It began with silence.
No ambulances. No street chatter. No engine noise.
Just a perfect, eerie quiet in Busan's Bokcheon district.
The reports were vague: "A peaceful community." "Unusual stillness." "People sleeping better than ever."
But when a journalist walked in and never walked back out, Ji-Hyuk knew what it was.
Collective Dream Seeding.
A Fold technique once used to pacify Berafean resistance.
Now, it was growing in Earth's soil.
The moment Ji-Hyuk crossed the bridge into the neighborhood, he felt it.
Pressure.
Not physical — psychic.
It pressed behind his eyes. Whispered faintly in the back of his mind.
"Why keep fighting?There is peace here."
He resisted the pull, anchoring himself with a memory: the smell of Isha's blood. The screams in the crater. The moment he chose to keep living.
The whispers faded.
Maeryn emerged beside him, visibly flickering. Her connection to this plane strained.
"Something's wrong," she said. "I can't stabilize. It's leaking into me."
Ji-Hyuk drew his blade.
"Then stay close."
They passed homes with lights still on.
TVs still playing.
Families visible through windows — unmoving. Some with food frozen mid-fork. Some curled in beds. All of them breathing… but asleep.
And smiling.
Ji-Hyuk stepped to a window and tapped.
Nothing.
No reaction.
Then, a ripple in the air.
And the world shifted.
The street bent inward.
Houses folded upward like paper peeling into the sky.
Maeryn shouted — but her voice sounded underwater.
Ji-Hyuk grabbed her, drove his blade into the pavement, and carved the Wake Glyph.
The world shuddered.
Cracked.
And tore in half.
They fell into the Dream.
Not unconscious.
Not paralyzed.
Trapped.
Because the Fold hadn't just seeded individual dreams — it had created a shared landscape.
A city made of memories.
A network of sleeping minds.
And in the center…
A massive tower of bone and silk.
The Fold Spindle.
Ji-Hyuk landed hard.
Everything looked familiar, but wrong.
Street signs labeled with names from Berafe.
Shops displaying moments from his past.
A bakery where Karun once bought bread.
A school where he never studied.
The Fold had stitched this world from him.
"You dream too vividly," Maeryn said beside him. "They've used your own life to trap you."
He looked toward the tower.
"Then I'll burn it all down."
They moved fast.
The deeper they went, the more joined the minds became.
People walked these streets.
Shadows of their real selves — laughing, waving, content.
Ji-Hyuk could feel the link — hundreds of minds threaded together like a quilt of consciousness.
And at the base of the tower: the Core Host.
A woman.
Middle-aged. Kind face. Wore a teacher's cardigan.
She looked up at Ji-Hyuk as if he were a guest in her home.
"Are you here to rest too?"
He didn't answer.
"Don't worry," she said gently. "We've all given up. It's so easy, once you let go."
Maeryn's fingers twitched with flame.
Ji-Hyuk stepped forward.
"You're not the enemy," he said.
"But I'm the door," she replied.
Then she raised her hand.
And the dreamscape fought back.
Buildings grew teeth.
Streets curled and snapped like whips.
Dreamers screamed — not in fear, but in protection.
Ji-Hyuk carved the Flame Glyph into the sky, and the world ignited.
The tower trembled.
The Host screamed — not from pain, but from waking.
Ji-Hyuk reached her.
Laid a hand on her temple.
And whispered:
"You don't have to be strong.You just have to be real."
The illusion shattered.
The block awoke.
People collapsed to their knees — sobbing, gasping, alive.
Maeryn held Ji-Hyuk steady as the world unraveled around them.
"You did it," she said.
But Ji-Hyuk's eyes were dark.
"No," he muttered. "I saw the tower's shape. This was just a seed."
He looked to the south.
"Something much bigger is coming next."
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