1 Month Earlier
It was the same day they had agreed to remain in the labyrinth for a while, and there was a question Arthur still hadn't asked…
Sitting on the platform, facing each other as they ate, he finally spoke.
"Sylvie, I forgot to ask earlier, but… do you know how to fight?"
"I have your memories of learning combat styles, but not the actual practice. And I don't know how to handle my Aspect either," she replied.
'That's bad. Theory is very different from practice.'
Arthur brought a hand to his chin and began thinking of ways for her to learn quickly.
"Well, I can teach you the practical side of combat styles, but you'll have to learn your Aspect by using it."
"That works for me. When do we start?" Sylvie answered immediately.
That was another thing that had caught Arthur's attention from the very beginning.
He frowned slightly. "Why do you always accept what I say right away?"
She shrugged lightly. "Why would I doubt your intentions?"
Arthur hadn't expected a question in response.
Before he could answer, Sylvie continued:
"I don't accept everything you say because I lack will," she said, lowering her gaze for a moment before lifting it again. "I do it because I know you're not speaking from control, but from care. And even though I know every decision you made in the past, this one — the decision to stay with me, to teach me — is new. It's yours… and it's also mine. If one day I doubt, it will be because I feel it, not because I learned it from your memories."
Arthur remained silent for a moment, staring at the platform before looking back at her.
"There's something I need you to understand," he said. "In this place, Nightmare Creatures aren't the worst thing. They're predictable. They attack, kill, or die. Humans… aren't."
He paused. "Humans can lie. They can use fear. They can smile while waiting for the right moment."
Arthur looked at Sylvie seriously, though not harshly.
"You have my memories. You know how distrust is learned. But remembering distrust isn't the same as feeling it in your body when something doesn't add up. That isn't inherited. It's formed." He exhaled slowly. "And right now, the only proof I have of your character is how you are with me. That's not an accusation… it's a responsibility."
Arthur rested his forearms on his knees.
"When we reach places where there are other people, I don't want you to accept anything just because someone sounds confident. Not even if that someone is me."
"If you ever feel that I'm wrong, that one of my decisions puts you in danger, I want you to refute it. Tell me. Don't stay silent."
Arthur lowered his voice.
"You being here wasn't a coincidence. It was a decision I made, and it has consequences." He held her eyes. "Taking responsibility for your well-being isn't optional for me. It's the right thing to do."
Sylvie remained quiet for a few seconds, as if organizing her thoughts.
"I understand why you think that," she said. "And I'm not saying this to contradict you, but because I want you to hear it." She straightened slightly. "Yes, me being here is a consequence of a decision you made. That's true."
Sylvie lifted her gaze calmly.
"But now that I'm here, it's also my responsibility to sustain myself. To take care of my own well-being." She paused briefly. "There's something you still don't fully understand. I'm not just the result of your memories. My past may come from you, but what I do with it… that's mine."
She tilted her head.
"At the end of the day, I'm myself. And from now on, I always will be, no matter where my origins come from."
Her voice didn't harden, but it grew more certain.
"I don't want you to carry everything just because you can. I'm going to take responsibility too. Not just for myself… but for protecting you when it's needed."
Sylvie looked directly at Arthur.
"So don't put more weight on your shoulders alone, okay?" Then she added, almost softly: "If at some point I need something, or I disagree with a decision, I'll say it. But for now… it's not necessary."
She was right… and that bothered Arthur more than he expected.
Not because she contradicted him, but because Sylvie had pointed out something he didn't want to face. At some point, knowing that she understood every corner of his past had led him to assume she would also need him to support every one of her steps.
As if sharing memories meant sharing fragility.
It was absurd.
Knowing the weight of his mistakes didn't make Sylvie weak. If anything, it made her more aware. But Arthur had confused closeness with dependence, and responsibility with control.
Maybe it was fear.
The idea of not being alone after so long, of someone seeing everything without filters, had pushed Arthur to look for a clear role to stand in. Protector. Guide. Something he could define without doubt.
But Sylvie didn't need that from him.
She wasn't asking him to carry her. She was asking for space to walk on her own.
Arthur exhaled slowly and nodded.
"All right," he said. "I understand what you mean."
A comfortable silence settled between them. Soon after, they began training.
Arthur summoned Dawn's Ballad and handed it to Sylvie so they could start with the basics.
'We're going to have to get her a sword soon.'
For the time being, he transferred the dagger Chitin Edge to her so she would at least have something to defend herself with.
Sylvie also trained her abilities, and Arthur had to admit they were extremely interesting. She could draw mana from the environment and release it in bursts or shape it into shields. She could even create something similar to spells and deal damage with them.
They tested her attacks against several Scavengers, but since she was still a Sleeper and the Scavengers were Awakened, the damage was minimal.
One of her most important abilities was that she could create ranged attacks formed entirely from mana and they were invisible. Arthur could perceive them through the disturbance they caused in the surrounding aether, but anyone else wouldn't be able to sense them, let alone see them. Of course, he could also detect them if he activated Realmheart.
Seeing that gave Arthur hope that once he became Awakened — or reached an even higher rank — he might be able to manipulate aether in a similar way.
Sylvie could also absorb mana from the environment, but for some reason she couldn't strengthen her body with it the way Arthur did with aether. It was probably due to the nature of the element itself.
And finally, her dragon form.
It was an incredibly overpowered ability, but it came with conditions.
The first limitation was the amount of mana it consumed. At first, Sylvie could only maintain it for about two minutes. As the days passed, she gradually extended that time.
The second limitation was the mental and physical strain the form placed on her. That was the one she struggled with the most, and so far she hadn't fully overcome it.
At that point, Sylvie could maintain her dragon form for around twenty minutes before needing to rest and meditate to recover.
To help her, Arthur taught her the technique he had learned to circulate aether through his body, adapting it so she could better sense and guide her mana channels.
Following a routine of sword training, meditation, and hunting Scavengers, a month passed.
***
Present
They stopped when they reached an elevated area of the labyrinth. Sylvie was tired and needed to meditate to absorb mana, so they decided to rest there before continuing.
From that point, they could already see a structure they called Bone Ridge.
The name was quite literal. From a distance, it stood out clearly against the crimson coral and the gray sky, a white structure impossible to confuse with the surroundings.
As they got closer, it became clear that it wasn't a natural formation.
Bone Ridge was composed of the skeletal remains of a colossal sea creature. Its bones rested atop a massive mound of chaotically grown coral, and its spine arched upward, rising above the rest of the terrain.
He had no way of knowing what that creature had looked like in life, but even reduced to bones, it was enormous. Something like that must have been gigantic even by the standards of the Dark Sea.
They settled at the top and spent the rest of the day meditating. Well, Sylvie spent the rest of the day meditating. He had already reached a point where his body cycled aether unconsciously. Progress wasn't very fast, but he could feel his channels expanding even further.
While Sylvie meditated, he looked toward the west.
At a certain distance, the labyrinth changed in appearance. The crimson coral turned gray and warped, as if it had lost all vitality. Beyond that, the terrain became an expanse of ashen sand, and the walls seemed to have collapsed completely.
There was no movement.
In the middle of that dead zone rose a massive hill, covered in gray sand. At its peak stood a tree.
Its trunk was black, and its crimson canopy contrasted sharply with the dull sky. Its sheer size, stretching unnaturally upward, made it even more unsettling.
He didn't like it.
The way all life seemed to have vanished around it was reason enough to stay away.
After a full day of rest and meditation, they resumed their journey toward where there were supposedly people, detouring to avoid the tree.
Further ahead, they found a gigantic crater, stretching beyond the limits of his vision. At first, they doubted whether Sylvie could make it across. They had started the journey as soon as the sun rose, though, so even if she got tired, there was time to rest or keep going before the Dark Sea returned.
They flew over it and continued on for quite a while until they came across a solitary statue. They only had to stop once during the trip, resting for a few hours before continuing toward the statue. They arrived well before nightfall.
They stopped there to rest a bit more and spend the night, even though from that point they could already distinguish, in the distance, a wall… and behind it, most likely, a city.
Despite their eagerness to see other people, they stayed an entire day at the statue meditating before entering the wall. They wanted to be in the best possible condition, just in case.
When daylight came, they resumed their march, and minutes later they reached the wall. It was made of gray stone and looked impenetrable, as if it could withstand the weight of the Dark Sea for thousands upon thousands of years.
During the journey, they had been surprised by how devoid of life it was. There were no guards, no signs of surveillance, no recent traces of activity. However, once they were on top of it, the reason became evident.
"Sylvie, do you see what I'm seeing?" he asked in a voice lower than usual.
A few seconds later, Sylvie replied.
"Yes… what… what is this place?!" Her voice trembled slightly.
Below them stretched a massive city, completely in ruins.
The stone buildings, which must once have been imposing, were broken and collapsed. Many were nothing more than piles of rubble scattered along wide, empty streets. There were no people walking, no voices, no sounds to break the silence. Under the cold, gray sky, the city looked dead.
It wasn't hard to tell that this hadn't been caused by time alone. Several of the collapsed structures were blackened by fire, and deep marks could be seen in the fragments of walls that still stood, as if something with claws had torn through the stone. In various places, enormous bones of ancient creatures jutted from the ground, far too large to have belonged to humans.
Figures moved among the rubble. Some crossed the ruined streets slowly; others remained hidden in the shadows of fallen buildings. The city wasn't empty. It was infested.
At the center of the ruins, atop a hill, stood an intact castle. Its walls were made of bright white stone, with tall towers and spires rising into the sky. Unlike the rest of the city, it showed no visible signs of damage. It loomed over the ruins as a fixed point, completely detached from its surroundings.
Behind it, much farther away, rose an even larger structure.
A cyclopean, dark tower that pierced the skyline like a gigantic spear of solidified blood. Its presence dominated the horizon, visible even from the wall.
The horror it emanated was enough to make him never want to look at it again, sending chills down his spine.
They stood there on the wall for several more minutes, completely absorbed by what they were seeing.
'There are supposed to be people here?!'
Suddenly, Sylvie broke the silence.
"What do we do now?"
Arthur pulled his gaze away from the tower and looked at her. Shrugging, he said:
"We don't have much choice but to head for the castle…" He turned to look back at the city and added, "You know… I don't think there's a gateway here."
This time, Sylvie looked at him as she replied:
"That wouldn't make sense anyway. If there were, we would've heard or read about this place."
Nodding, he answered, "The best plan right now is to gather information about the situation."
Looking north, he noticed a small tower. He focused aether into his eyes to see if he could detect any movement, but there was none.
"There's nothing in the northern tower. Should we check the southern one?"
"If we don't find anything there, we'll have to go down from the wall and head toward the castle on foot. Flying is too dangerous, we don't know the rank of these creatures," Sylvie replied.
Arthur nodded again. "That's the plan, then."
They started walking south, and minutes later they found the tower, but there was nothing there. So they decided to go down the wall.
It was very dangerous, but they had no other choice. Flying straight to the castle was just as risky, and circling the wall to find a closer point didn't make sense.
Minutes later, they were already in the city streets. Arthur kept his aether sense compressed to about two meters around his body, and together with Sylvie, they began moving through the shadows of the city, fully alert.
He walked ahead with Dawn's Ballad already summoned in his right hand, while Sylvie positioned herself to his left, sword in hand. Her sword was an Awakened-rank weapon they had obtained over the past month by killing Scavengers. She was also very close to saturating her core.
Meanwhile, Arthur was just beginning his second.
Aether Fragments: [64/2000]
Since he had obtained his second core, they hadn't killed many more Scavengers and had focused instead on finding the city. Because of that, his progress with Dawn's Ballad had also slowed.
Name: [Dawn's Ballad]
Memory Rank: Ascended
[65/800]
'Eight hundred kills to reach Transcendent rank… and something tells me they won't be easy to get,'
Still, their journey toward the castle began.
Moving through the ruins turned out to be slow, much slower than it had seemed from the wall. The city had no clear layout. Wide streets ended abruptly in collapses, and narrow alleys twisted between fallen buildings, forming an irregular and unintuitive path.
They advanced along a roundabout route, avoiding open areas whenever possible. Every so often, they had to stop and remain still in the shadows, waiting for some presence to move away. They didn't always see them, but the movement and distortions in the environment were enough to make them cautious.
The worst part was that whenever they spotted a creature in the distance, they only looked at it from the corner of their eye to avoid drawing its attention. Doing that, they noticed something that made their hearts race.
Many of those creatures were Fallen, with a few Awakened wandering among them.
In some stretches, they walked under the open sky, crossing ruined plazas and avenues covered in debris. In others, they entered deteriorated buildings and moved through their interiors, climbing over piles of broken stone and wood. Several times, they passed through half-collapsed houses, emerging on the other side into narrow, hidden alleyways that weren't visible from outside.
On a couple of occasions, they had to go up. They reached the rooftops of buildings that were still standing and continued from above, walking across unstable tiles, exposed beams, and planks placed there long ago by someone to bridge especially wide gaps. Some sections required jumping between buildings separated by several meters.
The journey, with its constant pauses and changes in elevation, felt strangely familiar.
It was like returning to the first zone of the Dream Realm. The same feeling of moving carefully, of advancing only when it was safe, of treating every corner as a potential ambush.
They continued like that for quite a while, gradually approaching the castle.
That was when he detected movement that was different from the usual.
It wasn't erratic like Nightmare Creatures, nor heavy like the larger ones. It was controlled. Intentional.
'Sylvie, there's something different ahead,' Arthur told her, and they immediately stopped in the shadow of a destroyed house.
A few seconds later, a figure appeared at the end of one of the partially collapsed streets in front of them.
It walked slowly, down the center of the street, without trying to hide its presence. At first glance, it looked human, but something about the way it moved didn't quite fit. Its posture was strange, slightly crooked, as if its body didn't respond entirely naturally.
It wore a dark, unadorned cloak that concealed its limbs and most of its features. Even so, as it came a bit closer, he could make out its face—pale, expressionless. Its eyes had a glassy, empty sheen, as if they were looking without truly seeing.
'Is it human?' Sylvie asked.
Arthur didn't answer right away.
'It has a human shape… but I don't like it. It could be a creature imitating one,'.
'Do we talk to him?' she asked.
'Not yet.'
They didn't have time to decide anything else.
The figure stopped abruptly and made a small gesture with its nose.
"Come out," it said softly. "I can smell you."
Hearing its voice sent a chill down his spine, and he noticed Sylvie's body tremble slightly as well.
Their options narrowed immediately. Either they came out and faced it, or they stayed hidden and pretended it hadn't really smelled them.
Arthur exchanged one last glance with Sylvie and gave a small nod.
They stepped out of the shadows slowly and revealed themselves in the street. As he moved toward the center, his eyes never left the face of that person, or creature pretending to be one. Dawn's Ballad was in his right hand, and every muscle in his body was reinforced with aether, ready to explode into action.
The figure watched them with its glassy, lifeless eyes until they stood facing each other a few meters apart.
A long silence followed. His gaze tracked every possible movement and detail. Sylvie remained to his left, but now they were side by side, both with their swords and armor summoned.
The figure lowered its head slightly, and after staring at them for a few seconds, he noticed its body straighten a bit.
"You are not part of Changing Star's cohort," it said, in a tone that sounded more like a statement than a question.
'Changing Star? Why does that name sound familiar?' Arthur wondered.
As soon as it said the name, Sylvie's posture shifted slightly, and she replied through their mental link 'That's Nephis's True Name from the academy, remember?'
'Now that you mention it, yeah… hey, Sylv, don't get mad about this,'
'Arthur, don't do anything stupid!' she practically shouted in his head.
Staring straight at the figure, he said, "And what if we are?"
Sylvie shot him a glance from the corner of her eye and thought, 'What are you doing?!'
Still looking forward, he replied mentally, 'Trust me.'
The figure lowered its head a bit more. After staring at them for a few seconds, its body straightened slightly more than before. Then it shrugged and extended one hand.
Woven from sparks of light, a heavy chain appeared in the air and wrapped around its arm from wrist to elbow. The figure grimaced and straightened its back as much as its deformity allowed, its twisted silhouette radiating a sense of savage, almost bestial power.
Two menacing lights ignited in its pale eyes.
"Then you will die." It took a few seconds and added, "Because that is the will of the Lord."
The chain vibrated slightly, emitting a dry metallic sound that echoed through the empty street and in the next instant, his world turned completely dark.
'What the hell—', but didn't finish the thought before a chain shot straight toward Sylvie. Acting more on reflex than understanding what was happening, he shoved Sylvie out of its range. The chain struck him in the chest at a bad angle, sending him several meters back, but he stayed on his feet.
He tasted metal in his mouth.
He couldn't see anything, and yet he didn't panic.
Blindness. That was all.
It wasn't the first time he'd fought without sight, and it wasn't a condition that truly limited him. The aether around his body was still there, intact, perceiving every nearby distortion. Taking advantage of the moment, he expanded it even further.
'Sylvie, stay out of it. Don't come closer,' he sent firmly.
Arthur felt her hesitation for a moment… then she accepted.
If anyone else had been in his place, they would already be dead. Deprived of sight, very few could have resisted the furious assault of such a brutally strong figure. But he wasn't just anyone.
Even while blind, his perception didn't rely on his eyes.
He felt movement in front of him.
The figure lunged forward.
He shifted left and stepped back several meters at the same time. Something whistled past his head at an absurd speed. A fraction of a second later, and the links of the chain would have crushed his skull.
'Fast…'
Without breaking his rhythm, he summoned [Infinite Lash] in his left hand and hurled it downward, aiming for where its leg should be based on the displacement of aether and the tension in the ground beneath its steps.
He missed.
Its chain intercepted the attack cleanly, the impact ringing out with a heavy metallic clash. He dismissed [Infinite Lash] instantly, using the distraction to advance.
Arthur closed the distance.
An attack came from his right. He repelled it with [Dawn's Ballad] without stopping. The chains hooked around the sword, and he felt the immediate tension, brutal force trying to tear it from his grip.
For a moment, he considered forcing it.
He could have.
But it wasn't worth it.
He let the sword go… not before giving it a sharp pull to test their strength and throw him off balance.
In that pull, he felt it clearly.
'We're almost equally strong,' he realized.
Arthur moved before the figure could react. They were too close now. He drew back his fist and delivered a dry, direct punch to his sternum.
The impact sent him flying several meters back.
He heard his breathing break, turn ragged.
"Damn bastard…" the figure gasped. "How are you doing that?"
"I'd tell you," he replied flatly, "but then I'd have to kill you."
He didn't give him time.
Arthur attacked again, [Dawn's Ballad] now gripped with both hands. He felt one of his chains approach and deliberately guided the blade toward it.
The instant he felt it latch on—
He dismissed the sword.
And gambled.
He activated [Static Void].
The world stopped.
The figure's body froze completely. He could feel his muscles straining to move, feel the chains wanting to fall under gravity… but he didn't allow it.
He ran.
In motion, he summoned [Dawn's Ballad] again and drove it straight toward where his heart should be.
The impact was clean.
Arthur retreated as far as he could, and his vision returned instantly.
Seconds later, the figure's body collapsed heavily onto the pavement, lifeless.
Then the spell spoke.
[You have slain Dreamer Harus]
[Your aether grows stronger]
Suddenly, he felt the entire flow of fragments surge into his core. The sensation was incredible, feeling his core go from empty to so full in an instant…
Then he felt a sharp hit on his head and spun around immediately, only to find Sylvie's face mere centimeters from his, her eyebrows drawn down and her hand raised to strike again.
"Hey!! What was that for?!" he blurted out.
Somehow, that only made her angrier. She stared at him coldly.
"Are you seriously asking that?! Why did you do that?!" She took a breath and continued, "You just killed a human, Arthur! And the only thing you care about is the fragments that went into your core!"
That was when it all hit him.
He had acted on impulse and ended up killing a human. And as if that wasn't enough, he hadn't felt any remorse afterward.
'What… what did I do?'
His gaze drifted involuntarily to the corpse on the ground. He knew they had to leave the area—the noise and the smell of blood would draw countless creatures here—but his body wouldn't move.
Once the adrenaline faded, helped along by Sylvie's outburst, his body felt heavy, as if a backpack full of bricks had suddenly settled onto his shoulders.
He knew that in the Dream Realm he would eventually end up killing humans, but he hadn't thought it would happen so soon, or like this. He had no real reason to fight him, and yet, driven by an impulse to gather information, he had done so and killed him.
Then he felt Sylvie grab his hand and start running toward one of the nearest buildings. He followed until they reached the second-to-last floor, where he leaned against a wall and slid down until he was sitting.
Sylvie sat beside him without letting go of his hand and rested her head on his shoulder.
Without thinking, he apologized.
"I'm sorry, Sylvie. I… I didn't realize my decision could lead to that."
She squeezed his hand tighter and replied, "I understand why you wanted to take the risk. It's just that… it wasn't the right moment. If you look at the context, that person was sent to kill Nephis. Why else would he be walking so far from the castle and asking whether we were part of her cohort?"
That made several thoughts in his head click into place, but he needed more to fully understand everything from that single interaction.
In a timid voice, Arthur said, "Sylvie, I think I might be able to deduce something about the situation if I activate [Former King]. What do you think?"
She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him, shaking it slightly.
"It's not worth doing it with so little information. You might deduce things, but they could be incomplete or based on only one side of the conflict."
Arthur added, "If that 'Lord' and Nephis are fighting over control of the castle, we're going to have to choose a side no matter what."
Sylvie nodded. "Yes. That's what it looks like for now."
A comfortable silence settled over them. He checked his runes to see how many fragments he had gained.
Aether Fragments: [1024/2000]
'So I gained around a thousand fragments from that kill…' he mused. 'No doubt his core was saturated. That's why we were evenly matched.'
They stayed there for a while longer, waiting for the creatures that had already arrived to feed on the corpse to leave. After nearly half an hour, they set off toward the castle again.
The atmosphere between them was still a bit tense, and that was completely understandable. But for now, they had to set those feelings aside until they reached a safer area.
The journey lasted hours, but eventually they arrived at what they believed was a settlement on the outskirts of the castle.
Exchanging a glance with Sylvie, Arthur said, "It's time to find out what the hell is going on in this city."
She gave him a single nod, and together they headed toward one of the outposts where they saw a group of people talking among themselves, each of them wearing a strip of white cloth on their sleeves.