Purgatory stretched endlessly beneath a sky of ash and fire.
The world was nothing but darkness, scorched stone, and rivers of crimson flame.
And in the middle of that hell—
Annie stood in white.
Her gown shimmered like moonlight amidst ruin, pure and untouchable, the only trace of beauty in this land of despair.
Yet that beauty was held hostage by a monster.
Freddy stood behind her, one clawed hand resting against her throat, his burned face twisted into a grotesque grin.
"It's him…"
Megan's voice trembled.
She would never forget that face.
The charred flesh.
The exposed grin.
The sunken, hateful eyes.
The moment she saw him, her entire body froze in terror.
The others behind Lucien weren't any better.
Even from a distance, Freddy's presence felt suffocating.
The nightmare itself seemed to breathe with him.
But Lucien only frowned.
Too weak.
Yes, Freddy was stronger than the spirits he had faced before.
Far stronger than Mary Shaw.
But this…
This was not enough to be called the King of Nightmares.
That strange sense of wrongness returned again.
Something about Freddy still felt incomplete.
Still, this was not the time to dwell on it.
Freddy chuckled.
"Well, well… our brave knight arrived faster than expected."
His steel claws gleamed under the infernal firelight.
"It seems you were quite eager to rescue the princess."
His gaze shifted toward Megan and the others.
"So many lovely women around you… are you sure you only want one?"
Lucien's eyes turned cold.
"Come out on your own," he said flatly, "or I'll drag you out."
Freddy laughed.
A low, grating sound like metal scraping bone.
Then, without warning, his claw slowly slid across Annie's pale cheek.
Everyone behind Lucien turned pale.
They all remembered the talismans.
They had protected them.
Yet Annie seemed completely helpless in Freddy's grasp.
At any moment—
her throat could be slit open.
But suddenly—
Freddy's smile froze.
His eyes widened.
His arm dropped.
Or rather—
what remained of it.
His hand had been severed cleanly at the wrist.
The clawed glove clattered against the ground.
For a moment, even Freddy looked stunned.
Lucien lowered his hand.
Invisible wind currents swirled around his fingers.
A silent blade.
Sharp enough to sever flesh without anyone seeing the strike.
The dream itself trembled.
Inside Lucien's mind, power surged.
His understanding deepened.
His control sharpened.
He could feel it.
Every breath.
Every ripple.
Every unstable fragment of this dream world.
He no longer merely existed inside the nightmare.
He was beginning to control it.
Freddy's severed hand suddenly shot toward Lucien like a bullet.
Lucien didn't even move.
The hand struck an invisible air barrier—
and was instantly shredded into pieces.
Freddy looked down.
The flesh at his wrist twisted.
Bone grew.
Muscle stretched.
Skin sealed.
In an instant, his arm regenerated.
Then he laughed.
A mad, furious laugh.
"You want to compete with me in the dream world?"
His claws slashed downward.
The iron bars around Annie exploded upward, launching toward Lucien at impossible speed.
The others gasped.
But just before impact—
the bars stopped.
Suspended in midair.
Lucien raised two fingers.
The steel twisted.
Bent.
Then shot backward.
Freddy tilted his head as the bars narrowly missed him.
The ground beneath them suddenly split apart.
Faces emerged from the earth.
Men.
Women.
Children.
All screaming.
Countless dead souls cried out in agony, their wails forming visible shockwaves.
The sound alone was enough to make Megan nearly collapse.
Lucien waved his hand.
The shockwaves shattered.
The screaming faces dissolved into mist.
Freddy's expression darkened.
The ground beneath everyone suddenly vanished.
A black abyss opened.
People screamed as their feet slipped.
But Lucien moved first.
His will descended upon the dream.
Everyone was lifted into the air by invisible force.
They floated behind him, suspended like stars around a moon.
And Lucien himself slowly rose.
Freddy finally snarled.
The dream world exploded.
Flames consumed the horizon.
Hell returned.
Stone pillars thicker than ancient trees erupted from below, thrusting upward in every direction.
A death trap.
Lucien narrowed his eyes.
The wind around him surged.
Thousands of invisible blades tore outward.
The pillars were sliced apart before they could even reach him.
Stone turned to dust.
From the abyss, a monstrous black serpent emerged.
Its body stretched across the sky.
Its crimson eyes burned with bloodlust.
Venomous mist poured from its jaws as it lunged toward the floating crowd.
Then—
the earth shook.
A giant rose.
A colossal stone titan, hundreds of meters tall, emerged from the ground.
Its body was made of rock and storm.
With one hand, it caught the serpent's jaws.
With the other—
it ripped the creature in half.
The sky itself seemed to scream.
Power flooded Lucien.
Not little by little.
But in a torrent.
His dream control had crossed the threshold.
No longer skill.
No longer technique.
This was authority.
The boundary between dream and reality began to blur.
Lucien's aura rose.
The others behind him could barely breathe.
Freddy stared.
For the first time—
fear appeared in his eyes.
Lucien took one step forward.
The world changed.
Hell vanished.
The flames disappeared.
The sky became deep blue.
Beneath everyone's feet spread an endless sea, calm as polished glass.
A full moon rose behind Lucien.
Its silver light bathed the world.
Blue lotuses bloomed upon the water with every step he took.
The scene was so beautiful that everyone stood speechless.
It no longer felt like a nightmare.
It felt divine.
Lucien stood beneath the moon like a celestial sovereign descended from the heavens.
Untouchable.
Unreachable.
Freddy stumbled backward.
"No… impossible…"
The lotus petals began to scatter.
Each petal transformed into a sword.
Then another.
And another.
Ten.
A hundred.
A thousand.
Ten thousand swords filled the sky.
Their hum merged into a terrifying resonance.
The entire dream world trembled beneath their sword intent.
Freddy's hellscape shrank.
What had once covered the entire world was now reduced to less than a meter around him.
Completely suppressed.
Lucien looked at him with calm indifference.
"You thought only you could shape dreams?"
His voice echoed like law itself.
"In here…"
"I am the world."
The swords trembled.
Then descended.
Before they even touched Freddy—
the sword intent alone shattered him.
His body cracked.
His screams were cut off.
The burned flesh dissolved into black ash.
"No—!"
He never finished.
The nightmare king was annihilated.
Completely.
Silence fell.
Only moonlight remained.
And Lucien stood at the center of it all like the ruler of dreams.