Shadow Slave

Sunny did not like the idea of negotiating with Mordrert at all. Not because he was particularly inflexible and wanted to kill the bastard no matter what — although the idea of cleansing the world of Mordret did seem amazingly alluring — but simply because he knew from experience that striking any kind of deal with Mordret was a dangerous gamble, at best.

The chances of being betrayed were too high.

’Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice... wait, how many times have I been fooled by this damned miscreant?’

He frowned, then looked at the sea of motionless figures standing behind the Mirror Gate.

A chill ran down his spine again.

Sunny had felt an inexplicable sense of unease ever since beholding the eerie sight of this silent myriad. Truth be told, he did not even know if the Mordret he knew and the creature standing in front of him were the same being.

By now, they knew that Mordret had attained Supremacy in the process of battling the Skinwalker in a soul duel — that was how he was able to inhabit millions of vessels and destroy the Great Terror. Granted, even Cassie was not clear on which came first. The cause and the result were too closely intertwined to be discerned... perhaps, in this case, they were one and the same.

Regardless, Mordret had somehow managed to manifest a Domain encompassing no one but himself, which went against the very idea of Supremacy — the authority of a Sovereign was supposed to be expressed by exerting it upon something, after all, be it living beings or territory. Even that was not a problem, though. The problem... was just how many vessels Mordret now possessed. It was simply beyond the realm of reason. If Sunny did not confirm it himself, he would have confidently stated that it was completely impossible.

He knew the pressure of trying to separate his mind across tens of thousands of conduits better than most, after all. And his shades weren’t even true incarnations — he could only perceive the world around them and issue commands, not control them directly as he would his own body.

Even that had put an enormous strain on him before he acquired Mind Weave... and mere weeks after acquiring Mind Weave, he was already struggling with maintaining his previous sense of self. All that stemmed from having to split his attention between every shade of the Shadow Legion — and Mordret possessed millions of vessels, not merely thousands.

Even Ki Song had not been able to control such a staggering number of puppets. Even Soul Stealer, a version of Mordret twisted by Corruption, had been driven mad by shattering himself into a million pieces to consume Twilight...

But Mordret did not seem mad.

At least he was not madder than he had been before.

..He did not seem quite human either, though.

The face was the same — if made even more sublime by the rebirth of rising to a higher Rank — and the manners were the same, too. But there was something unfamiliar hiding in the depths of Mordret’s gaze.

‘How would having millions of bodies change someone’s consciousness?” Especially if that someone had a tenuous claim to personhood, to begin with.

Sunny did not want to show the subtle feeling of being disturbed by this new and unfamiliar Mordret. One thought disturbed him even more, though... ‘Is something similar happening to me and Nephis?”

It was an eerie thought.

In any case, as much as Sunny did not like the idea of negotiating with Mordret, they had little choice.

Despite all his deviousness and complete lack of remorse — Mordret could try to downplay the hideousness of the massacre he had perpetrated upon the House of Night all he wanted, and it would still not convince anyone — he was a Sovereign now.

And a Sovereign could never be treated lightly, least of all one wielding a Divine Aspect.

Sunny and Nephis could probably destroy him and his millions of vessels, but they would not escape that battle unscathed — at best, they would be severely weakened, which could prove fatal before too long.

There was another Sovereign they had to worry about, after all.

There were four Supremes in existence now, and one of them was almost certainly both hostile and a dire threat. So, as long as it could be avoided, they had to make sure that Mordret joined the battle against Asterion — and, ideally, the war for the future of humanity — on their side.

So it was not just that destroying him would cost them too much. They had little reason to destroy him, to begin with, or at least more reasons to keep him alive than to kill him... as long as Mordret could be reasoned with.

And as much as Sunny wanted to deny it, Mordret had told them the truth. He was a very reasonable monster, indeed.

He had betrayed and fooled Sunny a few times. But he was not a pathological schemer — he had fulfilled his promises quite faithfully when it suited him. In the Tomb of Ariel, for example, he had played a key role during the final battle at Verge.

A battle in which Sunny himself had not participated, having betrayed and abandoned his friends...

‘Damnation. It’s driving me insane.”

Sunny looked at Mordret, sighed, and asked in a resigned tone:

”What exactly is it that you want?”

He had an idea.

Mordret had already expressed that he needed Sunny and Nephis — for no other reason than to be his meat shield against the Dreamspawn. Now that he was the King of Nothing, that seemed like more of a strategy than before. For no other reason than the fact that a Sovereign could contend against Asterion, while a Saint couldn’t... at least Mordret had not seemed to believe that he stood a chance. ṞÃ₦ỖᛒÊṩ

Neither had he believed that Sunny and Nephis stood a chance. Therefore, their usefulness as cannon fodder had an expiration date.

That, in turn, would mean that Mordret expected Asterion to defeat them eventually, and therefore had to have a plan for what was going to come next. Now, the outline of that plan was starting to take shape...

Mordret was going to attack.

The world — even two worlds — seemed to be too small for two Supremes, as long as one of these Supremes was Asterion. So, Mordret had to have an intention of destroying the Dreamspawn eventually. Not only because he believed that he would have to in order to survive, but also because he hated Asterion almost as much as he had hated the King of Swords.

He just needed Sunny and Nephis to buy him time.

Mordret smiled.

”What do I want from the two of you? Well, in one word... nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

He laughed.