Nox let out a sigh of relief the moment he came into contact with the hot water in the Rotenburo1.

The feeling of taking a bath after a whole month without one was unmatched.

He leaned by the rocks, letting his body soak up the heat and allowing his muscles to relax.

Nox knew it was stupid to let down his guard among people he wasn't fully sure were Eclipsed or not, but for now, he allowed himself to be careless.

The water was so relaxing that his lids got heavier by the second and before he knew it, he was taken in by slumber's sweet embrace.

***

"This again?" Nox muttered as he opened his eyes to a pretty familiar scene, well, mostly familiar since he had only seen it once before.

All around were corpses of Eclipsed and on a large pile of them sat a being the shape of a man, but made entirely of light.

Its sword, also made entirely of light, was stuck in the corpse of an Eclipsed, but unlike previous dream when he just fell through an endless void, the being looked directly at him this time.

Nox froze beneath the being's gaze, as a heavy pressure fell on him, but it was soon withdrawn.

The being seemed to sigh before pointing in his direction, or rather, behind him.

Slowly, Nox followed the direction of his finger and he immediately froze, this time the pressure felt different from what the being of light released.

What he saw was darkness, not just any darkness, but one that that somehow seemed alive.

Nothing was beyond it, or at least that's how it seemed, but Nox still felt a cold gripping sensation, as if the darkness itself was trying to pull him towards it.

Suddenly, two pair of glowing red orbs seemed to open within and multiple feet lower, a pale, almost whitish, blue glow lit up.

Nox could hear what sounded like screams within that new glow, and soon enough, his sense of security from standing so far from the darkness was snatched away.

The darkness suddenly started crawling towards him faster than he could retreat he soon fell backwards, turning to the being of light for help but it refused to move.

It just sat there, watching as the darkness slowly approached Nox, but they stopped just reaching him.

Thinking himself safe, he slowly opened his eyes, only to be greeted by another terrifying sight.

The bluish light seem to glow bright with the screams growing louder and before Nox could get a hold of himself, something seemed to separate itself from the light, rushing towards him.

He could make out its shape when the creature got close enough.

It was… human or rather, it seemed to have been.

The creature seemed to be falling apart....literally.

Where its face should have been, there was only hollow flesh and the mouth was split open far too wide.

Their flesh was not any better, as it seemed to be on the brinks of falling off, but it didn't.

More of these creatures appeared and they crawled rather than ran, dragging themselves across the ground with jerking, unnatural movements, fingers clawing at the earth.

Nox tried to get up and run only to realize that his body was completely frozen in place.

His golden pupils shrank as the creature got closer and closer and one lunged at him when it was close enough.

But just a moment before the creature could reach him, his eyes snapped open.

***

Nox was faced with the black starless sky that was obstructed by the smoke from the Rotenburo.

It took him a few minutes, but his body soon reached that it was out of whatever nightmare he had.

He slowly turned to the side and was immediately startled when he noticed that the lady that had captured him was just standing there, staring at him.

There was a couple of seconds of awkward silence before she broke it and said, "grans said to check up on you since you've been here for an hour."

'An hour?' Nox mentally repeated in question.

As far as he knew, he had only been in that nightmare for ten minutes max, so how was it that an hour had already passed?

"I'll be out in a minute," He answered before the lady turned to leave, but not before pointing to a corner of the Onsen, "there're clothes there you can change into, of you wish."

"Got it," Nox nodded, and the lady finally left, leaving him to his thoughts and he immediately leaned back on the rocks.

"What the hell was that?" For some reason, he felt like he had seen both those red orbs and blue glow before, but he couldn't figure out where.

Unlike his first nightmare, this one made no sense, so he couldn't say he could avoid it.

Slowly, he picked up the new clothes laying on the ground.

They were simple, a loose dark shirt, rough trousers, and a cloth belt, it was nothing fancy, but it was a lot better than wearing a shirt with a claw mark.

Speaking of which, he looked down at his chest, only to see that all signs of th claw was gone.

There wasn't even scars left behind, which he still couldn't wrap his head around how it had healed.

He would've believed it was all a dream if he hadn't been the one to bury Levi and Elias.

With a sigh, he put on the clothes and walked out of the Onsen. Nox finally had the chance to look around, noticing how the houses were arranged.

They seem sturdy, almost as if they were put up by professionals which wasn't far from the case.

His thoughts where suddenly interrupted.

"You're done dreaming?" a voice asked.

He turned to see the woman from earlier leaning against a post with her arms crossed.

From this angle, he could clearly see how much her body was littered with scars, probably from fighting Eclipsed, but he didn't say anything, instead, he answered her earlier question.

"Guess so," Nox replied.

"Good," she moved away from the post, "grans wants to have a word with you."

Think Onsen, it's like a swimming pool in an open air bath, but mostly with hot water and some herbs used for soaking in.

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