Kieron found himself in the bright radiance of his soul sea.
It was crackling with sparks of light as usual. The seven blue suns burned with light blue flames above him, arranged in a perfect triangle. Small spheres of light — his Memories — floated between them like dying stars.
The silent waters were vast and motionless, and some distance away towards his left, he saw the library.
However, this time something was different.
Kieron did not remember entering the Soul Sea, or even wishing to do so. More than that, he couldn't perceive the real world at all. Usually, visiting this place resulted in a strange split of his consciousness, with one part of it exploring the depths of his soul, while the other remained aware of his actual surroundings. It was akin to imagining a landscape… doing so did not turn you blind and deaf.
Come to think of it, it was a lonely and frightening place. Untethered from the real world and surrounded by nothing except for deathly silence, Kieron did not feel as calm and comfortable as he usually would.
…And he wasn't really alone in this bright, crackling place.
"What a violent soul you have. How strange. Then again, my own soul is strange as well."
Kieron didn't even flinch upon seeing a foreign being in his soul sea, he was expecting this after all. In fact, he was pushing for this to happen.
The voice that had spoken them did not belong to female sentinel whose body Mordret had overtaken. It was familiar and pleasant, just like it had been during Kieron's travels… Mordret was speaking with his real voice once again.
The Prince of Nothing stood some distance away, looking up with a curious smile on his face. Now, for the first time, Kieron saw how he must have looked before his true body was destroyed.
Mordret was tall and slender, with pale skin and raven-black hair. He seemed to be in his twenties, older than Kai and Effie by a couple of years. His face was sharp and thin… not exactly handsome, but at the same time charming and strangely beautiful.
His most striking feature, though, were his eyes, which didn't seem to possess a color of their own, and instead reflected the world back on itself like two pools of liquid silver.
Currently, they were as dark and lightless as the endless abyss of the void.
"Mordret, Prince of Nothing. So in the end you chose this."
Mordret was dressed in a simple tunic, its fabric long devoid of any color. He wore no armor, and didn't seem to bear any weapon.
Mordret studied the seven cores of Kieron's soul curiously, then looked at him with a friendly smile.
"I have never seen anything like it. How kind it was of you to invite me inside, Caster! I really do wonder what you were thinking though, opening your eyes like that."
"I'd rather have a battle here. My soul is a little special you see."
Immediately after saying that, Kieron turned on the fourth wall.
Seven crackling, light-blue suns that hissed like far-off sparks above the horizon were reflected in the vast, silent sea. One by one, their radiance faded slightly as a massive wall emerged from the water, an endless lattice of sheets of white paper. Each page was covered with scrawled words, engulfing both light and reflection. The sky and sea were divided into a silent, unreadable margin by this imposing wall.
Mordret, for the first time since he met him, looked concerned. It looks like he finally caught onto what Caster was planning.
He hid his concern and showed the fake smile again.
"That's a nice trick, I will hand it to you. But now you are trapped with me here."
Immediately, Kieron interjected.
"I am not trapped in with you. You are trapped in here with me."
Kieron focused on his eyes and suddenly, he was able to peer beneath the surface of Mordret's soul, just like he was able to peer beneath the surface of Memories and Echoes to study their weaves.
As a living soul, the Prince of Nothing did not possess a spellweave, of course. However, what he did possess were soul cores… six of them…
Mordret was a Terror.
Unfortunately for him, Kieron was a titan.
"You're not regretting entering my soul now, are you?"
Mordret smiled.
"Of course not. What difference does a core or two make anyways?"
He started walking towards Kieron slowly.
"We'll see about that. I'm not going to hand over my body to you just like that anyways. So what exactly will you even do?"
Kieron summoned Dusk Warden, the sword he took from the now dead Tracker, and enhanced it with the Nameless Sun like usual. Proceeding that, he summoned the Blackplate armor and then Evermelt over it.
Mordret proceeded to do the same as he walked closer to Kieron, then stopped, now just a few steps away from him, and smiled.
"Why, what else… now, I am going to destroy your soul, of course…"
One thing that was good for Kieron was that he could abuse his aspect in this soul sea, because this was akin to a fight through thoughts. It wouldn't affect the real world apart from either of the two dying at the end of it.
But this also meant that Mordret, too, could abuse his aspect.
Kieron activated his aspect ability, for the first time without his charm. The world seemed to slow down, the speed at which he was processing information was so much faster than a normal human that it made him feel super human.
'Scratch that. I am a super human.'
Mordret likely did the same however just a split second later, Kieron was beside Mordret, his fist crashing into the breastplate of the Blackplate armor that Mordret was wearing.
Before he could even rise, Kieron was already upon him, his foot slamming into Mordret's ribs. Mordret was thrown into the air, then felt another blow landing on his chest, pushing all air out of his lungs and sending him plummeting back down.
"You didn't think it would be so easy to take over my vessel, did you? I am the Opposer of Miracles, do you think you are enough to oppose me?"
Mordret scrambled to his feet, and lunged as he picked his hands out of the water, butting Kieron in the chest. It looked like Mordret was finally getting the hang of it.
Kieron dropped into a light crouch and swung his sword diagonally upwards, trying to push Mordret back before getting up. But instead he just caught it with his hands, seemingly severely damaging his soul in the process, but used that opening to land a tough stab into Kieron's stomach.
Instantaneously, Kieron tried parrying it away with his hand, trying to minimize the damage, but both were simply going so fast that it was borderline impossible to do that.
The attack landed on Kieron, causing some damage to his soul.
This was the first time he took genuine soul damage. The fourth wall had always block it before. But this time soul was being damaged from the inside, so the wall couldn't protect him from anything.
At incredible speeds, Kieron jumped backwards horizontally, creating some distance between the two.
However, Mordret didn't allow for that.
Within a second, he not only caught up to Kieron's jump, he also launched just over two dozen attacks in the same second.
Kieron was going faster, due to his Titan core, but Mordret was experienced.
The fight had dozens of exchanges per second. Neither willing to give up. The battle was unnecessarily close. Kieron just couldn't seem to break through.
'I may have to change my strategy. I will have to take some risks.'
By the time he finished that thought, three dozen exchanges happened already.
Kieron jumped into Mordret but he realised his plan and side stepped before raising his arm with the sword and swining it down.
Just before the sword cut Kieron's back, he disappeared from its path and appeared behind Mordret, launching a stab.
But the guy predicted it and dodged without even looking by lowering his torso towards the right side. Following that he put the sword in a reverse grip and launched a counter stab himself.
Not allowing that to take over the fight, Kieron front kicked Mordret's back before the stab reached him and lauched him far away.
As he was being launched away, Mordret stabbed the sword to the ground, trying to decrease his speed.
In that time, Kieron summoned Everlost Achiever, his transcendent bow, and Veil of Love, his transcendent arrow. Loading them up and shooting the arrow at incredible speeds before Mordret even stopped.
Just as the arrow was about to pass right through him, the arrow got deflected.
He had used the telekinesis from Arcless.
'So he can use that as well. Interesting.'
Mordret turned around and rushed towards Kieron, launching a barrage of attacks upon getting close enough.
Kieron finessed every attack of Mordret, and turned the rushed barrage against him. The tide of the battle was in favour of Kieron at the moment.
Trying to break the momentem, Mordret did a risky duck, which ended up working out and stabbed directly upwards at Kieron's neck.
Noticing it in time, Kieron moved out of the way and created some distance. Which was exactly what Mordret needed. He took that opportunity to run away from Kieron.
'What?'
He used his aspect to the full of its potential, trying to catch up to the running Mordret.
Mordret randomly started flying using arcless' ability. Taking that as an opportunity, Kieron shot him down, injuring him.
He fell onto the nearly quiet expanse of the soul sea face first and Kieron rushed upon him, not giving him a chance to recover.
He jumped from afar, not letting Mordret escape from that, launching a precise stab to Mordret's heart. A heart he doesn't have.
But this was exactly what Mordret wanted too.
Suddenly parried the stab away with the back of his hand by hitting the flat of the blade, taking some soul damage in the process, and launched an upward stab from where he was laying in the soul sea.
It hit Kieron directly in the clavicle, just barely avoiding the heart, not that he knew exactly how much this spirit body was similar to his physical body in anatomy.
Despite avoiding a major area, the Nameless Sun's soul damaging affect worked wonders.
It was down right unfair to have that as a memory, because something that would normally be just a minor wound was now almost giving him a seizer.
He couldn't give in, not yet.
His soul was screaming.
The hurt was worse than anything he had experienced before. He didn't even have the fourth wall's pain tolerance right now.
It made him feel like shit, but he remained focused.
He didn't let Mordret pull the sword out, causing continuous damage to his soul but also making Mordret weapon less.
[The Fourth Wall is trembling.]
'No!'
In that time, he slashed towards Mordret's neck precisely in a circular motion, but just barely he avoided it, blocking it with an arm.
That caused immense soul damage to Mordret as well, it also made Mordret weaker for the rest of this soul battle.
Pushing Kieron away with a kick, he kicked-up getting onto his two feet.
Kieron slid back a bit, stopping just a few meters away from him.
Without letting any conversation start here, Kieron jumped into battle immediately again, as soon as he removed the sword that was stabbed in his clavicle.
He was bleeding profusely from there.
He also felt like his soul core was about to burst apart from the soul damage.
Then, what he saw made him genuinely panic for the first time in a long time.
He saw the top of the fourth wall crumble.
[The Fourth Wall is crumbling.]
This gave Kieron a time limit to get rid of Mordret. If he doesn't, Mordret will be able to escape at any moment.
'Graze.'
It didn't work.
Mordret moved too fast from him position.
This was the limit to grazing. It was exceptionally hard to graze a moving opponent.
Mordret seemed to realise the position he was in and started to buy time.
However, one can't just buy time against a speedster.
Kieron chased him around his entire soul sea, whether through the messy empty library or throught the vast expanses of emptiness.
'H-He'll leave! I can't let that happen.'
Shooting a dozen arrows rapidly, and then a flame arrow, he narrowed Mordret's path, and then used Evermelt to entrap him.
It didn't work too well, but it wasn't useless.
It allowed Kieron to get close and hold him down. But when he did, Mordret would simply make it impossible to hold him down with a barrage of attacks.
It was really not a good situation for him.
So he took a big risk, the next time he got close to Mordret, Kieron dropped the weapons and simply an attack in. The sword penetrated his chest and stabbed throught the heart, but he held it down.
He didn't let Mordret escape.
The amount of soul damage this was doing made him feel like his soul will combust, but he had to to this.
It was only now that he was finally able to hold him down.
'Graze!'
As soon as he did that, Caster felt his soul tremble.
He felt his soul split into two.
It should have been excruciating, but for some reason it wasn't.
He felt his soul core split and get out of the manifestation of his soul body.
Almost immediately after that, Mordret's soul started being brutally grazed. He looked back at Kieron and used the graze ability as well.
It made Kieron take even more damage constantly, but Mordret's grazing was slower and started later compared to Kieron's.
Even still, Kieron was taking way too much soul damage.
It made him feel like his soul was about to vaporize from the intensity of it all.
The Fourth Wall kept on crumbling too. Faster and Faster each second.
This was now or never.
Both Kieron and Mordret's souls were being grazed, but just before Kieron's soul was about to break apart, Mordret's soul did.
His spiritual body discombobulated into a flurry of sparks before flowing into a soul core that came out of Kieron's soul body.
An array of memories flowed... they were Mordret's memories. And like his previous graze, Laylah, his memories flowed deep into the library in the soul sea, and partially into his mind.
The soul damaging sword, and the grazing ability stopped hurting him immediately, disappearing. But it still felt like his soul was breaking apart.
Then, the spell spoke:
[You have slain an Awakened Terror, Mordret the Prince of Nothing.]
"Y-Yes! I-I did it!"
Suddenly, he was kicked out of his own soul sea, due to Mordret dying, likely.
Before he could even open his eyes, he heard the spell's soothing feminine voice again.
[You have created an awakened graze: Unnamed.]
He could feel a flood of essence fill up his core, draining about ten percent of the fragments from each of Mordret's six cores.
But this didn't fix his fatal issue.
His soul was breaking down along with the Fourth Wall.
Suddenly, unfamiliar yellow screens appeared in front of his eyes.
[You have achieved something that has never been done before.]
[You have obtained a legendary fable "Doom of the Undying"].
Kieron didn't have any time to process this. This was only the second time he was seeing this screen, he got the first one back at the end of the forgotten shore, and he had yet to find out what it meant and what the fables did.
Following that he saw the familar blue screens of the fourth wall.
[The Fourth Wall says, "Yo u id iot, do n't tu rn me off."]
[The Fourth Wall is Crumbling at a rapid rate to stop your soul from crumbling fully.]
'What? No, will I lose the fourth wall!?'
"ARGH!"
He let out a loud screech as he felt the fourth wall disappear. He also felt a part of his mind feel locked. The part that contains the forbidden, corrupting knowledge.
Kieron felt himself feel oppressed, by something very familar, yet foreign.
He felt himself break apart, and lose his sense of self.
He felt himself falling asleep.
He felt himself... being lost.
When it was all over… the Fourth Wall died out.
It was no longer.
And neither was Kieron.
Only a shell of a body remained.
Until... the body squimered and then stood up.
The radiant soul of Kieron was now tainted by something darker. More sinister.
It was Caster.
Caster of the Han Li clan had woken up from the depths of hell.