Shadow Slave

The gates of the Ebony Tower, which had withstood thousands of years of being bathed in divine flame, were violently torn off the hinges and went flying, crashing down with a thunderous roar. Wisps of white mist poured inside, forcing Cassie to stagger away.

Kneeling on the floor, overcome by indescribable agony, Mordret looked up. One wing of the gargantuan gate bounced off the stone floor and was barreling in his direction in a cloud of black shards. Gritting his teeth, he raised a hand, and the enormous slab of obsidian exploded into myriad fragments before reaching him.

A suppressed groan escaped from his lips. Mordret… had failed in his attempt to become a god. His Apotheosis seemed to have succeeded, but at the last moment, an unexpected variable caused everything to come crashing down.

The Corruption.

The Corruption had somehow found its way into his newly formed Sacred core, damaging it and casting him down from the empyrean heights of godhood. And now, it was consuming him from within.

Mordret had not become an abomination just yet, but his end was inevitable. The virulent darkness was already rooted in his soul core, and his very being was already undergoing the profane transformation into a Nightmare Creature — a broken and demented beast, no different from his former self from the Tomb of Ariel… the Soul Stealer.

And because Mordret had shattered his soul cores to fuel his Apotheosis, he only had one of them left now. Which meant that he could not tear it from the depths of his soul and discard it, thus saving himself from the Corruption like he had done on many occasions before.

He had driven himself into a corner, and this time… there was no escape.

If it weren’t for the harrowing torment consuming his entire being, Mordret would have laughed. And if it weren’t for the terrible strain of suppressing the fundamental transformation reshaping his mind into something alien and eerie, he would have howled in anger and indignation.

He was so close… he had been so close…

He had experienced the infinite horizon of being a god, even if only for a few seconds. But now, it was all over.

This was the end.

Filled with indescribable bitterness, Mordret looked across the fractured floor of the Ebony Tower, at the white mist flowing slowly into its great hall.

Out there in the veil of mist swirling in the gaping chasm of the broken gate…

Two golden lights ignited high above the ground, emanating indescribable dread. Cassie could not see them, but she felt it… A suffocating presence descending upon the world and drowning it in insatiable hunger. Then, there was the sound of rustling cloth, and a human figure stepped out from the mist, his hands folded behind his back. Walking across the threshold, Asterion stopped, looked around the devastated great hall, and then locked gazes with Mordret.

His lips twisted into a smile.

For a moment, everything seemed still… Mordret was kneeling on the floor, looking at Asterion with desperation in his eyes. Cassie was still pressed against the wall, reeling, not knowing what would happen next.

More figures revealed themselves in the fog, following their Sovereign — the army of the Hunger Domain had braved the sea of nothingness and reached the Ebony Tower, ready to conquer it…

To end the final war.

Cassie drew a shallow breath, finally able to see it all.

The ravaged hall, the tall figure of Asterion, the bloodied visage of Mordret kneeling on the floor…

Then, it was as if the spell was broken, and everything began to move once more. People poured into the Ebony Tower, the battered Saints leading the rattled Awakened soldiers. Asterion took a step forward.

Mordret stared at him with pain and hatred burning in his mirror-like eyes, then gritted his teeth…

And disappeared.

He vanished without a trace, leaving only a shallow puddle of blood in his wake.

Cassie froze.

‘He… he…’

He escaped.

Asterion studied the bloodstains for a second, then turned to look at Cassie.

…She was already running by then.

Too many things were happening too fast, and their scope was too great and consequential even for her mind to grasp in an instant. The fate of the world was literally being decided on the bloodied stones of the Ebony Tower, and Cassie could not yet decipher what that fate was. She could not consider all possible choices, determine the best ones, and come up with a plan of action.

But she knew one thing — Mordret had attempted Apotheosis and failed, and now he was gone. So, nothing stood between her and the Dreamspawn anymore.

Or rather, nothing did not stand between them anymore, leaving her defenseless. More than that, Rain was still on the highest floor of the Ebony Tower, and so was the Hollow woman Nephis had entrusted to Cassie.

The battle was lost, and the war seemed to have come to a vain end. So, all Cassie could do was try to escape — that was all she could think of at the moment, at least.

Up there at the top of the Ebony Tower, the portal arch was waiting to be used. Restoring the runic circle swiftly was not beyond the realm of possibility… of course, it would lead them to the Ivory Island, which belonged to the Dreamspawn. But the runic circle could be modified.

Nether had not connected his workshop to the Ivory Island on a whim. He simply made use of a network of archways that had already existed in the Kingdom of Hope, created by the Demon of Desire herself. Most of those archways had long been destroyed, but a few still existed, preserved in a dormant state.

If Cassie could successfully rewrite the runic circle, escape was not out of the question. Just… very, very improbable.

The only advantage she had was that the Dreamspawn would most likely pursue Mordret instead of turning his attention to her.

That was what she thought, at least. However, Asterion did not meet her expectations.

Instead of concentrating on finishing Mordret off, he aimed the chilling gaze of his golden eyes at her retreating back.

And as Cassie rushed up the stairs to the second floor of the Ebony Tower, he turned to follow her with unhurried steps, the faint smile still playing on his lips.

‘Faster, faster…’

She reached the second floor, where divine flames blazed in a great brazier, and continued scaling the stairs without pausing even for a moment.

…Of course, in the end, she wasn’t fast enough.