Stephen stayed silent for a moment. Then, as if he had finally made up his mind, he spoke in a hoarse, exhausted voice:
"…I know you."
Ren didn't react. He simply looked up, his gaze shifting from the dense darkness inside the spider queen's abdomen to Stephen's pale face.
"I know you… not just as a fellow Sleeper from the academy," Stephen continued, voice lower but firmer. "You're Ren of… the Dragonnest family… one of the vassal clans under the Valor Clan, just like mine."
A name spoken aloud, dragging a chill straight down the spine.
Ren didn't blink, but his fingers curled slightly in the shadows. He said nothing. No confirmation. No denial.
Only silence. A thick wall between two souls.
Stephen let out a dry, bitter laugh that cracked like a cough:
"That's it… I thought I had mistaken you… when I saw you at the academy… just a month ago. But only those from Dragonnest look at others like they're staring into an abyss…"
He nodded slightly, eyes never leaving Ren's:
"Ren of Dragonnest… I heard you were exiled… I've also heard of that mad tradition. You, someone who nearly became a chosen Legacy under elite training…"
"And now…"
Stephen looked around at the spider husks, the decaying silk, the weight of darkness around them.
"…now you're just here. Just another Sleeper."
Ren exhaled, a dry, heavy sound.
"There's nothing normal in the Dream Realm."
Stephen paused… as if something crossed his mind.
Ren saw the shift in his expression but didn't wait. His voice cut through the silence, low and firm:
"We need to find a way out of this disgusting nest."
A whisper, yet it dropped into the gloom like a blade stabbing dead flesh.
Stephen turned his head. A faint light from a lingering soul fragment cast across his face, pale, worn, and carrying a trace of… resignation.
Then that light faded, like hope slowly being strangled.
"Doing that…" Stephen rasped, "would just get us killed faster."
He inhaled deeply, as if to catch one last breath, then raised his head toward Ren, who stood amidst the thickening shadows.
"Do you even know… where we are?"
Ren stayed silent. Not because he didn't know, but because he didn't want to admit it.
Stephen let out a bitter, choked laugh:
"It's not just the Iron Spiders' nest. Not just a living graveyard for Sleepers."
"This nest…" He pointed into the black void ahead, "…is built on a cliff. Over two hundred meters high. Vertical."
Ren frowned.
Stephen nodded, as if trying to convince himself:
"No walking paths. No detours. No bridges or stairs. We're suspended in midair… like prey trapped in a spider's web."
"And how do you think…," his voice dropped, hard as stone, "we're going to get out of here?"
Ren didn't answer right away. He stared into the darkness, at the silk strands crisscrossed like a death net.
He knew Stephen wasn't exaggerating.
That floating sensation… the way gravity tugged at his head whenever he rested wrong… the soft hiss of wind threading through silk and hollow bones like it was falling into an unseen abyss.
This spider nest… was really high up.
Ren clenched his fists, joints cracking softly.
"Then," he said, his voice low and steady, "we'll have to climb down."
Stephen looked at him as if he'd just heard the cruelest joke.
"Climb? You want to scale down a two-hundred-meter cliff? With killer spiders behind us? And in front… maybe a dead sea or a bottomless void?"
Ren shrugged slightly, eyes still fixed on the shadows ahead:
"What other choice do we have?"
A pause.
Stephen wanted to laugh. Scream. But he knew Ren was right.
No one was coming to save them. No gateway. No Master or Saint to pull them out.
Just two Sleepers, a hollow spider corpse… and countless creatures feasting on the souls of the living.
Stephen backed away, slumping down onto a splintered bone, murmuring:
"…So, do you have a plan?"
Ren didn't reply. He was thinking. Not about the fastest escape, but the longest survival.
Because in the Dream Realm… no one dreams of the exit until they've survived the nightmare.
Stephen fell into a contemplative silence, then whispered, "Maybe there's a way… when the locusts come again…"
Ren's eyes narrowed slightly at that name:
"Locusts?"
Stephen nodded, voice low and uncertain:
"Not the usual kind… they're as big as a person, with black wings like obsidian, and forelegs like sawblades. I think the Spells called them Flesh Reavers…"
"I wounded one, barely alive, when I first crawled into the spider nest. Coincidentally, it was near where I was hiding."
He swallowed hard and continued, voice rough:
"Every day… when the dim light of the first sun appears, the Flesh Reavers rise from below the cliff… I think. They attack the spider nest. It's not really hunting… more like revenge. I saw one Iron Spider ripped apart in under ten seconds."
Stephen stopped, gazing into the darkness beyond a gap in the massive corpse. The memory was still vivid in his mind.
"Last time… I tried slipping through a crack during the chaos. I made it to the nest's edge. But then an Iron Spider saw me… I've never run faster in my life."
Ren tilted his head slightly, absorbing every detail. Fragmented pieces began to form a chance, a path, dangerous, narrow, but real.
"How long?" Ren asked.
Stephen closed his eyes, listening to the faint hiss from the outer silk layers, then said softly:
"Twelve to fourteen hours… maybe less. No one knows exactly… but when the black light appears, and the tides pull back, that's always the sign."
Ren was quiet for a while, then looked back at Stephen. The other boy's face was still gaunt, but his eyes were clear, with the focus of a survivor… and a failure.
"You sure?" Ren asked, his voice heavier this time, as if seeking something deeper than just information.
Stephen met his gaze, unwavering:
"You don't have to trust me. But I've been here long enough to know the rhythm of this place. The spiders. The Reavers. The blood scent. The movement. It's all cyclical… and if I'm wrong…"
He paused, forcing a weak smile:
"…we both die. So I've got no reason to lie."
Ren nodded slowly, then turned away.
Beneath the silk, bone, and rotting meat of the colossal corpse… a plan was forming.
They would wait. Watch. And when chaos began...
They'd gamble their lives once more… to escape this damned nest.
"But first…" Stephen's voice pierced the dark like a whisper rustling through dead husks, "…we need to know what we can do."
Ren turned back, eyes fixed on him.
"I'll go first," Stephen said, shoulders tense despite his casual tone.
"My Aspect… lets me control plants."
He paused, waiting for a reaction. Ren said nothing, but his gaze lowered slightly...calculating.
"Sounds pathetic, huh…" Stephen gave a dry chuckle, then turned toward the heart of the dead spider queen.
"…but I got lucky."
Something rustled in the dark. Ren tensed, lowering his stance instantly.
From the shadows, a creature stepped forward.
Six legs clicked on the dried, hardened flesh of the spider queen's corpse, echoing like bones tapping stone. Glossy black-gray armor. Scythe-like forelimbs. An Iron Spider.
Ren stepped back, heart pounding. But… something was wrong.
The spider didn't move like a predator. It didn't lunge.
It… walked like a puppet. Rigid. Unbalanced. Each step slow, like something was dragging it on invisible strings.
Then Ren saw them… the flowers.
Sprouting from its joints, eye sockets, and cracks in its chitin. Deep crimson blooms like raw flesh, petals curled like monstrous teeth. Some were still dripping black sap.
Stephen looked at him.
"I found it in a quarantine zone. Seems like a place where infected, parasitized, or mutated Iron Spiders are kept."
"I don't know what these flowers are. Only that… their seeds have rooted deep in its body." He paused. "And luckily… I can control them."
Ren stared at the parasitized spider.
The silence grew heavy. As if even the corpse they hid in had just shuddered.
Stephen turned back toward him. "Your turn."