Garden of Death

"The Rich and the poor, the saint and the sinner, the brave warrior and the scared little orphan. Death embraces all."

Hearing the cold and haunting voice, Xander opened his eyes, gasping for breath. All his sensations of pain had disappeared without a trace, and his body felt weightless and free. It was as if a great burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

As Xander looked around, his eyes discerned hazy black shapes in the distance. He was standing in the middle of a field overgrown with wild blades of violet grass and thorny black vines that stretched on for miles.

In the distance, he could see black dahlias and chrysanthemums in full bloom. But their petals looked shriveled and droopy. Buzzing over the flowers were bloated green bumblebees and gray butterflies.

"What the hell is this place?" Xander mumbled to himself.

He remembered Moreas draining him with his leeching touch, but everything after that was blank.

"Is this another fragment of that vision?"

In response, the glowing white system panel opened up before him.

[Welcome to the Garden of Death.]

[Pray to the Shadow to seek release.]

A cold shiver ran down his spine as he looked at the words on display. "What the hell does it mean? Am I dead?" he asked, his voice cracking and cold. "Answer me, God damn it!"

Xander tried to access his Dreamwalker profile, but the system panel refused to open again.

Soon everything became clear to Xander. Since Moreas had killed him inside a vision, his soul had been sent to its final resting place.

Xander had only read bits and pieces about the Garden of Death. If any Dreamwalker died inside a dream or a nightmare, they would be trapped in the Nightscape or the Dreamscape forever, but if one died inside a vision, they were bound for the garden.

It had all happened so fast that Xander still couldn't believe he was dead. He had navigated his way across the most terrifying nightmares and returned unharmed. But entering this vision had been a terrible mistake.

If only he knew he'd end up facing Mystics on the other side, he would've never asked Leena to unseal the medallion. He could've easily handled a few angry Ethereals, but he wasn't expecting the cultists.

"I should've walked away from this one." Xander shook with rage as tears dripped from his eyes.

With his fists balled up, he looked up at the gloomy gray sky and shouted, "I can't die here! I need to get back to Tiva. This isn't fair!"

"Life isn't fair, little one. Perhaps it's time you realized that," a hoarse brooding voice replied from the darkness.

Xander stepped back with a start and started looking around frantically. The fact that he was unarmed and without his powers only made him more nervous. "Who's there? Show yourself!"

Suddenly, hundreds of crimson spider lilies sprang up around him and spread across the bleak field like a rash. The gray clouds overhead turned blood red, and a black crescent moon appeared in the sky.

A rabid wind howled across the field, ravaging the distant dahlias and uprooting the crying chrysanthemums.

Xander covered his face with the back of his hand to shield himself from the dust blowing in his direction. The wind, however, showed no mercy. It kept racing across the field like a wild wolf freed from captivity.

"You are in my domain now."

The voice rang in Xander's ears again, and instantly the wind died out. Everything turned still again.

Xander slowly removed the hand covering his face and opened his eyes to look at the owner of the voice. It was neither man nor beast, but a twisted amalgamation of the two.

He wanted to scream, but his throat dried up in fear.

The being standing in front of Xander was nearly twice his height with bulging muscles and sturdy legs. Its skin was the ash gray of death, and its open locks were as dark as the night. It had four arms and was wearing an ancient set of plate armor with runic engravings on each part.

What was truly terrifying about the monstrous creature was its face. It had the head of a demon with long black horns curling upwards and three pairs of blood-red eyes.

The creature's hands looked like paws and had sharp elongated claws coming out of them. And as it opened its mouth to speak, Xander caught a glimpse of two pairs of glistening white fangs sticking out it.

"Welcome to my world, Dreamwalker!" the creature proclaimed aloud, his voice piercing the sky and scattering the dark clouds.

Xander backed away in dread and asked in a quivering voice, "Who are you?"

Hearing this, the monstrous being let out a suppressed chuckle that echoed across the lands. "I am Mordred, the Lord of Terror. The one true master of the Nightscape!"

His words gave Xander the shock of his life. Mordred was one of the most fearsome dark deities of the veiled world. An ancient being with a never-ending lust for violence and bloodshed.

However, Xander still seemed hesitant to believe that it was indeed the dark deity and not some Ethereal trying to trick him. What really made him suspicious was his appearance.

The ancient texts described Mordred as a three-headed black dragon whose infernal breath could incinerate entire forests in the blink of an eye.

After taking a good look at the entity that claimed to be the Lord of Terror, Xander mustered up the courage to put his thoughts into words.

"Mordred doesn't look like this. The texts mention that he is a three-headed dragon."

"You are too skeptical for your own good, mortal," the monstrosity declared. Stretching out his arms, he conjured his infernal weapons—a pair of black greatswords with runic inscriptions engraved on their polished blades. "I have many forms, Dreamwalker. The three-headed dragon is my most destructive form. Just gazing at it would obliterate you from existence."

Xander wasn't satisfied with the explanation, but he wasn't foolish enough to argue with a being that looked like a demonic hybrid.

"I know you have your doubts about me. But I will satiate your curiosity."

The demonic creature slashed the air vertically with his sword and tore a rift in the fabric of space. It gradually widened, taking the form of a black portal.

"Come with me, and I shall answer all your queries."

Xander wanted to refuse but found his feet moving on their own. Though he tried his best to resist, his body failed to obey him.

The Dreamwalker followed the dark being into the portal like a puppet on a string. It opened on the other side in front of a black desert with a temple in its middle.

It was the same place Esther had seen in her vision. The statue of the three-headed dragon was right there in front of the temple's gate surrounded by three golden braziers.

As they walked up the temple's sandstone stairs, Xander's eyes fell on the gilded door. It had an engraving of Mordred's demonic form, and it looked exactly like the being in front of him.

There was now little doubt in Xander's mind that the being before him was indeed the dreaded dark deity who ruled over the Nightscape.