Azazel stood at the edge of reality, where the air shimmered like a mirage. His lips curled into a grin. "Sleeping, are we?" he whispered, staring through a rippling vision of Metatron's home. "Perfect."
He stepped through the boundary like water — silent, unseen, unstoppable.
Inside Metatron's residence, the walls hummed faintly with celestial energy. Books of forbidden knowledge floated gently in the air, their pages glowing with golden scripture. A half-drunk cup of tea still steamed on the table. The faint sound of Metatron's heartbeat echoed in another plane, distant yet strong.
Azazel smirked. "He dreams… and dreams can be broken."
He extended his hand, letting black mist drip from his fingers — tendrils of corruption that crawled across the marble floor like living snakes. They slithered into the air vents, under doors, into the pulse of the house itself. Every particle in the room began to hum darker.
"Your sanctuary, your holy fortress…" Azazel murmured, looking around. "Now my playground."
He walked slowly, savoring the moment. His claws brushed across a table, leaving trails of decay. The floorboards trembled as if the house itself feared him.
Azazel stopped before a glowing sphere floating in the center of the chamber — the Dream Core. A bridge between Metatron's mind and the physical world. It shimmered, showing flashes of Metatron thrashing inside his nightmare. Hypnos had him. Perfect.
Azazel chuckled. "You really shouldn't have trusted your own rest, celestial."
He raised a hand — a thousand demonic runes spiraled across his arm — and pressed his claw against the Dream Core.
"Show me."
The world bled into static.
–––
Inside the Realm of Dreams, Metatron was running.
Running through a forest made of mirrors that screamed his name. Each reflection twisted into monsters, whispering, "You are powerless here."
He tried to summon light — nothing.He tried to fly — the sky bent down and crushed him back to the ground.Even the atoms of his body rebelled, turning liquid then solid, then dissolving into air before reforming painfully.
The Dream Realm was alive. Every concept, every thought was a weapon against him.
A giant dragon made of ink burst from the void, its wings stretching across galaxies. Behind it, spiders with human faces crawled on threads made from forgotten memories. Fictional heroes — constructs from human imagination — charged toward him like divine soldiers of madness. Batman, Zeus, Son Goku, even a clown-faced jester wielding infinity itself.
Metatron ran.
He laughed bitterly as he stumbled through an infinity loop, reliving the same second over and over — a paradox folding onto itself.
"This is absurd," he muttered, falling onto what looked like solid ground — only for it to turn into teeth, biting into his arm. "Oh, come on!"
Every step became an argument with logic. Every breath, a negotiation with existence.
Above him, Hypnos appeared. Not gentle, not serene. Omnipotent in his realm — the king of dreams, where all minds bowed to him. His voice was calm, yet every syllable carried a billion echoes.
"Welcome to sleep eternal, Metatron."
"Cute introduction," Metatron spat. "You've trapped a being who can bend galaxies. What now?"
Hypnos smiled faintly. "Then bend, and see what happens."
He snapped his fingers.
Metatron's legs turned into paper and burned. His arms melted into sand. The moment he tried to heal, the sand became fire — fire that laughed.
"Stop it—"
"Why stop a dream? Isn't this what mortals call irony?" Hypnos asked, floating closer. "You are the guardian of divine order, yet your mind is chaos itself."
Metatron tried to punch him — Hypnos split into a thousand clones, each one a reflection of Metatron's own failures. One was him as a child. One was him dying in battle. One was him failing humanity.
They surrounded him, whispering in unison:"You can't wake up.""You can't die.""You can't win."
The ground beneath him cracked, revealing an endless pit of his own memories — every time he questioned his existence, every time he doubted God, every time he envied humans for their simplicity.
"Enough!" he screamed, his voice breaking the dream like glass. For a second, the world flickered — Hypnos frowned.
Metatron tried to run again, sprinting through collapsing dimensions, chased by galaxies that bled and stars that screamed. Every time he looked back, something worse followed — dragons, spiders, fictional warriors, even atoms shaped like fanged beasts.
He fell again, tumbling through an infinity loop that restarted every time he blinked.
"AAAAH! — oh come on, AGAIN?!" he yelled, landing flat on his face for the tenth time in one millisecond. "This realm has a terrible sense of humor."
From the distance, Hypnos' laughter echoed, calm and terrifying. "You'll get used to it, Metatron. Eventually, all consciousness does."
Metatron gritted his teeth, bloodied and exhausted, looking at the endless horizon that mocked him with mirrored suns. "You think this will break me?"
Hypnos floated closer, the dream bending to his will. "No. But it will remind you… even light must close its eyes to rest."
Metatron tried to move — but every muscle turned into liquid. He screamed, trying to focus, to summon divine energy — nothing.
He was trapped in pure mental torment — a cosmic survival game designed by an omnipotent being who ruled over imagination itself.
–––
Meanwhile, outside the dream, Azazel stood in Metatron's home, watching the Dream Core shimmer violently.
"Still sleeping, I see," he murmured. "Hypnos works fast."
He placed a vial under the Core — collecting a drop of golden essence that leaked from the orb. It pulsed like living fire.
Azazel smirked. "And now… I have his scent."
He turned to leave, his black wings unfolding, covering the room in shadow. "Sleep tight, Metatron. When you wake, I'll be waiting with something even worse than nightmares."
As he vanished, the Dream Core flickered again — a faint whisper echoing through the air.
Metatron's voice.Faint, but defiant.
"I'll… wake up."
Azazel paused mid-portal, his grin widening."Then I look forward to it."
The door of reality closed.
And within the endless dream, Metatron screamed again as the ground split open — revealing Hypnos, now a god-sized shadow, holding a clock made of galaxies.
"Let's play again," the god of dreams said softly.
The loop restarted.
Time folded.
And the dream — became eternal.