Rise of the Nightmare Crestmaster

"Why are you so angry with me?" The woman asked and hearing the hurt in her voice caused anguish in his own heart, "did I displease you?"

"Uh," Aldrich swallowed down feeling suffocated, why was he angry? How could he be angry with her? The most beautiful woman in the world?

"No-no, I am not angry… I was just…" Aldrich didn't know what to say.

"Aldrich don't you love me?" The woman asked and his heart beat quickened.

"Yes, of course I love you with all my being." Aldrich said and a moment later he wondered why he said that. He didn't even know her.

"Can you… do something for me?" She asked sweetly and Aldrich hung at her every word.

"Anything, I will do anything for you!" He hurriedly declared.

"Why don't you make me your woman? Come here be one with me."

Wait, who was she? What was he doing here? What did he come here to do? He need to do something here, a pressing matter. But for the life of him he couldn't remember.

"That doesn't matter to you anymore, Aldrich." She giggled and said as if she could read his thoughts.

"Yeah…" he agreed, the words rolling out of his mouth without control. It didn't matter all that matters was her, that he was able to see her and worship her.

"Aldrich you didn't agree yet," she reminded him.

"Oh, what was it, again?" Aldrich asked his eyes roamed her heavenly body, curves that were just right, her lips so captivating that he couldn't control himself he imagined her lips around his manhood.

"Can you come here and embrace me?" She cooed.

Aldrich was already on the verge of exploding he walked over to her right away. He couldn't even bother about what he was here for since it didn't matter.

But his feet were very heavy, for some reason his own body was refusing to obey properly. He wanted to go faster, how could he make her wait?

She opened her arms to welcome him and his mouth went dry, the resistance of his body waned significantly. He walked over to her.

But when he was only a few steps away he paused, his left hand burned with pain. That pain awoke something in him.

'Wait what the fuck happened to me? How could I have been so easily deceived? Why did her words put him under a spell?— a spell, that's right!'

"What's wrong my love? Why do you hesitate? You want this, there is a love for women in you, for me above all else."

The woman asked and he felt once again that her words made sense—no! Aldrich jumped back and pulled a sword out of nowhere. He pointed it at her.

"Who are you? What are you?" He asked for two reasons, because he wanted to know and because he wanted to buy time.

Just know he noticed that he was weak, incredibly weak. His body did not feel like his usual self, gone was all the power he gained using essence back was the feeble farmboy.

It was like he never did anything, never gained that power and never overcame any foes. He was back to being a clueless, ignorant nobody. And that made him unwilling to confront this thing for the time being.

He remembered this was a dream but he could be call an expert when it came to weird things happening in dreams. There was no need to take a risk like that when he knew something sinister was underway.

A tinkling laugh escaped the woman's lips. It wasn't remotely human. "If you stayed in Wakefield you would have died and saved yourself the trouble, like your mother told you to. She knew better, oh she knew much more than she let on," she said, chuckling cruelly.

"Though unfulfilled—in so many ways. Since you unexpectedly survived, you're going to join the adventurers guild like you've fantasized about for so many years, but ultimately you will die on a random quest." She let out a sniff.

"A pity those are the only options I see. You could have been something useful. But at least I will get your sinful blood, you could be considered to have contributed something in life." She laughed as if she thought of a funny joke.

"My blood? Sinful?" That was an odd description.

"It's not odd at all," she answered as if she could read his mind, "your blood is sinful, oh so deeply sinful, every single drop of your blood is stained with sin, yes indeed. And I will savor it lest it go to waste on the likes of you."

Aldrich tried to call out the Eyes of Insight but it was futile. Nothing worked, he was isolated from the nightmare realm and powerless.

"What was that just now?" The woman asked, "the thoughts that I couldn't hear, what's that trick? You've been doing it for a while now?"

'Thoughts that she couldn't hear?…Could it be the nightmare realm?'

"Yes, that thing… what is it? I stripped you of all your powers so what is that?" She wondered out loud.

'So that was why she didn't attack yet, she was deterred by something she couldn't understand. But why couldn't she hear that? He wasn't doing anything special.'

"So, even you don't know?" She asked sharply.

"Who are you?" Aldrich asked again, trying to change the subject and clear his thoughts. Dealing with an enemy that could read his thoughts was not easy at all. "What are you?"

"When you look faraway in the distance and see the horizon," she whispered, cocking her head to the side, "I am what's beyond it. When you look deep into the ocean, as far as mortal eyes can see—I wait just beyond the border of your perception. I control your fate with a thought."

She giggled in a way that was almost girlish. "I am Death, young man. And I have been with you since the moment you were born."