the next five days, adam learnt what his new memories did.
the tree root whip seemed to be a wooden vine, it had nothing special, but seeing as it was an awakened memory it likely had an activatable enchantment.
aggressors whistle made nearby creatures aggressive towards him, falcons wings functioned like a glider, grapevine also most likely had an activatable enchantment because it didn't seem to do anything other than produce grapes every few hours that he could eat.
lastly was the bag of holding, it was pretty much just the dnd item, it stored things like a pocket dimension without changing it's weight.
lastly was his newest echo, salmon, it was a salmon nothing special, if he summoned it, it would slowly suffocate, requiring time to recover.
adam trained relentlessly for the next 3 days, then he and the lord entered a carriage, they were travelling to the royal palace, the fencing room inside would be where the duel takes place, it took a day of travelling in which adam planned for his duel, he thought over which techniques to use and when best to use them, his plan was to wait for his attacker to stab out, he would parry their sword to the left and then stab him when his guard was open with the dragon lunge. this likely wouldn't work but a plan was better than nothing.
it took over a day for them to arrive at the palace which was at the centre of the kingdom that this nightmare was taking place in, it was already night by the time he had entered his lodgings in the castle, so he went to sleep.
he was awoken by sunlight shining over his closed eyes, it was the day of the duel, the duel would begin in five hours.
after adam left his bed he quickly ate breakfast, got changed and practiced with the dancing blade for an hour, he then sparred against the doppelganger, it was transformed into him wielding a spare blade, it thrusted the blade, he parried the blade and lunged forwards, stabbing at the doppelgangers face, it jumped back and recovered its position the both exchanged blows.
eventually adam lost, he didn't have the constitution of an awakened, it was honestly impressive he had managed to continue fighting for so long, of course the main reason for his defeat was because of the lack of tricks he deployed.
he recovered for a few hours, by then the time was upon him, the duel was about to begin, adam was escorted by two blank faced servants, every servant he passed by was similarly blank faced.
'they seem incredibly professional.'
adam was led to the fencing room where he put on fencing gear, aside from a helmet for some reason, he stepped onto the fencing matt just as another person, around his host bodies age also stepped onto the matt.
the referee waited in between the two, when they were in their positions he stepped back.
"the duel will be to first blood, one round."
they both readied their blades, the second the match started the opponent lunged forwards, adam stepped back to dodge the attack and then hit the opponents sword to the left, the opponent was right handed and adam was left, meaning adam could attack but they could not.
adam then attacked the opponent using dragon lunge to make it look like he was going for the face, as soon as the two blades disconnected the opponent twisted his blade, desperately trying to prevent his attack from landing on his face.
the manoeuvre would have worked if adam was aiming for the head, instead he had switched the hand that was holding his sword when he used dragon lunge so that he was able to instead attack the opponents hand.
it worked.
the opponents index finger had somehow been stabbed through the guard of the rapier, it was a feat that required great precision. with that adam had drawn first blood, making him the winner.
it had honestly been an easy fight, too easy one might say.
after the battle ended adam was led to a different room, the throne room.
adam sat down on the thrown and was crowned. he sat atop the thrown the new king of this land.
but the nightmare didn't end, he was still in the throne room, meaning he hadn't beat the nightmare, their was still something to do, now that he thought about it, the enemy had been incredibly easy to beat, he probably didn't even need the dragon lunge or his memories.
meaning his body had won the duel originally, their was some other factor that lead to the siege on the city, but what.
adam spent the next few days carefully watching those around him, the blank faced servants who wandered around the castle, as if hypnotised.... hypnotised. it could be someone's aspect but also... a terror can hypnotise people. meaning, their could be a terror in the castle, regardless of which one it was adam would likely need to kill it, whoever had that aspect, to beat the nightmare.
but who even has an aspect like that, adam didn't know any awakened that lived in the castle, which was already strange. meaning it might be one of the servants. that night, adam watched every servant with great suspicion.
he slept with one eye open, wary of someone attempting to hypnotise him in his sleep.
their was one thing he found rather strange, how quick he was to assume it was a human and not a terror, almost as if.
he had to find that vile creature as fast as humanly possible. he got up for the morning and wandered the castle. room after room he inspected the entire thing with the help of his spectator attribute, analysing everything, trying to find and understand the reason behind each and every object. after a full day of this he found nothing, he had three days left before the brainwashing was complete, the next day he did the same thing, until finally, he noticed a sign of life.
in one of the wine cellars he found it, hidden in the corner of the cellar a disgusting amalgamation of flesh and heads, a strange kind of false hydra, it looked horrifying, and flammable, with the help of the two living trees he smashed every single wine bottle across the floor, the terror simply watched. unaware he knew of its presence.
he quickly left and came back with a flaming torch. the creature finally seemed to realise his plan as it dashed across the cellar towards adam, but it was simply too far away. the second the torch left adam's hand, he slammed the door shut. using the help of the two living trees to barricade the door and prevent the creatures escape.
as this was happening, every servant nearby turned to stare at adam,
'I'm so cooked' he had forgotten that every servant would attempt to kill him as he burned the terror.
they charged at him, he summoned his memory and cut the enemies down, he wasn't scared of killing npc's.
as he cut more and more appeared, he was eventually overwhelmed, being bitten and scratched at, his arms were being torn off, all he could do was barely protect his face, even then he was struggling at that. just as he thought he would die he heard the spell whisper.
[you have slain a dormant terror, mind devourer]
[wake up, adam! your nightmare is over.]
[prepare for appraisal.]
adam found himself in a space between dream and reality. it was an endless black void illuminated by a myriad of stars, between those stars, countless strings of silver light were woven into a beautiful and inconceivably complex net, forming countless vortexes and constellations. it was unimaginably beautiful
'the book really didn't capture its magnificence.'
[aspirant, your trial is over]
[a prince wished for the crown, he killed many to hone his talents, he defeated all and obtained the crown, but he discovered a terror, it was cunning but he was more so, he burned it down in order to force the world he imagined onto others]
[you have received a true name dragon of imagination]
[your aspect is ready to evolve, evolve your aspect?]
"yes"
[new aspect acquired]
[aspect rank: divine]
adam chuckled "a reasonable development"
[aspect name: visionary]
[aspect description: the visionary is the one who creates everything with His imagination, everyone everything everywhere is all his imagination.]
'so my aspect description is pure glaze, I can live with that'
[one of you attributes is ready to evolve. evolve your attribute?]
"yes"
[your attribute mark of divinity has evolved]
[attribute name: child of divinity]
that one truly shocked adam, he had never heard of such an attribute, who knew how high it was on the mark of divinity line, all he knew for certain was that he needed that armour from the chained isles]
[the first seal is broken]
[awakening dormant powers]
adam felt a euphoric sensation, as though his soul were being shaken awake, the energy filled every fibre of his being, he felt his emotions becoming clearer and sharper, then his body began to change too, it felt as though a miniature star was burning in the centre of his heart.
the sensation reached every part of his body, when it reached his eyes he felt his vision double.
a deep blue sea illuminated by a bright white star, adam was glad to see he had a soul core after all nephis and mordret had reached a titan core years before sunny, this was because they had a much greater benefit from killing humans compared to sunny.
so he was glad, he quickly left his soul sea, not caring much at the moment.
[awakening aspect ability]
'about time'
[aspect ability acquired]
[aspect ability name: hypnosis]
'I didn't think it would be hypnosis, that's one of the spectator pathways best abilities, I thought I would have to wait until much later for that'
[all power has a price]
[you have received your flaw]
[your flaw is: god who loves the world]
[flaw description: you love the world and all humans who inhabit it.]