Calyra walked through Anbord, unseen by anyone, quietly enjoying the looks of awe and reverence on people’s faces as they witnessed their champions defeat the dragons. One would be very confused as to why she wasn’t angry when her people, her brothers and sisters, were being killed.

Well, the answer was simple. She couldn’t feel anger or any other emotion. Such was the requirement of her power. Her power over Dreams. Dreams were a concept that many had tried to understand, decipher, and comprehend, but all their research was fruitless. Because dreams weren’t physical, neither were they spiritual. They were ethereal and somewhat psychological. Dreams could do a lot of things, and combining emotions with dreams... was just madness.

Calyra’s strength lay in assassination through dreams, and her current mission was to take out two "naughty dragons." Barki and Amara, the traitors of the dragon empire.

Her eyes glowed with a pinkish color, and she disappeared from her position.

...

Calyra appeared inside a large hall with nothing but training equipment. It was a gym, but custom-made. In there sat two people. One had long, silver-white, ponytailed hair with dark orange horns, while the other had long silver-white hair with dark blue horns and wore a pair of circle-rimmed glasses; Barki and Amara, respectively.

"Traitors must die." That was all she said, and she moved.

The moment Calyra moved, time fractured. Amara’s eyes widened behind her glasses as countless temporal calculations flooded her mind in less than a trillionth of a second.

"Barki!"

The gym vanished.

BOOOOOOM!!!

The entire mountain housing the training hall exploded outward as pink dream-energy erupted across the region like an expanding ocean. Walls folded inward unnaturally. Gravity distorted. Fragments of stone floated motionlessly in the air before crumbling into glowing dust.

At the center of the destruction, Calyra stood silently. Her pink eyes glowed brighter now. Reality around her had become unstable. The sky above flickered between day and night repeatedly as dream and reality began overlapping.

Barki appeared several kilometers away in a burst of molten lava, her massive dragon tail smashing through a mountain peak to stabilize herself.

"What the hell was that?!" she roared.

Amara appeared beside her instantly through temporal displacement, her breathing uneven.

"That wasn’t an attack," she said quietly.

Barki looked at her. Amara’s expression darkened. "She tried to pull us into a dream."

The air twisted again. Calyra appeared above them soundlessly.

There was no aura, no killing intent. Nothing. That absence made her terrifying. Pink threads spread silently beneath the world. Amara reacted first.

"MOVE!"

Time exploded outward. The world froze, or rather, everything except Amara and Barki did. Temporal rings formed around Amara’s body as she thrust both hands forward.

"Chrono Severance!"

Thousands of compressed time-blades erupted toward Calyra simultaneously. Each one carried a distorted temporal force capable of aging matter into dust or reverting it into nothingness. Calyra tilted her head slightly and vanished. The attacks passed through an afterimage made entirely of dream essence.

Barki suddenly roared.

"BEHIND US!"

A colossal wall of lava erupted upward.

BOOOOOOOOM!!!

Pink dream-energy collided with molten destruction. The resulting shockwave annihilated the surrounding mountain ranges instantly. Lava rained from the sky, but within the explosion, Calyra emerged untouched.

Her body flowed strangely, as though she wasn’t fully physical anymore. Dreams weren’t bound by ordinary laws, and she wielded them perfectly. Her hand stretched forward. Pink mist spread. Barki’s eyes suddenly widened.

The world changed.

She stood alone. Small, young, and weak. Chains wrapped around her limbs. The Dragon Empire burned. Fafnir stood above her, disappointed.

"You are too weak to be my daughter."

Barki trembled.

"No..."

"You abandoned your blood."

"No..."

"You betrayed your kind."

The world darkened.

"You deserve death."

Barki’s pupils shrank violently. The dream intensified and exploded apart.

LAVA ERUPTED FROM HER BODY.

"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"

The entire illusion shattered as Barki’s rage destabilized the dream-space itself. Reality returned violently. Calyra blinked once.

Interesting.

Most beings never escaped once trapped. Barki panted heavily, molten cracks spreading across her skin.

"She’s dangerous..."

Amara’s eyes narrowed behind her glasses.

"She manipulates the subconscious directly. Don’t think too much."

"That’s impossible!"

"Yes."

Calyra moved again. This time, the dream expanded fully. The world dissolved. Suddenly, thousands of moons appeared overhead. The ground became a black ocean, the sky turned pink, and beneath the water things moved.

Barki snarled.

"Another illusion?!"

"No," Amara said quietly.

Her expression shifted for the first time. Concern.

"She merged dream-space with reality."

The black ocean exploded upward. Gigantic dream-creatures emerged screaming from beneath the surface, distorted dragons with human faces and hollow eyes. Barki answered with violence. Lava exploded outward in continent-sized waves.

Entire dream-creatures melted instantly. Amara lifted one hand calmly. Time slowed, then accelerated. The creatures aged millions of years in seconds before collapsing into dust, but more came, and more, and more.

Calyra floated above them silently like a ghost. Pink rings rotated behind her back now. Her power deepened further. Dreams became stronger the longer they persisted. Barki roared skyward.

"ENOUGH!"

Her body exploded into magma. Her bones cracked, her scales erupted. A gigantic lava dragon emerged fully into existence. She was enormous. Her scales resembled moving volcanic plates. Lava flowed endlessly between them while smoke poured from her jaws. The heat alone melted reality nearby.

Amara sighed softly and transformed as well. Time distorted around her body. Her dragon form was elegant compared to Barki’s brutality. Dark blue scales shimmered with silver temporal markings that moved independently across her body. Multiple translucent rings floated around her enormous draconic neck like halos made of broken time.

The air around her aged and reversed continuously. Calyra watched them silently. She smiled faintly for the first time. Pink dream-energy engulfed her body, and something massive descended behind her: a dream-dragon.

It wasn’t truly physical nor spiritual. It looked unfinished.

Its form shifted constantly between beauty and horror. Countless eyes opened and closed across its body while wings made of aurora-like mist spread across the sky.

The world screamed.

The battle truly began.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

Lava swallowed the heavens. Temporal storms tore through continents. Dream-energy corrupted the atmosphere. The collision shattered mountain chains across western Anbord.

Barki crashed into Calyra’s dragon directly, jaws clamping around one wing, but her teeth passed partially through it. Calyra retaliated instantly. The dream-dragon’s eyes glowed. Barki suddenly saw herself dead. Just for a moment.

That hesitation was enough. Amara appeared above Calyra.

"Temporal Collapse."

Time compressed violently. Thousands of years crashed downward simultaneously. The dream-dragon distorted. Parts of it aged into nothingness, other parts reverted into embryonic fragments. Calyra’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Damage.

Pink energy exploded outward. Amara was blown back violently, crashing through multiple temporal distortions before stabilizing.

Barki seized the opening.

"WORLD-MELTER!"

Her jaws opened. A beam of condensed volcanic annihilation erupted forth. The sky split apart. Calyra crossed her arms as the beam struck directly.

BOOOOOOOOM!!!

The horizon vanished. Entire regions melted instantly, and even the atmosphere burned. Amara shielded herself with temporal barriers while breathing heavily.

"That should’ve..."

The beam stopped. Calyra emerged slowly from the molten destruction, burned, bleeding slightly, but alive. Barki’s eyes widened.

Calyra disappeared. Amara’s instincts screamed.

"BARKI!" She shouted too late.

Calyra’s hand touched Barki’s forehead, and the lava dragon froze. Dreams flooded her mind instantly. Thousands, millions. Every fear. Every insecurity. Every hidden desire.

Barki screamed. Her dragon form destabilized violently as she plummeted from the sky. Amara attacked instantly. Temporal claws tore across Calyra’s torso. Blood scattered. For the first time, Calyra staggered.

Amara didn’t stop. Time accelerated around her claws repeatedly. One strike became thousands. Calyra’s body was ripped apart and reformed through dream essence, but it was weaker now.

Barki rose again, roaring madly. This time, both dragons attacked together. Lava and time merged catastrophically. The world around them began collapsing. Dream-space shattered repeatedly. Calyra was forced backward for the first time.

Amara caught her. Temporal chains wrapped around Calyra’s limbs. Barki descended from above with enough force to split continents.

"DIE!"

The impact swallowed everything. Silence followed. Then, an explosion of pink light erupted outward. The chains shattered. Barki and Amara were blasted backward violently. Their dragon forms collapsed.

Both reverted to humanoid forms mid-air, covered in blood and severe injuries. Barki’s arm hung uselessly. Amara’s glasses were shattered completely. Their bodies trembled.

Below them, Calyra stood barely upright. Blood dripped from her lips. One arm twisted unnaturally. The dream-dragon behind her flickered weakly.

For several seconds, nobody moved. Then Calyra swayed slightly. Her pink eyes dimmed, and she collapsed unconscious.

Barki stared silently, breathing hard.

"We won?"

Amara looked at the fallen dream-user quietly and shook her head slowly.

"No."

Her eyes narrowed toward the unconscious Calyra.

"We survived."