Shadow Slave

The war between the Longing Domain, the Hunger Domain, and the Mirror Domain was over. The Longing Domain, which had seemed indomitable once, fell in just a few months, and now, only two warring factions remained.

So, a new war was now unravelling under the patchwork sky of the Dream Realm.

At the time Cassie and Rain arrived at the Ebony Island, Mordret was steadily pushing the forces of humanity back on all fronts. All the northern expanse of the Dream Realm, excluding only Ravenheart, already belonged to him. His seemingly endless vessels were moving like an unstoppable wave down the River of Tears, and in the east, the Black Mountains were poised to fall soon.

It seemed like the King of Nothing was going to wash over the world like a tide, leaving nothing but death and desolation in his wake… leaving nothing but himself to rule the empty, devastated world.

But reality was different.

As soon as the last bastions of the Longing Domain, including the four Great Citadels, fell into the hands of the Dreamspawn, his rule over humanity was solidified. All of mankind now belonged to him, submitted to him, and worshipped him as their savior.

Of course, that was not because everyone truly believed in Asterion — instead, it was because everyone had been infected by the idea of him, enthralled by him, and no one could escape his frightening powers.

But it was all the same, as far as the war against the King of Nothing was concerned. With all of humanity united in their eerie obedience to the Dreamspawn, the nature of the war changed. There was no internal conflict among the humans anymore, and they were guided by the terrible will of the eldest and most experienced of the Supremes — so, their unity and military cohesion increased by leaps and bounds, going far beyond what was humanly possible.

And since Asterion ruled the most powerful Domain in existence now, having grown far more powerful than any other Supreme as a result, he did not feel the need to shy away from the battlefield anymore.

On the contrary, he led his thralls into battles quite often, as if taunting the King of Nothing to bring his most powerful vessels and face him.

But, of course, there was no difference between those vessels that were powerful and those that were weak. In the end, they were all Mordret — and so, Asterion could assault Mordret’s mind every time he found himself close to any vessel.

He could slowly poison Mordret’s mind from any distance, as well, but being face-to-face allowed the Dreamspawn to unleash the full extent of his insidious Aspect upon the King of Nothing.

It wasn’t easy to infect the mind of a Supreme — especially the mind of Mordret, who had the capacity to control millions of vessels without going mad… or at least more mad than he already was. His mind was vast and eerily alien, but then again, Asterion was not entirely human either.

Just like rivers cut rock, his insidious powers slowly chipped away at the King of Nothing, poisoning his mind drop by drop.

That should have destroyed Mordret, eventually — but even in the short term, Asterion’s influence was supposed to diminish his ability to fight against the Hunger Domain effectively.

That did not happen, though.

It did not happen for one simple reason — because of Lady Cassia, Song of the Fallen. She, who was now considered a traitor of humanity by those who had fallen under the Dreamspawn’s hex, seemed to be the only reason why Mordret could resist the powers of Lord Asterion so persistently. So, people blamed Song of the Fallen for every person who died in the war against the Mirror Domain, and for every soul that was destroyed to give its sinister ruler a new vessel.

Despite the fact that the King of Nothing had found himself a witch to protect himself from the insidious power of the Dreamspawn, the tides of war still changed against him.

In the west, the warriors of humanity managed to build an effective blockade on the River of Tears. Of course, Mordret could bypass it by using the surface of the river itself as an exit of the Mirror Gate — but in doing so, he would be committing a large contingent of his forces to a battle behind enemy lines.

And with the Song Sisters leading a counteroffensive from Ravenheart, pushing eastward toward Godgrave, he had no choice but to conserve his vessels and pull them back to the Moonriver Plains.

In the east, his advance across the Black Mountains slowed down at first and then came to a halt. That was where the fighting was the most fearsome, and that was where the Dreamspawn appeared in the flesh most often.

Mordret’s conquest had come against the wall he couldn’t overcome. For a while, the two Domains were at a stalemate, fighting fierce battles across the jagged peaks of the Black Mountains…

And then, humanity managed to push the King of Nothing back.

He lost control over a single peak at first, then of a few more. And then, the Black Mountains campaign saw a complete reversal — the forces of humanity had been desperately clinging to the snowy slopes before, being chased further and further south almost every day; but now, it was the other way around, and it was the vessels of the King of Nothing who lost ground each day.

Mordret was being pushed north. He was losing vessels faster than he could procure new ones in Godgrave, the Glass Hell, and across the battlefronts of the war against humanity. And while he could face Asterion in battle and wound him, or even destroy his body…

The Dreamspawn could not really be destroyed, not unless the idea of him was erased from existence. So, no matter how many wounds he received, how severely his body was bruised and mangled, he always returned to how he was before, smiling as his golden eyes shone with amusement. The fierce fighting went on for weeks, reshaping the very terrain of the Dream Realm. In the Black Mountains, countless peaks had collapsed, burying the deep gorges with rock. New mountain passes were created, and the old ones were erased from existence. The veil of snow covering the tallest mountains was incinerated, and the ancient glaciers melted under intense heat.

The rivers running from the vast mountain chain overflowed, drowning swathes of land on the plains below. New lakes were created, while the old ones grew still and shallow. The Nightmare Creatures who dwelled in the wilderness found their lairs being disturbed or destroyed entirely, so a widespread migration began, threatening the Citadel Cities all the way down to Bastion.

In the west, the destruction was more widespread due to the scale of the natural forces involved in the calamity. The fearsome battles on the River of Tears caused it to change course, forming a new riverbed as several sections of the old one were cut off from the current.

The cataclysm caused by the change of the great river was devastating beyond description. A titanic, obliterating flood swallowed entire plains, washed away vast forests, and drowned flourishing valleys, destroying countless ecosystems completely. Before the new riverbed stabilized, entire regions of the Dream Realm found themselves underwater, their landscape changed forever.

In the end, the new riverbed was formed, flowing almost in a straight line for long stretches on its way to the Stormsea. At the same time, several colossal oxbow lakes appeared in places where its currents used to twist and turn.

The sections of the dried riverbed revealed secrets and horrors that no one could even imagine before — but at the moment, no one had time to pay them any attention, either, too busy either surviving or fighting the war.

And after these weeks of vicious fighting and all the devastation the new Domain War visited upon the Dream Realm…

The King of Nothing was not locked in a stalemate against the Dreamspawn anymore.

He was retreating.

The combined forces of humanity, nurtured to their current daunting strength by Changing Star of the Immortal Flame and led by the Dreamspawn, had turned out too numerous and too powerful for his young Domain to contend against.

So, in an attempt to consolidate his forces and prevent too many vessels from being destroyed while they were spread thin, Mordret was forced to narrow the scope of what he was trying to hold on to.

He abandoned the basin of the River of Tears first, then reluctantly retreated from the Black Mountains.

The Moonriver Plains fell into the hands of humanity once again after that, followed by several regions north of the mountains… and once he lost the Citadels there, the advantage Asterion had managed to gain became even more overwhelming.

Mordret attempted to hold onto Godgrave, but it was of no use… or, rather, it was too costly. So, instead of fighting another war in Godgrave, he chose to pull back.

Everyone expected him to retreat toward the Hollow Mountains — but instead, he retreated east.

The Glass Hell was conquered by humanity soon after that, as well as the remaining regions north of the Hollow Mountains. Soon enough, only the Chained Isles remained.