Caster stood there, in the middle of the inner sanctum of the Night Temple.
He hadn't even come to terms with what he just found out.
He saw the temple, the dead bodies around him, the blood everything looked and felt real. And yet it all felt strangely provisional. Like all of it could have been erased with the snap of the fingers of a so called author.
The truth arrived without ceremony.
Caster was just about going forward with the entrance ceremony when suddenly something supressed him.
He got lost.
In the darkness of the supression, the only thing keeping him sane was his own life. It was being replayed in front of him over and over again. He revaluation everything that happened in his life there, over and over again.
And then suddenly, a flood of memories flowed into his mind. It consisted of this person named Kieron.
First came his life of seventeen years. The tragic life he lived, where everyone he loved and cared for died, on this place that was similar to Caster's own world, only except it was a century ago.
But it wasn't his world. It was almost like a higher dimension.
Through that he found that his world was just a construction, imagined and discarded in moments by an author who existed somewhere unimaginably above him. The same world Kieron lived in. He found out his fate. How he was supposed to die.
Caster laughed at first.
A broken sound.
It didn't sound like a laugh at all.
If someone else had written his fears, then who was the one actually afraid?
He combed through his past memories, desperate to try to find something that wasn't written. He found a lot, after all, the author hadn't written too much about him. But every recollection carried the same hollow aftertaste. Because even if he hadn't written them himself, the world created such a world that fit his life according to what the author wrote.
Then the memories flooding into Caster came from the last near sixteen months Kieron spent in Casters body, pretending to be him, replacing him, getting recognition instead of him and achieving things that Caster could never imagine himself achieve.
It made him resentful, spiteful.
But he also couldn't help but pity how Kieron was thrown into a world below his own.
Though, he didn't feel exceptional vehement for Kieron.
He knew that Kieron just fell into the scheme of someone unimaginable.
He simply felt anger the world itself. Anger had followed the emptiness he was feeling.
But it didn't last long. He felt too exhausted for it.
He fell down on the floor.
"Am I even real?"
This question haunted him.
He had been questioning reality for hours. His mind just couldn't seem to calm down.
He wished to simply crawl into a bed and rest. To not do anything.
But he couldn't do that.
The saint was going to arrive at any moment.
"Focus. I can rest later."
Caster opened his eyes and stood up.
He willed himself to see this insane quest Kieron was in, all the way though.
"I need to first see the runes. I need to... familarize myself."
***
Name: Caster
True name: Opposer of Miracles.
Rank: Awakened.
Class: Terror.
Soul Cores: [6/7]
Soul Fragments: [5635/6000].
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], [Caster's Shard], [Triad of Vitalis], [Veil of Love], [Everlost Achiever], [Dusk Warden], [Blackplate]…
Echoes: [Evermelt]
Attributes: [Traveller], [Carrier of Grazes], [Weave Sorcerer], [Apostle of Eternity], [Flame of Divinity].
Aspect: [Lies of the Omniscient Reader].
Aspect Rank: Divine.
Innate Ability: [Character list].
Aspect Abilities: [Acquired Haste], [Grazing].
Aspect Legacy: [Fragments of the Final Wall].
Walls: [The Fourth Wall], [The Wall of Impossible Communications].
Grazes: [Arcless], [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.
***
Looking at the runes of the fourth wall, he saw that it hadn't disappeared. It was still there. Just greyed out comapred to the others. As if it was just recovering.
It gave Caster a sense of dread.
Would he disappear again if the fourth wall recovers?
***
Graze Name: Unnamed
Graze Description: [The Prince of Nothing, who lost everything, his body, soul, birth right, everything attempted to take over the "Architect of ■■" in the depths of his volatile soul. The architects design decieved the cunning Prince in a long fought battle. The Prince felt fear for the very first time as he lost his will in an instant against the Architect's impossible design. Now, bound as his graze, meant to serve him for eternity.]
Rank: Awakened.
Cores: [6/7]
[Merging Unavailable]
Soul Sea: Inactive
Status: Graze
Attributes: [The War], [Flame of Divinity], [Mirrorborn].
[The War]: You have inherited the lineage of the War God.
[Flame of Divinity]: Your soul is aflame with the light of divinity.
[Mirror Born]: Mirror's are like your kin.
Abilities: [Reflection], [Devouring Gaze].
[Reflection]: Allows one to travel through mirrors, create and control reflections.
[Devouring Gaze]: Allows one to possess someone's soul through their eyes.
***
Caster quickly gave the graze a name.
He gave it simply Mordret.
He saw that the other graze was named "Arcless" for no reason. So he renamed to Laylah, the ascended who that came from.
Following that, he focused on the descriptions.
"Architect? Whad do you mean Architect? I am not an architect..."
In the descriptions of both grazes, the spell had chosen to call him an architect.
Looking at the runes, Caster felt going crazy.
All the information he got, was overwhelming him still.
What he focused on exactly was what Kieron's plan going forward was.
It took him a little longer to gather all of that information but soon he was ready to continue.
He went over to Mordret's corpse, or to be exact another female sentinel's corpse which Mordret had over taken, and scrouged the ivory knife that was in her hand.
He stored it inside Starhoarder.
'This will come to be of use in the second nightmare. I would have preferred to spend more time as an awakened, but unfortunately Kieron was in a really big rush.'
Perhaps, being in a rush was his biggest mistake.
Caster didn't have any motivation like Kieron, he simply wished do good for his clan. But after finding out the truth of the world, he decided to follow what Kieron wanted.
For now though, he focused on this work over here.
His wounds hurted him a lot, and his soul wasn't fully fixed either. However, he didn't let that stop him.
He rushed over to the bottommost belfry and got into the cellar with the superior cell.
He saw Master Welthe, laying unconscious on the dome like cell, still breathing.
Her armor did not look to be summoned, and the clothes under it were torn from all over, barely covering her skin at all. Both her hands were cut from just above where her elbows were supposed to be. They looked to have a makeshift bandage made from her clothing, covering it, to not let her bleed to death.
The one who likely bandaged her was Evelyn, the invisibility sentinel. She layed unconscious too.
They both looked to have ran out of food.
Caster used the elaborate keys that he stored in his spatial memory, the ring, to open the cell's gate and looked down at their bodies as he looked down on them.
He physically made Welthe open her eyes and using the newly earned graze, he entered her soul.
Inside it, Welthe was disoriented, but she woke up.
However, before she could do anything, Caster grazed her.
Her spiritual body discombobulated into a flurry of sparks before flowing into a soul core that came out of Caster's soul body.
An array of memories flowed... again. They were Welthe's memories. And like his previous grazes, Laylah and Mordret, her memories flowed deep into the library in the soul sea, and partially into his mind.
He had sacrificed another core, to get another ascended graze.
[You have killed an ascended human...]
[You have created an ascended graze: Unnamed.]
Caster did not need to get another graze. But he had gotten greedy. He could get another core anytime, he couldn't get a top tier master's aspect anytime.
Caster quickly named the new graze — he named it to be Welthe — before exiting her soul sea and looking over to the other unconscious sentinel.
He planned to graze her too.
And that's exactly what he did.
He didn't even feel the slightest bit of remorse.
He grazed her, lost more cores, and named the graze to be exactly what her actual name was.
Evelyn.
Caster did not seem to enjoy giving fancy names unlike Kieron.
He summoned the runes of these new grazes.
***
Graze Name: Welthe
Graze Description: [A knight of bravery, courage and valor, fallen to the hands of the "Architect of ■■" after getting overwhelmed. The prideful knight now served the architect, unable to escape his impossible design.]
Rank: Ascended
Cores: [1/7]
[Merging Available.]
Soul Sea: Inactive.
Status: Graze.
Attributes: [Will Cohesion], [Adaptive].
Abilities: [Deliberation], [Strengthening], [Damage Transfer].
***
Graze Name: Evelyn
Graze Description: [This female sentinel, a knight of bravery, courage and valor, fallen to the hands of the "Architect of ■■" after getting overwhelmed. The prideful knight now served the architect, unable to escape his impossible design.]
Rank: Awakened.
Cores: [1/7]
[Merging available.]
Soul Sea: Inactive.
Status: Graze.
Attributes: [Stealthy], [Sharp Eyes].
Abilities: [Invisibility], [Sense Deliberation].
***
"This 'Architect of ■■' has appeared in every single one of my graze description. Why? What is its relation to me?"
He really had no memory of anything related to that. So it concerned him a little. However, he didn't focus on it for too long.
The grazes were exactly what he needed, especially Evelyn.
Kieron had planned all this in detail before even entering the Night Temple.
Only now, after three consecutive grazing, Caster felt weak. Exceptionally so.
This was because he had lost most of his cores.
Looking at his runes again, he saw that he was not a demon, almost a devil.
[Soul Fragments: 2950/3000].
He had spent most of his cores on this.
He would walk out of this cellar and go to the different one with the lesser cell, in which he had trapped the sentinel who tried to imprisson him at the very start.
After entering the room, he looked at the pathetic state that guy was in.
He was conscious, barely so, but it felt like he'd drop dead anytime.
Caster gave him food and water, small amounts of both, else he could die.
'You're going to distract the Saint.'
This sentinel was the final piece of blessing Kieron left behind for him.
Originally, this sentinel was supposed to just be a small distraction, something that could potentiall buy him a few seconds. Even if he didn't buy any time, it'd be alright. Kieron had something in mind for it.
But not, it was Caster controlling everything, and unlike him, Caster was willing to get as dirty as he needed to.
For the time being, the sentinel couldn't be trained. He was barely conscious after all.
So he let that sentinel rest, his time was soon going to be really, really bad soon.
Caster walked out of the cellar, and decided to work on the other preparations.
He summoned the Aquifer's Gift and used an enchantment of it, Flood unbound, to unleash a torrent of bursting river in the Night Temple.
It was a very necessary step.
He spent all day, and a lot of his essence on simply flooding the Night Temple with water. Not every nick and cranny of every belfry of it, but two main paths from the seventh belfry all the way upto the gates.
It took a few hours, but he was done pretty soon.
The still water reached about ankle length in the parts Caster had flooded.
He still had time, it looked like, so Caster went down to the 7th belfry to the last sentinel of the Night Temple alive.
Upon reach the cellar, Caster looked at the already broken sentinel calmly. He smiled before speaking in a soft tone.
"So, how are you doing?"
The sentinel didn't reply.
So Caster opened the cell and kicked him.
His face darkened and tone strengthened.
"You know all your friends, and comrads of this temple? They are all dead. The Masters, awakened, everyone. Not a single soul lives. Except you and me."
The Sentinel couldn't believe it. His eyes widened before closing, tears falling from them onto the floor.
"You see, you could have helped them, but instead you were here doing nothing."
He paused for a moment.
"Completely. Utterly. Useless."
The verbal abuse and humiliation continued for a while.
Caster was psychologically torturing the last sentinel.
"I'll be back after an hour."
Caster walked out of the room, giving the sentinel a sense of relief for just a moment.
But not even thirty seconds later, Caster returned.
He had lied.
The sentinel was not getting a break.
And thus the torture continued.
He barely used physical means, but he was destroying the sentinels mentality and creating a new one.
Eventually, Caster stopped using mundane means to psychologically break the sentinel. He began entering his soul, severly beating him up there, without doing any actual, physical damage.
He began using Evelyn's 'Sense Deliberation' to make him feel lost.
He began using Welthe's 'Deliberation' to make him feel weak.
He began using Laylah's 'Telekinesis' to make him feel a force weakening his own control over his body.
Caster was shaping the sentinel.
'I hope the Saint doesn't return for the next few days... I need to train him properly and recover.'
Caster looked at the sentinel before speaking something.
"...From now on, your name is Mordret."
***
It was not the 10th day since Kieron entered the Night Temple.
Kieron was now gone, but Caster was there in place of him.
He had now successfully made the Sentinel act like he was Mordret's Vessel. The perfect distraction.
The sentinel was surprisingly strong too, so he could at least buy him a few seconds against the Saint.
Speaking of the saint, the saint had been late. He was supposed to have reached the place three to four days ago, but he still hadn't.
In that time, Caster had almost fully recovered his physical injuries. His soul was still damaged, and his hourglass charm had only a few months worth of time saved up, but he figured it would be enough as long as Sky Tide appears.
Kieron had talked with Cassie way before entering the Temple that he wants Sky Tide there in a few days.
Since they don't have the Chain Breaker right now, it was more than likely that only Sky Tide would come, not the companions, but that was okay. Caster just needed an escape route.
Well, this is under the assumption that she does get decieved by Cassie's sweet words.
This entire thing could take a really wrong turn if Sky Tide chooses not to come here.
Now that the Sentinel was done being trained, Caster took him out of the cell and took him to one of the top belfries.
Caster was on one of the flooded water paths, while the sentinel was on the other flooded path.
Now, all they had to do was wait.
Wait for the Saint in question to arrive.
And it didn't take long before he did.
The whole Night Temple suddenly shook with a great shockwave.
An explosion of pain radiated through his body, and a moment later,
Caster clenched his fists.
'The seal… it's lifted!'
...The Saint had arrived.