Reincarnated as the Villain: The System Made Me Overpowered-Chapter 40: The Vault Stirs, The Dreamer Wakes

Valerian’s hand hovered over the third mark. "Unknown. But they’re not passive. Caelum hinted they were ’awakening early.’ Which means they’re either being forced out... or reacting to us."

Selene leaned forward. "Do we have time to find them before they find us?"

"No," Kael answered grimly. "Because they’re already moving."

A silence settled over the chamber. Then Selene spoke again.

"There’s a site. Deep in the Emerald Expanse. An old ruin the Conclave always sealed. Forbidden even to high-ranking Magisters."

Valerian’s eyes sharpened. "You think the Third Key is there?"

"I think something is," Selene replied. "We used to call it the Vault of Echoes. And it’s tied to a name the System tried to erase from every archive."

Lira raised an eyebrow. "What name?"

Selene hesitated, then spoke:

"Nyreth."

Everyone stilled.

Valerian felt a cold memory stir—faint, fragmented. That name... it had appeared once in a corrupted System message months ago. Deleted almost instantly.

Kael spoke next, voice tense. "Isn’t that the name of the Fallen Dreamer? The one who—"

"Challenged the gods," Selene finished. "And nearly unmade the world."

---

They rode at dawn.

No army. No banners.

Just five figures moving fast through forgotten paths and reshaping ley-lines. Valerian led the way, Vesperfang pulsing faintly at his hip. The blade no longer responded to the System. It responded to him.

By midday, they reached the edge of the Emerald Expanse.

The forest shimmered with strange, pulsing light. Trees grew in spirals. Roots coiled like serpents. Birds sang in harmonies that echoed back with mismatched notes. Reality was thinner here. Warped.

"This whole forest is a dead zone," Lira muttered, scanning the treetops.

"No," Selene corrected. "It’s alive. Just not aligned."

Kael drew his blade. "We’re being watched."

Valerian stepped forward, breathing deeply. The air tasted of old magic. Something ancient moved beneath the soil—breathing with the rhythm of the land itself.

He turned to the others. "This place is a boundary. Between the rewritten world... and the pieces that never accepted change."

They pushed forward, the trail vanishing behind them with every step.

---

Finally, they arrived.

A clearing of obsidian roots coiled around a sunken staircase—circular, enormous, and humming with pressure.

The Vault of Echoes.

Valerian approached the edge, peering down into the spiraling descent. Strange glyphs hovered in the air, flickering between languages—none of them known.

He stepped closer—and the glyphs aligned themselves into a single message.

> [ACCESS GRANTED: FIRST KEY RECOGNIZED]

[QUERY: INITIATE INTERFACE WITH THIRD PROTOCOL?]

[WARNING: THE DREAMER REMEMBERS.]

Valerian blinked.

Selene’s voice was quiet. "We’re not just seeking the Third Key. We’re waking it."

Lira cracked her knuckles. "Then let’s hope it wakes on the right side."

Valerian stepped onto the first stair.

Behind him, the world shimmered again—another crack in the sky above.

A third pulse echoed through the ley-lines.

A whisper rode the wind, soft as a breath... yet felt in every soul:

> "Who dreams for the gods when they fall asleep?"

And beneath the Vault, something stirred.

Not just ancient.

Not just powerful.

But aware.

The staircase descended endlessly.

Each step felt like walking through a memory not his own—flashes of crumbled cities, a sky of shifting eyes, voices chanting in reverse. The Vault wasn’t just a structure.

It was a mind.

A prison carved into reality itself.

Valerian led, the others close behind, their movements careful, weapons drawn but lowered. The walls pulsed faintly with glyphs—some familiar from the System, others more primal. Older. Hungrier.

"These runes..." Selene muttered, fingers trailing one of the shimmering sigils. "They’re reacting to us. Measuring... choices."

Kael frowned. "Choices?"

"Not strength. Not mana. Just... the paths we’ve taken."

Lira scoffed. "Great. A sentient ruin with opinions."

At the base of the stairs, the passage opened into a vast hollow chamber—a cathedral made of lightless stone, ribbed with enormous roots of obsidian. At its center, a crystalline sarcophagus floated above a dais, suspended in mid-air by spiraling chains of runes.

Around it, five monoliths stood in a pentagram formation. Each glowed faintly, except one—black and dormant.

The one closest to Valerian.

"First Key recognized," a voice echoed—not from a speaker, not from the air.

From inside their minds.

> [SECOND PROTOCOL: CAELUM — ACTIVE]

[THIRD PROTOCOL: STATUS — DREAMLOCKED]

[FOURTH PROTOCOL — DISTORTED]

[FIFTH PROTOCOL — UNREACHABLE]

[ERROR: SYSTEM OVERRIDE DETECTED IN FIRST PROTOCOL.]

[CORRECTION: INITIATE DREAM WAKE?]

Valerian looked toward Selene. "What does it mean—Dreamlocked?"

Selene stepped toward the central sarcophagus, her magic flaring faintly, trying to interpret the field of energy around it.

"It means whoever—or whatever—is inside... never fully woke. Not since the beginning."

Lira tilted her head. "Then how is it reacting to us?"

Kael looked to Valerian. "Because the System is gone. The seal weakened. And now it knows we’re here."

Valerian didn’t hesitate.

He stepped forward, placing a hand over the floating glyph above the sarcophagus.

> [INITIATING THIRD KEY INTERFACE...]

[WARNING: HOST ENTITY — NYRETH — DREAM-WARD ACTIVE.]

[IMPACT: UNCONSCIOUS THOUGHT WILL AFFECT REALITY.]

[ADVISORY: BINDING OR AWAKENING MAY RESULT IN TERRAFORMING EVENTS.]

The air trembled.

Reality rippled.

And then—

A surge of heat. Cold. Silence. Screaming. All at once.

Everyone stumbled as the chamber bent inward for a heartbeat—gravity folding in directions it should never go. The walls breathed. The stone wept.

And the sarcophagus cracked.

Not shattered. Just... opened.

A hiss of dream vapor escaped the edges as the top slowly, impossibly lifted.

Inside, floating in a cradle of runes and mist, was a figure.

Not male. Not female. Not even fully human.

Eyes closed. Limbs long and ethereal. Skin like midnight threaded with constellations. Hair flowing upward like ink in water. Marked by runes no one recognized—except one.

One that matched Valerian’s.

The Third Key.

Nyreth.

The Dreamer.

They hadn’t just discovered them.

They had summoned them.

Valerian staggered slightly, his mind catching fragments of dreams not his own. Cities made of song. Worlds rewritten by thought alone. Endless sleep... endless watching.

Selene fell to a knee. "They’re already tethering. To him."

Kael reached for Valerian, but it was too late.

The sarcophagus burst into light.

And the Dreamer opened their eyes.

One pupil glowed with a star. The other, a black hole.

They looked at Valerian—and smiled.

Not with malice.

But with recognition.

> "You... severed the lock."

Nyreth floated forward. "You are the one who broke the Game."

Valerian said nothing.

His voice was a whisper in return. "And you’re the one who remembers how it began."

The Vault pulsed again. All five monoliths now hummed—two bright, one stirring, two still silent.

The Dreamer’s voice echoed through the chamber like a lullaby folded inside thunder.

> "Then let us begin the end."