"You'll need to fight it," Samael told Kivas, easy and simple.
"Fight what?" Kivas smiled wryly, hoping that there won't be any complicated process after this.
"The Nightmare of the Voidling you consumed. It will appear to you in a dream. That is when it must be truly defeated to claim what shall be yours."
Kivas raised a brow, then anxiously ran a hand through her hair. "Wait, it's still not over? We ate it. It's dead."
Samael turned her head slightly, one crimson eye focused on her. "Physically, yes. But in Fathomi, essences linger. Especially that of conscious beings. Their soul leaves an imprint—resentful, twisted, anchored by the mark you made upon them. That imprint forms the Nightmare.
"This Nightmare had no longer anchored to Fathomi with no physical vessel grasping to it, thus essences of their existence remain within those who partake in their event of death.
"And since they are ethereal in nature, they can only be interacted in a spiritual state like a dream. Hence the name, Nightmare."
"So… a boss fight in my sleep?" Kivas sneered.
"In essence." Samael moved back toward her, kneeling beside her log seat, wings folding in tightly. "You must defeat it inside your dream. That is how the Well of the Soul allows you to claim its attributes. For the dead shall leave their inheritance to the living."
Kivas leaned forward. "And what happens if I fail?"
"Then nothing changes," Samael said flatly. "The Nightmare survives, returns the next time you sleep. And the next. However, if too much time passes, if you allow too many Nightmares to persist, they might begin to gnaw at you from within."
Kivas frowned, albeit smiling. "That's… concerningly worrisome."
"They can find cracks in your soul, slither in, and twist you," Samael said, her tone not changing. "At best, they weaken your attributes. At worst, they replace you."
Kivas whistled low. "No pressure then. I can just try fighting them when I'm ready."
"You'll know when it begins. Don't worry about timing it." Samael stood again and dusted herself off. "But defeating the Nightmare isn't your first priority for today."
Kivas narrowed her eyes. "Why do I feel like you're going to add more homework?"
"You need a class," Samael said.
That caught her attention.
Kivas opened her Well of the Soul and navigated down to the empty tab titled 『Classes』, where a single line glared at her:
◈ Null
"Okay, yeah, you're right. That section's been a barren wasteland since I woke up," she admitted.
"It's necessary if you want to progress. Skills—they respond much more directly when aligned with a class, and will grow with you the more you perform or achieve something that aligns with the meaning of that class itself. Fighting a Nightmare is one of them.
"Thus, fighting one while you're classless is not an efficient thing to do. Right now, you're aimless, so you must choose a path to tread."
Kivas was hyped up, suddenly interested. "So how do I get one? Do I have to slay a dragon? Climb a tower? Do some metaphysical puzzle? Tell me it's dramatic."
Samael blinked at her. "It's not. For Basic Classes, the classes that can be acquired right at the get got, the process is mundane."
Kivas deflated slightly. "You could've lied to make it sound cooler."
"You're asking the wrong person for sugarcoating," Samael muttered. "But yes. There are Advanced Classes. I'll explain those later when the time comes. As for now." She gestured toward the mossy forest floor. "Close your eyes."
Kivas looked skeptical, but she did it regardless. "Just like that?"
"Yes. Imagine yourself. In hardship."
Kivas raised a brow. "Well, I'm good at imagining. This should be done in a jiffy~"
"Fathomi will guide you to it regardless as long as you intend to acquire a class with this gesture." Samael folded her arms. "For a better result, choose a situation familiar to you. One that resonates. Let your mind sink into it."
"I'll see what I can do."
Kivas let her mind go quiet. She leaned against the tree, the bark firm behind her back. The pain in her ribs softened.
She gave into the void, her body relaxed, and her thoughts drift.
Darkness came—not the terrifying kind, but the kind that drew the soul inward.
And then… she saw it, the place that she wanted to imagine.
But something was enhancing the experience, just like what Samael insinuate about Fathomi guiding the process. Instead of just visualizing the event of hardship, Kivas felt like she had just gone back in time.
"...How juvenile."
Concrete and smoke.
The stench of blood and scorched wiring.
Kivas found herself crouched low in a ruined pharmacy storefront, the walls half-melted, ceiling caved in.
Rubble blanketed the pavement outside. Fires bloomed in the distance. The roar of gunfire cracked like thunder, too close. Distant shouting mingled with the mechanical rhythm of bullet sprays.
Soldiers in armor scrambled through alleyways, shouting codes and commands over the chaos. Drones buzzed overhead like hornets. In the distance, a military walker with cracked plating took cover behind a collapsed skyscraper. Plasma pulses lit the air.
Kivas turned her eyes down.
Two civilians huddled near her.
One was a child, arm broken, blood running from their temple. The other, a mother, silent, tears streaking her face as she tried to stop the bleeding with torn cloth.
She remembered this. Right after the war started.
She remembered the silence that came after her own scream failed to reach anyone. How every attempt to signal for help had been jammed. How hopelessness clung to the skin like a second layer.
There were no medics coming.
No reinforcements coming.
Only a world devouring itself.
Kivas knelt beside the child and tried again to stop the bleeding. Her hands trembled. She whispered nonsense in their ear, not because it helped, but because silence felt like death.
She looked past the ruined windows and saw more people running. Screaming. More fire. Buildings caving in.
She wanted it to stop.
Everything.
The suffering. The sounds. The uselessness of her hands.
She wanted peace. She wanted a state where no one had to suffer.
She wanted to become something that could lift this weight from the world, even for a moment.
And then.
『Class Gained: Priest』
Kivas' eyes opened.
The forest returned.
So did the cold.
The pain.
Samael was sitting on a nearby boulder, sharpening the cinquedea again. She didn't even bother checking Kivas state.
"I felt it," Samael said, regardless of her expression. "Congratulations."
Kivas stared at her hand.
"…I'm a Priest now? I think?"
"Yes."
"Huh, that definitely felt more bizarre than I expected."
Samael gazed at Kivas, her expression unreadable. "Did the process answer something for you?"
"Yeah," Kivas said slowly. "I remembered what it felt like to want to take someone's pain and remove it for them. I wanted to help. That's what it was. A juvenile, and quixotic dream."
Samael nodded once. "Then your class reflects that."
"What's the rest of the potential class I could've gotten out of all the Basic Classes?"
"Mage, Thief, Warrior, Knight, Ranger, Bard, Monk, Alchemist, Hexblade."
"Shit, I landed on the lamest one."
"Not quite," Samael chuckled. "I found Priest class to be quite reliable for someone's first class. Not to mention, you need to have at least a couple of them as a requirement to get one of the Advanced Class."
"Huh, I guess there's a reason why it's called 'Classes' here in the Well of the Soul."