Shadow Slave

“Die… just die, bastard…”

Effie had the homunculus — what remained of it — pinned to the floor. Her emaciated figure was mangled and gruesomely brutalized, blood flowing down the polished steel of her battered armor like rust. There was no strength left in her body, no capacity to continue fighting… but her hazel eyes remained sharp and clear, burning with ruthless killing intent.

That killing intent, the predatory resolve to bring her prey down, was the only thing that pushed her to move now.

Beneath her, the thing that had been pretending to be the butler of Mirage Castle was still struggling to break free. The homunculus was in a ghastly state as well, his chest broken and caved in, countless wounds littering his artificial body. Only what spilled from his wounds was not blood — instead, it was liquid metal akin to mercury.

The creature refused to die, and while it was broken and savagely mutilated, it still retained the strength of a Supreme Devil. So even in this weakened state, the thing was still utterly deadly.

But so was Effie…

Effie was deadly, too. That was who she had become on the terrifying streets of the Dark City, hunting down abominations much more powerful than her in order not to starve. Her killer instinct might have become buried under the red dust of mundane life, but it was still there… it was still ruthlessly sharp and deadly, having only been made more so by the years of experience.

And so, she was intending to kill the homunculus.

“Die!”

Batting the thing’s arms away with her mangled arm, she thrust her fingers into his neck. Pushing through the stone-hard mass of the creature’s flesh, she growled and wrapped them around his spine.

And then, with a ferocious scream, she tore his head clean off his shoulders.

Well… not quite. There was nothing clean about it — in fact, it was the opposite.

A fountain of mercury flowed out of the torn neck of the homunculus, and bits of sinew still stuck to the head as she raised it high above her own.

Effie stared into the old man’s spinning eyes for a brief moment.

Then, she slammed the torn head into the floor with all her might, causing it to burst like a loaded grenade.

There was a shockwave and a deafening thunderclap. When the dust settled, a vast web of cracks covered the stone floor of the throne room, spreading outward from the point where Effie’s hand rested in a puddle of liquid metal.

The body of the homunculus finally stopped moving.

She exhaled slowly…

And slowly fell to the floor.

“Aaah…”

Effie was in a sea of pain. Her strength had left her, and she couldn’t even move a finger. Worse still, she could feel blood flowing out of her body. Her essence seemed to be flowing away, as well, as if her soul had become a sieve that was incapable of holding it.

‘Am I… dying?’

She didn’t know.

It sort of seemed that way, though. Gathering what little strength she had left, Effie twisted her neck and looked at the Gateway of Mirage Castle. It seemed so far away… but she had to reach it, somehow.

‘Right. Let’s crawl, Effie. Just… let’s move.’

But she couldn’t move. She couldn’t make her body obey.

In the end, she had only made it a few meters away from the headless corpse of the homunculus when a shadow fell over her. Looking up, Effie saw a familiar face.

It was Thane. The defenders of the Castle seemed to have pushed her soldiers back, and they had no choice but to retreat into the throne room.

Effie smiled weakly.

“Thane… that Gateway is so damn far. I don’t think I am going to make it. So… go conquer it in my stead, will you? No time… to waste…”

The flamboyant Saint stared down at her with a frozen expression. Then, his lips moved slightly.

“No, just… I think you should take it, Saint Athena.”

Effie’s pale smile widened a tiny bit.

“Oh? So… I should just take it, huh? Gods… how audacious. My husband is right there…”

She tried to laugh, but it caused her too much pain, so she coughed instead and grew quiet.

“Ah… I’m afraid I’m not very mobile at the moment, Thane.”

But someone had to finish the job.

Thane stared at her for a moment, then looked away.

And then, he shouted:

“What are you standing there for, blockheads?! Come help Saint Athena reach the Gateway! It’s inconvenient for her to move right now…”

‘What is he even…’

Effie heard the sound of footsteps, and someone’s hands carefully hoisted her up. Then, she felt the world moving past her. Her soldiers were carrying her to the Gateway.

‘How embarrassing.’

But then again, Effie had experienced this exact thing myriad times in her youth, before regaining her health as a Master. Being lifted and carried around by people, unable to move through the world herself. Her eyes suddenly felt hot.

She had tried to escape it so earnestly, and here she was, in exactly the same spot. Well, it didn’t matter that much.

Someone had to finish the job, and that someone was Effie.

It did not matter whether she crawled to the Gateway or was carried to it.

The only thing that mattered was that she and her soldiers — most of them — were still alive, and the mission entrusted to them was about to be completed.

In the fractured hall of the Ebony Tower, Asterion staggered slightly in the middle of a swing, allowing the Mad Prince to evade his devastating blow.

Mirage Castle was now gone from his Domain, diminishing his terrifying power a little.

The Jade Palace was gone, too.

So was the Night Garden.

And the Ivory Tower, as well — Rain succeeded in breaking his connection to its Gateway, stealing the Great Citadel from beneath a Supreme just as she had promised to do.

Each of the Great Citadels only accounted for a small part of his tyrannical authority, considering that the spreading plague of his Domain did not rely on the Nightmare Spell. However, they still added to his power, so being robbed of all four was enough to make Asterion feel the loss.

And those four Great Citadels, while important, were insignificant in the grand scheme of all the things Asterion was losing.

The real attack was happening somewhere else, unseen and unwitnessed by anyone. It was happening within the minds of myriad people, where a furious battle between the Dreamspawn and Cassie was raging.

And Asterion…

Asterion was losing that battle.

That was because while he could manipulate human minds, Cassie could manipulate their memories. And memories were the foundation of the mind — without them, there was simply nothing for the Dreamspawn to twist and pervert. So, instead of trying to overpower his fearsome Aspect, she simply made his powers irrelevant.

All across the two worlds, people were being cleansed of the plague. Cassie erased their memories of knowing who Asterion was, of ever hearing his name… she tried to be deliberate about which memories she was destroying, but his influence was too ubiquitous by now.

In most cases, she simply had to erase everything that had happened since the Dreamspawn escaped his prison on the Moon.

But that was a blessing in disguise, as well. Because Cassie could work much faster without the need to be delicate… infinitely faster, even.

In these moments of intense concentration, her mind had become so vast that even she struggled to define its boundaries. Millions of perspectives all fused into a roaring ocean of sensations, all enthralling her with their vibrant intensity.

Then, billions of them.

Billions of minds, multiplied by a deep sea of memories contained within each of them… Cassie would have long lost her own self, forgetting the way back to her own body and her own perspective… to her own identity.

If not for the harrowing, unimaginable pain that originated in her empty eye socket and ravaged her entire being.

That vicious agony, that unbearable torment, was like a beacon in the darkness, vast and blinding enough as to be unmistakable.

Because her pain was unique, incomparable, and therefore could not belong to anyone else but her. Guided by the pain, Cassie remembered who she was as she erased the memories of who Asterion was from the collective consciousness of humanity.

That was the real attack — that was where the true assault on the Hunger Domain was happening, and as more and more people were cleansed of the plague, Asterion’s power dwindled.

He knew it, as well.

Cassie was aware enough to see that the Dreamspawn was paying her attention, searching for a way to break through the barrier of death and destruction that the Mad Prince had built from his own incarnations to protect her.

And as she liberated more and more people from the mental vice of the Hunger Domain, his determination to eradicate her at all costs grew more and more firm — enough so that Asterion came to terms with losing a part of himself to the Sin of Solace if it meant stopping Cassie from continuing her exponential assault.

Asterion was significantly weakened by then — he had lost the four Great Citadels, and since Cassie focused on cleansing the Saints first, the Citadels they controlled were disappearing from the Hunger Domain, as well. Myriad humans were already free of the plague, and millions more were being healed of his vile power every moment. So, his authority was not as absolute anymore. However, the Mad Prince was also not in the best shape. Only two of his incarnations remained, by then, and both of them were severely wounded.

It was because he was fighting with one hand tied behind his back. In other circumstances, the Mad Prince would have lasted longer… would have found a way to overwhelm the dreadful Supreme, perhaps. Who knew? He was a killer who had experienced thousands of years of madness and slaughter, after all.

But that was precisely the problem. The Mad Prince was a natural killer, but today, he was not fighting to kill his enemy. Instead, he was fighting to protect someone — protect Cassie — and Asterion quickly learned to use that against him.

The Mad Prince could protect himself, but when Asterion aimed his wrath at Cassie, the loathsome Titan was forced to shield her to his own detriment. That was why he had been reduced to only having two incarnations now, and that was why Asterion seemed to be gaining an upper hand despite losing the Hunger Domain as they spoke.

And on top of that… even without his Domain, Asterion was still a monster who had absorbed four Divine Lineages.

Each Lineage provided an overall augmentation to the descendants of the gods — they were generally faster, stronger, and more resilient than most humans. That augmentation extended to the parts of them that were not physical, as well — their souls, their spirits, their minds.

The difference between those who had divine blood in their veins and ordinary people was marginal at first, but the Lineages grew more potent and extensively expressed as the inheritors climbed the Ranks, drawing closer and closer to becoming Divine.

And although the Lineages improved all aspects of a descendant’s being, each also excelled in a specific area, which received a far greater augmentation than all the rest. The lineage of Sun God, for example, concerned the soul — it made Neph’s soul far more resilient, while her essence was more potent and more plentiful… pure, powerful, and containing within itself boundless potential for both destruction and salvation.

Asterion did not possess the lineage of Sun God yet, but he did possess the lineages of Heart God, War God, Storm God, and Beast God.

The lineage of Beast God greatly enhanced his physical body. The lineage of Heart God greatly enhanced his spirit. The lineage of War God greatly enhanced his intellect and affinity for combat, while the lineage of Storm God enhanced his mystical senses, granting him incredible intuition and foresight.

That was what the Mad Prince was up against.

“Is it worth it?”

Asterion skirted the blade of the Sin of Solace and tossed a piece of obsidian at Cassie.

A rock tossed by a Supreme was annihilating enough to topple castles and pulverize warships, and she was too distracted by the ocean of foreign perspectives to skirt or deflect it in time.

So, the Mad Prince was forced to shield her from it, which in turn opened him up to a vicious attack.

Asterion’s palm connected with his chest, causing a shockwave.

Pieces of black stone fell from the fractured ceiling, and the Mad Prince fell to his knees, bloody foam flowing out of his mouth.

His gruesomely scarred face twisted into a demented smile.

“What?”

Asterion pressed his advantage, but the avatar had already disappeared into the shadows, another emerging from them instead with the tip of the Sin of Solace aimed at his heart.

“You can’t kill me, and you are not strong enough to subdue me. So, you will be destroyed here, mere moments after you’ve been summoned back from beyond the grave. So is it worth it? Dying to protect this treacherous woman?”

The Mad Prince laughed.

“Treacherous? Ah… she and I are two of a kind. We go way back, Torment and I. Plus, do you take me for a fool?”

As one incarnation attacked Asterion from the front, the other emerged from the shadows behind him and delivered a debilitating attack.

Both spoke in unison, their eerie voices fusing into a maddening whisper:

“I might be mad, ghoul… but I am not a fool. She is the one who is manifesting me into existence, so why would I ever let you hurt her?”

He laughed again, sending a spray of bloody foam flying through the air.

“So what if you destroy me? The memories of me will remain in Torment’s mind. I etched myself into her, and the scars she wears because of me can never be healed. Which means that she will summon me again, one day… and a new cycle will begin for me, no different from the Great River. Over, and over, and over again… until, one day, I escape.”

The blade of the Sin of Solace whistled past Asterion’s head, almost taking out his eyes.

“So, you can destroy me all you want. But you can’t destroy her…”

Asterion smiled then, as well.

And then, as a horrible hunger revealed itself for a moment in his eyes, he stomped on the floor.

The floor, which had already been damaged, began to crumble under their feet, slowing down one of the Mad Prince’s incarnations for a split second — but that second was enough for Asterion to appear near him and grab him by the neck.

He drove his other hand into the abomination’s abdomen, piercing it with his fingers…

And then ripped his body in half.

Before the last remaining incarnation could react, the torn half of his avatar’s body suddenly ignited with a blinding golden light under Asterion’s hands, chasing the shadows that populated the ruined hall away — and using that moment of brilliant radiance, Asterion lunged at Cassie.

There was no time for the Mad Prince to intercept him, and no shadow nearby for him to step into.

And so…

Moments before, in the present, Cassie let out a mental shout:

[Morgan, now!]

…Before Asterion could reach her, a wall of liquid metal suddenly appeared in his way. The surface of the metal wall was perfectly smooth and polished, reflecting the Dreamspawn’s glowing golden eyes back at him.

A moment later, a different reflection appeared from behind his and reached out of the mirror-like surface of the metal wall, grabbing him…

And pulling him into the mirror.

A section of the floor collapsed, and Morgan’s Transcendent form disappeared from sight, plummeting down in a rain of stone debris.

Suddenly, the ruins of the forbidden hall were enveloped by silence.

Cassie let out a shaky breath and allowed herself to sink to the floor, using the cracked wall to support her.

She was cleansing the remains of the plague from the world, eradicating its last vestiges. The Hunger Domain… was all but gone. Concentrated on the task, she barely heard the sound of footsteps approaching her. By the time she looked up, the gruesomely scarred face of the Mad Prince was directly in front of her, his black eyes peering into her eye with dark amusement.

Cassie shuddered.

Seeing that, the bloodied abomination grinned.

“I guess you will dismiss me now. Won’t you?”

Cassie did not respond, prompting him to chuckle.

The Mad Prince studied her for a few moments, then leaned lower and whispered into her ear:

“How long do you think it will take me to escape that pretty little head of yours, Torment? Shall we make a bet?”

Cassie looked at him quietly, then pressed her lips together and released her Aspect Ability.

The Mad Prince vanished without a trace, leaving her alone in the silence.

‘Never. You will never escape, monster.’

Blood flowing down her face, Cassie sighed heavily and closed her eye.

There were still people out there who remembered Asterion, the Dreamspawn. But most of them were already free of his influence. Cassie’s job was almost done.

‘It’s up to them now…’