The warmth of Syrene's bare skin against his chest should've lulled Renji to sleep. Her breathing was soft, steady, and her silver hair was a tangled halo across the pillow. The afterglow clung to them like incense.
But Renji was wide awake.
Something was wrong.
A cold chill slithered down his spine, a crackle in the air that didn't belong. He slowly sat up, careful not to wake Syrene, and glanced toward the ornate window—moonlight filtered through the crimson curtains in strange, sharp patterns.
Then he heard it again.
A voice.
"Renji…"
"Come… out…"
It wasn't like Seraphina's soft whispers or Syrene's sweet cries. This voice was low, ancient, echoing inside his skull like a bell tolling in a hollow cathedral.
He stood, slipping on his pants and grabbing his blade as quietly as possible. A dark fog clung to the corridor outside his room, thick and almost alive. He stepped into it, drawn by the voice like a puppet on fraying strings.
The corridor twisted. Bent. Changed.
This wasn't the brothel anymore.
The walls were now black stone, bleeding shadows. The torches along them flickered with blue flames. And in the distance, a throne of bones waited.
Sitting atop it—a man cloaked in darkness. No eyes. No face. Just a jagged smile and swirling black mist.
"You've tasted pleasure," the being hissed. "But now… taste despair."
Renji reached for his blade—
Too late.
Black chains lashed out from the shadows, coiling around his limbs, dragging him to his knees.
"Who… are you!?" Renji roared, struggling.
The being only laughed.
"I am the part of you that was buried… and forgotten. You think you've claimed the Exile?"
"Fool. You're still its prisoner."
And then the world collapsed—falling into red mist, screams, and something worse than death.
The world around Renji shattered like stained glass, each piece reflecting fragments of memories and horrors he'd never lived—yet somehow remembered.
He was falling—endlessly. Screams echoed around him, some his own, some from long-dead warriors. He landed hard, not on ground, but on flesh. A sea of corpses stretched endlessly underfoot, twisted and broken. Every face was his.
A younger version of himself—crying.
A tortured version—bleeding from his eyes.
Another—collared and kneeling.
He stumbled back, gasping, when chains erupted again, slamming around his throat.
"You were never meant to rule," the same nightmare voice rasped, slithering like oil in his ear. "You were meant to suffer. Just like your mother did."
Flashes.
His mother, screaming as Light blades pierced her.
A young Renji, being torn from her arms.
Seraphina, standing alone in a burning throne room, bleeding gold.
He fell to his knees, clutching his head.
"No… no… this isn't real—!"
But the pain felt real. The despair. The weight of failure crushing him.
"You're weak."
"You're nothing."
"She knelt for you? How pathetic."
Suddenly, light burst through the black. Warm. Fierce.
"ENOUGH."
The shadows recoiled, screeching like beasts. The chains cracked and shattered.
And from the light, she came—barefoot and radiant—her silver gown fluttering like flame, her golden eyes glowing with divine fury.
Seraphina.
She walked toward him without hesitation, as if the nightmare had no power over her. Her hand found his, and at once, the darkness trembled.
"Renji… wake up," she whispered, her voice the sound of a lullaby forgotten by time.
He looked up at her, dazed, lost. "What… is this place?"
"Your fear. Your pain. Your buried past. The part of you that still thinks you're not enough. But listen to me—" She knelt beside him, pressing his hand to her chest. "You are not alone anymore. And you're not broken."
The light expanded, engulfing the twisted dream. Seraphina leaned in, lips brushing his ear.
"Come back to me."
And with a gasp—Renji opened his eyes.
He was back. On the bed. Syrene still sleeping beside him. The moonlight calm again.
And Seraphina stood at the edge of the bed, watching him with a look that blended divine love… and something deeper.
Renji sat up, drenched in sweat. His heart still raced like a war drum, pounding from the ghostly terror that lingered on the edge of his senses. Syrene remained asleep, curled into the pillow, unaware of the storm that had just raged inside him.
Seraphina stood beside the bed like a moonlit phantom, arms folded over her ethereal robe. Her golden eyes shimmered, but her face bore a heavy seriousness.
"You weren't just dreaming," she said softly, "You were pulled."
Renji blinked. "Pulled… into what?"
Seraphina stepped forward, kneeling by the bed like a mother about to reveal a bitter truth to her child. "There's more to the Exile System than what you've unlocked. What you faced… was a piece of the Nightmare Mode—the highest level of the system."
He swallowed. "So I've been fighting with training wheels this whole time?"
"Not quite," she said, brushing a hand against his shoulder, letting it linger with comforting warmth. "You've only tapped into the Sovereign tier. But Nightmare Mode isn't just power—it's chaos, memory, and madness woven into the core of the land itself. And it's not empty…"
She hesitated.
Renji frowned. "You're not telling me everything."
She nodded, solemn. "Because the Nightmare Mode... it's already been claimed."
Renji's eyes widened. "By who?"
Seraphina's tone dropped. "A faction of shadow-dwellers. They live in the southern part of the Exile—the Ruin Depths. No kingdom rules there. Not Light. Not Dark. Just the Forgotten."
He raised an eyebrow. "That's vague and terrifying. Who are they?"
She looked toward the moonlit window. "They were once members of both Orders—Light and Dark—who were banished, erased, or forsaken. Warlocks. Heretics. Fallen saints. They built their own domain from discarded nightmares, and somehow… they've accessed the hidden core of the Exile System. The Nightmare Mode is theirs now."
Renji cracked his knuckles. "So to take it back, I've got to go full monster hunter on a bunch of exiled war criminals with death hacks?"
Seraphina smirked faintly. "Exactly."
Renji leaned back, exhaling. "This just keeps getting better."
She looked at him, softening. "This journey won't be like the others. There are things in the south even I… fear."
Renji met her gaze with a grin. "Then it's time we remind them who the real nightmare is."