"Who..." I barely uttered a word when, in a flash, I saw a short, youthful boy with determined eyes, long hair tied back under a headscarf, gripping a curved blade. He darted past me—two swift, slicing sounds—and I watched as Howard Zhang and Rachel Lan’s heads were lopped off, thudding to the ground.
I screamed in terror. The boy’s blade flashed again, hacking Howard Zhang and Rachel Lan into several bloody pieces.
"You..." My mind snapped back to clarity. I watched as Howard Zhang and Rachel Lan morphed into gray Dream Wraiths—like clumps of mud—splattering apart and evaporating before my eyes.
The zombie clutching my neck vanished as well.
The boy stood before me, glaring with contempt.
"You look tough in the real world, but you’re just useless here. You couldn’t even handle such a low-level Dream Wraith. Pathetic."
The boy spat on the ground without hesitation. Rage and shame boiled inside me—being lectured by a kid who looked barely twelve, and in such a contemptuous way. I could hardly contain my anger.
"What are you staring at? Hmph. Remember this: in this dream realm, there’s one iron rule—trust no one. Not even your parents or your wife. The moment you get attached, the Dream Wraiths devour you, and you become one of them."
That matched Hugh Thompson’s theory almost perfectly. I sighed helplessly and said:
"Are you Dream Dwellers?"
"Did that dream tell you?" the boy shot back. I thought about it—it was the seductive Vivian Ouyang, but she was at least connected to the Dream Sovereign. I nodded.
"Listen well. We are Dreamborn."
So they’re Dream Dwellers, right? I muttered inwardly. What’s the difference?
"The difference is, I was born in the dream. Only outsiders who manage to control the dream and join us can be called Dream Dwellers. Got it?"
My jaw nearly dropped. Born in a dream? You can have kids in dreams? They can grow up here?
Then I watched the boy squat down, pull out a bag of unknown material, untie its brown cord, and those Dream Wraiths still evaporating in the air were sucked inside.
"What are you doing?"
"Taking the prey back."
I stared at the boy in shock. After a moment, his bag bulged, swelling larger and larger. He slung it over his shoulder, staggering under its weight.
"Is it heavy?"