Even in a world full of terror and despair, a small village lived happily, because of the complicated geographical conditions in which they lived. Children laughed, men chatted and women happily watched their children.

All seemed to lead a happy and perfect life in comparison to the misfortunes that were out there. But in that village there was something strange, all the huts were close together, but one was far away. 

"Son, don't go there," said a woman as she saw her son approaching the lonely hut.

"Why?" asked the boy curiously.

The woman gently grabbed the boy's arm and said, "That's where a nightmare lives..."

The demons, or commonly called nightmares because they feed on the terror of humans to strengthen themselves, invaded the continent after the seal of the abyss was broken. Because of this the human civilisations are almost extinct, leaving only Shattered Realms, the six great clans and this small village.

The reason that this village is still standing is because the nightmares have not found a way in, or rather have not focused on searching. But Shattered Realms and the six clans are different, they count on the presence of the enlightened ones, the only humans capable of defending themselves from the nightmares.

The enlightened are humans capable of reaching the enlightenment of the mind, obtaining a singularity, unique abilities that allow them to fight against the curse of this world.

"Grandmother... you've told me the same thing a hundred times before," said a young man, with dark, wavy hair of medium length.

The young man was sitting on the floor of the hut while peeling an apple, in front of him was an old woman who appeared to be gravely ill, with dark circles under her eyes and a subhuman physical condition.

"Safwane, I am sorry for keeping you in a place where they hate you," stammered the old woman.

The young man smiled slightly as his eyes showed a clear sadness.

"You are a genius in the martial arts and you are very good at swordplay... sometimes I wonder what your life would have been like if you had not been born with those red eyes," the old woman said, letting out a few tears.

"I'd rather be with you, besides what would I do outside of this village other than fight all the time?" replied the young man as he cut the apple into pieces.

Because of the young man's red eyes, his parents abandoned him at birth and he was labelled as a nightmare by the village, despite the hatred they had for him and the constant insults he was subjected to, he was happy to have his grandmother by his side and although she was not his biological grandmother he treated her as such.

"Grandmother, is it time for me to go and fetch some water, or would you rather I stay here?"

She shook her head lightly, so the young man left the hut, as he left all the joy in the village dissipated, the children turned to their mothers in fear and the men clenched their fists, the murmuring was constant, the only reason Safwane could live there was because the old woman was the mother of the village leader.

Safwane, on the other hand, was used to the constant insults and tried to ignore them. The village was located in a small forest surrounded by large mountains, this was a natural defence that seemed to avoid the attention of the nightmares, or so it was thought.

Whether it was a natural defence or not, this gave protection to both humans and animals, which also suffered from the arrival of the nightmares, the main source of water in this place was a river that crossed until it reached a gigantic waterfall.

"This place is wonderful..." Safwane murmured as he watched the deer drinking from the river.

The young man, after observing the beauty of the place for a few minutes, filled a huge bowl.

Suddenly, the sunny place slowly took on an ominous air, grey clouds filled the sky and drops began to fall, this did not please Safwane, although he did not believe that because it was raining something bad should happen, sadness filled his heart.

After hastening his pace worried about his grandmother, he quickly reached the village, what he was observing was filling his mind with bad thoughts.

'The door is open' he thought as he looked at the hut.

The murmurs of the villagers were more audible than usual, this time they were not insults towards him but rather taunts.

Safwane walked slowly into the cabin in fear and what he feared most became a reality. His grandmother had been cruelly murdered, a knife was stabbed into her chest and a message was written on the ground with her blood.

"Happy nineteen, you fucking nightmare"

The young man, seeing the scene, filled his mind with mixed feelings: hate, sadness, anger... Safwane's mind was confused and he was trembling.

As if there was no truce, and all the bad news arrived at the same time, a heartbreaking screech echoed through the place.

The animals became agitated and ran like crazy through the forest, soon after the villagers did the same. The nightmares had flown to the place, her grotesque and dying appearance, the sharp teeth in her mouth and the claws on her hands, and finally the reason why Safwane was pushed aside, red eyes that seemed to look directly into the soul.

They quickly arrived at the village, the smell was disgusting and the surroundings became ominous, the villagers escaped and hid, but it was useless, the nightmares detected the fear of living beings making it impossible to hide, the first victims arrived.

Safwane on the other hand, seemed to reach a final conclusion, neither the nightmares nor the villagers deserved to live. The young man took the sword with which he trained and left the hut.

Upon leaving he could see two nightmares that were about to kill a man, Safwane took advantage of the fact that the nightmares had their backs turned and quickly cut off the head of one.

The other nightmare quickly turned around and attacked the young man with its claws, Safwane hit the arm with his sword and with a punch hit the side of the nightmare, taking advantage of the short time of distraction he gave a horizontal cut that cut the nightmare in half.

Safwane, without wasting any time, went towards the remaining nightmares. A total of five nightmares had arrived at the village. Now, with two dead, there were three left.

Fortunately, the three nightmares were in the same place, the chief's hut. When Safwane arrived, he could see that the man was on the ground, trembling. It seemed that he had used his wives as a shield, trying to mislead them.

The chief was a two-meter-tall man with great muscles. Anyone would say that he is incredibly strong, but nothing could be further from the truth. He was probably the most cowardly of all, who took advantage of the time of peace to abuse his power.

As the three nightmares were once again turning their backs on Safwane, he attacked them again, cutting off the head of one of them. The remaining two, confused, turned around and with a shriek, both attacked the young man.

Safwane dodged the attack slightly and grabbed one of the nightmares arms, which he ended up cutting, while one screamed in pain, the other continued attacking, this time using both claws, the young man blocked the claws, while the other nightmare attacked from his left side.

The young man deflected the claws that he was blocking and let them fall, causing the nightmare to kill the other.

Now there was only one left, this time Safwane was the one who attacked, the nightmare covered itself with its long claws, but the young man had made a feint, which ended up cutting its legs and while it fell the nightmare ended up cutting off its head.

Safwane was stained with black blood, he turned around giving the man a cold look and approached him.

Safwane placed the sword on the man's neck.

"Dirty nightmare... do you think I'm going to accept you as one of us if you do this?" the man asked arrogantly.

"Accept? I don't need it."

"Wait!... I'll accept you, you'll be my closest subject, what do you think?" he said with a nervous smile.

"What a scoundrel," Safwane replied with a disgusted face.

After those last words, the young man ended the man's life without wasting any more time, now the most important thing remained to be done.

Safwane left the hut.

The villagers watched him with fear, on the other hand the young man walked in silence until he reached the center of the village, everyone looked at him.

"Who killed my grandmother?" asked Safwane.

The villagers began to look at each other and as always began to murmur among themselves:

"Who does he think he is?"

"He's only killed a few of his own kind and he thinks he's strong."

"Wait until he meets the leader."

Safwane, seeing that he wasn't going to get an easy answer, had to use human selfishness to his advantage.

"Either you answer me or I'll kill you all, choose," the young man ordered.

After hearing the words, the villagers... began to laugh. They believe that he wouldn't kill them, since they consider him a "docile nightmare," because it's been almost two decades and he hadn't done anything to them.

Without saying a word, Safwane walked up to a man and stabbed his sword in his chest. The villagers stopped laughing when they saw that this was serious.

"Don't you understand? You speak or you die," said the young man shaking the blood off his sword.

The villagers looked nervous and scared, but there was something they didn't want to accept, how someone we made fun of for so many years dares to threaten them.

"Are you human? How can you kill your own kind without remorse!" shouted a woman.

"That's right, and on top of giving you a home, you treat us like this" said another man again.

Safwane sighed. He was going to kill them all anyway, but he wanted to know who the culprit was so he could give them a slow and painful death.

"If you don't want to talk, nothing can be done... Anyway, the culprit is among you so..." said the young man.

"So?" answered a man.

"You're going to suffer so much that you'll know what a real nightmare is."

The villagers gulped and the tension in the atmosphere was noticeable.

"R-Run..." shouted the man.

Safwane cut off his legs, everyone started to try to escape, but the young man attacked them in the same way, after all if they don't have legs they won't be able to escape.

The screams were heartbreaking, full of suffering, but wasn't it the same for Safwane? He spent nineteen years being insulted and abused, even so, he endured, he didn't want his grandmother to see a bad image of him, but now that he has lost her, who was left?

"Wait! I'll tell you who it is!" shouted a man whose legs Safwane was going to cut off.

"Speak"

"It's Jacob, the leader's son, he's hiding in that cabin" he said while pointing towards the cabin.

Safwane watched her, the man let out a smile, but before the young man left he cut off his head. His reward was going to be not to suffer like the others.

While the young man walked towards the place many took advantage to escape, but his priority was his grandmother's murderer.

When he opened the door of the cabin, there was indeed a young man of about twenty years old, he was blond and somewhat tall, he was holding a sword while shaking.

"Come to me, you fucking nightmare"

Safwane quickly attacked him, cutting off one of his arms, the young Jacob fell to the ground screaming in pain.

Safwane cut off his other arm and grabbed him by the hair, walking towards the outside of the cabin.

When he left he saw a huge three-meter nightmare devouring the villagers who could not escape.

Safwane threw Jacob towards the nightmare, hitting him in the arm.

The nightmare looked with its fierce four eyes at Safwane, who looked at him and pointed at Jacob.

"Eat it"

The nightmare, as if obeying the order, began to devour him, the cries for help filled the silence of the forest.

After a few minutes of silence, the nightmare ended and stood up.

The nightmare growled as drool came out of his mouth, this time he looked at Safwane as his prey.