As I thought the dream memory had ended, the scene changed again, this time it showed the top of the Holy Mountain, a place of great importance to Kaldorei, especially to the previous rebellion. There, leaders of many factions were arguing about who knew what; the only thing certain was that the atmosphere was really heavy with pain and grief. The voices only stopped when four dragons landed, but looking at their expressions, they didn't bring good news.
-"We found him, but..."-The red dragon spoke softly.-"…no life remained in him."
The green dragon placed my body on the ground, its tragic state showing how destructive the powers of the Well were. The Priestess rushed to my side, not bothering to hide tears. My two other friends also approached, but kept some distance, experiencing two different pains seeing this situation.
-"Can he…"-Priestess looked at the red dragon.
-"His life is gone, he is no longer in our hands, nor in the domain of your goddess."
And as if no cue, a grand pressure appeared on the mountain, as a figure walked from the tree line. I could instantly recognize her as my second Patron, but she wasn't well known to others present here. But they felt the instinctive apprehension that they were facing a being beyond them. She approached my body and looked at it, her face seemingly devoid of emotion.
-"Sister. What have you done?"-She spoke, her voice hiding anger that was about to erupt.
~"It was his choice."~A voice of my first Patron sounded around, as the sun was eclipsed by her arrival.~"Don't disparage his will."
-"Will?! His foolish decision might have saved millions of lives, but what about him! They would be dead, but still exist, yet he… His soul never returned to Ardenweald."-My second Parton's face finally showed anguish caused by sadness and anger.
~"I know. I saved his soul."
Streaks of moonlight descended from the sky, carrying a small wisp of soul. But even to a layman's eye, it was obvious that the state of it was bad; countless cracks covered it, while anima literally flowed out of it in rivers. Seeing it, my second Patron's eyes showed concern, but also relief.
-"He can still be saved."
~"Yes, but it'll take time."~My soul floated to before my second Patron.~"Together we can not only save him, but also allow him to return one day."
-"What's your idea?"
~"To weave a new Dream for him. To truly change him into a Wild God."
-"You…"-She looked quite shocked by this audacious plan.
~"He already received the inheritance of Waywatcher, but with your assistance, he can truly take his place."
-"Just tell me what you need."
~"A shard of Ardenweald."
My second Patron nodded and started to impart her power into my soul. Soon, the loss of anima stopped, but my soul still remained cracked. My first Patron then used her moonlight to mend what she could, but the wounds were too severe to be repaired like that, so she focused on fusing her and her sister's power to create a new Dream.
Everyone watched with bated breath as the Azure Dream took shape, my soul changing along with everything. From its previous wisp-like shape, it now fully resembled a small bird, surrounded by the night-sky-like anima that flowed in Ardenweald. It appeared like a deep blue flame dotted with white spots like stars.
~"May it be known, a new Wild God has been born, a guardian of balance between Life and Death, beloved of Moon and Night. He may keep his name, Nar'va, and his visage shall be accompanied by never-ending starlight."
As her words ended, my soul burst into a light, slowly disappearing from there. Everyone watched with worry, but also happiness that my journey hadn't ended. And then, the memory ended.
When my attention returned to the present, I looked at the Old Man of the Mountain, who was also watching me intently. We stared at each other for a moment before he broke the silence.
-"It would seem you found what you were looking for."
-"Yes. Thanks to you, I managed to answer some of the questions about myself."
-"Good, but let me warn you about something. Don't forget your mortality, as even the greatest of beings can meet their end."
-"I understand that, far better than many can imagine."-I smiled, now that I knew the ending of my past life, many pieces fell into their correct place.
Old Man of the Mountain just nodded, not speaking anymore. I bid him farewell with a nod and exited his shrine. Outside, my previous guide was already waiting for me. She stood up and walked to my side when I walked out.
-"Sir Justiciar."
-"Let's go."-I nodded to her.-"I'll try to keep you safe."
-"Thank you."-She smiled.-"Can you call me Serenity?"
-"Sure."
I called out Arion and mounted her back. Serenity also jumped on her back, but she clung to my back, not touching Arion, afraid to cause her harm. We rode back through the night, arriving by the gates of New Camelot before the sunrise. The guards didn't stop me, allowing me to enter unimpeded.
I planned to return to my quarters first, but King asked me to appear before her after she heard of my return, so I headed to the throne room instead. On the way there, I instructed Serenity on how to behave, and more importantly, what not to do in front of the King. Minutes later, two of us stood before the King.
-"My Justiciar, you've returned."
-"Yes. I brought the infiltrator, but I confirmed they had no malicious intent."
-"I see."-Her emotionless eyes looked at Serenity next to me.-"Tell me, what was your purpose in trying to approach my Justiciar?"
-"I wished to confirm if he can touch me without suffering from my poison."-She admitted it directly.
-"For what reason?"
-"It's important to me."
-"Then I believe you confirmed it now, what will you do?"
-"I'll follow him."
-"Oh? Will you betray your people?"
-"No. Sir Justiciar said we are not enemies, so following him is not betrayal."
Artoria was silent for a moment before nodding.
-"I'll allow you to stay by his side, but if you betray him, I'll personally make sure you'll regret it."
-"Yes! I'll follow Sir Justiciar's every wish."-Serenity's face had a strange excitement at the idea of being used by me.
-"Good. Serve him well."-Artoria turned to me.-"It would seem you found more than just the perpetrator in those mountains."
-"Yes."
-"If you need anything, just tell me."
-"There is nothing yet."
-"Then I'll wait."
After that, we left the throne room and moved to my room. I didn't have anything for Serenity to do, so I just told her not to cause trouble and focused on matters I needed to deal with. I was gone for one afternoon, but my desk was already filled with documents, a reality of the kingdom with just one official and a bunch of muscle heads.
When those were dealt with, I turned my mind to everything I discovered from the last memory. Firstly, the cause of my 'death' . Being literally ripped apart by the six cosmic powers is something that leaves lasting consequences. Some were bad, an example of which would be my apparent ability to attract higher beings, while others were positive, such as my affinity with almost all forms of power.
Next would be the issue of the soul. I was long aware of the abnormality of my soul long ago; this was also why I dwelt deep into the field of Ashes and created the Remembrance with the Princess. Things like why I was able to survive despite being washed by Night's power, the creation of my Primal Glintstone, and even my ability to digest so many memories now made some sense.
But I couldn't understand why I hadn't noticed the shape of my soul, always assuming it to be 'Sankta', not 'bird-like' . Then I had a thought, why did I become Sankta? It was safe to assume that the 'voice' I heard from the depths of myself, from that golden sea, was my creator, at least the creator of my current form, so the specialty of my soul must have been what attracted her to even turn me into what I'm now. Wild Gods are almost the same as Feranmuts, so it can be reckoned that I was mistaken as either piece of one, or a special kind existing only in soul form.
But why Sankta? Because of Originum. Feranmuts are immune to Originium, so my creator believed that my soul possessed the same characteristic, but she also needed me to be connected to it, so that's why Teekaz was chosen. Teekaz are vulnerable to Originium, which most consider a curse and weakness, but it also gives them much higher rates of Originium Arts Assimilation, making it perfect for someone called 'Child of Originium' .
As for why Sankta and not normal Sarkaz or some other Teekaz successors? The Law and the question of spirit. With a powerful soul and body, the spirit must be equally strong to mend them together, and Sankta are the strongest when it comes to spirit. The connection to Law makes them a few steps from a hive mind, so as the future core of everything, one can imagine how strong my spirit is.
Important to everything was also Law's ability to morph monstrous forms into humanoids, further restricting my soul and keeping it at bay. This allowed my Teekaz body to adapt to my soul while keeping the Sankta shape. But from this inference, we can see one thing: my creator needed to restrict my soul. This could be a reason why I couldn't touch upon my soul before, and why I never noticed anything abnormal with it; it was hidden from me, confined.
So I needed to find a way to break those restrictions. Looking that my memories of the past had returned, the seal must have weakened due to something, and I quickly connected it to the contract with Gaia. Turning into a Nature Spirit awakened part of my soul's power, the similarity between Gaia's domain and my Patron's power most likely being the reason. As such, using this avenue would be the best way to uncover what's going on with my soul.
But the person who could help me with that was not present here, so I needed to focus on other things for now. So I turned to what even my soul shape was. There are many birds, even those connected to fire, but only one comes to mind when it's combined with life and death: the Phoenix. But while this narrowed the properties of my soul, it still left some room for differences.
There are many types of Phoenixes in the world, let alone between many worlds. In my dreams, Phoenixes were only elemental creatures, while here, they are different depending on the mythology, from the Western Phoenixes to Fènghuáng and Zhūquè. But with some clues, one can find what characteristics my Phoenix should possess.
First, by looking at my connections to Moon, Night, Stars, one can see that they stood opposite to how the Phoenixes are depicted as symbols of Sun and Fire, but there is one type of 'Phoenixes' that is more closely linked with my connections than others, Fènghuáng. While this causes some issues with fire and rebirth, this can be ignored due to the differences in what Phoenix was between words.
But looking at it from another perspective, my affinity to fire could also be explained by my soul being formed by a Phoenix. I still needed to find what exactly 'my fire' was, but I could assume it was the dark-blue fire-like anime surrounding my soul. But this again was something I needed to look into in the future.
Now, by assuming Fènghuáng to be the base of what my soul was, I can further deduce its properties, basing them on some of my other characteristics. First, and most obvious, was my 'fate' with female monarchs. Fènghuáng is a symbol of an Empress, but due to a change in the gender role, I became a knight who assists the female king or princess. Taking this one step further, it could somewhat explain my affinity for attracting women in general, as Fènghuáng are connected to females, but this was a little stretch.
Another characteristic was the connection with dragons. While this seemed counterintuitive due to my previously noticed rejection of dragon blood, it made sense when considering that Fènghuáng and dragons also represented two extremes, so while they represented union, they won't mix into one. This caused serious implications for our future plans, so I had to address this with Mobius.
-"Mobius."
-"Finally willing to speak? Care to explain why you ceased to live for a moment back there?"
-"I took a gamble, winning big."
-"Oh? I'm listening."
So I explained to her my deductions and new facts. She listened quietly, nodding at some points, asking questions at others. Soon, we were on the same page, so we could talk about our plans properly.
-"Your hypothesis seems sound, while I can't say on some parts as souls and such are your field of expertise, the parts I can comment on are solid. The question now is, how do we deal with it?"
-"Can you separate the power and draconic nature from the blood?"
-"Impossible."
-"Then we need to side-step the issue."-I closed my eyes to think for a moment.
-"How about just finding a different subject for the power?"
-"There is no second person who matches all other requirements."-I shook my head.
We exchanged some ideas, but all failed at one point or another. Then I remembered a certain creature I had some data about.
-"Mobius, had you accessed the data we received from Rhodes Island?"
-"I looked at the, what about them?"
-"Mon3tr."
Mobius thought for a moment and then nodded.
-"That strange crystal monster."
-"Yes. What is your opinion on making such a thing ourselves?"
-"I assume you want to create it to serve as a replacement for Albion. This will work, as based on the data, Mon3tr and its host are separate entities existing in symbiosis."
-"Can you start working on this?"
-"I'll make some modes and calculations, but more serious experiments will have to wait for Azure Dream. But even then, I doubt I'd be able to achieve any real results without my tools, so the visit to my past will be necessary."
-"I meant to ask, if we achieved this in your past, why can't you tell me straight what the best approach will be?"
-"Because it's more fun this way, and so that our past relationship didn't change. I don't have every step and every detail in my memory, but I indeed know how everything will come out. I can just say that there will be one big surprise at one point, but that's all."
-"So I can only thank you for playing along with my looking for the correct path forward?"
-"No need for that, just make sure I can get a new body, and you remember our past, as I miss some things."-She smiled, but her smile made me tense a little.
In the end, I decided to skip the issue of her keeping the spoilers from me and focus on the things that mattered.