Nicholas let out a long sigh, as though Jaune had disappointed him somehow, and pushed himself up from the couch. The holo-tablet dimmed on the coffee table, forgotten. His height wasn't exactly imposing—Jaune had nearly caught up to him in that regard. However, the way he moved and the deliberate weight in each step, made the air feel heavier.
"Truthfully, this wasn't exactly how I wanted you to find out," he said quietly, almost regretfully. He dusted his hands together like he was brushing off crumbs. "But since time is running out, I suppose this is a good time as any. Well... we might as well have the conversation now. Don't you think?"
The words hit Jaune like a physical blow. His stomach lurched, knees nearly buckling. He staggered back a step, clutching the banister for support. His father's calm tone only made the storm inside Jaune roar louder.
"What… what are you talking about?" Jaune's voice cracked with panic, then hardened with sudden force. "What do you mean you planted the Amalgamations? Dad, what the hell are you saying!?"
Nicholas tilted his head, studying him. His expression wasn't cruel or apologetic. It was… confused. Almost disappointed. "You really don't know, do you? You never realized?"
"Know—know what?"
His father's lips curled into a bemused smirk, like the punchline of a joke Jaune should've gotten hours ago. "I thought you would've pieced it together by now. But I suppose you've always been a little slow in the head. Must be my side of the genes. Your mother, was always the smart one."
The insult landed hot. Jaune's chest flared with anger—at the mockery, at the nonchalance, at the insanity of what he was hearing. His father, his dad, the man who taught him how to ride a bike, how to make an omelet, who'd patched up his knee when he fell—this man was standing in front of him talking about planting monsters like it was nothing.
His mouth opened, fury bubbling up, ready to lash out. But he never got the chance.
In an instant, Nicholas was gone.
There was no blur of motion or displaced air, not even the whisper of a footstep. One second he was there, standing in front of the couch. The next, Jaune's senses screamed, behind you.
Jaune whipped around, his body already moving on trained instinct. But he was too slow. Far, far too slow.
An iron clamp seized his neck. Fingers dug into his skin with casual cruelty, as though testing the fragility of glass. His breath cut off, choked in his throat.
Jaune's eyes widened.
Because this wasn't supposed to happen.
Once upon a time, Jaune had been practically blind to the speed of Awakened. He'd struggled to follow the movements of even fresh Rank 1s, stumbling like a child as Pyrrha or Blake danced around him in sparring matches. But not anymore. He'd trained and he'd pushed his body over and over, night after night. He'd fought against Ren's precision, Nora's raw power and even Ruby's bursts of speed. His eyes had adapted, sharpening until he could track movements that once seemed instantaneous.
And yet…
His father hadn't just been fast. He'd disappeared.
Not a flicker, or even a trace for Jaune's eyes to follow.
The realization hit like ice water down his spine.
His father was Awakened.
Not just an Awakened—a Rank 2.
Jaune's entire body trembled against the grip at his throat. He tried to twist free, to raise an arm, to do something, but it was like he was clamped in a vice. Every muscle, every tendon screamed with futile effort. His father's single hand immobilized him completely.
He could feel the pressure tightening, not enough to crush, but enough to remind him just how easy it would be. How little effort it would take.
For the first time in his life, Jaune felt fear—fear of his father.
Nicholas leaned close, his breath warm against Jaune's ear. "There it is. The look I was waiting for. Fear suits you, Jaune. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."
Jaune's heart thundered in his chest, each beat pounding like a war drum. His mind screamed to fight, screamed to move, screamed do anything, but his body betrayed him.
"You… you're…" Jaune rasped, the words strangled by the grip.
Nicholas chuckled. "Awakened? Yes. Rank 2? Correct again." His hand squeezed slightly, just enough to make Jaune's vision pulse red at the edges. "But more than that. Much more."
Jaune's pulse hammered in his ears. Images of the Amalgamations downtown flickered in his head. People screaming, streets collapsing, smoke and fire swallowing Vale. And his father's voice—I was the one who planted them.
"No…" Jaune whispered, eyes burning. His lungs fought for air. "You… you can't…"
"Oh, but I can." Nicholas's grin widened, cruel and tinged with a hint of mania, his voice swelling with the weight of revelation. "You've been clinging to a child's dream, Jaune—believing in the idea of heroes and saviors who stand eternal against the monsters of the abyss. But those are all lies. The truth... is that you know nothing. Nothing about the Dream Realm and nothing about the nature of the endless war between LUCID and the Grimm. You stand in ignorance, blind to the truth that shapes this world."
Nicholas's grip shifted, forcing Jaune's head until their eyes locked. "This world holds a great secret," he murmured, voice heavy with promise. "And today, I will share it with you. Unfortunately for you, you do not have luxury to refuse."
Jaune's vision swam. He wanted to scream, to deny, to strike back—but his body betrayed him. The crushing hand at his throat left him suspended, helpless, swallowed by his father's shadow.
And then—
The Sleeper Beyond the Grave,
Matron of Slumbering Nightmares,
The Horror who Denies the Sun.
The words rolled out of his father's mouth, each syllable heavy and thick, reverberating like peals of thunder against his bones and blood. The walls seemed to shudder with the sound, though no quake struck them, the ceiling light flickered though no storm raged outside.
And with those words—somethingturned its gaze.
Jaune felt it first, like a pressure against his skull, invisible claws dragging across the surface of his mind. His stomach lurched violently, bile rising as if his body rejected the very concept of what touched him. His skin crawled, his veins burned cold.
It was the same. The same thing he had felt when Mocha had yawped the chant in the Occult Research Society's clubroom. That same vast suffocating weight, older than history, older than time and deeper than the grave. A presence so immense that merely being brushed by its attention threatened to hollow him out entirely.
His father also seemed to freeze, just for a heartbeat. Jaune thought it was fear—until he looked closer.
Nicholas's gaze was calm, steady in a way that made the hairs on Jaune's neck rise. Yet beneath that stillness lingered something else. A glimmer of reverence and a shadow of madness. The grin remained, but its mocking edge had dulled, softened into something far more unsettling—like a man gazing upon a god he both feared and adored.
Jaune's heart stopped.
'No!' he screamed in his mind, strangled through the crushing grip on his neck. His vision blurred with panic and disbelief. His father wasn't just insane. He was kneeling—metaphorically, if not physically—to that.
And the worst part was that the presence noticed him, too.
Jaune's thoughts shattered into a thousand fragments as its awareness pressed against him. His fear wasn't just fear anymore—it was cosmic dread, marrow-deep terror that made his soul recoil. The very same sensation that had left him helpless after Mocha's ritual, when he'd sworn never to feel it again.
The living room dissolved.
The couch, the holo-tablet, the lamp in the corner—gone in an instant. Replaced by a smear of darkness, the familiar blurring sensation that came with Dream transitions. Jaune's stomach dropped.
His father hadn't just restrained him. He was dragging him.
Dragging him into the Dream. Somehow. With help from that creature.
The edges of Jaune's sight collapsed inward, tunneling to black. His last glimpse was of his father's face—still bowed slightly, still glowing faintly, still wearing that expression of awe meant not for Jaune, but for the unfathomable thing watching from beyond.
And then Jaune knew no more.
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He jolted awake with a gasp, lungs heaving like he'd been held underwater. His hands scrambled against rough shingles, palms scraping as he caught himself before rolling clean off the roof. He blinked hard, chest rising and falling, until his senses caught up to him.
The rooftop beneath him.
The neighborhood.
His neighborhood.
For a heartbeat, he couldn't breathe—not because of fear, but because of familiarity. It had been a long time since he'd seen it here, in the Dream.
The rows of suburban houses were the same but not. Their walls were worn and cracked, shutters missing, windows half-collapsed and dark. Streetlamps leaned like broken matchsticks. Rusted-out cars sat on the curb, skeletal frames eaten hollow by time. A silent wind carried grit and dust across the pavement, but not a single living sound stirred.
And above it all, bathing the street in its crimson glow—
The Broken Blood Moon.
This shouldn't have been possible. His dream self should have been keyed to the LUCID base in beacon.
How was he here?
Jaune swallowed, throat dry as paper. His stomach twisted, unease growing deeper by the second. He pushed himself upright, brushing dirt from his hoodie, and looked across the rooftops.
And there he was.
Nicholas Arc.
Sitting like nothing in the world was wrong, his back resting against a slant of shingles, his feet dangling casually over the edge. His arms were relaxed across his knees, but his eyes…
His eyes were locked on the Blood Moon. Wide open, glowing faintly as though reflecting the scarlet fracture in the sky, distant—lost in thought.
Jaune's heart lurched into his throat. Instinct drove him backwards with a desperate jump, shoes skidding on the rough surface. He crouched low, fists clenched, eyes never leaving his father.
And in that moment, Jaune felt it again—his body. The strange, heightened vitality of his Dream self. His limbs felt lighter, muscles stronger, reflexes sharpened. His stats. His Dream stats.
A part of him almost sagged in relief. He had access to them here. He wasn't helpless like he had been in the living room.
But the relief was hollow, bitter. Because what good did it mean? What did it matter when the thing sitting across from him—his father—was this?
He didn't even know how powerful "Rank 2" was in its full scope. All he knew were archives that discussed their capabilities. He also knew that none of his friends... none of them had ever radiated the sheer impossibility Nicholas had demonstrated in the waking world.
And here, in this ruined echo of his home, Jaune felt smaller than he had in a while.
His teeth ground together, jaw tight, and he forced his eyes to harden.
"That crazy entity is gone," he muttered under his breath.
The memory of that suffocating gaze—of something vast and endless brushing across him—still lingered like ice in his veins. His body trembled once, a shudder he couldn't stop. For a second, the panic rose, clawing back into his throat.
But his father didn't even glance at him. He simply patted the shingles at his side, the casual motion almost fatherly.
As though Jaune hadn't just been dragged into hell by his own blood.
The sheer audacity of it snapped something inside him.
"You're insane!" Jaune shouted, voice cracking under fury. "What the fuck is wrong with you!? What the hell is happening!?"
The words echoed across the dead street, vanishing into silence. Jaune's chest heaved, his throat raw from the outburst.
His father finally turned his head.
And that was when Jaune felt it.
A different kind of pressure.
Not the suffocating weight of that unknowable entity's presence. This was something else, something closer and much more direct. It poured out from his father like a tide, thick and sludge-like, washing over Jaune's body.
His muscles locked.
The rooftop under him suddenly felt like it weighed twice as much. Three times. Ten times. His limbs trembled, straining just to stay upright. His knees buckled, bones creaking under the invisible force. Every breath came shallow and short.
Jaune's eyes widened in horror. His instincts screamed it at him, clear as day.
Aura.
This was the manifestation of his father's aura stat.
The sheer density of it pressed down on him like gravity itself had multiplied tenfold, trying to grind him into the roof.
How... was this possible?
"This," his father said softly, his voice carrying like steel dragged across stone, "is me asking politely. I won't ask again."
And just like that, the pressure lifted.
Jaune collapsed forward onto his hands, sweat dripping onto the shingles. His arms shook, refusing to steady. His entire body burned with the memory of that force.
He gritted his teeth. Slowly, painfully, he forced himself upright again. His body wanted to run, to lash out, to spit in his father's face. But his mind—his instincts—knew it would mean nothing.
So, with bile and fury burning in his throat, Jaune moved. Each step scraped like chains around his ankles, but he crossed the roof. He lowered himself stiffly beside his father, hands still clenched into white-knuckled fists.
He could hardly believe the man next to him was his dad. He was so different. So… malevolent.
So mad.
Nicholas chuckled quietly, eyes never leaving the fractured moon. "That's better."
Jaune swallowed the acid in his mouth. His voice was ragged, trembling, but he spat the words anyway. "Why? Why are you doing this? What's wrong with you?"
Nicholas tilted his head, just slightly. His grin returned, faint, almost wistful. "You must have so many questions. And you will get your answers." He finally glanced at Jaune, and the faint light in his eyes flickered like coals. "But first, you need to understand. We can't start from the middle, Jaune. You'd drown. No… to make sense of this, we must begin at the beginning."
Jaune bit the inside of his cheek, glaring hard enough to burn holes. His heart pounded with fear, with anger, with raw, gnawing confusion.
But under it all, something new twisted inside him.
Curiosity.
As much as he hated it—hated himself for it—he wanted to know.
And his father saw it.
Of course he saw it.
He chuckled, deep and low, and nodded like a teacher acknowledging a student's unspoken admission.
"Good," his father exclaimed softly. "That look in your eyes… I'll take that over fear any day. Curiosity will also serve you well. Don't let anyone else, tell you otherwise."
Nicholas's gaze rose to the shattered sky, the blood-red light washing his face in holy shadow. His voice deepened, every word carrying the weight of a sermon.
"Listen well son, for what I'm about to impart upon you is not a tale written in books. It is older than LUCID, older than the Grimm and older than all of history itself."
His face took on a look of grim reverence twined together.
"We begin," he intoned, each syllable heavy as a tolling bell, "with the birth of the Dream… and the entity that bound a god into eternal slumber."
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AN: Advanced chapters are available on patreon.