Had a very intense and vivid dream that had a ton of moving parts; a region of natural wonder, a sweet dryad met by a young man whose family had visited the area, an ancient windfish-like kaiju in torpor under a great temple being studied by a government, a man with a mercenary army seeking its power coming and forcing it awake and destroying the temple, only to slay it with a bullet through one of its missing plates, followed by taking over the entire region and ruling it like a dictator
The young man's family (turning out to be researchers) survived and escaped, but the man going back to stop the dictator and learning of magic through the dryad, getting the backing and training of the government's military force, and launching geurrilla attacks on the dictator's forces before facing him head-on as two powerful mages, the dryad sacrificing herself to give the young man an edge over the overwhelming power of the dictator who had fused with the remains of the kaiju and various machinery after an assassination attempt had claimed his mortal life
A phyrric victory, the region wasted away without the influence of its two guardians, the military threw a tacky celebration only for the embittered young man to go AWOL and destroy all of their records, followed by vanishing outright and using both his magic and stolen military technology to become something of a fae supersoldier that could disappear into the wood and disrupt any camera or radar that could pinpoint him with a high-energy pulse, ultimately fighting against the world's militaries to protect what natural wonders remained
Wow @_@
Dreams, war
Also of note, at the climax of the dream the dictator had summoned a massive castle stronghold, and in the denouement the military higher-ups throwing the party (only for their fellow brass and lauded hero) had used technology they derived from magical glamours to make the base the party took place at look like that castle, hence the sheer tackiness that drove the (naturally rather PTSD-laden) main character to desert and destroy their records