Nico's mace fell for the last time, all ablaze with furious flames and the means to see its foe burned alive. The Tyrant screeched right back, meeting the attack with its last pair of functioning mandibles. The enchanted steel slammed down and met the monster's jaws. The ground quaked, while the Tyrant's skull crunched, chitin splintered, and head fell just as the Spell whispered:
[You have slain an Awakened Tyrant, Mountain Basin Broodmother.]
Nico sighed. Dismissing his helmet, he wiped his forehead and glanced back. Kido was still on edge, her ears almost twitching as she scoured for hidden foes and reluctantly lowered her bow. On the contrary, Seishan reverted her transformation quickly. She knew there were no other enemies here — if not because Nico would have informed them, then because she couldn't smell them herself.
A Tyrant propping up was unexpected, and Kido in particular looked a little worse for wear. Gemma, however, appeared as much the predator as his True Name suggested him to be. His entire body was uninjured, not a scratch or blemish in sight. Instead, he was soaked in his enemies' blood. A vicious grin lingered on his face.
'I wonder if any physical injury could even kill him,' Nico absently thought as he dislodged the [Mourning Star] from the Tyrant's corpse. Then, as he stared down at the body, he quietly remarked, "Nine heads."
The Broodmother had ended up being a more special foe than expected. It had the eerie ability to fuse with the bodies of its minions, and after Nico had incinerated the souls of the two Demons, it used what little remained of their corpses to strengthen itself. He could only imagine how much more difficult dispatching it and its minions would've been had the fight began with them as one conglomerate giant.
It was a reminder that there were always enemies to be wary of in the Dream Realm, no matter how strong he grew.
After lingering atop the Tyrant's carcass for a second or two longer, Nico furrowed his brows and began the disgusting work that would be extracting the creature's eleven soul shards.
Something was bugging him, though.
'That creature's name. How odd.'
The Mountain Basin Broodmother. Nothing about it seems outwardly concerning. Many abominations' names were based off where they lived, what species they belong to, and more. This one was no different.
No, the odd part was that this creature's name didn't match the Moonriver Plain's geography at all. Nico had studied it a lot. The map of the region looked like some vengeful god had simply grabbed both ends, east and west, and tugged. Tugged so hard that canyons ran from north to south, end to end, like pried fissures in the stone. The rivers were small, but by some unknown phenomenon they flooded, and when they did, they converged into one giant waterfall — the Great Waterfall — that carried enough collective volume to spawn the Song Domain's largest natural waterway, the River of Tears.
Nico dug out the last of the shard, throwing it down to the others to absorb before looking out at the endless plain of rolling hills. From atop the Tyrant's sprawled body, he could see far. A thin layer of snow carpeted some surfaces, and a chill permeated the air. The sun had barely risen halfway into the sky, and its light was a pale white.
Nico's brows furrowed.
'The only basin in this region should be the lake in the south. That's where all the rivers converge.'
He looked down at the motionless body, its shattered limbs and bones and heads strewn about.
'We're up north. If this creature's name is correct, there's another basin in the mountains that it hailed from.'
And of course, it's those mountains. It's the Hollow Mountains, a Death Zone known mostly as a never-ending barrier of black stone and roiling mist that blocked humanity from advancing any farther north into the Dream Realm. From no point, Song Domain or Sword Domain, was there an end to it.
On the Forgotten Shore, it was a land that meant only death — one that forbade him from returning to civilized society. Here, it still meant death, but now it also meant that there was something either within it or beyond it of interest to his current goals beyond simply survival.
"Hey, Nico, are you coming down? We should get going before corpses attract more Nightmare Creatures."
Gemma was standing just beneath him, and both Seishan and Kido were watching with carefully controlled curiosity. Had he spaced out?
"…Yes, indeed," he answered, then scaled down, making sure to keep the blood from splattering on his armor. Gods knew how dirty he already was.
***
The Moonriver Plain was flooding for the first time since the cohort had arrived. It started with a subtle shaking in the earth. Then, minutes later, the distant roar of rushing water reached their ears, growing closer and closer. The dissonance was telling. Why else would there be such a gap between the two sounds if not for some unnatural event causing it?
Either way, that was pretty obvious to anyone who even began to question it. It was also obvious that it started farther north, travelling with rapid speed throughout the rest of the region. That supported Nico's theory that there was, in fact, a basin somewhere in the mountains.
Nico theorized that perhaps it was like a dam, where it filled with water and emptied all at once after reaching a certain threshold. He also theorized that it could be the work of some ancient, malfunctioning mechanism crafted by whatever ruined civilization might've lived in the Hollow Mountains a millennia ago. Either way, he wasn't all too confident in his conjectures.
But now that he was on the subject again, all sorts of questions darted through his mind. He wondered where it came from, what sort of thing could create the cycle he bore witness to, and why the Broodmother was named after the basin despite having left. He wondered if there was some reason it had left in the first place, if there were more Nightmares Creatures guarding it, and if there could be something worth finding there.
And those were all worthy questions.
Nico's mind was constantly stressed by the knowledge and research being conducted by Shaman back in Ravenheart, but he found himself more invested in this lead now.
The thing was, he didn't know at all what was going to happen in the future. From what he'd gathered from his own snooping and what he'd been entitled to know as an important pawn in Ki Song's family, the future was all but guaranteed. There was a lot that could change for the better. There was also a lot that could change for the worse, the least of which being that the waking world would be devoured by the Dream Realm little by little.
That was why he went here. The Moonriver Plain was dangerous, relatively large, and right next to two Death Zones. In other words, nobody much wanted to go here, let alone discover all the secrets that may or may not be hiding in its unexplored depths.
So, instead, Nico was going to learn them all. He was going reap them all, too, and make sure that the future of this world changed to his liking.
And to do that, he would have to turn around.
***
Kido's bowstring snapped forward with stunning force. Her arrow, now just a distorted emerald streak in the air, struck the chest of a Fallen Monster half a second later. The beast cried out, its thin, crab-like legs shaking from the impact. All its hairs stood on end. The patchy scales of its main body visibly cracked, and the arrow embedded inside.
Not a second passed before Nico had waded through the Monster's bristling limbs, imbued his mace with essence and a soul root, and incinerated two of its eight legs. Gemma's glaive severed another, and the wounds bled buckets after having been subjected to Seishan's Awakened Ability.
A final, chilling cry left the Monster, and it was then that Kido's arrow finally activated. The flesh of the abominable crab stretched from within, contorted and bubbling as if straining to contain some horrible infestation. The battle seemed to go back and forth for a moment. Then, as if subdued, the crab's body settled back to normal.
…Only to collapse just after, its body and limbs rotted and consumed by growing patches of green and white mold.
The group collected their earnings, siphoned a small amount of valuable materials like chitin and scales that they could carry, then left it to rot.
The path they were travelling was supposed to lead them south, but it seemed that their destination had steadily changed since Nico had last informed them. He was heading north, following a path that didn't take them along any sort of canyon. The journey was cold, dark, and unfamiliar. Gemma quickly raised the question: they were Awakened after all, with bodies in the real world that would eventually need tending to.
Nico had simply deflected it without giving any meaningful answer. The topic was dropped after an assurance they would be back on track after a quick pit stop — a day or two delay, nothing more.
The cohort followed without any more questions. After all, why would they leave? If he kept his word, there would be no problem. The only issue was that he wouldn't exactly divulge why this change was happening, and they were all beginning to place bets on what it would be when Nico wasn't looking.
***
'Frustrating.' Nico grumbled quietly, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply through his nose. 'The smell is dissipating.' It was a skill he had picked up after assimilating Beast God's lineage, sharpening all his senses to an almost supernatural degree, and his sense of smell to an impossible one. Almost nothing could hide from him now, and he already had the ability to sense living beings near him before.
'So why can't I follow that Tyrant's trail?'
He had already tracked it through the rocky plains, across the hills, and in underground tunnels. The enemies were getting harder, but he wasn't worried. Their cohort was strong enough to fend an attack from most foes barring the Corrupted.
Back to the present.
'Where did it go?'
The trail ended abruptly, right at the foot of a canyon. Grey rock slowly sloped up, leading on for dozens upon dozens of kilometers before spiking up into the mountains.
There wasn't much point to keep going forward. They were already quite close to the Citadel when entering the Moonriver Plain, and Nico didn't want to go any further.
'If only there was a sign…'
Nico took one step forward, leaned down, and then saw it. They walls of the canyon lingered with wetness. The strange flood hadn't happened too long ago, back when Nico decided to switch course, and so there was a darker shade in the stone below.
'Ah, of course.'
If there was a basin from which the flood spawned, it would only make sense that the canyons, when followed north, would all lead there in the end.
***
Seishan took a step into the Sorrow Clan's distant Citadel half a week later. Well, she took a step onto the small town surrounding the Lake of Tears instead. The actual Citadel was buried within the cliffs of the Moonriver Plateau.
The town they were in was quite austere and bland. All the homes were made of carved stone and wooden framing imported from down river. The light dusting of snow farther north wasn't present here, so the roofs were flat and host to strange gardens. Thinking back to all her distant tutoring, Seishan remembered than in distant regions like this one with rock solid soil and cold, arid weather, using flat roofs was a common way to create makeshift plots without expending more resources.
Looking forward to the two exuberant fools currently leading the cohort, Kido and Gemma, Seishan remarked that the former must've realized the same thing. The devilish smile on her face as she beheld the makeshift structures was a sight indeed. Her Aspect truly was suited to this kind of work, both as a method of making the plants more adaptable and the soil more suitable.
For a second, Seishan imagined Kido traipsing around the town offering her services to the people for a "small" fee.
She had to bring her hand to her lips to cover her amused smile.
"Welcome, Prince Nico and Princess Seishan of Song!"
Everyone turned their heads, acknowledging the dutiful guard who had taken it upon himself to greet them. Well, half of them. Kido and Gemma slightly pouted after having been ignored, but Seishan stepped forward to be received regardless.
"I see you've been expecting us," she began, playing off her former smile as a wry grin.
The guard nodded stiffly, his heavy steel armor rattling as he gestured them to follow him down a path through the town.
"Yes, I was instructed by the clan head to lead you to the gateway as soon as you arrived." His eyebrows raised as he observed the cohort's surprisingly clean figures. "I'm sure you all must be tired."
Seishan grinned more earnestly. It paid to have a sibling with the ability to create clean water.
"The clan head?"
The Awakened smiled proudly.
"Yes. That would be Damon of Sorrow."