.....Meanwhile on Alpha-10, The chamber was silent except for the slow ticking of a bone clock—each tick like a hammer to the heart. The room itself bent inward, walls breathing as if alive, veins of void crystal pulsing faintly in the dark. At the far end sat the Coyote Wolf. Not a beast. Not a man. A sovereign of entropy. His throne was a clean iron throne sleek and shiny. His cloak was crimson red. He leaned back. One leg crossed over the other. His grin? Crooked. Casual. Terrifying. Eyes like twin dying suns—burning, but cold. Before him knelt his three generals—each dangerous in their own right:
Mezzenchiah, the exiled Dream-Eater, wrapped in moth-silk and psionic scars.
Bloodtithe, a reptilian war-priest who carried a furnace heart on his back and wore the bones of saints as armor.
And Dreega, a shifting humanoid covered in twitching golden masks, one for each person he had ever impersonated.
They were killers. All traitors to Lupus and his father. But none of them dared look him directly in the eye. The Coyote Wolf snapped his claws once. The walls around them flickered—and in the air, a projection emerged: a luminous hologlyph, spinning like a cube inside a lotus of fire. Pandora's Box. Its name alone weighed the room. The Coyote Wolf began to speak. "The Arcturians... they were gods once. Before they learned the price of knowing. Before they sealed their greatest sin inside a cube no one was supposed to open." He chuckled, slow and dry. "A myth to most. A warning to the rest. But I've seen it. The data. The echoes. Even their own people no longer guard it as fiercely. The shame is generational now. Hidden in their DNA." He leaned forward now, smile widening. "Pandora's Box isn't just a weapon. It's not even an artifact. It's mere authority. Reality's override key. The very thing the First Architects made in case the universe went... wrong." Bloodtithe snarled softly. "And you believe it actually exists?" Coyote Wolf's grin didn't move. Instead, the throne began to hum. The room dimmed. Then he raised his left paw—a clawed hand wrapped in ancient metal rings. With a twist, he activated a glyph hidden beneath the skin. A doorway opened behind the throne. Inside was only screaming light. "I've already touched its edge." Dreega fell to one knee, all his masks whispering at once: "What will you do if you get it?" The Coyote Wolf stood now. No longer casual. No longer seated. Towering.
His silhouette stretched beyond mortal dimensions. His shadow flickered through time itself—in one second, he was himself. In the next, he appeared as a black sun. A burning forest. A crying child. His eyes narrowed to slits. "Isn't it obvious? I will take the world for my own. "There will be no war. No hierarchy. No gods. No cosmos." He stepped down the stairs of the throne, each step cracking the floor beneath him. "There will only be me. The sovereign of what comes after the last page is turned." He paused before them. "They call me mad. Let them." He smiled again. "I don't want to destroy the universe." A beat. "I want to set it free." The generals remained still. There was no applause. Only understanding. The Coyote Wolf grinned, "We can break these little vermin, and then the world will be free forever more."
Back in the Guild World the Imam, Farabius and the others approached Ranker Yang Xiao Xei who announced the next trial. "This trial will be very exciting, unprecedented actually." Everyone looked around, "For this trial you will enter the dream world." Yang took a swipe of his cigarette and began to explain. I for my part will explain to you what the Dream World actually is. Long before time had been measured and memory woven into linearity, there existed a layer of existence—beneath perception, beyond thought, above the threshold of even divine reality. They called it by many names. The Oneiric Domain. The Unstructured Layer. The Mind Sea. The Outer Terminol Vod. But most now just call it the Dream World. And even that name is an oversimplification. Because the Dream World is not a "place" in the way Alpha-10 is, nor a "realm" like the Netherblades or the Realm Between. The Dream World is a living question—a recursive mirror of infinite selves, curled in the folds of universal sleep.
It is consciousness without a pilot. It is purpose without clarity. It is reality without a spine. Everything in the dream world is fluid so in a sense the difference in power levels are often completely obsolete because one with enough will power can dream himself stronger if he can do it right. Therefore the weak here are often titans and the strong are often lambs. When people wake up from dreams, they forget. It's instinct. It's safe.
But this forgetting isn't passive—it's enforced. The Dream World forgets you the moment you try to leave it. There are many terrifying creatures and beings that live in the Dream World that are currently unknown. Yet somehow, it remains. Buried under every sleeping mind like a foundational paradox.
Even compared to the Cosmic Dark Continent, with its world-devouring storms and planets built from god-carcasses, the Dream World is more terrifying—not because it's violent, but because it's entirely unmeasurable. Nothing in it follows logic. You may fall upward into a memory that never happened or seemed to have never happened. Everything is entirely subjective in that realm. You may meet a version of yourself who is older than your god, the idol you bow to or to your oldest ancestor. You may befriend a monster made from your mother's laughter, then betray them because they're you. Some have tried to map it—Mindwalkers, Oniromancers, and Null Architects—but all who return come back with different shapes in their eyes. Some never speak again. Some never wake. Some are fine… for a while.
The Imam, his robe heavy with ancient thread, stood among the others. Farabius loomed behind him, silent and sensing something no one else could. Lupus crossed his arms, skeptical but attentive. Zelanius said nothing, only watching. Ranker Yang Xiao Xei, ever-smiling, ever-strange, held out his hand toward what looked like a shimmer in the air—a thin veil of iridescent glass, curved like a cracked eyelid. He spoke with a voice too casual for the magnitude of what he offered: "This trial will be very exciting. Unprecedented, actually."Eyes turned. Doctor Amadeus leaned forward. He thought to himself, "I've lived billions of years and lifetimes and traveled to countless worlds but I've never encountered anything like this before, incredible, it's like I'm being born into the world again."
"For this trial… you will enter the Dream World." And the veil blinked. The moment they stepped through, gravity became optional. There was no ground. No sky. Only ideas pretending to be landscapes—a hill made of nostalgia, a river composed of forgotten birthdays, a sky full of questions you never answered as a child. The Guild team found themselves drifting in a circular arena carved from sleep-parchment. Symbols wrote themselves into the air like breathing glyphs. A floating pillar appeared in the center, glowing with ancient code. Ranker Yang's voice echoed—not from outside, but from within their thoughts. "This is the Oneiric Trial. You will each be shown one dream. But it will not be your own." "Your task is simple: Solve the dream's purpose before it consumes you."
RULES OF THE DREAM TRIAL:You may only interact with the dream-world through logic and empathy.
Your powers are sealed unless the dreamer allows their use.
If you die here, your real body may not wake up since you enter the world fully.
Only one can solve each dream. But others may watch—and learn.
The dream chooses who enters. Not you.
Doctor Amadeus, the Imam, Farabius, Zelanius, Seregrin, and several new faces other members of the Guild entered the Dream World. The Dream World was not flat. It didn't stretch like a field, nor rise like a city. It spiraled. It spiraled upward, downward, inward—all at once. To the naked eye, it resembled a tower that's been wrapped in imagination, impossible geometry, and pastel memories. It twisted and reformed as you climb, never quite letting you understand its structure. But unlike a normal dream, the Dream World is whimsical, colorful, almost inviting. The walls shimmered like bubble film, rippling with color even when you don't move. The sky—if it can be called that—is an endless velvet ocean, full of pillow-shaped clouds, floating golden sheep, and drifting neon moons that wink when you stare at them too long.
Sometimes, the ground sings when you walk on it. Sometimes, it tells jokes. Occasionally, it forgets you exist, and you fall into a memory not your own. Imagine climbing a tower, each floor a new version of someone's subconscious: One level might be a candy-colored school made of toys, lockers filled with spiral staircases, and students with cardboard smiles. The next is an underwater opera house where you breathe in applause instead of air. Another is just an endless hallway made of doors—all of them leading to moments you never lived, but remember fondly.
Despite the silliness, despite the whimsy—there's something wrong. Something you can't name. It's not horror. Not really. It's you wanting to perceive reality where you only see an abstract world of forms. Just… the awareness that nothing here follows rules. That even joy might bite. That laughter here echoes too long. NPCs—if they can be called that—are dreamfolk shaped like symbols: walking exclamation marks, clouds with umbrellas for legs, beds that talk like radio hosts, and butterflies that scream at midnight. They're friendly. Until they're not. Time never passes normally in the Dream World. You might spend five minutes in a dream village made of waffles and wake up crying, aged a year older in your soul. Or you might spend an eternity in a maze of color and forget you ever had a body at all.
Like the Dream World in Dream Team, there are rules… but they're more like suggestions. Every dreamer can bend the world slightly—platforms appear beneath their feet, and certain areas will conform to the dreamer's personality. That's why when Hermes walks through it, entire sections shift into tranquil libraries or windswept courtyards that echo with forgotten lullabies. When Lupus enters, the colors go monochrome and the wind whispers in war-hymns. But occasionally, the Dream World resists. It reminds you that you're just a visitor.
And it dreams back. Sometimes, floating in the far horizon, you can glimpse the Dream Tower's spire. It looks like a carousel merged with a cathedral, spinning slowly in a nebula sky. That's where the highest trials are held. They say no one reaches the top.
Because if you do in theory, you wake up. But… whose dream was it? But what could be a top in a world so abstract, boundless and surreal?
The Imam looked around: "So this is the Dream World. Honestly it's quite inviting." Farabius replied: "Yeah but don't get too uncomfortable. Like Ranker Yang has said, we're in unfamiliar territory."