"Please... spare me... I'll do anything."
Caster looks at the older girl in front of him with disdain before pausing his attacks for a moment.
The girl had a very disgusted look on her face, perhaps from begging to be spared or perhaps from the inability to exact revenge on the one who killed all her friends. The disgust wasn't targetted at Caster either... it was targetted at herself.
Following that, Caster spoke in a deep and strong voice that made the girl tremble with fear:
"Why should I?"
Tracker was unable to respond to that, she was terror-striken.
"You lot tried to kill me first, for whatever reasons. I presume because of orders from above, but I don't really care about that. Why should I spare you now, after I killed all of your dear friends?"
Caster paused for a moment, taking in her look. She was petrified.
He chuckled.
"Don't you have any shame? Begging for your life infront of the killer of your entire cohort?"
The look on her face changed from that of fear and disgust, to that of guilt.
"Well, fine. I'll let you live. You'll have to do everything I say though. And I mean, everything."
Tracker looked back up, her eyes gleaming with hope suddenly.
'You really do not have any shame.'
"I-I'll do whatever you ask of me..."
Caster looked at her with doubt.
Of course, she could very well just be lying right now, but Caster needed her help now.
Caster was originally planning to take care of things slowly, kill the mirror beast, take a rest and heal up completely before going to the night temple.
But now, Caster not only destroyed an entire island, he also killed four master's of Valor. So he was certain that he wouldn't be welcome into the Night Temple.
Because of that, his plans needed to change now.
Now that there's a master from Valor willing to do anything to survive, he could utilize that and enter the night temple under a lie, using tracker's influence in Valor to compliment it.
He wouldn't even take a rest now, because news of the master's dying would soon reach Valor. Which meant that the news could reach the Night Temple soon as well.
He was planning on using his influence as a divine aspect user initially, to get into the Night Temple.
'But it's all for naught now. All I can do now is use tracker.'
Caster carefully walked over to her, before leaning down to meet her eyes.
"We'll leave for Night Temple immediately. You'll help me by scouting."
Tracker's eyes were slightly shaken.
"Why to the Night Temple?"
"Shut it. You do as I say and don't question me."
After that, Caster paused for a moment and then he continued in a softer tone.
"Do you have any healing memories for yourself?"
Caster had gotten part of the memories Laylah had, so he of course knew about Tracker's memory. But he just pretended to act for now.
Tracker's eyes darted around, not wanting to answer that, but she gave in without much resistance.
"Yes... I have one. It is a three time use memory..."
Caster nodded.
'Good, makes it much less annoying for me.'
"Okay, use it once on me."
Tracker sighed. She had expected it.
Her memory was a transcendent charm memory that came from a devil. It could heal someone from really grave injuries. It could even regrow limbs, which was exactly what Tracker needed.
It only had two uses left as Tracker had used it once before, so after today, she would lose her healing memory because Caster needed healing, a lot of it.
His injuries had been accumulating for a while. And despite a physique that heals faster than others, and a healing charm of his own self, he wasn't able to heal completely.
But the charm that tracker has is a much stronger healing charm.
If not for it, Caster would need to meet up with Nephis somewhere along the way to get healed, and it would cause him to lose a lot of time.
If he were to meet up with Nephis, and Sunny since the two of them are together at the moment, he'd likely take them with him to the Night Temple.
It would make his life easier.
'But perhaps it's better for me to rush. If news reachest the Night Temple that I killed four Valor masters then there is no way that I'm getting inside it.'
Soon after that, Tracker walked upto Caster and pressed her hand on his chest.
Bright golden light flushed out of her bracelet, which Caster assumed was the charm. The bracelet had three stars on it, one was cracked. Now a second one started to crack.
The golden light that flooded out of her charm, into Caster's body, rapidly began healing him. It was not as soothing as Neph's healing was, but it was good none-the-less.
It took a few minutes, but his body was now in almost top shape, his thumb regrew, burn marks disappeared, bald spot in the hair disappeared.
All Caster lacked was some time and rest, and he'd be as good as new.
"Good. You can use the last one on yourself now."
If Caster wanted to, he could have just forced her to give him the memory, for a last resort. But Caster let her have it.
The reason was simple, an injured master wouldn't be taken very seriously at the Night Temple. And Caster couldn't let that happen.
'Fucking hell man... all my plans keep getting pushed forward...'
Caster wasn't planning to go to Night Temple right now, he is just forced by the circumstances.
All this time, tracker was just silent, watching Caster's antics unfold.
She began healing herself with the charm eventually, cracking the charm, after which was done, she fell asleep.
She had pushed herself a lot during the fight, and with the calming healing she just got, she couldn't help but fall asleep.
Surprisingly, the charm didn't get completely destroyed, it was still there, just unusable.
"Confortable, aren't we? I'm right here you know..."
Caster spoke out loud, but didn't expect a reply. It was just him talking to himself. A habit of his.
"Sigh... I need to create a shelter for us."
Willing Evermelt to turn into its armor form outside of Caster's body, Caster commanded it to pick up tracker and follow him.
"I finally feel better... phew, these last few days have been intense."
Caster looked around himself again, he was still in the area where he fought the mirror beast.
The scene still baffled him.
He had been the cause of all this destruction.
All he could do now was laugh. Laugh at how he was becoming a monster.
'Well, I'd rather become a monster and return back home. I don't want to remain in this place.'
First, he went up to Laylah's dead, naked body and stored it into his storage memory. He didn't know what use her body could have since Caster had grazed her. After that, He continued walking at a decent pace and in just a few minutes, reached the cave he rested at earlier. The cave that is behind a fountain.
He simply commanded Evermelt to put tracker down on the ground, and let her rest.
Caster wanted to escape as soon as possible, but he was just not in the condition for that.
Despite being healed by the charm, his essence was now nearly empty so he couldn't take a risk of traversing the Chained Islands right this instant, his hourglass charm that gave him fake time, allowing him to essentially bypass his flaw was now nearly useless as well, he used almost all of the time that he had saved up in it.
So, he simply rested like tracker.
In the meantime, Caster began studying the weaves.
He hadn't done any practice on weaving since he left Ravenheart. He was too busy for that. But now that he wasn't injured, just out of resources to fight, he decided to study certain weaves.
He summoned the hourglass charm and focused keenly into it.
The weaves started to become visible due to his lineage attribute that he got from the Demon Kind of Salvation.
What he focused on was not the enchantments, not for now at least.
He focused on its structure itself, just like how Sunny did at the start.
Since he had become decently proficient at creating the complete base of a memory, he was now able to take in a lot more.
The weaves were complicated, especially because the charm had two powerful enchantments.
Memory: [Hourless Charm]
Memory Rank: Awakened
Memory Tier: VI
Memory Type: Charm
Memory Description: [A crystal amulet in the form of an hourglass. It comes from an awakened who in search of his dream, lost all his life. The crystal amulet can store time, releasing it at a crucial moment to momentarily give the user more time.]
Memory Enchantments: [Psuedo-Time], [Graceful]
[Psuedo-Time]
Description: Provides target with fake time temporarily. Mostly used in medical emergencies.
[Graceful]
Description: Target ages slowly.
Both, [Graceful] and [Psuedo-Time] are impeccable enchantments and very useful for anyone in general.
But to Caster they were completely essential, if not for these two enchantments, Caster would likely have become a old as a fossil.
The two enchantments were making it hard for Caster to make sense of things, but he wasn't going to just give up like that.
'Damn it, in situations like this, I really wish I had my [Knowledge Usurper] attribute still. Can't believe it disappeared after I got my lineage attribute...'
Caster spent hours, studying the charm, eventually moving onto the enchantments as well.
But then he got tired of it, it was hurting his head, so he decided to finally, look at the "graze" he finally got.
He was avoiding looking at it because he was afraid that it would end up being a disappointment. But he couldn't delay it anymore, he needs to get familiar with it as well.
'Here goes nothing.'
Caster summoned his runes again, the complete runes this time.
Name: Caster
True name: Opposer of Miracles.
Rank: Awakened.
Class: Titan.
Soul Cores: [7/7]
Soul Fragments: [50/7000].
Memories: [Green Jade Jian], [Hourless Charm], [Book of Books], [Vivienna's Armor], [Spark of Light], [Bundle], [Cloak of night], [Moon Sabers], [Aquifer's Gift], [Celestial Cord], [Silent Chest], [Resonant Flute], [Dawn Shard], [Dark Wing], [Ashveil Tunic], [Nameless Sun], [Starhoarder], [Pale Feast], [Cruel Sight]…
Echoes: [Evermelt]
Attributes: [Traveller], [Sorcerer], [Stormsong], [Apostle of Eternity], [Flame of Divinity].
Aspect: [Lies of the Omniscient Reader].
Aspect Rank: Divine.
Aspect Abilities: [Acquired Haste], [Grazing].
Aspect Legacy: [Fragments of the Final Wall].
Walls: [The Fourth Wall], [The Wall of Impossible Communications].
Grazes: [Unnamed].
Flaw: [Strength is death], [Satisfaction's Plague].
Flaw Description: [Lifespan shortens every time aspect is used.]
Flaw description: [You will never feel satisfied.]
Gateway: Noctis Sanctuary
He took a deep breath in, calming himself a little.
'Unnamed huh... show me your runes.'
Name: Unnamed
[Would you like to name the graze? Y/N]
"Uhmm... I'll think about that later."
Rank: Ascendent
Cores: [1/7]
[Would you like to sacrifice a core? Y/N]
'What? I can give it more cores? That's incredible... but I'm not sure I would wanna do that right now. I am an awakened, while the graze is ascended. Not sure if it is compatible right now. Let's leave this for later as well.'
Soul Sea: Inactive
'What? It has a soul sea?'
Caster was baffled.
Not even Sunny's shadows have a soul sea, they all just occupy a core.
"But how can I activate it?"
Caster began thinking rapidly, but in the end, he just didn't know enough. He figured that he'd find out sooner or later.
'Perhaps I need to reach seven cores for it... This is such a pain, I'll need to hunt so much! Just one graze needs so much work for it. It sucks that I can't even delay this for later, because it will only get harder to get more cores as I advance in ranks. Will I need to focus all my time on grazes?'
Another thing was added to Caster's never ending list of things he needed to do.
Status: Graze
Attributes: [Empathic Sensitivity], [Directional Hearing].
[Empathic Sensitivity]: Is attuned to others' presence or emotions.
[Directional Hearing]: Can pinpoint exactly where a sound originates.
'Interesting, are these the attributes Laylah had? Nothing crazy, but effective.
Abilities: [Telekinesis], [Telekinetic Perception], [Telekinetic Field].
[Telekinesis]: Shaping the world with thought alone, where will becomes motion and the unseen hand of the mind bends matter to silent command.
[Telekinetic Perception]: The subtle sense of motion and force, where the world whispers its trajectory and every object's path sings to the mind, allowing one to feel the invisible currents of movement before they unfold.
[Telekinetic Field]: A force field where everything in under your force.
'That's insane. What the hell... I get all of her abilities too? What a blessing. This is essentially another aspect. I now understand why her arrows were so insanely hard to get freed from. She just made the arrows follow the target. That requires immense focus... Also explains how she was able to move so fast...'
Caster shook his head.
'Let's think about that later. I'd rather experiment with this graze as soon as possible.'
It was safe to say that Caster's fears did not come true.
He was more than satisfied with the graze.