Shadow Slave

As a cold wind rose in the Ebony Tower, Cassie backed away until her back pressed against the dark stone. There was a somber expression on her bloodied face, making it look even paler than before — her blindfold had slipped, revealing her beautiful blue eye… and the gaping chasm where the other one should have been, as well.

‘He’s mad…’

Out there in front of her, Mordret was shattering his Reflections.

He had already consumed the great legion of his vessels, absorbing the splintered fragments of his peculiar soul — millions of them. Some were minuscule, some powerful enough to inhabit the stolen bodies of Saints and Titans. Because of that, his already impossibly vast soul had swelled to a truly unfathomable extent, becoming as boundless and bottomless as the Stormsea.

And now, he was absorbing the soul cores his Reflections had nurtured, too.

Cassie saw it in his runes…

Rank: Supreme.

Class: Titan.

Soul Cores: [7/7]… [9/7]… [13/7]… [16/7]… [21/7]…

And more.

It was pure madness. The souls of humans were not meant to withstand more than one soul core — the strain of supporting just one was already all that they could handle. Creatures were different, capable of evolving to higher Classes… but even then, seven was their limit.

There was no reason for that other than that the world was created that way. Number seven possessed mystical power, after all, because that was the number of gods. Seven Divinities had been born from the Flame of Desire, and so, number seven echoed across all of existence.

No soul could accommodate more than seven soul cores, just like no triangle could possess four corners. It was simply the law of existence — those who attempted to break it perished when their souls collapsed under their own weight.

Even now, the weight of Mordret’s soul could be felt in the great hall of the Ebony Tower. It had become so crushing that what was meant to be purely metaphysical was manifesting on the physical plane — the winds were howling, and the furniture surrounding him was buckling, its shattered debris sliding slowly across the trembling floor.

Myriad small items were rising into the air, levitating above the black obsidian as if overcome by weightlessness.

And all the while, the Ebony Island was quaking because of whatever was happening outside the tower, where Asterion was making his way through the mist.

‘He lost his mind’

Mordret had to have gone insane to attempt this desperate gamble. But then again…

A cold shiver ran down Cassie’s spine, caused by apprehension — or perhaps awe. Perhaps he had not.

The skeleton Nephis had found in Ariel’s Hell, Eurys of the Nine, had told Sunny that using brute force to achieve Apotheosis was impossible. But Mordret was a unique being, and therefore, his path to godhood could very well turn out to be uniquely bizarre.

None of them knew much about Apotheosis, but as far as Cassie understood it, two requirements had to be met in order to attempt it. First, one’s soul had to be as vast and endlessly deep as that of a Spirit. Secondly, their consciousness had to shed the shell of humanity and be reborn as the mind of a deity.

And Mordret…

Mordret had a way to cheat at least one of those requirements.

His ability to create Reflections, as well as splinter fragments of his soul to inhabit myriad vessels, gave him a unique aptitude for swiftly expanding the depth of his soul — all he had to do was absorb his creations back into himself.

At the same time, Mordret’s claim to humanity had always been tenuous, and his mind only became more inhuman after he shattered it into a million pieces, all the while managing to maintain his sense of self despite that splintered, broken state. So, if someone could remain whole while attempting Apotheosis too early, woefully unprepared, it was him.

There was an exception to every rule, after all.

Kanakht had wanted to consume his kingdom to fuel his ascent to godhood… so did Asterion. Mordret, however, was

consuming himself.

So…

There was no telling whether he would succeed or fail.

If he did succeed, there was no telling what would happen.

Cassie’s thoughts raced.

If the Spirit of Nothing was born on the Ebony Island… the Dreamspawn would most likely cease to be a problem. That did not mean a bright future for humanity, though — quite the contrary, in fact. Mordret had already been planning to wipe humanity out to destroy Asterion’s Domain, and his intentions were unlikely to change even if he became Sacred.

Sunny and Nephis had left to find a way to defeat the Dreamspawn. Now, there was a possibility — however small — that they would return to enter a battle against a Sacred Titan, Mordret of Nowhere, instead. ‘Should I… stop him?’

Cassie gripped the hilt of her dagger so tightly that her fingers turned white. Usually, she would have had no chance to harm Mordret. However, he was in the middle of a perilous evolution at the moment, barely holding himself from coming undone.

And he had destroyed all his other vessels, as well. The only body he had left was his original one, and that body had been battered and broken in the clash against Asterion.

Of course, Mordret was functionally immortal. Cassie had no way of destroying his reflection, so she could not kill him by driving her stiletto into his heart. She would not have been able to kill him in normal circumstances… but at the moment, he was attempting Apotheosis. So if she pierced his heart now, Apotheosis was going to kill him instead.

Cassie remained motionless for a few long, arduous moments… and then took a tentative step forward.

Then, she took another.

But after that, she stopped.

In front of her, Mordret had absorbed the last Reflection — the Reflection of her — and groaned, swaying lightly.

Cassie lowered her head and took a small breath.

‘No… no, I don’t want to’

She was tired of betrayal. She was tired of broken promises and calculated lies… of claiming that the end did not justify the means, all the while acting as if it did.

She did not know whether Mordret would succeed in becoming a god or not. She did not know whether he would choose to destroy humanity or not.

Knowledge was the heaviest thing in the world, and at the moment, Cassie felt as light as a feather.

So, she entrusted herself to not knowing

and remained where she stood, her dagger pointed at the obsidian floor.

With the last of the Reflections gone, she was blind once again, surrounded by darkness.

All she could see was Mordret’s runes… And so, she could imagine what was happening in his soul as if she saw it. There, in the misty expanse of his Mirror Realm, dozens of brilliant suns were covered by cracks, the somber sky that surrounded them slowly being devoured by deep fractures. The clouds that obscured the broken sky were in the throes of a harrowing storm, and the vast expanse of swirling mist below was in turmoil, torn apart by howling winds.

Mordret’s soul was coming undone. The cores that were destroying it were breaking apart, too…

In the end, the myriad cores broke first. They shattered, exploding into millions of

radiant shards.

And under the pressure of his inhuman Will, those shards were pulled toward a single point — the eye of the storm — slowly forming one enormous, radiant sphere…