"The event that was once seen as an absolute apocalypse has struck once again. A Category 5 Gate, and a Cursed Nightmare Creature have landed in the Eastern Antarctic. We lost many heroes the last time such a horror descended.
Many of humanity's strongest lost their lives to the evacuation effort, such as Immortal Flame and his daughter, Smile of Heaven.
However, this time will be different. I know because I saw it for myself. This will not be the end of our heroes, rather, it will be grounds on which new champions are born.
The strongest Saints in history are going to meet what was once a near-mass extinction event, and this time, they will triumph.
The Cursed Tower known as "Babel" may remain, but not a single one of the Corrupted, or even Great Nightmare creatures will reach our shores.
This is a promise made by the Government and Sovereigns alike.
These may be trying times, but we will grow stronger and meet adversity every step of the way. That is who we are, that is the power of humanity."
Korreta Kely, ESCQ
"It's evolving."
The voice that rang inside Oskar's head resounded with little echo. Despite the implications of what they said, the dispatcher was rather calm.
Of course, if this thing did survive what followed, it would become a Corrupted Titan, which would spell some serious trouble. Right now though, it was a mere Corrupted Terror.
And Oskar was an Ascended.
Screw this.
His body was currently contorted in a rather uncomfortable manner. Hidden in a ditch a few kilometers away from Fort Balmuth, he was pretty much entirely alone out here.
The "line" had been moved back a few times, but they wouldn't be pushed back to the siege capital for over a year at their current rate.
Moving in a far too slow, creaky way, he pulled himself up off the ground. Oskar's back cracked as he rose, as even becoming a Master wasn't enough to fix the issues he had with his body.
Granted, he never felt any of the familiar aches and pains. He had pretty much bottomless energy. His physical capabilities were superhuman as well.
Yet his back still cracked every time he got up.
In his opinion, this was a cosmic injustice.
Nevertheless he started to work.
Multiple showers of white and grey sparks appeared around Oskar.
These grey sparks were something only he could conjure, as it was the result of summoning Components from within his Soul Sea.
They always took on different shapes, oftentimes a small part of the creature or Memory's corpse.
The only standard throughout all of them is that they appeared to have all color drained from them, and so they were made of different shades of grey.
They were also ephemeral and their properties did not obey the laws of physics at all. If Oskar wished the Component to bind to something, it would.
However, he wasn't done. Even after the Memories were summoned he kept summoning more Components.
He would need something special for this thing.
Multiple sets of armor stuck out from the ground. He pressed his hands to each of them, assigning them an extra Enchantment with a specific Component. In this case, that Enchantment was for "Form". The large, tough plates bent and warped into different shapes.
They were largely circular, but had several interlocking mechanisms that Oskar quickly got to work on assembling.
He left only a tiny hole inside the sphere of enchanted materials.
Once it was completed, he added some "Reinforcement" Components to the outside of the sphere. Then he added "Reflective" Components to the inside.
As he was doing so, a tremor rattled through the area, forcing Oskar's teeth to shatter.
For a moment, he allowed himself to look up.
At the moment, he was wearing Enchanted goggles that he thought looked incredibly stupid.
Though they fit the "steampunk" vibe that New Yharnam had taken on (building off of the Victorian style that was indicative of Gehrman's world), he still didn't appreciate how they looked.
It didn't help that Caster straight up told him to his face that he looked like an idiot with them on.
Still, they were too useful to pass up.
Components were typically supposed to be one-use-only, however their power could be made to stay much longer with the exceedingly rare "Memory" Component. With this, he could turn an enchanted object into an honest to goodness Memory.
Over the past 2 years, he had only gotten two such Components, both from Supreme Memories that Caster had earned and didn't care to keep.
Needless to say they were incredibly powerful.
The goggles had 7 Enchantments, and though they didn't possess a Rank, they were roughly equivalent to a Transcendent Memory.
With them on, time seemed to slow around him and the details of everything became much, much clearer. He had farsight, he could see through physical matter, he could see non-physical matter, he even had a limited danger-sense.
Right now, he could feel the ringing in his brain that indicated great danger.
Indeed, looming over the mountains, a strange form grew taller and taller.
Three spindly legs protruded and stretched from a single source. Oskar wasn't sure how to describe it, but the creature invoked those old tripod things.
This thing also had a lens, three of them to be precise. The Terror could file through different settings to unleash a beam with many different outcomes.
The Yellow beam was purely non-damaging, and instead made whatever hit it the Terror's thrall.
The Red beam healed its thralls at a rapid pace.
The white beam was pure destruction.
If he could get a Component that reflected any one of those things it would be a phenomenal boon.
Squinting, Oskar returned to his work, summoning a few bow Memories and one last Component.
This was another rare one, though he did have a few dozen.
The world seemed to blur as a "Volatile" Component appeared, and was subsequently dropped into the sphere.
Unlike the other Components which were reminiscent of objects, this orb of power was chaotic, phasing in and out of reality ever so often. In Oskar's mind, it looked quite like what he imagined the soul of a Nightmare Creature would appear as.
More notably, if enough kinetic force was applied, the component would explode with phenomenal power. This Component was the result when he achieved an odd balance of "failing" and "succeeding" at Harvesting a Component. It had no true Enchantment, but was instead raw power itself.
Oskar modified the "form" of the sphere, shrinking it down and condensing it to strengthen the product.
Immediately, it started to heat up.
Though the Volatile Component hadn't been set off yet, the energy it gave off was enough to start causing some effects to the layer of mystical steel encircling it.
Oskar moved over to the bows he had summoned and messed with them a bit. He took off the strings of several bows and created a modified sling shot.
The first time he did this, he was positive that he wouldn't shoot the thing anywhere near his prey. Oskar wasn't that confident in his aim even now, but with the goggles he had yet to ever miss. Plus, the target was rather big.
Wincing as the now steaming ball of destruction burned both his hands, he brought it to the sling shot.
The cold air met with the warm breath of The Eye of Bedlam, one of the most powerful Master's in history and the head of the New Workshop.
He let the ball fly.
It shot off with immense force.
As soon as it did, Oskar scrambled to get into the proper position in the lower part of the trench.
I added an extra two layers of Reflection just to be safe, but still, it shouldn't reach me here righ-
The setting sun was suddenly overpowered, and the sky turned a blistering white. The heat hit him first.
Oskar's breath turned painful as the scorching temperature burned everything around him. He wasn't on fire, there was no fire anywhere, but it certainly felt like it was everywhere.
The Volatile Component produced a massive explosion, which was reflected back at itself over and over again. Normally only a few reflections could be managed before the whole thing blew.
However, if it was kept inside a stronger, reinforced shell, several more could occur before the true bomb went off.
As it turned out, when that happened, the explosive force was multiplied.
Oskar was curled in a ball, protecting his head, and he was still sent flying when the tremor hit.
A blast of wind rolled outward, like a tornado had spawned on top of him and hurled him back into the wasteland between the trench and Fort Balmuth.
Oskar landed roughly and rolled for a few seconds before coming to a stop.
He looked at the result of his creation, only to turn away. Oskar took in a sharp breath and raised his hand.
It was like looking directly at the sun.
He removed the goggles, hoping to lessen the ferocity of the glare.
Doing so helped a bit, but he still had to squint in order to take it in.
The pillar of light was such that it appeared a god had personally smited the Corrupted abomination themself.
[You have slain a Corrupted Titan, Sentinel Aggregate].
Oskar blinked.
"Ah, I guess it finished evolving before I sent the bomb."
…
Caster ran across the water, his speed far quick enough to treat the dark and dangerous ocean as a surface. Massive wakes were left behind as he arrived at the scene.
Two others were standing at the base of a humongous structure.
This was not a natural mountain. Nor was it man-made. Instead, it was a creation of Nightmare Creatures.
Specifically, the creepy humanoid things that were each and all Great Beasts serving directly under the Cursed of Antarctica.
Or rather, Babel, as that was what it had been called by the public.
Indeed the colossal tower that pierced the heavens was quite reminiscent of that ancient tale that told of a tower built by man to reach god himself, only to be struck down for their arrogance.
It was a nice thought, as the implication was that this Cursed Nightmare Creature resembling that tower would be struck down as well.
…eventually.
It was not hard to sense the figures with whom he would assault the structure. He suspected the Great Nightmare creatures felt them too, just vaguely.
However, despite being Beasts, the "Arbiters of Transgression" (or as they were now commonly called – "The Arbiters"), they possessed a certain amount of intelligence.
It was a contradiction that made things even more unnerving.
Caster activated a partial Transformation, and slowed down all things surrounding him so that his entrance would not cause an explosion of kinetic force.
Fortunately, he could pull off this trick without turning into his hideous Transcendent Form.
The only change was his eyes, which took on a malevolent hue, the jade green becoming dull and corrosive looking. His pupils also grew in size so that his gaze became even darker.
Caster treaded lightly as he appeared next to the two Saints who would accompany him.
One was a deadly looking woman with short raven-black hair.
The other was perhaps the most beautiful man in two worlds.
Jet and Kai turned to face Caster.
"For someone with such speed, it is a bit concerning that you are even capable of being late," Jet smiled crookedly and leaned further on the War Scythe she wielded.
"I took a detour, a small mob of Corrupted had made their way past the line. Oskar took care of the Terror, so all its remaining thralls scattered. Now that I have culled them, they should be able to handle the rest."
A look of surprise showed from both of them.
"He really killed it? A single Master killing a Corrupted Terror, it's even more absurd than anything we have done," Kai said.
"Seriously, it's kind of ridiculous how powerful the guy is," Jet agreed.
Of course, Caster knew this better than they did. As the current head of the New Workshop, he had to demonstrate his power a few times against any Nightmare Creatures that came too close to New Yharnam.
Seeing him in action always filled Caster with both a sense of pride and bewilderment. Still, even though he managed to kill abominations way out of his weight class, he was not the strongest Ascended in history.
"It's a special Aspect to be sure, and that guy is pretty strong by himself. However, if he wasn't the leader of the New Workshop and being constantly supplied with things he could Harvest he wouldn't be much stronger than a Knight of Valor. The only reason he can pull stunts like this is because the quality of resources he receives is so absurd."
Kai gave him a bright smile.
"It is nice to see you helping him out like that. I'm sure Gehrman would be quite happy with that."
Caster opened his mouth, then he closed it.
He wanted to make a comment about how Gehrman "is happy", not "would be happy".
He fought in a Nightmare with these two, and he trusted them greatly. In fact, Gehrman trusted them very much as well. Kai was at his bachelor party, after all.
But Gehrman had directed him to keep his return a secret from everyone. There was no chance that either would let slip the truth, at least in Caster's opinion, but Gehrman was right to be cautious.
In this world, simply not saying the secret was not a guarantee that the information would be safely kept.
Caster then returned to the real world, and realized both of them were staring at him.
"It is the most logical thing to do. The results speak for themself."
"I suppose," Kai said. There was still a glimmer in his eye, as if he was saying 'that is just an excuse, and you're actually just hiding the fact you like being nice to your friend.'
A preposterous notion.
He shook his and turned toward the…well it was hard to describe.
Caster supposed the most apt word would be a "beaver dam".
It was a truly colossal mountain of rocks and other materials that the Arbiters had gathered as if by instinct.
They stacked it higher and higher, and packs of them lived together in a burrow inside the thing. It was a maze inside these things, and the designs were not consistent at all.
"Have you found the entrance?" Caster asked.
"I've found three," Kai replied. "Which means we have a few options. We could each take one to make sure that none escaped. Or perhaps collapse two of them and leave only one route to go through."
Jet gave him an odd look.
"What do you mean 'escape', they're Great Beasts, I don't think they even know how to run."
"The Arbiters are different." Kai's face tensed as he spoke. "They're…much more human-like than anything I've seen. They've already shown odd behavior, and this is our first time trying to destroy one of these things, we don't know what they'll do."
Caster nodded. He could feel the hesitation in Kai's voice. Indeed, these things were very strange. In fact, he considered them downright terrifying. Not so much because of their power, but because of their appearance.
They were bipedal, but their limbs were stretched out unnaturally long, making them quite lanky. That was unnatural enough to be disturbing, but the real horror was their heads.
From what they had seen, the organs of these things were not spread throughout the body, instead, in some warped bit of horror, they were stored in and around their brain.
Their skull was two entire meters across while they stood at 4 meters tall. They were a terribly lopsided and awkward creature. Not only that they didn't seem to possess jaw bones, so the things constantly had its enormous maw hanging open in a horrific empty smile.
The sounds they made were also incredibly disturbing.
Each grunt and gasp of pain was very similar to the wails a human baby might make. There were no mind attacks they had to worry about here, but there was genuine psychological difficulty in facing these things, let alone killing them.
Caster let out a deep sigh.
"I have a proposition."
…
A strange and eerie mist crept into the dam of the Arbiters. Their horrific forms twisted and cracked, massive heads tilting in curiosity at the new phenomenon.
Then, in a single second, one of them stood up and appeared within the mist.
Its tiny, thin hand slammed the floor, causing a massive shockwave that spread throughout the entire construct.
An ethereal voice laughed lightly.
"Good try."
The creature's head was pierced in an instant. A large war scythe with an ephemeral blade manifested from the mist. However, it did not slice open the skull. Their heads were tough even for Great Beasts.
So instead, the blade struck directly at the vile thing's soul.
Slashing it and severely wounding the creature, the Arbiter wailed in pain as the sensation of soul damage rippled through it.
In its massive, bulbous eyes, a ghostly wraith formed.
This was the Soul Reaper.
Immediately, the uncanny wails of the other Arbiters were sent outward at an astonishingly high volume.
However, in her current state, Jet was not bothered by it.
The Arbiters were perfect prey for her. Their Great Souls were tremendous nourishment, and they also did have a reliable way to damage her in her non-corporeal ghost form.
Of course, they were still in the 5th Rank. So their hits did have an effect on her even as she was made of mist. Though faint and warbled, they still possessed the Will.
Still, the damage was negligible.
So she descended with the ferocity of a killer. The disturbing sensation that always came with fighting the human-like arbiters debilitated none of the Saints, but it affected Jet the least. She was a true veteran in every sense of the word, so her mental fortitude was nigh unmatched at this point in time.
The other two didn't let the freaky creatures slow them down either.
…
A few Arbiters indeed scrambled outward in a chaotic scramble from the dam. Some raised their hands and ran in circles.
From his high vantage point, Kai could see their eyes stuck on the Cursed Tower, Babel. Like they were worshiping it.
Others heaved themselves up the stone dam in a frenzy to get to the top.
The reasoning baffled and disturbed Kai a bit.
Instead of dwelling on it, he let his arrow fly.
The Arbiters couldn't even sense Kai with how far he was in the sky. So they didn't even realize what was happening when one of their fellows suddenly fell to a strike from the heavens.
The clouds slowly churned around a speck high above. Not because of any Aspect or Attribute, but simply due to the presence of the man known as the Dragon Slayer.
Kai let out a long breath, his eyes steeled. "Get stronger. Fly faster". These words sent ripples throughout the world, affecting both himself and the arrow he released at that moment.
A massive explosion sounded as another Arbiter exploded from the sheer power.
He tensed as his instincts suddenly warned him of danger.
Moving effortlessly through the sky, Kai moved several dozen meters in an instant. Where he had been standing, a massive boulder tore through the sky. It was thrown with such velocity that it started to break apart and burn like a meteor.
Another volley came as the Great Beasts moved to form a chaotic formation to fire back at the killer in the sky.
Kai's pupils dilated. A memory came to him then.
Back on the Forgotten Shore he fought a few Spire Messengers in the sky. Shooting a bow while also flying around to dodge those dreadful Fallen abominations.
Back then, he was a mere Sleeper, so he was two Ranks below those enemies. Now, he was much more experienced and far stronger.
These were only one Rank above him, and they were a bad match against him.
Weaving in and out of the flying debris, Kai sent arrow after arrow down. A bombardment of death shaking the very foundation of the dam.
Of course, it was not just him that caused the whole structure to shake.
Kai suddenly felt goosebumps as a powerful sensation radiated outward. It did not reach him, but it did encompass the Arbiters who were firing at him.
Their attacks suddenly slowed to a crawl, and the projectiles did not reach even close to him.
Kai quickened his strikes, using the opportunity to unleash a rapid fire barrage, exchanging power for quickness. In their current state, they couldn't dodge at all, making their weaker spots much easier to hit.
I can't believe his Transcendent Aura can reach all the way up there. Though I suppose he isn't wasting Essence on his speed, so he doesn't need to be as frugal as the rest of us.
…
There was a very, very old myth that Caster once heard from one of his family attendants. The Han Li family originated from a very old and wealthy lineage of notable individuals from the ancient country of China.
These days, there were no separate Countries, only separate Siege Capitals. Cultures all blended together and new mythologies or religions did not really get developed.
Still, some stories endured.
One told of the Four Perils.
Particularly dangerous and calamitous creatures. Ironically enough, the visage they were described as having was not dissimilar to Nightmare Creatures. The Perils almost certainly never existed, but there were hardly any animals not extinct at this point in time, so it was hard to say what could or couldn't have inhabited earth at any given time.
From what Caster could recall, the Perils were each devious and represented the lowest of humanities character.
One of the Perils was Taowu, an entity representing ignorance and obstinance. A boorish yet destructive evil that was the ultimate nuisance.
The True Name of "Honor Fell" no longer filled him with as much indignation as it once did. However, this felt far too targeted and insulting for Caster to ignore.
It was almost enough to make him swear vengeance on the Spell for granting him such a Transcendent Ability.
The only reason he didn't was because his Transformation was exceedingly powerful. Kai could turn into a powerful dragon, Effie into a giant goliath, and Jet into a wraith and mist. Each was terribly powerful in their own right, but Caster was arguably the strongest of all of them.
That was because those Transformations augmented their powers, while Taowu offered an entirely new part of his Aspect.
The ability to Decelerate certain things around him was far more useful than it seemed on the surface.
Though against Great Beasts, it did not amount to much, it did combine with his own Acceleration to give him a massive boost in power.
Additionally, he had learned how to use his Awakened Ability – the power to augment other things with Acceleration – and his Ascended Ability – the power to emit an aura of Acceleration – to further boost himself.
This was something Gehrman long ago proposed, stacking the different Aspect Abilities to achieve something truly absurd.
For the longest time, Caster was unable to use either ability to further accelerate himself. Eventually though, he realized he didn't have to look inward to increase his speed.
There were several other things limiting his motion through space. Physics applied a lot less to him now that he was Transcendent, but his protection against the pressures and friction of the world around him could be all but nullified with careful application of his Aura to the space in front of him as well as the augmentation of the surface beneath his feet.
The result was cataclysmic.
Scorch foot marks were left in the wake as several explosions shook the dam from the inside.
Caster was not in the form of Taowu at the moment, though he did use it earlier to help Kai deal with the creatures fighting back against his aerial assault.
Instead, he removed all acceleration from the world around him and allowed himself to become nothing but a white blur of heat and power.
The stones that made up this structure sizzled and started to melt, deep imprints were left everywhere Caster ran.
As he went, he traveled faster and faster, building up speed until the critical moment.
At the same time, he was mapping out every tunnel in this place.
He did not stop to take care of every Arbiter, instead he simply ran past and ignored them. No matter how destructive he was in this state, if he was not careful, one of the Great Beasts could slow him down.
At the same time, none of them died, only getting lightly scorched by the passing blaze that was Caster.
That was fine, since Caster only needed to kill one Nightmare Creature at the moment.
As he reached lower levels, he felt the shift come from the very bottom. It seemed that the "Hive Queen" was not located in the center, as he had expected, but rather at its very foundation.
There was a reason Caster built up such speed and power. At this rate he could very well slay a Great Beast with a single slash of the [Prideful Chikage].
Which meant it would also do some serious damage to a Nightmare Creature of a higher Class.
How much of a higher class?
It was hard to say. At this point, Caster hadn't tried to fight anything that was more powerful than a Great Demon.
That fight wasn't entirely easy, but due to the nature of how Caster's power worked, if an enemy did not have an area of effect attack or could somehow keep up with his speed, they would simply lose due to not being able to touch him.
Of course, there was the possibility that the creature would have high enough durability in order to outlast Caster's Essence supply, if that was the case he would have to retreat.
Let's see what this is then.
As Caster turned the corner to the final path, a strange sight stretched out before him. He had expected a large beast of similar disturbing distortion as the Arbiters, but what met his eyes was quite different.
In a large open area, several weapons, tools, and other such things were strewn about. They were crude and falling apart, as if made by a blind man.
However, the fact that this even existed in a den of Nightmare Creatures was alarming.
Caster was not slowing down though, he was aiming for the biggest thing in the room, the leader of this pack.
…but there was none.
Caster considered transforming into Taowu and slowing himself so as not to disturb the scene and potentially gain more intel about this type of Nightmare Creature.
However, he decided against it due to his instincts warning him that this place was not without danger.
So forced himself in a single moment to stop, letting all the kinetic energy and force he had built up explode outward.
The flash and potent force resounded with a quick yet deadly shockwave that sent anything loose shattering into the wall.
In a single moment, the entire open place was turned to ash or severely melted.
With the exception of one thing.
Caster hadn't even seen it before, but with a sinking realization he turned to look at the decapitated head that had not moved a single bit from the explosion.
Its features were also engorged, but it did not have the otherworldly expansion that the Arbiters did. In fact, it was mostly human except for the fact that it's mouth suddenly split open its entire face.
"Hsefsfj ewoiur," the head said.
It was not another language, but instead total gibberish. There was no consistent thought or intention behind the thing's large milky white eyes. The voice trembled and waned, though not as feeble as the wails of the Arbiters, it did resemble the sounds of a younger child.
Then, hundreds of muscular, massive, and incredibly fast moving arms exploded outward from the thing's mouth.
Warping in size and growing larger with each second it was further out from the Nightmare Creature's disturbingly wide maw.
Instantly the arms, and then the massive fleshy hands, dwarfed Caster.
In a single second, the entire room was full and straining from the muscular limbs that protruded from that mouth.
Caster was far away, back in a different hallway. Even so, the limbs started to leave the room, filling the passages in search of him.
"What the actual hell," he muttered. "These things are so damn gross."