Saint:My Daily Routine Became My Superpower

 Location: Safe Zone → Kael's Dreamscape Time: July 21st, 6:00 AM – 8:00 PM

---

6:00 AM – The Glyph in the Dirt

The glyph had not faded.

Kael stared down at the dirt outside the eastern treeline. The corpse from the night before was gone—burned by the System, or perhaps claimed by the things beyond the wall.

But the glyph remained.

Still glowing. Still pulsing. Still watching.

Elle crouched beside it, uneasy.

"It's not decaying," she said.

"Because it wasn't drawn in this world," Kael said softly. "It's bleeding in from somewhere else."

Dain crossed his arms. "So monsters are drawing System symbols now?"

"Not drawing," Kael corrected. "Mimicking."

---

9:00 AM – A Day Like Any Other

Life in the Safe Zone didn't stop.

The injured trained again. The recovered were briefed. Kael's team checked in on the Awakened still struggling with their weekly tasks.

A few had failed.

Their powers were sealed. They couldn't even lift a rock with enhanced strength anymore.

A message hovered over their heads: [Penalty Active: 60% Suppression – 6 Days Remaining]

But Kael didn't speak much that day.

Because that glyph had stayed with him—burned behind his eyelids, even in the light.

And as the sun dipped into dusk—

He felt the pull.

---

8:00 PM – The Descent into Dream

Kael didn't fall asleep.

He was taken.

One blink—and the world cracked sideways.

The air folded in on itself. His skin vibrated like a struck tuning fork. The sky, once clear above the Safe Zone, now stretched into a cavern of roiling ink.

Kael's body slumped silently against the barracks wall where he had been sitting just moments earlier. His teammates thought he had dozed off from exhaustion.

But inside, Kael was somewhere else entirely.

Somewhere wrong.

---

??? – Hollow Realm: Entry Point

He stood in a reflection of the Safe Zone—only it was upside-down, washed in colorless tones, structures warped like glass underwater.

Floating debris twisted midair. People stood frozen mid-step, their faces smudged out. The sun did not rise. It watched.

And above, carved across the sky like a scar:

A massive vertical eye, closed... for now.

Kael's mimic appeared beside him—not flickering anymore, but solid. It wore his face again, but its smile was unnaturally wide.

"Back again," it said. "You must've impressed them."

"I didn't choose this."

"You never do."

Then the System's dream interface burned into the air before him.

[ELITE TRIAL: HOLLOW CLEANSE – IN PROGRESS]

Trial Type: Cognitive Hazard

Target: The Watcher's Fang

Warning: Wounds may persist after waking

Status: You are being watched

Objective: Survive and eliminate entity

Time: Irrelevant

Kael's chest tightened.

This place didn't obey logic. Didn't follow rules.

Not even System rules.

"What is the Fang?" Kael whispered.

His mimic answered:

"It's the mouth that speaks for the Eye. And the hand that plucks unworthy seeds."

---

The Hunt Begins

The landscape twisted as he moved. Buildings blinked in and out of existence. Trees grew upside down. Footsteps echoed behind him—but never matched his rhythm.

Then, a whisper.

"Too late to run."

Kael spun, weapons drawn. A shadow leapt from above—tall, bone-armored, humanoid, with a thousand eyes embedded across its chest.

Its head was shaped like a wolf's skull, but its mouth was sealed shut.

The Watcher's Fang.

It struck first.

Kael dodged, barely. A slash tore the air—and time slowed for a second. His mimic hurled a copy of his blade mid-motion, which the Fang caught and broke instantly.

Kael gritted his teeth.

This wasn't just a creature.

It was testing him.

---

The Trial of Reflection

Kael fought it across the shifting dreamscape. Every blow he landed echoed back—cutting into him, or worse, into his mimic.

The lines between them blurred.

Sometimes it was Kael attacking.

Sometimes it was Kael watching himself be attacked.

"You think you're the only one evolving?" the creature rasped, in a voice stitched from dozens. "You fight. But we adapt."

The Fang disappeared and reappeared behind him.

Kael's mimic took the hit this time—screaming in his voice. Then it melted into smoke and vanished.

Alone now, Kael faced the Fang head-on.

"If this is a dream," Kael growled, "then I choose the ending."

He plunged his blade into the creature's chest.

And for a split second—he saw inside.

Not organs.

Not blood.

Just eyes.

Watching him.

Thousands.

---

8:00 PM – Back to Reality

Kael jolted awake on the barracks floor.

Sweat drenched his body. His hand trembled.

Elle had just come to wake him up. "You okay?"

He didn't answer right away.

The glyph from his dream—the crossed-out eye—was now faintly burned into his wrist. The System didn't show it. No one else could see it.

But Kael could feel it.

"Did you sleep well?" Elle asked.

"No," Kael said. "But I survived."

---

Final Cliffhanger – The Eye Opens

That night, Kael stood alone at the northern wall.

He looked up at the stars... but something was wrong.

One star blinked.

Not twinkled.

Blink.

And then... again.

Kael's mimic whispered in his mind, barely audible:

"You're not the only one who dreamed tonight."

In the eastern forest, a monster sat cross-legged, staring at the same sky.

It, too, had a glyph on its arm.

The exact same glyph Kael had.

"We passed the same trial," it murmured, smiling with broken teeth.

---

TO BE CONTINUED....