Jude braced for impact. He couldn’t do anything else except bring his two forearms up to block the attack.
Suddenly, the high-pitched shrieking noise of winds screamed around his ear. Gusts of black winds blew at the Nightmare Phantom and pushed it back a few meters.
Jude turned behind him to see Caterina floating above a black vortex.
The Black Witch nodded. She landed next to Jude.
"So this is how he looks like now. So much pain..."
Tears welled up in Caterina’s eyes. It broke her heart to see the child she had raised become a grotesque creature of nightmare.
"We must release him, Jude." Caterina said.
Jude nodded his head. "I know. But how are we going to do it? The white witch didn’t say anything."
"That is what I find weird about it. Where is he? He entered at the same time as us. Siderius should be here already. Can he..."
Jude understood what Caterina was hinting at. Betrayal. They put a lot of trust in Siderius because they wanted to save their son. But in reality, they had let their guard down, their real bodies were out there, easy to be harmed and they couldn’t do anything about it.
The Baron shook his head. "If it was anyone else, I might be suspicious. But the white witch? He is an honorable fool."
"Honorable, huh? We haven’t seen one like that for a long time."
The Nightmare Phantom screeched. A black shockwave reached out from its mouth. The color and appearance of the shockwave were suspiciously similar to Caterina’s magical wind.
"That is... your magic." Jude mumbled.
"Not exactly. It was something else."
Suddenly, the ground stretched wider. The sky lost its sunlight and the bright blue color. Grey spread across the land of the dreamer.
The courtyard of the Baron’s estate had turned into a graveyard with black ground and an endless amount of white gravestone.
Rotten hands emerged from the graves.
"Necromancy?" Caterina said but then shook her head. "What am I even talking about? This isn’t real. Everything is an illusion."
"But the phantom can still make up things. A graveyard is a little bit too fitting, don’t you think." Jude grabbed his poleaxe, ready to fight.
Caterina stared at him. "Why don’t you use magic?"
"You know why already. I can’t use my magic."
"This is a dream, you idiot."
Jude closed his eyes for a few seconds. When he opened them again, he changed. The thick skin and fat had transformed into layers of rock scale. A pair of bat wing burst out behind Jude’s back. A thick lizard tail appeared behind. His eyes turned yellow with a black vertical slit in the middle.
"Power... It has been awhile since I felt magic." Jude clenched his fist, admiring the strength that he had abandoned for many years.
Outside the real world, his dormant mana core suddenly pulsed. The quiet pool of water began to shudder. A storm was brewing inside Jude’s mind without his knowledge.
Inside the dream world, the corpses climbed out of their graves and rushed at Jude and Caterina. The Baron smacked every corpse with his rock-hard fists. They didn’t last long and turned into meshes of decomposing flesh and blood within a few strikes.
"These ’minions’ are harmless. They can’t hurt us." The Baron laughed out loud.
Caterina nodded in silence. She hurled a gust to sweep all the corpses to fall down on the ground. Then Jude came in and stomped them to death.
They had fought alongside each other for uncountable times in their youth. Now that they reunited, their habit returned like they were never gone.
They relished in the battle and lost in it.
It was as if the pair was still young and reliving their past.
All of the assassins were killed. The young Jude stomped on a dying assassin. His last scream filled the air of the woods.
"Pathetic. You should have known better." Jude spit at the bloody assassin.
Caterina gently landed on the ground. Her bare smooth feet touched the dirt. She wore a high-cut dress that showed most of her legs and a deep collar that exhibited her figure well.
Jude looked at her and opened his arms. "My love... You did so well."
"And you are incredible, my love."
Caterina fell into Jude’s arms and hugged him tightly. Her soft scent enveloped the manly Jude.
They had fallen into another dream. A dream inside a dream.
In the first layer of the dream, Jude and Caterina laid on the ground of the courtyard. A shiny strand came out of their forehead and led into the bladed hand of the Nightmare Phantom.
It had taken control of them while Siderius was busy dealing with the traitor. A small snickering laugh exuded from the Nightmare Phantom. Its entire body trembled with each laugh.
Suddenly, it snapped its head to another direction.
A crack appeared in the air. Then giant silver fingers broke through the crack. A portal had appeared.
On the other side was a dark endless space.
Siderius jumped through the portal and landed on the courtyard. His giant silver soul retreated its hands. The portal closed itself up.
"Hmmm? Already lost?" Siderius smirked.
The Nightmare Phantom saw him and immediately constricted its body. It still remembered who killed it last time.
The Phantom shrieked again. The dark shockwave spread again. The energy that had taken hold of Jude and Caterina.
"My spirit is not weak like those witches, phantom."
Siderius unsheathed his True Steel Sword.
Different from Jude and Caterina, when he first entered the dream world, Siderius found himself in the dark mind space. He had entered his Mind Palace first to take the armor and True Steel Sword with him.
Siderius disappeared from his location, leaving a giant hole on the ground.
The vengeful hunter slammed the sword in the middle of its forehead, killing it in a blink of an eye.
The phantom disappeared into a dark cloud of smoke. The leashes it had on Jude and Caterina disappeared, freeing them from the phantom’s grasp.
The Nightmare Phantom hadn’t died yet because the anchor was still connecting with it.
But soon, Siderius would sever this connection and destroy the specter. New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝⚫𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖⚫𝕟𝕖𝕥
Jude and Caterina woke up on the courtyard again.
The Black Witch had seen Siderius in the dream world before so she wasn’t surprised.
But Jude really was caught off guard by the sight.