[You are dreaming the Nightmare of Lazarak.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have received the skill: Shadow Siezer.]

[You have received Primordial Shadow Essence.]

[You are alive.]

Damon felt a strange ache spread through what was left of him. Pain racked every fragment of his being heavy, dull, and endless. It wasn't just physical; it was the kind of agony that dug into the very essence of his soul.

The world around him felt different, alien. He tried instinctively to draw breath through lungs that no longer answered his will only to realize, with a creeping horror, that he couldn't breathe.

He froze. Then, a faint thought.

Well, that was no issue…

I must have gotten severe lung damage…

Even as he thought it, pain surged again raw, merciless. He couldn't move. His body or whatever was left of it felt foreign. Memories flickered like dying embers in his mind: the final battle, the chaos, the desperate faces of his allies. A single moment that was all it took for everything to be lost.

Everyone he had cared about… gone.

"It… hurts…"

His voice trembled. His heart throbbed with a pain deeper than wounds, a thousand invisible needles piercing straight through it.

Faces surfaced in his mind only to shatter and fade into darkness. All his friends, all the people he had fought beside, vanished into nothing.

He was back where he had started.

Alone. Once again.

"The powers of a god are absolute… I now see how small I am… how little my defiance matters…"

His heart filled with venomous bitterness.

"But so what… so what… god or man… it's all the same! I already knew I was going to lose anyway… this defeat means nothing, you bastard… I am… I…"

He couldn't even finish. The anger and grief caught in his throat, choking him, silencing his rage.

Damon tried to lift his hand to his face, but froze mid-motion.

Something was wrong.

He didn't have hands.

Not that they were cut off, they simply didn't exist.

"W…wher… Where am I?"

It was the first time he truly looked around. Darkness stretched endlessly, swallowing everything. In one direction, enormous chains extended into the void, their ends lost beyond sight. Smaller chains hung loosely nearby, reaching toward him like metallic serpents.

Except… they weren't tied to his body.

Or rather, he realized grimly, he didn't have a body.

"My… my body…"

He stared down at himself or what replaced him. His form was gone, replaced by a writhing mass of shadowy flame resting upon a wide stone altar. The very core of his being pulsed as a pitch-black heart of shadows, and circling above it was a faintly glowing crown, floating like a halo.

He knew that crown. It was his, the Pale Crown.

His body was gone. His heart remained. A heart of shadows, the totality of his existence.

"My… body's been destroyed…"

A faint, bitter chuckle escaped him.

"I really should have been dead… huh."

The only reason he still existed was his skill Deathless. His heart of shadows must have kept his consciousness intact. That, and his Shadow Reconstruction, the ability to recreate a body so long as his shadow-heart endured.

He cast his gaze around once more. The place was vast, an ancient mausoleum or temple carved of stone and darkness. Towering pillars stretched upward, their surfaces etched with unreadable sigils.

Weathered murals and cracked statues lined the walls, silent witnesses to something long forgotten.

But most of all, he felt it, a deep, oppressive magic saturating the air, connecting the chains to his shadow like bindings to a prisoner.

Still, something else unsettled him more than anything, the darkness. It wasn't just absence of light; it was a living void, one his perception couldn't pierce.

And from that void, at the farthest edge of the ceiling, hung a massive cocoon, woven like the nest of some monstrous insect, its interior pulsating faintly as if eager to give birth.

Damon's gaze hardened. He analyzed, assessed. He hated that his mind was calm, as if watching himself from afar. He realized the cause instantly.

His skill [Remorseless] had activated.

It dulled his pain, granting him a fleeting sense of relief but also robbed him of the warmth of grief.

Everyone is really gone… consumed by nightmares…

Time blurred. He didn't know how long he'd stayed like that. Seconds? Hours? Days? His thoughts looped endlessly as he relived every memory again and again.

If he still had eyes, he would have cried.

But he had no body to shed tears.

Damon had always been strong enough to pretend he was fine, even when he wasn't.

He'd always hidden his pain behind a calm mask. But at least, before, he could feel human.

Now, he wasn't sure what he was anymore.

Perhaps that was why he felt so mad.

He began whispering names, one after another, the people he had lost.

"Lilith, Sylvia, Xander, Leona, Waton, Wendy, Abellona…"

He repeated them endlessly. Hours, days, maybe weeks, the words became a mantra of mourning.

"Damn you. Damn you, Unknown… you'll pay for this… bastard…"

He alternated between fury and despair. Between curses and self-loathing.

"I'm such a fool… I should have seen this coming… this is all my fault… I deserve all the suffering I go through…"

The cycle continued — rage, guilt, resentment and self loathing.

But even he knew this couldn't go on.

He bit down or at least, felt like he did forcing himself to stop. He couldn't allow his mind to spiral into insanity. Yet, ironically, his Pale Crown made that impossible.

It prevented madness. It preserved his sanity.

And that, he realized, was the cruelest curse of all.

Insanity would have been mercy.

Sanity was eternal torment.

With effort, he turned his perception inward, opening his system panel. The notifications glimmered faintly in the darkness.

He had leveled up.

A new skill, Shadow Siezer was added to his skills.

And then, one more line that caught his eye one that sent a spark of hope through the emptiness.

[Primordial Shadow Essence]

Right. He hadn't lost everything.

"Matia," he whispered softly.

His companion, his shadow, had hidden in his shadow during the chaos. She had to be alive.

He reached into his own dark form, his senses brushing through the writhing flames of shadow. There faint, fragile, but present he felt her aura.

Matia was still here.

Still alive.

And that was enough to make his shadow-heart thrum violently with emotion.

He tried to summon her to pull her free but the chains around him rattled violently, tightening with a metallic scream. Pain surged through his entire being.

"Ahh—"

"What…"

He tried again, forcing against the restraints, but all he achieved was more agony.

"What are these things…" he groaned, irritation seeping into his tone.

He refused to yield. His shadow ignited in violent defiance, the Flames of Ashborn roaring from his form as the chains trembled under the pressure.

And then—

"Can you keep it down…" a voice spoke from the darkness.

Damon froze. The sound was soft, echoing almost casual. He spread his shadow perception outward instantly, but found nothing.

"Who… who said that… or… have I gone mad again…"

"Again? You've gone mad before? Sorry to hear that…" the voice replied dryly.

Damon's crown pulsed faintly above him. He couldn't be hallucinating, the crown suppressed madness. Though, could he really say he was wearing it when it just hovered over his disembodied heart?

"Who are you…"

The voice was silent for a long moment. Then, with a hint of amusement, it spoke again.

"Oh, me? My, where are my manners? I've been locked in here so long I forgot how to introduce myself…"

A pause followed, long enough to make Damon's shadow flicker uneasily.

"I am Lazarak."

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