The phantom spray of the Dark Sea still clung to the Witnesses, the freezing, stagnant salt of the memory a constant reminder that they were no longer in the safety of the waking world, but submerged in a projection of the Forgotten Shore .
The echo of the Lord of Shadows' whisper seemed to ripple across the black waves, leaving a heavy, suffocating silence in its wake . Cassie stood on the surface of the illusory water, her hands trembling as she wiped the golden light of the Spell from her eyes. She did not keep crying. The grief was still there, a hollow ache in her chest, but the pragmatism of the Seer took hold. She stood tall, her unmasked gaze fixed on the shifting, glitching form of the Blur .
Nephis also composed herself, though her grey eyes remained turbulent. She looked at the Blur — the young man she had apparently known for years but could not remember— and felt a phantom weight on her shoulder where his hand might have once rested.
The memory did not remain static. The dark, claustrophobic tunnels of the Crimson Labyrinth began to blur as the projection fast-forwarded. Days of travel through the red coral and grey mud flashed by in a dizzying streak of motion.
The trio appeared in brief, jagged bursts, a montage of desperate survival turning into something sharper.
A flash of motion.
The Blur sliding through a narrow crevice, his shadow detaching to scout the darkness ahead. He wore a garment of grey, ragged fabric that looked deceptively durable — the Puppeteer's Shroud, the Memory he had earned in the First Nightmare.
A flash of steel.
Nephis lunging, her sword intercepting a pincer meant for the blind girl.
A flash of violence.
The audience watched as the trio clashed with a pack of Carapace Scavengers. It wasn't a heroic duel. It was a butchery. The Blur didn't fight with honor. He fought with the terrain. He threw mud in the eyes of monsters, lured them into bottlenecks, and struck from the blind spots Nephis created. It was efficient, brutal, and utterly devoid of mercy.
"They are adapting fast," Morgan noted, her eyes tracking the blur of combat. "That isn't just survival anymore. That is a hunting pack."
Finally, the motion slowed and solidified as they reached a landmark that rose like a jagged island from the mud: the headless stone colossus.
◇ ◇ ◇
It was night, and the trio sat on the severed neck of the giant, passing the bottle of limitless water around, as they chewed on strips of dried meat. The Blur reached into a ragged pouch and placed three shimmering soul shards on the stone.
"I will give you these soul shards," the young man said, his voice raspy and unrecognizable. "In return... you will teach me how to fight."
In the projection, Nephis didn't offer a standard Academy stance. She looked into the young man's eyes and asked a single question:
"What do you think the essence of combat is?"
"Victory?" Cassie guessed. "Survival?" The young man rasped.
"No," Nephis said. Her voice was flat, echoing in the cold night. She leaned forward, her eyes burning with a terrifying intensity. "The essence of combat is murder".
Rain didn't flinch. Instead, a strange expression crossed her face — halfway between confusion and dawning recognition.
"I've heard that before," she whispered, her brow furrowing.
She remembered a rainy afternoon in the woods near Ravenheart, mud splattered across her face, while her shadowy teacher sat comfortably on a dry branch.
'Don't overthink it, Rain,' he had said, his voice dripping with that familiar, arrogant amusement. 'People write books about honor and techniques. But the essence of combat? It's just murder. And you should be grateful, because your teacher happens to be the man who killed a Great Devil with a dull piece of steel while he was still a Sleeper.'
She looked at the shadowy figure training inside the memory and then down at her own feet.
Why are you so quiet? she wondered, a knot of unease tightening in her stomach.
Usually, her teacher would be making a snarky comment right now. He would be mocking the young man's form or critiquing Nephis's philosophy with a dry joke. But today, the darkness at her heels was unnaturally still, as if it was holding its breath.
Anvil of Valor, however, watched Nephis with a look of grim approval. "Honor is for the strong," the King of Swords murmured. "For the weak, there is only murder or death. She is teaching him the only truth that matters in hell."
The training began. The Witnesses saw the Blur mimic Nephis's strikes. He didn't have the foundation of a Legacy, but he had a terrifying, animalistic adaptability. He absorbed the lesson not with pride, but with the desperate hunger of a starving creature.
As the memory fast-forwarded through hours of practice, the Witnesses saw the Blur mimic Nephis's strikes.
Mordret, standing apart, narrowed his eyes. He watched the Blur's fluid, soundless grace and remembered the dark master of the Nameless Temple, who had looked at him with eyes as deep as the void.
Sunless, he thought, testing the name on his tongue. A slave who became a demigod?
The Prince of Nothing smiled, his reflection in the floor rippling with amusement. It was a delicious irony.
In the memory, the repetition began.
One strike. Ten strikes. A hundred strikes.
The sun rose and set in a blur of grey light, but the young man didn't stop. His muscles screamed, his hands bled, but his movements became cleaner. Sharper. He wasn't learning an art. He was stripping away everything that wasn't essential to killing.
"Look at his feet," Morgan observed. "He doesn't have the foundation of a Legacy or even a standard citizen. He keeps his center of gravity too low, and he's too comfortable using his hands and teeth as much as his blade."
Solvane grunted, watching the young man stumble through a kata. "He lacks refinement. His form is crude."
"You are looking at it wrong, ancient one," Jet countered, her voice cool. "He doesn't lack talent. He lacks pretense. Look how fast he corrects his mistakes. He isn't trying to master an art. He is trying to learn the most efficient way to kill. That's not Academy training. That's the Outskirts."
Anvil of Valor watched with a flicker of sharp interest. He saw the way the young man absorbed the lesson — not with the pride of a warrior, but with the hunger of a starving animal. "A blade forged in the gutter," the King of Swords murmured. "Sharp, jagged, and dirty. Effective."
The young man raised the Azure Blade for the thousandth time, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He prepared to swing—
Screaaaaam!
The sound tore through the silence of the memory, shattering the rhythm of the training instantly.
The Blur dropped his sword and sprinted to the edge of the stone platform.
Nearby, a sleeping figure stirred instantly. Nephis, jolted awake by the scream, was on her feet in a split second. She didn't ask questions. She sprinted toward the edge, her sword drawn and ready to strike whatever horror had found them.
But there was no monster.
Cassie was stumbling at the edge of the abyss, her hands clawing at the empty air as if fighting off invisible ghosts. The Blur reached her first, catching her just before she could plunge into the Dark Sea, dragging her back from the ledge. Nephis arrived a second later, scanning the perimeter with wild, alert eyes before realizing the threat came from within.
"The Spire..." Cassie whimpered, trembling in the young man's arms. "I saw... a vision."
The mist around them darkened, projecting the disjointed images of the Oracle's mind.
"I saw the human castle again," Cassie whispered, her voice full of horror. "Only this time, it was at night. There was a lonely star burning in the black skies, and under its light, the castle was suddenly consumed by fire, with rivers of blood flowing down its halls."
The projection shifted, showing flashes of the specific dooms she had witnessed.
"I saw a corpse in a golden armor sitting on a throne," she continued, her voice trembling. "A woman with a bronze spear drowning in a tide of monsters; an archer trying to pierce the falling sky with his arrows."
Kai flinched, recognizing the imagery of the archer. Effie went rigid at the mention of the bronze spear.
"And at the top..." Cassie choked out. "At the top of the Spire, a dying angel was being consumed by hungry shadows. When I saw the angel bleed, I felt as though something precious was taken from me."
Above the Dark Sea, the floating skull of Eurys of the Nine suddenly shivered, his teeth clattering together.
"Angels? Goodness... Why would you mention those dreadful beings?" the ancient skull rasped, his voice trembling with a terror that predated the Dark Sea itself. "Fools. Angels are not heralds of the gods. Angels are of the Void — they are an especially harrowing kind of Void Beings."
It wasn't just the skull. Around him, the other ghosts of the ancient past — Solvane and even the mighty Daeron — recoiled visibly. The mere mention of such beings sent a tremor through their spectral forms, a shared, primal terror that seemed to transcend even death.
But Noctis, the Sorcerer of the East, did not recoil.
Instead, a bright, manic grin stretched across his handsome, pale face. He clapped his hands together, letting out a musical, delighted laugh that echoed strangely in the somber memory.
"Oh, marvelous!" Noctis crowed, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye. "Do you remember what the Spell told him, Solvane? After his First Nightmare?"
He mimicked the mechanical voice of the Spell, waving his hand theatrically. "Final appraisal: glorious. Your treachery truly knows no bounds."
Noctis looked at the projection of the Blur — who was currently holding Cassie with such tender, deceptive care — and shook his head with sheer admiration.
"We thought the Spell was just being rude! But look at him... comforting the Seer who just saw his betrayal? Holding the hand of the Angel he is destined to devour? That isn't just treachery, my friends. That is art! A true masterpiece of deceit!"
He leaned back, looking thoroughly entertained. "I knew I liked him for a reason. He's almost as kindhearted as me!"
Behind the Queen of Worms, a petite young woman stepped forward. She wore a dark robe that seemed to swallow the light. There was a hint of innocence on her lovely face, and a strange, unnerving calmness in her large, glistening eyes.
Hel, one of the Transcendent daughters of Song and a terrifying haruspex, tilted her head.
"The blind girl did not just see a picture," Hel said softly, her voice melodic yet wrong, like a lullaby sung in a graveyard. "She tasted the fate of the world. Pain. Rage. Sorrow. These are the ingredients of a true prophecy."
Standing atop the dark waves, Nephis stared at the projection, her face paling as the logic of the vision clicked into place.
"A Lonely Star..." Nephis whispered, her hand tightening on her sword hilt. "That is my Name. Changing Star."
She looked at the glitching shadow comforting the Seer and then at the vision of the Angel being consumed.
"The Angel was me," Nephis deduced, her voice cold. "And the Shadow... the Shadow was him."
Cassie did not cry. She stood beside Nephis, her face pale, biting her lip so hard a drop of blood welled up. She didn't remember the event, but she understood the logic of her own past self.
"I must have realized it," Cassie murmured, her voice laced with a heavy, sickening regret. "Back then... I must have realized what the vision meant. I saw that the two of you would end up fighting. I saw that the Shadow would eventually devour the Angel."
She looked at the shifting image, where the Blur was currently holding her past self, gently stroking her hair to calm her down. The irony was suffocating. He was comforting the very person who had just seen him as the villain.
"He looks so gentle," Morgan noted, her red eyes narrowed in suspicion. "But prophecies do not lie. If the Seer saw him consuming the Angel... then this 'Sunless' is not a guardian. He is a sleeper agent. A traitor waiting for his moment."
"It seems," Cassie whispered, her voice hollow, "that I spent the rest of that journey terrified of him. I must have been waiting for him to betray us."
Mordret, standing in the shadows, watched the scene with a dark, delighted smile mirroring Noctis's own.
A traitor hiding in plain sight, the Prince of Nothing thought, his eyes gleaming. Nephis trusted him. She let him guard her sleep while the Oracle saw him eating her soul. Oh, Sunless... you truly are a creature after my own heart.
Hel smiled, a small, innocent, and terrifying expression.
"Fate is a tragedy, little seer," the haruspex hummed. "You saw the knife in the dark. But you did not yet know whose hand would hold it."
The memory shifted slightly, moving forward a few hours. The adrenaline had faded, but the fear remained.
The Blur was sitting next to Cassie, keeping watch while Nephis rested. The blind girl was hugging her knees, looking small and fragile against the backdrop of the eternal night.
"Sunny?" Cassie asked softly, her voice barely audible over the wind.
"Yeah?"
"Do you..." She hesitated. "Do you have a family waiting for you? In the real world?"
The Blur looked out at the Dark Sea. For a moment, his glitching features softened.
"Not really," he rasped. "My parents died a long time ago." He paused, suddenly smiling. "I have a sister, though. But she doesn't know I exist. We were separated when we were kids. She was adopted by a nice family."
"You never tried to find her?"
"I check on her," he admitted. "From a distance. But I don't talk to her. She has a good life. She doesn't need a brother like me dragging her down."
In the audience, Rain froze. The blood drained from her face.
From a distance.
The memory hit her like a physical blow. She remembered a conversation with her teacher, months ago, after he had saved her from an Awakened beast. She had asked him who he was, why a powerful ghost would waste time training a mundane girl.
'Who are you, really?' she had demanded.
Her teacher had laughed, that annoying, arrogant laugh of his.
'I told you, Rain. I'm your long-lost older brother, here to make sure you don't embarrass the family lineage.'
She had rolled her eyes. She had called him a liar. She had thought it was just another one of his endless, nonsensical jokes.
Rain looked at the Blur within the mist — the way he sat, the way he tilted his head. She looked at the shadow stretching from her own heels, confusion clouding her eyes.
"That's the second time," Rain whispered, a deep frown creasing her forehead. "First the philosophy about murder, and now this..."
She shook her head, trying to dispel the absurd thought forming in her mind. It was impossible. This boy was a ghost from a Nightmare, and her teacher was a Saint in the waking world.
"Why does he remind me so much of him?" she murmured, the question hanging unanswered in the cold air.
The atmosphere in the room turned freezing. Rain shivered, but it wasn't from the cold of the memory.
She felt a sudden, sharp pain pierce her chest — not her own, but something radiating from the darkness at her heels.
She looked down. Her shadow, usually so still and composed, seemed to writhe for a fraction of a second, contorting as if in agony.
Hidden within that shadow, Sunny looked out at the faces of the people he loved. He saw Nephis looking at his past self with cold suspicion. He saw Cassie looking at him with regret and fear. He saw Rain's confusion and near-realization.
Is this how you see me? the Lord of Shadows thought, a bitter, icy shard piercing his heart. As a monster? As a traitor?
He wanted to scream the truth. He wanted to tell them that he was the one who had been betrayed. But he remained silent, a prisoner of his own freedom, watching as his friends turned their backs on a ghost.
◇ ◇ ◇
The memory shifted again, blurring into a montage of progress. The trio moved through the labyrinth with increasing lethality. They ambushed scavengers, dissected their patterns, and harvested their shards.
"They are getting stronger," Morgan observed. "Look at their coordination. Cassie acts as the compass, Nephis as the spear, and Sunless... he is the trap."
But the Labyrinth had one final test for them.
The grey sky turned pitch black. A storm descended with unnatural speed, the wind howling like a dying god. Thunder shook the coral forest, and the Dark Sea began to rise, drowning the labyrinth in minutes.
"Run!" the projection of Nephis shouted.
The trio sprinted through the mud, the black water snapping at their heels. They were running for the high cliffs, but the path was blocked. A lone Carapace Scavenger emerged from the gloom, clicking its pincers.
There was no time for strategy. No time for traps.
The Blur didn't slow down. He roared, leaping into the air. He didn't use his sword. He used the momentum of his sprint, slamming his armored shoulder into the beast. They crashed into the mud, rolling in a tangle of limbs and chitin.
The fight was ugly, short, and desperate. He drove his blade into the creature's eye, silencing it just as the floodwaters rushed around his ankles.
A notification flashed in the mist, glowing with golden light:
[You have slain an Awakened Beast, Carapace Scavenger.]
[You have received an Echo: Carapace Scavenger.]
Kai blinked in shock. "An Echo? He received an Echo from a random skirmish? As a Sleeper?"
"His luck is as terrifying as his Aspect," Jet mused. "To have the worst luck in the world, yet receive the rarest rewards... it balances out, in a twisted way."
The young man summoned the monster — a hulking beast of black chitin. He hoisted Cassie onto its back, and the group resumed their flight. The Echo itself seemed possessed by a rigid, unnatural obedience. Even as the freezing rain lashed against its carapace and the lightning made the ground tremble, it moved with mechanical precision, ignoring the terror that would have frozen a living beast.
They reached the cliffs just as the flood peaked, the black ocean swallowing the world below them.
But safety was a lie. Scattered across the cliff top were eight dead scavengers, broken like toys.
Standing over them was their killer: a Carapace Centurion. It was a monster of bone scythes and scarlet patterns, towering over the humans.
"An Awakened Monster," Anvil noted, his eyes narrowing. "They are cornered."
The wind howled, drowning out all sound, but the projection zoomed in on the Blur, who was standing on a rocky ridge, soaking wet.
He raised a small silver bell and rang it.
Below him, a massive shape turned. The Centurion locked its burning eyes on him.
Anvil of Valor leaned forward, his steel-grey eyes sharpening with anticipation. "He is baiting it. Good. Let us see if his skill matches his divine lineage."
"Lineage has nothing to do with it, Anvil," Ki Song corrected, her voice smooth and mocking. "It is hunger. Something you forgot long ago. Look at him. He isn't fighting for glory. He is fighting to eat."
The shadowy figure jumped down and ran. The Centurion charged like a derailed train, smashing through rocks. Just as it was about to overtake him, it hit a golden rope strung between two boulders.
The monster crashed face-first into the stone.
"A simple tripwire?" Solvane whispered, her perfect eyebrows raising. "Against a beast of that mass?"
"It is the Golden Rope," Cassie whispered from the platform, recognizing the glint of gold in the memory. "It is a Memory... I gave it to them. To him."
"A Memory that seems useless," Noctis noted, a delighted grin stretching his pale face. "Oh, I like this boy. He uses his tools with such wicked creativity."
The battle exploded into chaos.
The Echo pinned the beast. Nephis lunged from the shadows, driving her sword deep into a gap in the Centurion's armor.
The Centurion roared, throwing the Echo aside. Nephis was left defenseless, her sword stuck in the monster's body. The beast raised a scythe to cut her in half.
The Blur didn't hesitate.
He charged from behind, slashing at the monster's leg to distract it. The monster turned, its crimson eyes burning with hate, and slammed its scythe into the young man's chest like a siege ram.
Rain gasped, covering her mouth.
The audience watched as the shadowy figure was flung through the air like a rag doll. He hit the ground, his chest caved in, drowning in his own blood.
"A fatal blow," Daeron rumbled, his voice like grinding stones. "His lungs are crushed. The fight is over."
"Is it?" Mordret interjected, his gaze fixed on the mist-filled projection. He pointed a slender finger at the dying boy's face. "Look at his eyes. That is not the gaze of a victim accepting his fate. That is the fierce determination of a man calculating his next move."
Indeed, the dying boy didn't close his eyes. Through the haze of pain and the fog of death, his internal monologue echoed in the Loom, terrifyingly calm:
'Repetition. Experience. Clarity.'
The young man's mind, shattered by pain, suddenly snapped into a cold, razor-sharp focus. He looked at the monster not with fear, but with calculation.
'The essence of combat is murder,' he thought, his gaze steady. 'Kill the enemy. Prevent the enemy from killing you.'
Anvil of Valor stood up slowly. The King of Swords looked at the broken figure with a gaze that was no longer dismissive. "He found it," Anvil murmured. "In the face of death... he found clarity."
The Centurion raised its scythe to finish him.
Suddenly, the battered Echo rammed into the monster again, buying a fraction of a second. And then, the sky answered.
A bolt of lightning, drawn to the metal sword still sticking out of the Centurion's back, struck the beast.
BOOM!
The monster was fried from the inside out, its carapace glowing white-hot.
Nephis didn't waste the miracle. She lunged through the steam, grabbing the superheated hilt of her sword. Her hands sizzled, but she didn't flinch. She tore the blade upward, ripping the monster apart.
The Echo finished the job, tearing the creature's torso clean off.
The silence in the Loom was deafening.
"Two weeks," Effie whispered, shaking her head in disbelief. "It took me months to kill something like that alone. They are barely settled in, and they are already hunting Awakened Monsters?"
"Necessity breeds strength, child," Ki Song hummed, glancing sideways at Anvil. "Or perhaps they simply lack the rigid dogma that weighs your clan down. You preach about will, Anvil. But these children do not need speeches to triumph. They simply refuse to die."
The memory didn't end there. Nephis crawled to the young man's broken body. Her hands glowed with white fire as she pressed them against his crushed chest.
The Blur's body arched.
The healing wasn't gentle. It looked like torture. Nephis screamed in agony, blood dripping from her lip as she took his pain onto herself.
"Her Flaw," Rain noted, wincing slightly. "She feels all the pain she heals. She is burning alive to save him."
When the light faded, the young man was whole. He sat up, checking his chest in disbelief.
A few moments later, the scene shifted to the cliff edge. The shadowy figure stood holding Nephis's hand. Sparks of light flowed from him to her, forming a magnificent suit of white plate armor — the Starlight Legion Armor.
"He gave it to her," Kai said softly. "He won the Memory, but he gave it to her."
"He already possesses the Puppeteer's Shroud," Ki Song observed, her sharp eyes spotting the grey fabric on the young man. "An armor of the Awakened Rank, Tier 5. A treasure from a Tyrant. This new armor is inferior to what he already wears. He loses nothing of value by giving it away."
"Value is relative, Song," Anvil countered coolly. "He optimizes the cohort. He arms the vanguard to ensure his own survival. It is cold calculation, not charity."
"It is more than calculation, Father," Mordret whispered, a poisonous, delighted smile curling his lips. "It is investment. Look at Nephis's face in the memory. With one gift, he has bought her trust. He is binding the Angel to him with chains of gratitude."
"A bribe!" Noctis cackled, clapping his hands. "A shiny, white bribe to make her think he is a saint, while hiding the fact that he is a schemer. Oh, the deceit! It warms my dead heart."
Standing amidst the phantom waves, Nephis watched the scene with a deepening frown. In her fragmented memories, she had always assumed she won the Starlight Legion Armor herself. She remembered wearing it, relying on it... but she had no memory of the hand that gave it to her.
Seeing the truth now — that he had simply handed over an awakened memory without a second thought — should have moved her.
But the poisonous whispers of the ghosts and the monsters twisted the revelation.
Her expression shifted.
The confusion drained from her face, replaced by a cold, guarded mask. Her grey eyes hardened as she looked at the Blur.
Was it just a calculation? she wondered, her heart turning to ice.
Was I just a piece on his board?