Nitya.
A land whispered in dying breaths and scrawled in the margins of forbidden texts. It doesn't exist on any map—because maps require borders, and Nitya has none. It stretches like a wound through reality, vast and formless, always just a step too far.
A place where time forgets itself.
To enter Nitya is to leave behind sun and moon, to forfeit the heartbeat of seasons. The moment one crosses its unseen threshold, the world behind begins to rot—and the body soon follows.
Some crumble in seconds. Bones to dust before their screams finish echoing.
Others unravel backward—muscle, memory, thought—until nothing remains but a newborn's whimper trapped in a withered shell.
The truly unfortunate walk in circles. Reliving the same words. Repeating old fights. Locked in loops, never realizing they've been caught.
And some… some seem untouched. They wander endlessly, unchanged in form—but forgotten by time itself. Ghosts, unaware the world has moved on without them.
The stronger the soul, the harsher Nitya's grip.
It feeds on conviction. On memory. On will.
Kings, mages, warriors—those who enter with power don't just die. They break. Their realities twist. Their minds splinter. Some forget their names. Some become husks with hollow smiles, echoes of who they once were.
That is why mortals are sent here.
Not to die—but to disappear.
Nitya doesn't kill.
It unwrites.
Just beyond its border, where time still limps and sanity clings by its nails, stands a crooked structure known as the Dreampile.
It wears the shape of a house—barely. Walls flicker. Stair's curl into themselves. The doors led to memories that were better left buried. The air smells like old lullabies, sweet and sour with rot.
A slender demon hangs upside down from a splintered beam, hair dangling like thread from a broken doll. Her limbs too long, her eyes never blinking.
"It's been three months," she murmurs, voice thin and needle-sharp. "And still nothing."
Across the room, a hulking beast slouches in a hammock made of bedsheets and broken dreams. Mist escapes his nostrils, flickering with forgotten hopes.
"He should've crumbled by now," he grunts. "I don't get why we're still watching."
By the wall, where shadow dances with candlelight, a fox-faced figure leans silently. Her porcelain mask gleams smooth and cold, but her nine tails lash with agitation.
"Yeah, I don't get why the Matriarch's wasting her time," she says. "He's not even that special. Just another mortal who thinks being stubborn means something."
The hanging demon clicks her tongue, slow and sharp.
"You're new. You don't get it."
A pause. Not cruel—just factual.
"If the Matriarch has a weakness… it's Nitya."
The other two demons glance over, silent.
"She's tried everything," the upside-down one continues. "Demons. Humans. Whole armies. Even walked in herself once."
The room falls still.
"She came back. Barely. But not with what she wanted."
Her voice trails off, the weight of memory coiling around her words.
"That's why, when that human offered himself… she didn't say no."
The big one in the hammock snorts. "Even though he was her favorite."
The fox-mask twitches. A fine crack creeps along her cheek.
"I heard he survived Matriarch's torture?" she asks, voice sharp as ice.
"No," the hanging demon murmurs. Her smile curves in a way that feels wrong. "She's still breaking him. Slowly. You know how she feeds—despair sweetened with hope? Takes longer to ripen, but it tastes divine."
The massive one chuckles, low and heavy. "Mmh. That flavor… the trembling, the belief..."
His voice fades.
"But it's been three months. He should be dust. What a waste of a good food."
He shifts, creaking under his own weight.
"And worse—we're stuck here."
"Just two more months," the hanging demon says. "Then we check the edges and go."
The fox-faced one scoffs. "Only to confirm he didn't crawl out in five. But it's our duty anyway."
The Dreampile groans. Walls shift. A candle flame bends and dies.
"Yeah," the big one mutters. "Two more months."
The silence returns.
And then—something changes.
The air trembles, not with sound, but with weight. The kind of shift that wakes bones.
Beyond the Dreampile, in the fog where light forgets how to fall, a crack splits open in the stillness.
Zen steps through.
His clothes hang in rags, dusted in Nitya's ash.
Behind him, Nitya pulses… and falls still.
The Dreampile cracks.
The demon's freeze.
The fox-demon jerks back, tails flaring. Her mask splits down the middle. "No," she whispers. "No, this can't be real."
The hulking demon stares, mouth agape. "He… he made it out?" His voice is a broken thing. "That's not—he wasn't supposed to—"
The hanging demon's grin shatters. "This impossible!" she breathes. "He should've…"
The silence thickens.
None of them move.
Then Zen speaks.
"I found it, the thing she wanted."
A hush spreads like frost.
The hanging demon stares, every bone in her body stilled. The fox-faced one meets his gaze—and sees something she doesn't understand. Not rage. Not madness.
Longing.
As if every step, every scream, every moment in that place… led to this.
The big one groans as he stands.
"Fine," he mutters. "We'll take you to her."
Zen nods.
And says nothing.
**Dreamwood**
The air here is thick with sleep. Not rest—**sleep**. Heavy, humid, and clinging. Trees with hollow eyes sway to a rhythm no one hears. Their bark peels back in spirals, revealing symbols that vanish when read. The ground pulses like breath beneath a silken fog, and shadows drift upward instead of down.
And through it all, the demonic energy is everywhere—thick, sour, clinging to the skin like oil. It oozes from the roots, drips from the leaves, coils in the mist. Breathing it in feels wrong, like swallowing something alive. It hums with malice and indulgence, too dense to be natural, too ancient to be clean. Every step in Dreamwood feels like walking through someone else's corrupted thoughts.
This is **Dreamwood**—the land of unreality. A place where dreams take root, and nightmares grow teeth. Thoughts become paths. Memories become traps.
And at its heart, towering above the shifting woods, stands **Veilspire**.
It does not rise—it *spills* upward, like smoke frozen mid-collapse. An impossible spire of glistening black stone and translucent veils that shift with thought. The structure has no foundation, no beginning. Parts of it flicker in and out of existence. Others loop endlessly—towers twisting into themselves, bridges that vanish mid-stride. Stained glass windows shimmer with scenes that never happened but might.
There are no gates. Just an opening that yawns like a question. A mouth waiting for an answer.
Zen steps through the haze without pause. Behind him, the air closes like a wound.
The palace—**Veilspire**—reacts. Curtains ripple. Distant laughter echoes from somewhere above, or below, or inside his head. The whole structure *shifts*, not welcoming, not rejecting—**noticing**.
A vast, shadowed chamber unfurls. The walls stretch too far, then collapse inward—never the same shape twice. Sound is muffled, like breath held too long in a deep sleep. At the center, raised high on a jagged plinth of shifting obsidian, sits a throne that moves.
It breathes.
The Throne of Endless Nightmare is not carved but grown—a grotesque tapestry of forgotten dreams and half-formed fears. Its surface writhes in slow, disturbing waves. Faces press outward—some screaming, some laughing, all fading as quickly as they came. Wisps of memory rise from its base in smoky strands, curling through the air like whispers that never found a voice.
And upon it—she sits.
Still as stone. Timeless. Terrible.
The demon of Dreams.
Her presence silences everything. Her form is impossibly regal, carved from pale twilight and crowned in horns that twist like broken thoughts. Dark filigree tattoos slither across her skin, shifting when no one looks directly. Her eyes glow faintly—not with light, but with depth—a reflection of countless minds she's touched, warped, unraveled.
She does not move.
She does not blink.
Only watches.
The throne pulses behind her, reacting to her thoughts—or perhaps, her desires. The chamber hums, low and wrong, as if reality wants to look away but cannot.
There was a flicker—subtle in her facial feature, almost imperceptible.
Someone has stepped into her dream. Her lips curled up.