Hypnos

Finally, finally, it would happen tonight.

After holding back for so many years, she would soon be mine.

Claudia... my precious, smitten by you at the first sight, I have grown to love you to a silly degree, watching your growth from a little angel to an ethereal fairy.

Your gaze... your voice... your smile... suchlike the ray of sun on my cloudiest day.

I had been mocked, fed with insults, and mockery over something beyond my control, and those poisonous snakes surrounded me while hiding behind the facade of kin, forcing this hand to remain steady, otherwise, surely it would have swung the sword out of its sheath.

Disgusting, repulsive, disgusting, repulsive, the world would be better without those snakes tainting it.

Wretched woman, ah, thorn inside the rose, she pricked me and gave me bad seed, corrupted with weakness of my old day...

Claudia... Claudia... my reality... all of these time I had been living a dream, just like other people, like you, we were strolling in the realm of limbo, not knowing the truth, not knowing the reality.

Claudia... my precious, you saw me as a father figure, you respected me, you honored me, but I didn't want those... I didn't need those, why wouldn't you understand?

When you were sick, who watched over you? When you were feeling down, who comforted you?

My words, my treatment, why it fell into a deaf heart? Why you had also not smitten by me?

Why did I have to born 2 decades early? Why did you have to born 2 decades later?

Looking at the sky, the cloud barricaded the moon from shining the earth, as if mocking me I would never ever conquer you.

That's why it's a dream, Claudia... my precious, once we were both awakened in the reality, you and I could love each other... our family, let's build our happiness together...

Claudia, my precious... would you grant me happiness?

...

After an hour and a half, Grave and Claudia arrived at a village, the people had retreated into their respective houses and called the day, there were only the sounds of Grave's horse roaming the street.

His destination was a mansion he had built little by little using his saving money.

When his waste son asked why he built the mansion, he said it was for a retirement day after the war with the savage race.

But in truth, it was for their love nest, to build a family with the woman he yearned for decades, and now she's so close to him.

Had Volt succeeded with his plan, the entire Eos would turn into his playthings, Grave couldn't care less about the fate of the land, but it's a chance for him to unite with Claudia, why wouldn't he join his side?

Volt could take his waste son as a hostage, then under the claim of being forced, Grave and Claudia would have intercourse so they wouldn't kill his waste son. It's good enough to pretend things were not under their control, and Claudia would not hate him, then once he impregnated Claudia, she could never face her husband again and married him for real.

That's the plan... but why that asshole needed to ruin everything? Why he had to appear? It's unfair... IT'S UNFAIR!

Grave stopped his horse beside a building, he gazed at it for a while, then looking back at Claudia, stroking her beautiful face with his coarse hand.

He hopped down from the horse, and as he was about to pick Claudia, he felt a coldness from his back.

!

Grave was barely able to avoid the disaster, an energy-like blue thing rushed toward him and cut his right arm off, he screamed while rolling away to keep the distance.

It didn't stop, numerous energies continuously launched at him, bombarded the seasoned man with a stab-like attack, forcing him to utilize his secret technique just to barely preserve his life.

The energies were rapidly shooting, faster than arrows, his body was stabbed multiple times, leaving nasty wounds with spewing blood.

Finally, the attack stopped, Grave thought he wasn't going to make it, his plentiful experience in war and battle could not prepare him for what had just happened, Grave knew his life was at the end of the rope.

At this moment, a man appeared, standing leisurely beside the horse, didn't take a genius to know he's the one that had attacked him, but who was he? What did he want? His chilling behavior depicted as if his recent act didn't seem a big deal at all.

After a difficult attempt of concentrating his gaze through the blurry vision, Grave widened his eyes in surprise, even terrified.

It's him...

A young man who had an average height, his eyebrows were straight like a sword and a dazzling pair of eyes akin to the brightest stars. He was as described by Thanatos.

He's the one who had ruined Volt's plan, the one who had killed Volt...

Shit, shit... what he's doing here? Why he had attacked me?! Don't tell me my identity had been discovered...

"Hah... hah... how... how daring of you... to attack me... like that... don't you know... who I am..."

"A traitor," the man simply said.

"..." so he knew, damn who rooted him out? Beardsley? Lee-Lee? Evansdale?

It didn't matter, he thought he had a chance to fight this man, but his simple attack had reduced such a veteran like him into a bloody bag.

"I don't know why you take her away though, who do you want to threaten? Celestine?" he looked at my precious Claudia.

"!" that eyes... I noticed those eyes... it's my eyes... how dare he...

"Don't... touch her..." Grave groaned, even with his severe wounds, Grave tried to move.

The man looked surprised, he curled his lips, said, "Oh? Is this what I think this is? You... and her? Wow."

"She's mine... mine..."

The man's smirk turned sinister, he lifted his hand and moved it toward Claudia's beautiful face, he's slowly reaching toward her.

"NO! NO! NO!" my mind felt like it was split in half, I couldn't bear the picture of my precious Claudia was tainted by other men... not even a single skin on her body should be touched by other but me.

Mine, mine, mine!!!

"Okay, crazy be crazy, I guess..." the man frowned. Then he said, "what have you done with the knights in the Fort?"

"Haha... are they still dreaming? Did they feel what I feel?"

"..." the man wrinkled his eyebrows.

"My dream... all I did is giving them a touch of my dream... my... thought of how this world is..."

"It is filth, populate by filth, corrupt to the deepest core, I have awakened from it early, now it's Claudia's turn to awake..."

"So you charm them to a state of dreaming? Making them thinking everyone around them is heretics to kill? That's kinda neat for a knight to have such skill, who are you truly?"

"Mother gave me the skill... mother has liberated me..."

"Mother?"

"You will not... take her from me..." Grave's eyes turned red, his muscle bulged until they slowly broke out of his clothing.

His height increased once, then increased twice, increased thrice...

His face transformed, turning into something that was inhumane.

"My name is Hypnos, the child of Dream, the son of Night, for what's mine, I shall get it back..."