Ki Song sat still pinned to her shining jade throne. The sword that had long since pierced her heart had grown cold, but its power was no less potent. Still, as the number of puppets she collected grew, the more ready she felt to finally free her true body from this prison.
She would have to redirect an astounding amount of damage to her puppets, thousands, if not tens of thousands would instantly perish.
Still, it would be necessary.
For all intents and purposes she was on track to achieve a clean victory over Vale. He had dealt a serious blow in slaying Gehrman, but that pawn of hers was far more powerful than even that cautious man had given him credit for.
Such an anomaly was not the key to her victory, but rather the nail in her enemies coffin.
Every day Ravenheart and the rest of her Domain grew stronger and more refined. The vast number of mundane humans that now populated her Great Citadel was astronomical. Naturally, the infrastructure rapidly developed parallel to that growth.
Ravenheart was once an abandoned ruin with only the Jade Palace remaining somewhat livable.
Now, it was a place of fantasy.
Her Domain was a place of fantasy. Endless laborers and soldiers protected her people in the form of her puppets.
With them, she offered her people perfect security, and in turn their loyalty (and her Will) grew truly mighty.
As each day passed she grew stronger and stronger.
Every once in a while, her power would dramatically surge to a new level.
This was the conquest of new Citadels. Somehow, Gehrman had made good on his promise to find more Citadels to act as replacements for the Night Garden.
What was most incredible was how he had gained access to these Citadels. He had discovered something rather disconcerting, but still expected.
There was now a physical border between the Dream Realm and the War Realm. The region of Antarctica was getting swallowed and stitched on the edge of the most northern edge of the Dream Realm.
As it so happened, this allowed them access to the Citadels of the regions adjacent to this. Namely, the Death Zone that had been dubbed the Burned Forest, and it was swarmed to countless Corrupted and Great abominations. Only her daughters and Gehrman could traverse the place with relative safety.
The only reason that invading it was viable was Ki Song herself. In expanding her Domain into that place, she collected thousands of powerful corpses that could not only act as a defensive force, but also supplementation for the invasion.
As the weeks passed and the "Champions Crucible" developed, things got even better. As promised, Gehrman occasionally popped back to Antarctica to help Eunbin subjugate scores of Great Nightmare Creaturers.
The powerful thralls became a unit of truly horrifying power. With them, she could almost reach the threat level of the Divine Aspect users.
With the Great Creatures, she could also enthrall a small handful of Terrors and even a Fallen Titan. Usually, the higher the class of a Nightmare Creature, the more difficult they were to enthrall. It was only after using her power on so many Great Creatures that she gained her first Titan thrall.
Everything was going so well.
…Still, she felt she was missing something.
Ki Song couldn't shake the feeling that there was a small detail, a small possibility that she was not considering.
So she went over everything that happened in her splintered mind over and over again. What was the difference between all those decades of consolidating power and the recent boom in her personal ability?
It was obvious that it was Gehrman. The man's mere presence seemed to augment those around him. Even Mordret, who was already a monster, seemed to become more deadly with Gehrman's presence. It seemed to Song that only when he was around did Vale's spawn truly take up the title of Heir of War.
Having such a thing under her control was good. She kept telling herself that. Everything was under control.
Well, not everything.
That damn Workshop, for example.
She hadn't paid attention to Gehrman's little side project ever since they finalized the trade contracts. For the most part, the Trick Weapons were more useful for lower level and higher skilled grunt soldiers. They could let mundane humans fight an Awakened and an Awakened to kill a Fallen. Of course, that was only with proper mastery.
To Ki Song, such a thing was utterly paltry. She could flick her wrist and destroy the entire Workshop if she wanted to.
No, not the entire Workshop.
"Honor Fell" was as strong as her daughters, maybe even more so. There was also a Supreme and a Sacred Aspect user in that camp as well.
Her internal strife regarding the Workshop was a great representation of everything else going on in her mind.
It wasn't a problem, if she acted she could all but destroy it.
But she couldn't completely destroy it.
She could defeat Vale.
But she couldn't completely topple the empire he had built.
She couldn't rule humanity like this, even with everything going her way.
Someone was calling out to her.
This wasn't good enough. This weakness would lead to disaster.
"Mother…"
The scene of her own mother, Song Jiwon, laid to rest in a casket replayed in her mind. They couldn't bury a body, but they didn't have anything of her to burn and call it ashes. Her mother was a hero of the first generation, even if she never got the acclaim that Warden, Nightwalker, and the Immortal Flame did.
She was a hero.
"Mother?"
She was dead, leaving her all alone. Even Ravenheart, the last thing she left to Ki, was taken by those vultures.
She could still remember littering the Jade Palace with their bodies, as an Awakened, as a young girl she had murdered so many fellow humans. It wasn't because of Domain's or humanity's survival, she had done it because they spit on her mother's memory.
Did that mean she wasn't fit for the throne?
Vale deserved it less. At least Ki Song had a reason when she killed, that cold hearted man slaughtered at the drop of the hat so long as it was convenient for him.
She had to do it. She had to take it.
"Mother!"
Ki Song's being rippled as her tens, or rather, hundreds of thousands of puppets reeled all at once. The corpse she managed to grip on to was being held down. Not by a Nightmare Creature, though she fought many of those at the same time, instead it was a smooth grey hand.
When had Seishan painted her nails red? Had she…had she done that because she had always fancied that shade?
"Mother, please," Seishan pleaded quietly.
It was only then that Ki Song finally managed to pull everything together and realize what the commotion was about.
This corpse with Seishan – as well as Howl, it seemed – was shaking. It was a bipedal, one of those annoying Barrow Wraiths. A disgusting approximation of the human figure, this was one of the Nightmare Creatures that acted as a tribe within the Burned Forest.
The Burned Forest…yes, that was where she was. Yet all around all she could see was…oh.
Seishan let go of her arm, her eyes a mix of emotions, none of which were good.
Ki Song looked around and realized that this Citadel, which was supposed to be fine and fortified in the trunk of one of the humongous stumps, now had no walls.
The entire scene was covered in blood. The Blood of Barrow Wraiths, and also some of the few other tribes of the Burned Forest. This was a part of the assault group that was to take it.
They had indeed stormed in, and Seishan had managed to take the Citadel for herself. Yet when that happened, things got a little fuzzy.
Ki Song was to use the corpses littered about to further the offensive, but instead, she had popped each and every one of them like balloons. Using her Aspect, she tore apart everything that made up the corpses and then aggravated it. Their flesh and bone became shrapnel that destroyed everything around it.
Nothing was left intact.
It was only then that Ki Song realized that the Barrow Wraith that she was using did not have a lower half of its body. It was just a torso that Seishan had grabbed and anchored her mother to.
Ki Song turned the skull of the thing to see Howl, her fierce little girl. She looked like she always did after battle, trembling with energy and power. She was cut up quite badly though.
"Rest for now. Make sure you treat your injuries before continuing," Ki Song said.
For some reason, despite comforting her daughters, they both gave her an odd look.
My daughters, why do you look at me like that?
…
My daughter, why do you look at me like that.
Anvil of Valor sat in his forge, sweat on his brow and the muscles of a craftsman bulging without any sleeves or armor to hold them back.
His back was turned to her, but he could still feel Morgan looking at him as if he were about to lash out.
Such a foolish concern. He had never once laid a hand on her.
Anvil let out a breath, and steam seemed to billow from his form as his sweat hissed into vapor.
Let it go. She's just a sword. There is no need to think about how she perceives anything.
This was something he had to say more and more to himself as of late. Ever since she was born, Anvil had repeated that thought so many times that it became the truth to him. Of course, that was by design. Due to his Flaw, if he ever grew to care too deeply about someone, they would meet their end.
Nothing he loved would remain long in this, or any other world he might reach. That was the Flaw this cruel universe thought to bestow upon him.
So to ensure his progeny's survival, he never once allowed himself a feeling of care for her.
He couldn't care for her, or anything. He had cared for his father, and despite being a hero of the First Generation, Warden had perished easily. He had cared for Smile of Heaven–
Anvil cut that thought off immediately.
If there was one thing that could shake his iron heart, it was thinking about her. It irked him that even after decades, the memory of her could still move him.
He couldn't allow such a thing.
There was just the mission and his Will.
Only his Will had been defied. He had, at great personal cost, wasted a good portion of his own personal armory to take down the anomaly known as Gehrman. It had worked, and he had made every precaution to ensure he could never return to the battlefield.
Anvil had even accelerated war preparations. In a few months, he would be able to strike. Little Nephis was a Saint now, and though she was not yet the perfect blade that he had long sought to mold her into, she was close.
This war would be the final thing, the final swing of his hammer on her molten form, to ensure the most sublime weapon's birth.
He would tear down Ki Song's pitiful Domain and conquer all. The Heir of War would finally take his rightful place as the head of the War Realm.
But Morgan had just told him something that shattered everything he sought to accomplish.
That thing, Gehrman, had somehow skirted his defenses and returned to Song's side. He had appeared to be clever about it, it was only because one of his Government spies managed to catch a glimpse of an explosion that could only have been caused by the "Red Judge".
It held neither the form nor naturality that the detonations caused by the current leader of the "New Workshop" could produce (though those were curious).
That abomination was back.
Anvil set the hammer down. The thing weighed well over a dozen tons, and was made of Supreme material, so it caused a boom of not insignificant magnitude when it landed on the floor.
Anvil turned and spared only the briefest glance to Morgan. It was hard to look at her these days.
That mirror-creature had done a number on her. He had flayed her, cut off her arm, and carved Anvil's own sigil into her back. The thing that claimed to be his son still had that nasty sadistic streak, and it appeared to have only gotten worse.
The mirror fiend was always foul right from its inception, but after being raised by the Asterion, it had no chance to be salvaged into something useful.
Asterion.
Anvil's face darkened.
The idea had been percolating in the back of his head for a while now. An extremely dangerous contingency.
"You will depart for your Third Nightmare alone," Anvil said. He did not offer any room for debate.
"A-alone?" Morgan's voice trembled slightly. This was rather uncharacteristic of her, and Anvil noted it.
"You waver. You have allowed that thing to infest you, just as it so wickedly desired," Anvil did not face her, but he did stop. His back must have appeared like a mountain to her. He knew this, so he decided to take a gamble with this as well. "You are not lesser than that thing. It resides in trickery and preys on the weakness of others. You were weak, so you lost."
He paused a bit, making sure Morgan fully processed his words.
"You are a blade, Morgan. One who has not been fully forged. There were still imperfections in you that the thing could pray upon. You need tempering, and we do not have the luxury of time. So yes, you will go alone. Just as your sister conquered the 2nd Nightmare alone, you will conquer the 3rd in the same manner."
There were a lot of things that Anvil used in this dialogue to ensure she was in the best possible state of mind.
He used her name. The name he had given her. It had been…well over a year since he had used it, he believed. Not only that, he allowed his words to reaffirm her. It was unlike their relationship for him to offer any sort of support besides weaponry.
It would surely shock her to her core. Hopefully enough that she could manage herself in the 3rd Nightmare.
"I understand. I will not fail you," the Princess of War kneeled right there in the forge.
Anvil did not offer anything more. In the next moment, the world split open and a Dream Gate formed. He did not elaborate on where he was going or what he was doing.
Perhaps it was the last subconscious part of himself that realized the danger he was in. Perhaps it was the Anvil who had long ago formed a promise with Song that no matter what the other did, the Dreamspawn was worse, and his return must be stopped at all cost.
He had not forgotten that. He could not. Yet in that moment, the worm that Asterion had placed years ago finally was able to squirm slightly within the mind of the stalwart Sovereign. The conditions had been met, and Anvil came to a 'reasonable' conclusion that he saw no issues with.
He stepped out into a remote part of the Waking World, and he looked up at the moon.
"Let us strike another deal, Dreamspawn."