Shadow Slave

In the days following the fateful gathering in the Immortal Flame manor, everything transpired exactly as Sunny had expected. The champions of the Human Domain were not the most talkative of people, especially when important matters were concerned. However, there had been too many witnesses to the confrontation between Changing Star and the Dreamspawn, so the rumors about it inevitably spread.

They spread slowly at first... but then exploded all over the world, reaching its farthest corners in no time at all — almost as if someone was purposefully helping them proliferate through some unknown means.

In a matter of days, everyone seemed to know about the spat between the two Supremes. Everyone seemed to have learned what Asterion had accused Nephis of, as well. His unexpected return had become old news almost instantly, and instead, all that people talked about was Changing Star and her many secrets.

As well as the dire sacrifice she had supposedly been prepared to make to achieve her goals.

The government attempted to suppress the spread of the rumors, but it was of no use. Soon enough, the whispers of what the last daughter of the Immortal Flame had done — and what she had chosen to keep from becoming known — could be heard everywhere: in the human hives of NQSC, on the lively streets of Bastion, under the ashen sky of Ravenheart, in the military camps on the frontiers of the Dream Realm...

And of course, every time Changing Star’s name was mentioned, Asterion was mentioned as well.

The detrimental effect of rumors was not immediately noticeable. After all, Nephis and her companions had spent an entire decade carefully building the foundation of the Longing Domain both with words and with actions — it was not going to be shaken so easily.

Some people simply refused to believe that Changing Star had consciously put hundreds of millions of lives at risk in pursuit of vengeance. Others did believe the rumors but saw no fault in the decisions of their goddess, finding various ways to rationalize them. A small number of people felt disturbed and outraged, and ever fewer simply did not care.

Regardless of their opinion, everyone felt anxious about the animosity between the two Supremes. The memories of the Domain War were still fresh in everyone’s mind, after all.

But that was alright. People who lived in the era of the Nightmare Spell were no strangers to anxiety. The world was literally coming undone around them, so one more thing to worry about was not going to change the usual pace of their lives. However...

Even if the change in the mood of the subjects of the Human Domain was not too drastic, it was enough to weaken mankind’s immunity against the thought virus conjured by the Dreamspawn.

People felt relieved that the conflict between Changing Star and Asterion had not turned into a war, but in fact, they were wrong. The war between the Longing Domain and the Hunger Domain had already started... it was just that the battlefields of this war were neither in the Dream Realm nor in the waking world. Instead, it was happening in the minds of people.

Every argument held between friends was a skirmish, and every conversation at the dinner table was a battle. All humans in the world had become soldiers in the war without even knowing it, and even if Asterion was at an absolute numerical disadvantage, the number of his followers was slowly swelling.

The rate at which new victims were enchanted by his insidious Aspect was steadily increasing. That was because every new acolyte of his Domain added to the voices that praised the Dreamspawn while diminishing Chaning Star... and more of them there were, the louder their voices would become.

At this point, it seemed meaningless to try containing them. There were too many thralls being created every day to identify and capture them all, so all Sunny could do was keep an eye on them and make sure that they were not up to no good.

The prison camp on the Forgotten Shore had reached maximum capacity and stopped accepting new residents as a result. Asterion himself, meanwhile, was not doing anything in particular — nothing nefarious, at the very least.

True to his word, he did not use his growing influence to further sabotage the Human Domain. Those who fell under his influence simply continued with their lives, doing all the things they used to do — whether it was tending to the fields in the Dream Realm, maintaining the deteriorating infrastructure of the waking world, or fighting the Nightmare Creatures that threatened to consume humanity.

The Dreamspawn mostly stayed in his abandoned church. Only it was not so abandoned anymore — even if people tended to stay away from the odd Supreme, he had already gained a few loyal followers. These followers maintained the church, having formed a small community.

They also followed him around, listening to his every word with zealous expressions. Sunny could have been imagining it, but Asterion seemed almost put-upon by their attention.

Sunny and Nephis, meanwhile, did not stay idle. They needed to bolster the morale of the Human Domain more than ever now, so they kept themselves busy with numerous duties and responsibilities, going out of their way to produce immediate and palpable results.

The exploratory force in the far east of the known territory of the Dream Realm had discovered and conquered another Citadel. The enchanted tram lines in Bastion continued to expand. The red fields of Ravenheart were ready to give harvest. A naval corridor across the Atlantic Ocean was finally secured, reestablishing the connection to the last human colonies in South America that had been destroyed with the fall of Antarctica.

This hopeful news dampened the flames of worrisome rumors, somewhat.

But, of course, it was nothing but a temporary measure.

Their true goal was to find a way to seal Asterion away without sacrificing too many human lives in the process...

And in that regard, there was no progress at all.

It was in that atmosphere that Rain finally returned to Bastion.