Shadow Slave

Mordret glanced at Sunny with an amused smile, his familiar expression looking eerily alien on the face of Saint Dar of Clan Maharana. He exhaled slowly, and then spoke in a cold tone:

“Are you delusional, Sunless? No, do not answer. All of us Supremes are, after all — it takes a madman to impose his will upon the world and expect the world to change form to fit it. However, did you really think that I would stand idly and watch as the Dreamspawn conquers the Human Domain? Billions of souls, innumerable Citadels... all making his already frightening power truly insurmountable. Not to mention the Divine Lineages that you and Changing Star carry in your blood. Sun God and Shadow God — everything he needs to complete his collection.”

Sunny met his gaze with a grim expression.

“Yes. I was under the impression that you wouldn’t want to become our enemy.”

Mordret shook his head.

“You and Changing Star have already failed. It would have been wonderful if you had managed to defeat the Dreamspawn all on your own, without involving me. But you didn’t, and therefore, you left me no choice but to act. After all, you know what they say — if you want something done well, do it yourself. So, I am going to eradicate that Nightmare Creature and his ghastly Domain myself.” He pierced Sunny with a dark look.

“Why are you here, berating me for taking the population of a single city? You have already lost half of humanity. If anyone should be condemning anyone, it should be me condemning you.”

Sunny gritted his teeth.

“Because these people were alive, you fool! Yes, the Dreamspawn had enthralled them and stolen them from the Longing Domain, but they were still living, breathing souls. Which means that there was still a possibility that we would be able to save them, in the end. But you destroyed that possibility. Because of you, their loss became final and irreversible.’

He glared at Mordret, overflowing with killing intent.

“So don’t try to pretend like you did nothing wrong, or that this massacre did not count because they belonged to the Hunger Domain. Back in the Second Nightmare, when you wiped out the entire northern population of the Kingdom of Hope, you at least had an excuse — they were phantoms conjured by the Spell. But these were real people. Hundreds of thousands of actual people! Men, women, and children. All dead by your hand.”

His eyes darkened.

“I thought you followed your own set of rules, twisted as they might have been. What happened to that, huh, Mordret? Do you still think that you didn’t cross the line?”

Mordret blinked a couple of times, then said in a tone of confusion:

“Rules? Rules... well, now that you mention it, Ido vaguely remember having something like that. I guess I’ve forgotten — but then again, if it was something important, I would have remembered.”

He shook his head.

“But I will have to disagree with you, Sunless. There was no possibility of saving them — that is just wishful thinking. You know very well that the Dreamspawn is functionally immortal. The only way to kill him is to make sure that no one in the world knows that he exists, and therefore, the very people you so wish to save make him impossible to defeat. You can’t save them unless you destroy him, but you can’t destroy him because they live. That is an inescapable paradox that even you cannot solve.”

Sunny stared at him somberly.

“I can. There is a way. I just need time... and you are stealing that time. You are making this abhorrent situation even worse!”

Mordret laughed.

“I don’t believe you. Even if I believed you, I wouldn’t trust in you. The only way for you and Changing Star to defeat the Dreamspawn is to give up on humanity, and since you are unwilling to abandon it, you are already doomed. You had lost before this mess even started.”

Sunny scoffed.

“What is your plan, then? The Dreamspawn already shared his vision of the future with me, and it is as demented as you’d expect. Are you the same? Imagine everything goes your way. The Hunger Domain consumes humanity, and you consume the Hunger Domain. Everyone is gone, in the end, except for you — nothing exists in the world except for you. Are you going to be happy, standing alone atop a mountain of corpses?”

That was what the future Mordret envisioned looked like. The eerie sameness of Red Hill, extended to all of existence. Asterion would conquer all of humanity and dispose of Sunny and Nephis, and Mordret would steal every single soul trapped in the Hunger Domain, until there was no one left who knew the name of the Dreamspawn — except for him.

By then, he would be able to face Asterion in battle and overpower him. And after Asterion was defeated, he would continue to walk the Path of Ascension and grow, until every Nightmare Creature in the Dream Realm was nothing but another vessel of his, as well.

Until there was nothing in the world but Mordret, in all his countless faces.

And nothing else.

He had once told Sunny that a mirror could only reflect what was in front of it, and that it was not his fault that the world he reflected was cruel, vile, and deceitful. What would become of Mordret when the only thing he could reflect was himself? Sunny did not know, and he was not interested in finding out.

He was interested in what Mordret had to say about that, though.

The King of Nothing stared at him for a while, thoughtful, and then chuckled quietly.

“What is my plan? Goodness, Sunless, you really are overestimating me. To be honest, I haven’t had any plans since you killed my father. I had no luxury of making plans. After Godgrave, all I could do was focus on surviving”

He smiled.

”I feel like I want to survive, Sunless. I must survive, no matter what.”

Mordret sighed, his smile turning a little menacing.

“And if everyone else has to die for it? Well, what a pity. So be it.”