The Vale Estate had never felt so quiet.
Night had already swallowed the countryside when Elias returned from the city. The long gravel path leading to the mansion stretched through mist and shadow, the iron gate creaking softly behind him as it closed.
A cold wind brushed across the old stone building.
For a moment, Elias simply stood there.
Watching.
Listening.
The estate had always been silent since his father's death. Yet tonight the silence felt different.
He could feel something beneath it.
Something subtle.
Something watching.
Elias stepped inside the mansion.
The large wooden doors closed behind him with a dull echo that traveled through the empty halls. His footsteps carried through the corridor as he walked deeper into the estate.
The candle lamps flickered faintly along the walls.
Their light stretched the shadows into long twisting shapes across the floor.
Under normal circumstances the scene might have felt unsettling.
But Elias simply observed it with curiosity.
Since forming the contract with the entity known as The Lucid One, the world had begun revealing layers he had never known existed.
Reality was no longer solid.
It was… thin.
Like a veil waiting to be lifted.
Elias removed his coat and walked toward the library.
The familiar scent of dust and old paper greeted him as he entered the room.
The tall shelves stretched toward the ceiling, packed with generations of forbidden knowledge collected by the Vale family.
And at the center desk—
The Veiled Eye rested where he had left it.
The small black sphere sat perfectly still beneath the candlelight.
Elias approached slowly.
The moment he stepped close, something changed.
A faint violet glow flickered across the surface of the artifact.
It lasted less than a second.
But Elias saw it clearly.
Thin runic symbols briefly rippled across the polished black stone before fading again.
Elias raised an eyebrow.
"So you recognize me now."
The artifact did not respond.
Yet Elias could feel it.
A subtle connection linking his mind to the relic.
As if the object itself had acknowledged its new master.
He sat down at the desk.
The sealed invitation from the broker Calder remained tucked inside his coat.
Three nights.
That was how long he had before the auction.
Before stepping fully into the hidden world of occultists and artifact collectors.
But Elias knew something important.
If he was going to survive among people who wielded supernatural powers, he needed to understand his own abilities first.
So he began experimenting.
Elias placed one hand on the desk and closed his eyes.
He focused on the subtle power flowing through his mind.
The gift granted by The Lucid One.
At first nothing happened.
Then—
The world shifted.
Elias's senses expanded outward.
Invisible threads appeared around him.
They shimmered faintly in the air like strands of pale silver silk stretching across the library.
Some connected objects.
Others connected places.
A few drifted slowly like currents moving through invisible water.
Elias had seen these threads before.
But tonight they were clearer.
Stronger.
His perception had improved.
"The dream realm…"
He murmured quietly.
"It touches everything."
The threads were not physical.
They were connections.
Emotional impressions left behind by human thought.
Memories embedded within reality itself.
Elias reached toward one of the threads near the desk.
The moment his perception touched it—
His mind flashed.
For a split second he saw a fragment of the past.
His father standing at the desk.
Arguing with a tall man whose face remained blurred and indistinct.
Anger.
Frustration.
Fear.
Then the vision vanished.
Elias opened his eyes slowly.
"Interesting."
He had not summoned that memory intentionally.
He had simply touched the emotional residue attached to the desk.
Which meant…
This ability allowed him to observe echoes of past events.
Elias leaned back slightly.
"A useful skill."
He closed his eyes again.
This time he focused on the staircase beyond the library door.
A faint thread connected to it.
The moment he touched it—
Another flash.
Two thieves rushing through the hallway months ago.
Panic flooding their minds as they fled the estate after failing to find anything valuable.
The echo faded quickly.
But Elias understood the principle now.
Emotions left marks.
And those marks remained within the dream layer of reality.
He smiled faintly.
"I suppose I should name this ability."
A brief pause.
"Dream Echo."
The name felt appropriate.
But the experiment had unexpected consequences.
As Elias continued observing the threads, the Veiled Eye suddenly began glowing again.
Stronger this time.
The violet light pulsed faintly across its surface.
Elias frowned slightly.
"I did not activate you."
The artifact ignored him.
Instead, the glow intensified.
And Elias felt something tug at his mind.
A pull.
Subtle at first.
Then stronger.
The library walls began to distort.
The candle flames stretched unnaturally.
The shadows deepened.
Elias stood up slowly.
"What are you doing?"
The room did not answer.
Instead, the pull grew stronger.
Reality itself began to ripple.
The bookshelves stretched like reflections in water.
The floor beneath Elias's feet darkened.
And then—
The world shifted.
Suddenly Elias was no longer standing in the library.
At least not the same one.
The room looked familiar.
But wrong.
The shelves were cracked and warped with age.
The walls were darker.
The air felt colder.
Whispers echoed faintly through the halls.
Elias stepped forward cautiously.
"I see."
"This must be the dream reflection."
Every place possessed a reflection within the dream realm.
A layer where memories and emotions gathered like sediment.
And the Vale Estate possessed a particularly dense one.
After all, the Vale family had spent generations experimenting with occult forces.
Elias walked through the library slowly.
Fragments of distorted images flickered around him.
A group of scholars performing a ritual.
His grandfather arguing with several men in dark robes.
Servants whispering about forbidden experiments.
These visions were not ghosts.
They were merely emotional echoes.
Memories imprinted on the dream layer.
But something else existed here.
Elias felt it the moment he stepped deeper into the hall.
Hostility.
Predatory.
Watching.
He stopped walking.
The whispers around him grew quieter.
Then he heard it.
A scraping sound.
Something moving inside the walls.
Elias turned slowly.
"What exactly are you?"
The answer came quickly.
A shape slid out from the darkness at the end of the hallway.
At first it looked like smoke.
But then the smoke condensed.
A creature formed from living shadow emerged.
Its body twisted and shifted constantly.
Dozens of small glowing eyes flickered across its surface.
The creature watched him silently.
Elias remained calm.
"A parasite," he murmured.
The entity pulsed slightly.
It fed on emotion.
Specifically fear.
And this mansion—filled with generations of occult experimentation—had provided it with a feast for decades.
Now Elias had entered its territory.
The creature lunged.
Its body stretched like liquid shadow across the floor.
Elias stepped back calmly.
Physical attacks would be useless.
This creature existed within the dream layer.
But Elias had an advantage.
This world obeyed the rules of thought.
And his thoughts now carried the authority of The Lucid One.
Elias closed his eyes.
The parasite rushed closer.
Then Elias reshaped the dream.
The sky above the hallway split open.
Darkness poured through the cracks.
And within that darkness—
Eyes.
Hundreds of them.
Colossal.
Ancient.
Watching everything.
The presence behind those eyes was not fully real.
But it was convincing enough.
The Dream Parasite froze instantly.
Its body trembled violently.
Because even a mindless predator understood fear.
And what it sensed above Elias was something infinitely more terrifying than itself.
The creature shrieked.
Its form began destabilizing.
Elias raised one hand.
"Disappear."
The dream space collapsed around the parasite.
The shadow creature shattered into fragments of darkness.
The fragments dissolved into nothing.
And the dream realm began to break apart.
The walls cracked.
The floor dissolved.
Elias felt the connection tearing away.
Then everything vanished.
He slammed back into reality.
Elias woke on the library floor.
His head pounded violently.
The Veiled Eye lay beside him, faintly glowing.
Elias sat up slowly.
"Well," he muttered.
"That was unpleasant."
His body felt drained.
Using the dream realm clearly consumed mental energy.
Too much, and he might lose control entirely.
But the experience had proven something important.
He could defend himself.
Even against supernatural threats.
Elias stood and dusted off his coat.
Then he tried something else.
He activated Dream Echo again.
This time focusing on the entire library.
Most of the echoes were old.
Months.
Years.
But one felt different.
Recent.
Only two days old.
Elias concentrated.
A faint emotional residue appeared.
Curiosity.
Determination.
Devotion.
Someone had entered the estate recently.
Someone searching for something specific.
Occult artifacts.
Then Elias heard something else within the echo.
A faint whisper left behind like a fading prayer.
"The Veil must open again."
Elias's expression sharpened.
He recognized the phrase.
It belonged to a group Calder had mentioned.
The Veiled Church.
Which meant the cult had already begun searching for the relics of the Vale family.
Perhaps even the Veiled Eye itself.
Elias looked down at the artifact resting on the desk.
"Interesting."
Outside the window, the sky was beginning to brighten.
Dawn approached.
Elias picked up the sealed auction invitation and studied the silver symbol of the closed eye.
The hidden world was clearly far more dangerous than he had anticipated.
Cults.
Dream creatures.
Occult conspiracies.
But Elias did not feel fear.
Only curiosity.
He placed the invitation back on the desk.
"Three nights," he said quietly.
Then he smiled faintly.
"I look forward to seeing what waits in the dark."