feeling the information of everyone who had died within the dreamscape.

None of which was Zero.

But it wasn’t as if the hitman would easily be killed by those things.

Perhaps it was time to kick things up a notch.