Kaden's breath hitched as he sat up, the cot creaking beneath him.
His fingers dug into the rough wool of his blanket, the fabric damp with sweat.
The dream still clung to his mind—the black sky streaked with red, the blue-flamed forge that dwarfed even the mountains he'd once wandered, the voice that had coiled around his skull like a serpent.
You are the key.
He fumbled for the lantern on the workbench, his hand trembling as he struck flint to steel.
The flame flickered to life, casting jagged shadows across the shop.
His gaze snapped to the anvil, where the inscription glinted etched into the iron as though carved by a blade of starlight.
His throat went dry.
The had spoken of keys and abysses before, but this... this felt heavier, like a promise and a threat tangled together.
A soft sound cut through his thoughts—a faint, rhythmic rustle.
He turned.
Serena, his mute apprentice, lay on her pallet near the forge, her chest rising and falling with the steady cadence of sleep.
But her lips were moving, not in the slow, slack way of a dreamer, but in sharp, deliberate shapes.
Ancient.
He'd seen scribes in market towns mouth dead languages, their tongues twisting for forgotten gods.
Serena's lips formed no words he recognized, but the urgency in their motion sent a prickle down his spine.
When heterogeneous mental fluctuations are detected, will the "Dream Barrier" be activated? \ "" The system's voice, usually a hum in the back of his mind, rang clear now, its tone uncharacteristically urgent.
Kaden's fingers tightened around the lantern handle.
He'd learned to trust the system—its warnings had saved him from botched forges, from the first shadowy figure that had lurked in the shop's corners a week prior.
But entering another's dream… he'd never done that.
The soul furnace had taught him to sense echoes of spirit in metal, but minds?
Serena's breath hitched.
Her fingers curled into the hem of her tunic, knuckles whitening.
Whatever was in her dream, it was pulling harder.
If I don't act, she might not wake.
The thought came unbidden.
He'd taken her in after finding her huddled in the town's abandoned mill, her throat slit by raiders but her will unbroken.
She was more than an apprentice—she was proof he could protect something.
He rose, the floorboards cold beneath his bare feet.
From the shelf above the forge, he retrieved a thin metal shard - leftover from the soul 's first successful forging infused with his own spirit.
The system had called it a "mental anchor." He placed it on the edge of the forge, where embers still glowed, and closed his eyes.
Focus.
He'd channeled spirit into metal before, but never into a mind.
The shard hummed against his palm as he pressed his thumb to its surface, a faint warmth seeping into his skin.
Guide a bit of one's own mental energy into it. \ "" The system's instruction echoed, and Kaden obeyed.
He let a sliver of his consciousness unravel, slipping free of his body like smoke.
The world blurred—the shop, the lantern, Serena's sleeping form—before snapping into sharp focus again.
He stood on a field of ash.
The sky here was a sickly green, streaked with veins of black.
In the distance, a forest burned, flames that didn't consume but twisted the trees, warping their trunks into gnarled, skeletal hands.
At the center of the wasteland stood Serena, her form translucent, as though made of mist.
A figure loomed over her—no, through her.
It was a shadow with edges like shattered glass, its hands (if they could be called that) coiled around her wrists with chains of dark energy.
"Mine," the shadow hissed, its voice a chorus of whispers.
"The vessel's apprentice… a tasty snack before the main course."
Kaden's pulse roared in his ears.
He reached for his hammer—it wasn't there, but then, this wasn't the physical world.
Soul flame.
The system had mentioned it in the weapon forged from spirit, as real here as steel was elsewhere.
He concentrated, and a hammer blazed to life in his hand, its head a sun of golden fire, the grip warm as a living thing.
"Let her go," Kaden said, his voice sounding strange—deeper, resonating as though he spoke through a forge's bellows.
The shadow laughed.
"You think fire will stop me? I am the hunger of the abyss, boy. Your little flame—"
Kaden swung.
The hammer struck the chains, and the world erupted in light.
The shadow screeched, its form fracturing where the flame touched it.
The chains around Serena's wrists dissolved, and she staggered back, her misty form solidifying.
Kaden swung again, aiming for the shadow's core—a pulsing black mass at its center.
This time, the flame didn't just burn; it resonated.
His palm throbbed, the dormant flaring beneath his skin flaring to life its pattern glowing through his flesh like molten iron.
"You," the shadow spat, recoiling.
"The blood… it's awake."
Kaden didn't pause.
He struck again, and again, until the shadow's screeches faded into silence.
The ashen wasteland began to crumble, dissolving into motes of light.
Serena's form solidified fully, her eyes—still closed in the