The brief, terrifying glimpse of an unfathomable void that Triss Merigold had experienced haunted her. It was a sensation alien to all known magical theory, a profound emptiness that defied the very elemental forces she commanded. Despite her best efforts to dismiss it as a symptom of wartime stress or magical backlash, the memory festered, a silent, corrosive doubt at the core of her perception. She became increasingly withdrawn, her usual vibrant energy dimmed by an inexplicable anxiety that she couldn't articulate, let alone combat. Aizen observed her with clinical precision, noting the gradual erosion of her sharp intellect, her very awareness becoming a casualty of his subtle warfare. Triss, once a potential threat, was now simply another thread fraying in the grand tapestry he was weaving.
Vizima, Temeria's beating heart, now pulsed with an accelerated rhythm of fear and intrigue. The successful defense of the mountain pass, a victory orchestrated by Aizen, gave Foltest a fleeting sense of security, allowing him to focus on consolidating internal power. Aizen leveraged this. He subtly influenced Foltest's paranoia, making the king perceive nascent conspiracies among ambitious nobles, particularly those who had expressed reservations about his wartime decisions. He didn't create new plots, but merely amplified existing, minor resentments, twisting innocent discussions into treasonous whispers within Foltest's mind.
This led to a series of discreet purges, orchestrated by King Foltest himself, weakening the nobility and centralizing power. Aizen, through his influence on Count Vissig, ensured these purges were carried out with the utmost efficiency, silencing dissenting voices and removing potential obstacles from his path. The loyalty of the remaining nobles was now based more on fear than fealty, making them even more susceptible to subtle manipulation. Temeria, strong on paper, was being hollowed out from within, becoming a brittle shell ready to crack under pressure.
His research in the Royal Library deepened into the most forbidden and dangerous lore. Aizen discovered comprehensive treatises on the manipulation of aether and the very fabric of spacetime, written by ancient, anonymous mages who theorized about reaching beyond the known dimensions. He found detailed accounts of individuals who, through unknown means, had seemingly transcended mortal limitations, shedding their physical forms to become beings of pure energy or thought. This confirmed his hypothesis: the path to ultimate power in this world lay not in conventional magic, but in understanding and exploiting the deeper dimensional mechanics that governed existence. The Elder Blood was merely a potent, natural key; he sought the manual for the lock itself.
The war against Nilfgaard, momentarily pushed to the background by Temeria's internal purges, now roared back with renewed ferocity. Nilfgaardian forces, under new, ruthless commanders, began to execute a devastating strategy of attrition, pushing relentlessly northward. Aizen, through his precise manipulations of General Natalis's battle plans – subtly altering intelligence reports, making key supply routes seem impassable, or causing Natalis to misinterpret enemy troop movements – ensured that Temeria's counter-attacks, though initially well-conceived, would always meet with disproportionate resistance, slowly bleeding the kingdom dry. He cultivated a cycle of Pyrrhic victories, designed to exhaust Temeria's resources and break its spirit without causing an immediate, decisive defeat that might unify the remaining Northern Kingdoms.
He understood the profound psychological impact of prolonged, grinding warfare. It wore down resistance, bred desperation, and made populations receptive to radical solutions, even from unexpected sources. This was the perfect breeding ground for his ultimate unveiling.
Aizen initiated a highly complex, multi-layered Kyōka Suigetsu across the city of Vizima. He targeted not just individuals, but mass perception. He subtly altered the collective mood of the city, causing sporadic, inexplicable waves of irrational fear or sudden, fleeting moments of profound, unshakeable despair that would sweep through the populace, only to dissipate as quickly as they arose. These were whispers of the void, brief, terror-inducing illusions affecting entire districts, designed to soften the public, to make them question their reality and their leadership, subtly eroding their will to resist. The city's mages and priests dismissed these phenomena as the "aetheric bleed" from intense battlefield magic, or the "darkness of the human soul" manifesting in times of war.
One particularly unsettling night, as a heavy mist rolled in from the Pontar, Aizen projected a vast, silent illusion over a significant portion of Vizima. For fleeting moments, citizens would glimpse shadowy, amorphous figures moving at the edge of their vision, hear faint, disembodied whispers that spoke of betrayal and impending doom, or perceive familiar landmarks as subtly twisted, unsettlingly wrong. The illusions were never clear enough to be concrete, always just at the edge of perception, designed to sow widespread, deep-seated psychological distress without leaving any discernible proof. The city was a canvas, and he was painting fear and despair into its very atmosphere.
"They are but children playing with fire," Aizen mused, gazing out over the bustling, yet increasingly unnerved, capital. "Their kings, their mages, their heroes. All blinded by their own limited understanding, their own predictable desires. They struggle against a foe they can see, unaware of the true architect of their unraveling. This suffering, this slow, inevitable decline... it is necessary. A crucible. For from the ashes of their fractured world, a new, perfect order shall rise, forged by my hand."
His time as a silent observer, a mere instigator, was nearing its end. The foundations were laid. The pawns were positioned. The stage was drenched in the blood and fear of a Continent on the brink. The time was approaching for the Architect of Lies to step from the shadows, not to rule, but to remake this world in his own image.