Before Victor could respond, the transparent version's form shimmered. His edges began to blur like smoke caught in a breeze.

"Wait—what's happening?" Victor asked.

"You're remembering," the transparent Victor said. "And now that you've awakened, I can finally merge back where I belong."

Then, without waiting for another word, the transparent figure stepped forward and phased into the main Victor's dream body.

A shockwave of qi burst outward. The runes circling Victor's wrists flickered violently with the chains rattling as if they were alive and afraid.

Victor's eyes went blank for a second, then snapped open.

Memories flooded his mind like a broken dam, all his battles from the real world, the fight for supremacy with the statue in this domain, the pain, the manipulation. Every moment came back in vivid, agonizing detail.

He clutched his head as his body trembled.

"So that's what happened..." he whispered.

The statue being stepped back in disbelief. "Impossible. You—how did you—? I erased your memory! Your consciousness was locked within my domain!"

Victor stood slowly as the chains began to glow brighter, then cracked audibly.

"You thought you wiped my memory," Victor said coldly. "But when you invaded my mind, I split myself. A fragment of me—my dreamself—hid in the one place you couldn't see. The void between thought and existence."

His lips curved into a dangerous smirk. "That's the benefit of having the Void Emperor's bloodline, you dumb chunk of granite. I can make even memory itself invisible."

The statue's face twisted. "You—!"

CRACK!

Victor snapped the first chain. His Void Emperor Bloodline awakened causing a strange wave to surge through the dreamscape like a hurricane.

CRACK!

The second chain exploded into shards of light.

The entire domain began to quake violently. The sky darkened, the ground fissured.

The same markings that once adorned his body, glowed like arrows of light across his skin. His hair floated weightlessly, carried by a wind that didn't exist.

He looked up at the statue being with fury burning in his eyes.

"My family... my friends... the perfect life you crafted..." His voice trembled, not with fear, but with rage. "It was all a lie?"

The statue being, sensing danger, took a defensive stance. "It was mercy!" it bellowed. "You mortals cannot bear the truth. I gave you peace. I gave you joy!"

"Joy?" Victor's expression darkened as his voice dropped to a whisper that made the entire dreamscape shudder. "You used my dead father's image... his memory... and you call that joy?"

His Void Emperor aura erupted outward, creating a shockwave that sent fragments of the dreamrealm flying.

"Unforgivable."

The statue being lifted its massive arm, summoning tendrils of dream essence that coiled like serpents. "Then perish in your own nightmare!"

Victor's eyes narrowed. "Wrong move."

With a snap of his fingers, he activated his Void Emperor Domain.

The world around Victor flickered like a corrupted simulation. One second it was warm and radiant, the next a warped mess of shattered reflections. The air itself shuddered, glitching in and out of color as the domain trembled.

His heart thundered with fury.

His "perfect life." His father. All of it had been a cage, a handcrafted dream designed to make him content enough to be harvested like an animal.

Space twisted around him, forming an expanding field of transparent shadowy light where the laws of the Dreamweaver no longer applied.

Within that domain, his will was supreme.

The tendrils of dream energy that the Dreamweaver had summoned, intending to use against Victor, turned into bubbles.

The false skies cracked open, peeling apart like shattered glass. The serene, beautiful landscapes that had trapped hundreds of dreamers for decades now twisted into melting fragments, dissolving into streams of golden dust.

At the center of it all, the altar which already had almost all three layers completely glowing, began to buzz with frantic energy.

The stone statue many eyes blinked rapidly as its hands rose in desperate gestures of control.

"You will go back to dreaming, now!" it roared with a slight hint of terror in its tone.

The last time, he faced Victor, his domain was nearly crippled, and now the monster had managed to awaken himself again.

The Dreamweaver's thought was to quickly wipe his memories again and do it better this time.

As the Dreamweaver charged towards him on the altar, Victor suddenly tilted his head slightly, staring at the glowing altar.

"So this is where it comes from..."

He suddenly gathered as much force as he could in his arms from the Void Emperor Bloodline's power and punch downwards.

The ground beneath him exploded as his fist collided with the altar.

The entire structure cracked in an instant before it exploded outward in a storm of shards and mist.

The entire domain convulsed.

The skies broke into distorted squares as lightning arced through seams in space while the Dreamweaver screamed— with an unearthly shriek that rattled through the void.

Its statue form convulsed, losing its solid shape as golden dust leaked from its frame.

"NO! My Dreamscape core!—without the altar—"

"You can't gather any more dream essence without it, can you?" Victor growled. "I've seen what your 'kind' do. You twist minds and feed on broken souls. You'll do nothing to mine ever again."

The Dreamweaver struck out with a desperate surge of power, forming tendrils of psychic energy that lashed at him from every direction. They pierced the air like spears of nightmare energy, trying to force him back into illusion. But Victor had already seen through every trick.

He raised both hands and unleashed barriers of space around him. Once incoming psychic tendrils collided with the barriers, they were shredded like fragile paper.

The being reeled backward, screaming, "This is my realm!"

"Not anymore."

Victor extended his left hand, and the air around him warped.

His Void Emperor Domain rippled as he rewrote the very rules of this dreamspace.

The Dreamweaver tried to fly upward, but its wings disintegrated into fading motes. Its movements grew slower.

When it tried to jump backwards, it's body leapt forward by mistake and a fist from Victor was waiting on the other end.

Bam!

It got sent flying again.

While its body was in mid air, Victor raised a hand and the Dreamweaver's body got pulled towards him once more.

Victor arched his arm backward and threw another fist towards the masked face of the Dreamweaver.

Bam!

It got sent flying again, with fragments of the wooden mask blasting apart.

Victor was taking over its dreamscape.

"You said dreams are shaped by the mind," he said as he walked forward. "Then it's time you learned what happens when a cultivator's will is stronger than your godhood."

The Dreamweaver grunted in pain and then lashed out again, forming hundreds of mirrored copies of itself. Each one spat waves of blazing purple flame.

Victor didn't even flinch.

He spun, and with a low, deep exhale, unleashed Dragon Breathing Arts. A roar shook the realm as a massive dragon of fire burst from his mouth, coiling into the sky before crashing down upon the army of illusions.

The entire dreamscape burned, melting the false constructs into liquid glass.

The Dreamweaver staggered back, screaming.

Its body was beginning to crumble.

"Oh would you look at that... I can use my other cultivation techniques now..."

Victor didn't stop there.

He blurred forward, moving at a speed faster than the eye could follow. His form split into a dozen afterimages until the Dreamweaver couldn't tell which was real.

Victor conjured Wind Blade in the hands of every afterimage and then from every angle came slashes of shimmering light.

Phantom Moon Slash cut the creature apart piece by piece.

"Mercy!" the Dreamweaver howled as its form cracked while half its face collapsed into dust. "Please! My kin… they are bound in their own prisons! I only wanted—"

"Freedom?" Victor interrupted with a cold gaze. "You could've asked for peace. Instead, you chose control. You fed on others' happiness to prolong your existence. You deserve extinction."

His hand glowed with blue-white energy as frost qi coiled around his palm. The Dreamweaver tried to crawl backward as Victor walked closer with his hair floating and his body marked with the glowing sigils of the Void Emperor's bloodline.

He crouched beside it, meeting its terrified gaze. "You turned my father into bait. For that, I'll make sure no one remembers your name."

And with that, Victor struck.

Frost Bloom Palm landed squarely on the creature's chest. The impact sent shockwaves through the dying realm. Ice crawled across its body, freezing even the golden dust trying to escape.

The Dreamweaver's last scream echoed into silence as the entire dreamscape shattered.

The sky, ground, air... everything within this realm, broke apart like fragile glass.

The next thing Victor knew, he was back in his real body, still leaning against the statue of the Dreamweaver, lost deep within the unknown. He exhaled heavily, feeling the taste of stale air for the first time in what felt like days.