Elizabeth stared up at the sky, her eyes dull and lifeless. Every so often her mouth moved on its own, speaking words she did not think.
"Huh… why can't I move? I must go free Rethen!"
Each time the name slipped out, her eyes flickered with rage and hatred.
She reached into her sack, took one of the blue marbles, and swallowed it. Her mind cleared just a little. The scorched remnants of her arm tingled as the smallest trace of healing crawled through it, although barely noticeable, yet it felt sharp, almost like a million ants biting her skin.
Moments ago, she had discovered a hidden trait these marbles had, such as clearing her mind a bit, letting her feel refreshed and full, while also applying some minor healing effect. Outwardly she looked like a walking corpse with unhealthy pale skin and hair that had seen better days, but inside her mind everything was chaos. It was filled with anger, with hatred she had never felt before.
Before today, Elizabeth had never hated anything so intensely.
She felt so pathetic, having been used without realizing it. But she had realized her mistake. She had been ignorant and arrogant. She had let her guard down, which was the most surprising part for her. More than surprising actually, she knew she was in a deadly nightmare, so why did she let her guard down?
At first, she blamed herself, but the more she thought about it, the stranger it felt.
Why had she been so careless? That wasn't like her at all. Unlike some people that had never received an education on what the nightmare spell and its trials indicated, she was always aware of its true horror, since someone as invincible as her brother had died in it after all.
'Rethen… just how long have you been messing with my mind?'
Something had been off since she entered the city. She remembered hearing music back then and ignoring it completely, and before she knew it, she walked toward it involuntarily.
In both cases, music linked both events, the city and the tower. She heard the sound of a harp right before her mind began slipping away.
'Ah… so that's why it never stopped playing that harp.'
It was all tied to its manipulation. It must have been an artifact that helped it manipulate her.
She watched the sky darken, her eyes turning colder by the second.
'It's time to put my plan into motion.'
The plan she had been forming ever since she destroyed Koven's heart, although it wasn't much of a good plan since she was uncertain if she would succeed.
'And… Koven, you will help me.'
Thinking so, she summoned a memory.
Memory: [The King's Glory]
Memory Rank: Supreme
Memory Tier: I
Memory Type: Weapon
Memory Description: [For his might shined brighter than most, for his courage was inspiring, for his fame was sung across the world, for his people he was a saint, for his enemies he was worse than a devil, behold the king of the giants, the Guardian of Disaster.]
Memory Enchantments: [True Heart], [Titan]
She summoned the memory, and a bow materialized in her hand. It was as tall as she was and silver as moonlight, with a golden string that shimmered and reflected the surrounding light. It was beautiful.
A hint of sadness flickered in her eyes as she read the description.
'Worry not, Koven, you can rest easy now, I will be eternally grateful.'
She had taken the time to get used to it and try to figure a way to use it with one arm, as well as test the memory enchantments to get an idea of its use. She only got to try [True Heart] before she almost fainted from exhaustion, although this type of exhaustion was not the normal exhaustion of the body, it felt more internal.
She dismissed the bow and slowly started to rise. The bow's ability was a centerpiece of her plan.
Standing fully, she pulled out the dagger and tossed it into the air. She waited for it to fall, then held her palm out. The dagger missed by a few inches, but that was enough. A shallow cut opened across her palm as the dagger clattered to the floor.
Strangely, it even scratched the golden ship.
She picked the dagger up, wincing as blood dripped from her palm onto the ship. The ship's golden glow brightened several folds.
She gave the dagger a curious glance. She knew that the dagger was an artifact, yet it hadn't become a memory when she touched it. Maybe it lacked something, something that turned an artifact into a memory. She had no idea what that part was, not that it mattered.
She sighed and began walking toward where Rethen was sealed, letting her blood fall with each step. Every drop made the ship glow brighter.
For hours she walked, repeating her plan in her mind, revising it again and again. She refused to fail. If she did, she knew she would be consumed forever and die.
Eventually, she returned to the clearing, standing right next to the mouth of the crater.
Rethen was still sitting at its harp, its fingers plucking the strings. When it noticed her approach, the pressure in the air spiked. At a glance, she could tell something had changed.
For one, it looked more human. Its statue-like form had softened. Its presence felt different, overwhelming almost. And the golden chain around its neck, one of the seals she had broken, was gone.
Yet at the same time she also felt that it had weakened considerably. Even though the atmosphere around it was overwhelming, she felt that it was all an act to hide how weakened it truly was.
"Strange."
She flinched when she heard its voice, expecting it to invade her mind again. But this time she heard it with her ears. She made note of that.
"Strange indeed, I thought your mind was under my control. Why are you here?"
Something was off. Why was it speaking instead of assaulting her mind immediately? Was it truly that weakened?
She was not sure how much her blood would weaken it, but it must have been by quite a lot. She had noticed that her mouth had stopped talking despite hours of walking, her mouth had never moved on its own after the first few hours.
Still, she hesitated to reconnect their minds.
There was also the fact that it had battled Koven weakened when it tried to possess her, although she did end up freeing it of one of the seals and increasing its power, but the damage it sustained while fighting a battle with Koven was still there.
'It's buying itself time.'
Not that she minded really, since it basically gave her time to prepare.
Noticing her not engaging back with it, Rethen laughed.
"Oh, I see. I see. Indeed, you creatures favored by the goddess are always lucky. But are you sure you don't want to free me? I promise you a land of silver and gold and power beyond your feeble mortal mind. I will conquer the realms and you shall become their sole ruler. I will even give you a part of my mother's domain… listen to me… LISTEN TO ME. WHY DON'T YOU LISTEN TO ME, CHILD OF THE SEA!"
Elizabeth ignored the rant and summoned the silver bow.
The yelling stopped almost immediately.
"…Oh mother, why do you hate me so…"
Still no response. She simply examined the bow as it materialized in her hand before planting it on the ground and lifting her leg, bracing it. Then she summoned one of Rethen's fingers, placed it on the bowstring as an arrow, and drew it back.
Rethen watched, unimpressed.
"You intend to use my own artifacts to kill me, child? How arrogant. Did you not see what happened when you used it last time?"
Her hands paused for a moment as the sword glowed and a fury of images rushed in her mind. Rethen began chanting in a strange tongue, but Elizabeth regained her composure and pulled the string harder.
Rethen suddenly froze, its eyes widening in bewilderment.
"Why can't I unmake my artifact?.... What is that stench?.... Child of the sea, why do you smell like a daemon?"
Elizabeth ignored it and took aim.
"It matters not. Begone, child."
Rethen plucked a single note from its harp, and as soon as she heard it, her mind fogged instantly, and she felt the world tilting, and her head started to ache in pain, but dispite the lack of control she had over her mouth, her other half seemed to understand her as she smiled, because unlike before, the pain now was not as terrible.
'Too late, you bastard.'
She already knew that it was stalling in order to get used to its regained power and reaccumulate enough energy to attack her back. She wasn't speaking, so it was growing desperate and launched an attack, even though it knew it would most likely drain whatever leftover energy it had to do so.
It knew that if the sword reached it, even if it didn't kill it, it would wound it severely.
'I curse you, giant king.' The fight with it had truly weakened it. If only its soul was not as restricted, if only it could use its power to their full glory, destroying a supreme soul would not have taken so much out of it, and destroying the mortal mind of the child of the sea would not have been something it needed to bat an eye at.
Yet here it was.
'Oh, mother, why do you hate me so?'
Elizabeth, on the other hand, was oblivious to the internal struggle Rethen was facing. She was unaware how truly weakened it was, not that it made a difference.
Her fingers released the sword-arrow just as her consciousness began slipping away. The arrow flew across the crater, but not with enough force to cross the distance and hit what she was aiming for.
It would have been a devastating problem if she had used a normal bow.
But not this one.
Energy drained from her body, and the bow glowed faintly, as her mind was finally consumed, a small fragment of her will remained.
She had triggered the enchantment [True Heart].
She knew what it did after having tested it earlier. The enchantment allowed her shot to hit anything her heart truly wished to strike, no matter the distance.
So the sword suddenly halted midair before it turned slightly and rushed with renewed vigor, heading straight toward—
The harp.
Rethen watched the sword tear through the air.
At first it was confused, then it was horrified.
**********
Side Note.
Minor plot fix: The reason why Rethen's fingers are of the sacred rank is because of the material he is made out of, his nether's creation after all, that is what raised it up the ranks. He didn't some how create scared rank memories. The enhancement he did only added a function to his body part.
Another side note: The first nightmare is almost over, yay. I am not sure why I gave up writing this story a long time ago, but I am back now. (What a month of no Shadow Slave does to a mf.) I had kind of forgotten where I was going with the story because when I wrote it back then I wasn't much of a planner, so I will be making these side notes when I want to clarify parts that don't make sense. Feel free to point out parts that need clarification too.