While Kael's body lay motionless in his room above the hardware shop, an apparent stillness that hid deep activity within the Dream Realm, something subtler was happening within his own psyche as well, at the boundary between sleep and wakefulness.
His sleep was not simply a gateway to the Deep Foundation; it had become a silent crucible, a place where his soul—free from the defenses of daytime consciousness—began to confront the inner demons that had tormented him for years: the loss of Elara and the denial of the pain that followed.
During the first months of his deep sleep, Borin had noticed that Kael's face seemed perpetually relaxed, almost unnaturally calm. But over time, as Kael progressed through his dream training, Borin began to notice subtle changes.
Sometimes, a slight tremor rippled across his eyelids, as if his eyes were following something invisible. Other times, a deep breath escaped his lips—not of sadness, but of release, like a breath held for too long.
These were the outward signs of an inner battle.
In his deep sleep, Kael was forced to face what he had tried to bury during wakefulness. They were not the obvious nightmares that plagued the other villagers; they were lucid but painful dreams in which his little sister, Elara, appeared with startling vividness.
She was no longer the faded, indistinct image that tormented him while awake.
In the dream, Elara was real: her golden curls, her bright laughter, the feeling of her small hands in his. But in these dreams, Elara's face was often veiled, as if a transparent shroud stood between them—a symbol of the denial Kael had built.
Every night, Kael, in his deep sleep, relived his memories—not as an obsession, but as a healing process.
The Dream Realm, and especially his training with Master Elian, was pushing him—even unconsciously—to dismantle the walls he had built around his heart. Master Elian's voice echoed in his dream-mind, not as direct instruction but as a resonance of wisdom:
"You cannot protect others if you have not first accepted your own wounds, Kael. Denial is a prison stronger than any wall."
One night, during this process, Borin, seated beside his nephew's bed, saw a tear slip silently from the corner of Kael's closed eye, a shining trail along his temple.
"Boy… I wish I knew what's happening to you…" Borin whispered.
It wasn't a tear of despair, but of recognition—of release. That night, in his dream, Kael had embraced the dream-version of Elara, accepting her loss not with resignation but with new understanding. The veil dissolved.
Elara's laughter was no longer a distant echo, but a melody ringing clearly in his memory—now filled with accepted pain but also with a love that had never faded.
Denial—the belief that indifference was his salvation—began to crumble.
Kael, though physically inert, was learning that true strength did not lie in shutting out pain, but in facing it, integrating it, transforming it into a driving force. His mission as a Keeper—the search for answers about the Ash and Elara's illness—was no longer a desperate attempt to retrieve what had been lost.
It had become a pursuit of understanding, of healing not only for himself but for the Dream Realm and, consequently, for the waking world that was suffering.
Kael's body, though sleeping, was not inactive. It was the anchor point between his fighting soul in the dream and the reality awaiting his return. His rest was not weakness, but refinement—an incubation of the Keeper he was becoming, forged in accepted pain and rediscovered love.
In a vast chamber of the Deep Foundations, Kael stared at the vortex inside the Veil-Gate.
It now pulsed with an intense green glow, almost acidic, and Kael felt a dizziness that was not physical but mental. It was as if the world were losing all logic. The air around the vortex vibrated with a low, barely perceptible hum that seemed to creep into his mind, creating a slight confusion. The Veil of Madness: the fragmentation of reason, the chaos of the subconscious.
It was the most feared trial.
The high probability of going insane was not particularly inviting.
Anya stepped beside him, her expression grave. "This veil is treacherous, Kael. The Ash will not attack you directly but will try to distort your perception of reality. You will see things that don't exist, hear voices that aren't there. The key is to remain anchored to your truth. Trust your senses, but above all, trust your Sleeping Flame. It is your compass in this chaos."
Lyra, on the other hand, bore a tense expression, though her silver eyes sparkled with unusual intensity. "Madness is not the absence of logic, Kael. It is the inability to distinguish logic from what isn't. Do not try to fight the chaos. Find calm within it. We will be here, Kael," she added, pointing to a spot on his chest, "we will feel you through the connection we established. If your mind begins to waver, think of us. Think of the Deep Foundation. Think of your mission."
Kael nodded, taking a deep breath. He thought of his Dream Garden. It was no longer desolation. The flame was there, a fixed point.
And around it, Kael sensed a series of small golden roots spreading slowly, like a nervous system, trying to anchor themselves in the soil of his subconscious. It was his inner reference point.
He stepped into the vortex.
The air pulled him in, but this time the sensation was completely different. Not falling, not compression. It felt like being tossed around by waves of sound and light. Colors swirled randomly, and sounds were a chaotic mix of whispers, laughter, screams, and meaningless melodies.
It was pure disorder.
Kael felt his mind desperately trying to make sense of what he saw and heard, but it was impossible. His consciousness—protected by the Deep Lucidity Extract—was like a small lighthouse in a storm of madness.
Then, the storm ended.
Kael found himself standing, though not on a solid surface. It was as if he were floating in a sea of drifting fragments, pieces of objects, unknown faces, broken words, and images of places he had never seen.
Each fragment was a single infinitesimal spark of a dream, ripped from its origin and left to drift. There was no up or down, no beginning or end.
It was a shattered world.
Kael tried to move and discovered he could swim through the sea of fragments. Every time he touched one, an echo of a random thought, a memory without context, a sensation without meaning passed through his mind.
They weren't his thoughts, yet they were there—inscrutable, trying to seep in. He felt his mind struggling to make sense of the chaos, to reorder it, but it was like trying to hold water in his hands.
The hum he had heard near the Veil-Gate was louder here: a chorus of thousands of whispers speaking at once, each saying different, contradictory, nonsensical things.
The hammer is a key. The key is a door. The door is a flower. Flowers do not exist. Flowers do not exist. Time is a lie. A circle. No circle. Only the void. You are not you. You are me. I am no one.
His mind began to waver.
He felt tempted to cling to a single fragment, to give meaning to even one absurd thought, to have something to hold onto. It was as if his brain were being slowly torn apart. His Sleeping Flame flickered.
Then he saw a figure.
It was a woman, far away, swimming slowly through the sea of fragments. Her dark hair floated around her, and Kael saw that her eyes were empty, staring into nothing.
It was Solara—but not the perfect projection of the Veil of Denial.
This was a shattered version, an echo of her mind that had surrendered to chaos. She seemed to drift without purpose, a ghost in that sea of madness.
As Solara approached, the surrounding fragments began to move more erratically, as if drawn to her emptiness. Her voice—though only a whisper—resonated in Kael's mind, a lament of desolation.
Do not search for meaning. There is none. There is nothing. Let the current take you. It is easier. Simpler.
Kael felt the desire to give in, to surrender to the chaos, to stop thinking. It was a powerful temptation: to free himself from responsibility and the weight of his mission.
But he thought of Anya, Lyra, Master Elian.
He thought of his Dream Garden, now beginning to grow.
And he thought of Elara.
He couldn't give up. It wasn't his truth.
His Sleeping Flame pulsed more intensely.
Kael focused—not on fighting madness, but on finding a fixed point. Anya's lesson: stay anchored to your truth.
Lyra's lesson: find calm within chaos.
Kael didn't try to make sense of the fragments.
Instead, he focused on the beating of his heart, the rhythm of his breath. He looked at his hands, then moved them slowly, touching his own chest where he felt his Sleeping Flame. He felt its warmth.
That was his reality.
And as he focused on his flame, on his stability, the surrounding fragments began to slow down. The hum softened into a more manageable murmur. The incoherent voices faded.
Kael was creating a center of gravity in the chaos.
He moved toward Solara.
Not to attack her—but to understand her.
Elian's lesson: pierce corruption.
The Shrine's lesson: find memory, find suffering.
Kael reached out toward the shattered form of Solara, his golden flame shining steadily.
When his hand brushed her form, Kael felt a jolt—not cold, not painful.
A sensation of disorientation, thousands of disconnected thoughts crowding into his mind.
But Kael was ready.
Keep the flame steady.
Keep the center.
And then, through the distortion, he saw what Solara had seen the moment her mind fell to the Ash.
It hadn't been an attack, but prolonged exposure.
She had seen the dreams of entire cities vanish, the hopes of nations reduced to dust. She had seen Keepers she knew—friends, mentors—disappear one after another, their Sleeping Flames extinguished by the Ash.
And she couldn't stop it.
Her mind, to protect itself from that boundless horror, sought refuge in denial, in fragmentation, until she lost her sense of self.
She embraced chaos to avoid feeling the pain.
There is nothing to save. Nothing to understand. Let everything be nothing.
Solara's distorted, broken voice echoed in Kael's mind.
"No!" Kael answered—not with a scream, but with a steady melody within the chaos. "There is always something to save! There is always meaning! Even in chaos, there is a center!"
As he spoke, Kael did something new.
He didn't try to repair Solara.
He didn't try to solidify anything.
Instead, he channeled his Sleeping Flame in a new way.
He made it pulse in a steady rhythm, like a metronome.
And he let that rhythm spread through his touch.
It wasn't an attack.
It was a dreamlike heartbeat—an echo of order within chaos.
Solara's shattered figure flickered.
The thousands of dissonant voices merged into a single, faint, almost imperceptible whisper of gratitude.
It lasted only an instant, but Kael felt it.
He hadn't cured Solara's madness, but he had offered her a moment of coherence, a heartbeat of lucidity in her abyss.
And then, the environment around Kael changed.
The sea of fragments began to gather, spiraling upward.
The dissonant hum became a single, deep resonant note echoing through the air.
The chaotic images fused into one enormous, glowing eye that opened before Kael—not with malice, but with ancient curiosity.
It was the exit.
The Veil of Madness had been overcome.
Kael didn't feel his body pulled, but he felt his mind reassembling—every thought returning to its place, every fragment reorganizing.
The dizziness faded.
He found himself again in the Deep Foundation, collapsing to his knees, gasping for breath.
Anya and Lyra rushed to him, their faces full of relief and deeper admiration.
"Kael! Your Sleeping Flame is glowing so brightly!" Lyra exclaimed, her eyes shining. "We felt your stability through the connection! You created a fixed point in chaos!"
Anya gripped his arm. "You've overcome the most difficult trial of the mind. You found order in disorder. You resisted the annihilation of reason."
Kael raised his head.
His mind felt tired, but incredibly clear.
The golden flame on his palm was larger, more stable than ever.
In his Dream Garden, the central flame was now a small but constant brazier, and the golden roots had spread, forming an intricate network that held the ground firm.
No sprouts yet—but the soil was darker, richer, ready for life.
Master Elian stepped forward, an expression of deep respect.
"You have overcome the Veil of Madness, Kael. Not only have you maintained your integrity, but you even offered a moment of lucidity to a fragment of Solara. This is extraordinary."
Kael stood, feeling his newfound, incredible mental strength.
"Master," he asked, his voice steady, "what is the next Veil?"
Elian looked toward the Veil-Gate, now pulsing with a dark red glow—almost like blood—with a heavy, oppressive aura.
"The next," he said gravely, "is the Veil of Rage."
The left corner of Kael's mouth lifted.
He shook his head lightly with a half-smile.
"There, you will face the primordial anger of the Ash—frustration, pure hatred, destruction. It will be a more direct battle, a test of resistance. And Solara will be waiting there, ready to turn your rage into her most powerful weapon."
A shiver ran down Kael's spine.
Anger was an emotion he had always kept at bay, always tried to control so he wouldn't become like what had hurt him.
Would he be able to master it once inside the Veil?
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