Victor's muscles ached, his mind buzzed with remnants of psychic fatigue, but he was free. Truly free.

He straightened, brushing off his half clad uniform. "I'm back? That was trippy... Who knew that a statue could cause this much problem," he muttered.

A sharp cracking sound echoed behind him.

Victor turned and his eyes widened as the massive statue began to splinter. Cracks of light raced through its surface before it exploded outward in a burst of dust. The sheer pressure from the blast made the air ripple violently, tearing through the clearing.

The one who inhabited the statue was gone so it made sense for the statue to get obliterated.

A crazed look suddenly flashed in Victor's eyes as he turned around.

"One down... many more to go..."

...

...

Minutes later, Victor stood amidst a wasteland of petrified figures, with eerie stone faces staring into eternity.

Each one bore distorted expressions and looked similar to the statue he destroyed not too long ago.

He unsheathed his legacy which tinged strangely, reacting to his unspoken rage.

"Never again," Victor muttered under his breath. "Not a single one of you freaks is coming back."

The last traces of the Dreamscape still clung to his mind like cobwebs. The sensation of hands pulling at his spirit, the grotesque laughter of things that should not exist.

The Dreamweaver had toyed with him, tried to consume him, and now he would make sure none of them ever got to step foot on this new world.

He drew a deep breath and launched forward with qi bursting from beneath his feet. The ground cracked.

With one clean motion, his sword tore through the nearest statue.

Crack!

The sculpture split in half causing the fragments to crash into the soil. A faint wail seemed to echo from within as though the trapped Dreamweaver's spirit was torn apart. Victor didn't stop.

He swung again and again, sending shockwaves through the barren terrain with each arc.

Dust and shards filled the air like storm snow.

By the time he reached the next cluster of statues, he raised his sword again.

"Let's see you dream your way out of this."

He swung his blade in a crescent slash, and a ripple of space followed the attack, tearing apart an entire row of Dreamweaver effigies at once.

The air shimmered, and fragments scattered like starlight. Some of the statues' surfaces bled a faint black ichor before disintegrating completely which was proof that souls were trapped within.

Victor moved like a storm across the surroundings.

He wasn't fighting, he was purging.

Each statue he destroyed carried the faint psychic scream of a Dreamweaver being erased from existence. The sound might have haunted anyone else. But to Victor, it was a requiem for the abomination that had tried to take over his mind.

Minutes turned to hours.

His half torn uniform was coated with grey dust, and his sword glowed faintly as he continously swung it around, expending large swathes of qi.

However, even in exhaustion, his movements remained fluid and powerful.

Every strike was a declaration of dominance over the nightmare that had almost consumed him.

"Eight thousand... nine thousand…" Victor breathed heavily, wiping sweat from his brow. His spiritual sense reached outward again, scanning the terrain.

There were still faint traces of statue scattered across the region, each one marking another imprisoned Dreamweaver.

Without hesitation, he followed the trail, without faltering despite the ache gnawing at his muscles.

He cleaved a final statue in two, sending a faint blue arc across the terrain that lingered in the air for a moment before fading.

And then, there was silence.

The spiritual pressure around him lifted. It was as though the entire world exhaled in relief.

Victor sheathed his sword behind his back and exhaled deeply. His qi reserves were dangerously low.

Not only had he just expended a good amount of qi, locating every statue in this unknown wild, he had also activated the Void Emperor's Bloodline when he was trapped in the Dreamweaver's dreamscape.

The culmination of both actions, had brought his qi reserves to a dangerously low level.

"Damn it…" he muttered while dragging a hand across his face. "This is going to make it difficult to protect myself when I head westwards to that icy region."

He staggered slightly but steadied himself while his gaze turned toward the horizon... the direction where the icy plains lay.

The region he'd seen with his astral projection was still waiting, and something deep inside told him that was where the next clue to his journey lay.

But without qi, he'd be going in blind.

Still, hesitation wasn't in Victor's vocabulary.

He looked back at the countless fragments of stone littering the surrounding and felt a sense of grim satisfaction. "That's one less nightmare to deal with. You Dreamweavers messed with the wrong gamer."

He had just eradicated an entire species alone. Humanity would never even know the danger that had been buried beneath the world's surface.

As the dust settled, Victor began walking back toward the site where he and Commander Aiz had first been spat out by the space-time continuum. His footsteps echoed softly against the gooey earth, making continously splattering sounds.

When he arrived, the faint smell of rot, hit him. What remained of Aiz body was still there.

Partly eaten, partly disintegrated. Victor had only consumed a little piece back then but now it looked like more of the Drakenar's flesh was missing.

He crouched down beside what was left of the commander.

"You were a pain in the ass," he voiced quietly, "I would neved be trapped here if it wasn't for you. This is precisely the type of end you and your kind deserve. Trust me, if... when I get back... I will do everything I can to eradicate the Drakenars..."

Just when Victor was about to turn away, he noticed something at the disintegrated neck area of Commander Aiz.

The flesh around his neck area already had some holes and that was how he noticed a purplish thing embedded deep within.

"Hmm... what is that?" Victor tried to reach in with his fingers and accidentally widened the holes in Commander Aiz's neck more, causing the flesh to tear apart.

In a few moments, the tears spread till the entire head came off.

"Ughh gross..." Victor nearly barfed while drawing back.

He covered his nose and mouth instinctively.

However, his eyes narrowed in curiosity when what was embedded in the Drakenar's neck rolled down the rock and dropped onto the goo covered ground with a low splat.

"Hmm?" Victor crouched once more and grabbed it.

The item was a finger nail sized purple bead with an extremely smooth surface.

Victor caressed and inspected it with a curious gaze but couldn't tell what it was or why it was in the Drakenar's neck.

He suspected that it was probably magic related but since he was incapable of using any magic, he couldn't sense anything.

He decided to keep it away for now in his thigh pocket which was pretty much the only part of his academy uniform that was still intact.

Afterwards, Victor sat down cross-legged beside the corpse. He wasn't meditating to restore qi since he couldn't do that in the real world, he was simply resting.

His mind, however, refused to relax.

He glanced around. The terrain was quiet, but the faint spatial distortion around reminded him that this world wasn't done with him yet.

"Can't catch a break, can I?" he muttered while leaning gainst a shattered rock and looking up at the fractured sky.

"I've slept with my back against a statue around here before... but why didn't that happen? Why did it only happen when I was away from this specific area?" he wondered out loud.

But decided to throw it to the back of his mind.

Perhaps, this was just one of the inexplicable mysteries of this world.

His voice grew softer.

"...just another day trying not to die."

The wind carried the faint scent of iron and ash, rustling the remnants of shattered statues in the distance. Victor's eyelids grew heavy for a moment, but he forced himself to stay awake. The thought of falling asleep and being dragged into another dream made his skin crawl.

Although, he was sure that the Dreamweavers were gone for good, he was still traumatised.

"Alright…" he vouced while standing slowly and stretching his arms. "Break time's over."

His gaze shifted once more toward the western horizon... the icy expanse that awaited him. Somewhere out there, answers were waiting. Maybe another threat. Maybe a miracle.

Either way, he was ready to face it.

Victor tightened his grip on his sword and smirked faintly. "Let's see what's next on the list of things trying to kill me."

Then, without looking back, he began walking westward through the wasteland of broken statues.

Each step echoed like the closing chapter of a nightmare.

He had just ended the Dreamweaver race.

And in doing so, he unknowingly became the guardian of humanity's dreams.