The wind had long gone quiet.
The only sounds remaining were the momentary creaking of wood from the nearby hovels and the distant, hollow howls emanating from the ruins where he had vanished. She stood alone, those sounds the only companions to her thoughts.
Finally, a new noise broke through her internal world: the tiny, rhythmic crunch of gravel under light footsteps.
She turned to see Cassie. The blind girl's blue eyes were fixed on the darkness of the ruins, as if she could still see the man who had just disappeared into the abyss.
"Has he left?" her friend asked, her voice barely a whisper.
"He has." Her voice escaped with a soreness that surprised her. She gave a quick, sharp cough to hide it, but she knew it was futile. Cassie's hearing was far too sharp to miss the fracture in her composure.
She turned her gaze back toward the ruins, asking absentmindedly, "Will he come back?" She told herself the question was asked out of obligation, not curiosity.
"I... I don't know," Cassie answered, her voice laced with an awkward reluctance.
She raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised. "You don't know?"
Those were words one rarely heard from Cassie, given her affinity for revelations.
Cassie bit her lip, muttering under her breath. "He's... he's a strange man. It's as if—"
She left the words hanging in the air, perhaps afraid of the meaning behind them.
She didn't press her. She knew the crushing weight her friend carried with her knowledge. A small, dry chuckle escaped her. "Strange, he is..."
She cast one last glance at the Dark City, a fleeting, unreadable expression crossing her ivory face before vanishing into the cold stone of her mask.
Finally, she stepped to Cassie's side, placing a steadying hand on her shoulder. She turned her gaze toward the Stone Lodge, where the light of their flickering hope still burned.
"Let's go. We have work to do," Changing Star said, determination reigniting in her grey eyes.
***
Quick, muffled steps and short, focused breaths were the only sounds following him through the skeletal ruins of the Dark City.
Zachary sprinted across streets and through narrow alleys, leaping over collapsed walls and onto jagged rooftops with uncanny agility. Balance Control allowed him to maneuver with such fluid precision that he made professional parkour athletes from the Other World look like amateurs.
Now that he was traveling alone, stripped of the protection of the cohort, this was the only viable strategy. He couldn't afford to linger in the streets. To avoid the Nightmare Creatures stalking the abyss, he had to minimize his exposure, narrowing the window of time he spent in the open.
Cinder Eyes and Danger Sense guided his path, flashing warnings that told him when to veer left or cut through a crumbling building. If he felt a prickle of intuition but couldn't pinpoint the threat, he didn't gamble; he simply doubled back and took an entirely different route.
Despite the outward confidence of his movements, his heart thundered with anxiety. No one could ever be truly prepared for what the Dark City hid in its shadows. Yet, he pushed on.
His direction was clear.
Leaping from a rooftop and dampening the impact with a practiced roll, Zachary's mind drifted back to the hour prior. His parting words with Nephis had left a sour taste in his mouth, but they had been necessary.
The bridge back had collapsed. There was no returning now, and he was running against the clock.
Thankfully, he had already made a move of his own.
After saying his goodbyes, Zachary hadn't entered the ruins immediately. Instead, he had circled the periphery and re-entered the Outer Settlement from a different direction, slipping back into the ruined hovel where Harper lay sleeping soundly.
Feeling slightly vindictive about the peace the man enjoyed while his own life was falling apart, Zachary had slapped Harper's cheek with a bit more force than strictly necessary.
Harper jolted awake, a scream dying in his throat as Zachary's hand clamped over his mouth. Zachary pressed a finger to his own lips, signaling for silence.
"Things have changed, Harper," Zachary grumbled, sitting across from him at the rickety table. "...I'm going to need your help."
The young man had been ready to complain about the slap, but the gravity in Zachary's expression silenced him instantly. Zachary let out a self-deprecating sigh.
'What kind of position am I in, that I have to rely on him?' he wondered. 'But there's no use crying over spilled milk. I'll need every scrap of help I can get.'
"What's your Aspect?" Zachary asked, his voice low and serious.
A flash of panic crossed Harper's eyes, but it was quickly swallowed by a timid, desperate determination. Gulping loudly, he whispered, "I-it's an Awakened Aspect. It's called Maester of Whispers."
He straightened slightly as he continued. "It- It grants me an intuition... for information. I get this feeling at the back of my head if I hear something that might lead to something more."
A trace of doubt flickered over his face before he added, "My Flaw is my weak body. I can't increase my strength at all. Not even with Soul Shards..."
The sorrow in those last words was palpable.
"Thanks for trusting me with your Flaw," Zachary said, nodding slowly.
'It's a useful Aspect,' Zachary noted.
And it was the same rank as Kai's, even if it lacked the flashy power. But in the Forgotten Shore, where physical might was the only currency, he could see why Harper had been left to rot.
A sudden realization struck Zachary. That was why Harper had pressed Sunny about his True Name instead of dismissing the declaration as drunken nonsense. His intuition had been screaming at him that there was something more to the story.
Then, another flash of memory crossed Zachary's mind.
"If you have an intuition for important information," Zachary asked, looking baffled, "why would you even ask about horse piss?"
"I-I don't know! I can't help it!" Harper stammered, his face flushing a deep red. "I just feel when I should ask something... the words just come out!"
Zachary shook his head, a grim shadow passing over his face.
"Well, you really should be more careful about the kind of questions you ask, Harper." He thought of the original story—of how Harper's curiosity eventually led to his throat being opened. "You never know when a question might come back to bite you."
Harper gulped, nodding with newfound gravity. After a few seconds of silence, he asked tentatively, "So... what do you need help with?"
Zachary let out a long, tired sigh before pinning the man with a serious gaze. "You're going back to the Bright Castle. I need eyes on the inside."
Pride surged in Harper's eyes at the thought of being useful, but it was quickly dampened by a wave of reluctance.
"I-I don't think the guards will let me back into the Castle without something to trade," Harper admitted, his voice tinted with frustration. "I have no information worth their time."
"Oh, is that all?" Zachary scoffed, leaning back. "Tell them this: Nephis's Aspect allows her to heal others. Cassie's Flaw is her blindness. Caster is unnaturally fast. I have superhuman senses... and I am pathologically hated by every Nightmare Creature in this city."
Harper's mouth fell open. He stared at Zachary, flustered by the casual, reckless ease with which he had just betrayed the secrets of the most powerful cohort on the Outer Settlement. Zachary just chuckled.
In reality, most of this was common knowledge to anyone who spent a single day fighting alongside them.
"What? You want to know which hand I use to wipe myself, too?" Zachary asked, grinning with clear amusement as Harper began to cough, literally choking on his own spit.
"Can—can you forget what the Guard asked of me, please?" Harper managed to wheeze out, looking thoroughly ashamed. "I-I don't think I'm cut out to be a spy."
"Oh, but that's exactly what I need right now, my friend," Zachary said, a low, dangerous smirk playing on his lips.
Zachary leaned back, his shadow stretching long against the hovel's cracked walls. "Things are changing, man. And if we want to get out of this place, we'll need to stir the pot even more." His crimson eyes locked onto Harper's with a sudden, sharp intensity.
"Listen closely. I won't repeat myself." Harper gulped, his throat bobbing nervously.
"Your job is to talk to the people inside the Castle. Focus on the Tenants—those living in the cracks. Avoid the members of the Host for now. People here are afraid to dream, Harper, but the spark of hope has always been there."
'How else did Nephis manage to gather an army in the first place?' Zachary thought, clicking his tongue. "Just like I did with you, your job is to fan that spark. Make the Dreamers dream again. If we want to escape this shithole, we need more than just people. We need a movement."
Harper looked like he wanted to argue, his posture sagging under the weight of the task. He clearly felt unqualified. But Zachary cut him off before he could speak.
"Look, there's no one else I can trust with this," Zachary said, shaking his head. "Talk less, listen more. I wasn't counting on your Aspect when I first thought of this, but it's going to be a godsend. Just don't be direct. Remember: a bad question will get you killed."
Harper flinched at the reminder. "T-then what? How do I use it?"
"Isolate the question," Zachary said immediately. "When you feel your intuition stirring about a certain topic, dance around it. Talk in circles. Narrow the conversation until that specific answer is the only thing left. If you lead them right, they'll tell you what you need to know without you ever having to ask the 'forbidden' question."
In reality, Harper was the only man for the job. He was so weak and pathetic in the eyes of the Host that any change or rumour about him wouldn't rouse suspicion. Zachary knew that what he was asking of Harper was difficult—but necessary.
The Sleepers of the Forgotten Shore had grown used to, and content with, the status quo. If what he was beginning to plan was going to succeed, people had to yearn for the Waking World.
Comformity was after all the cancer of progress.
Zachary suddenly bit his thumb in thought, then exhaled. "You can rely on the Artisans. My relationship with them is... strained right now, but they still see me favorably. And talk to Aiko. She owes me big; she won't turn you away."
Harper listened as if his life depended on it—because it did. Then, he raised his hand awkwardly, like a student. "Excuse me? I don't really want to know which hand you use... but I don't think the guards will be satisfied with the info you gave me. I mean, it's good! But—"
"Smart," Zachary nodded. "You're right. The info on their Aspects is just the sweetener. The real news is something they'll never expect."
Without missing a beat, he dropped the bomb. "There has been an inner conflict in Changing Star's cohort."
Harper's eyes bugged out. "What?!"
"Things have changed, Harper. I'm leaving."
Harper's mind was clearly spinning through the implications, but Zachary pressed on.
"You've noticed how the guards have been curious about me, right?" A calm, cold smile touched his face. "What happens if their primary 'person of interest' suddenly has a falling out with the very woman they're starting to fear? And what happens if you, Harper, are the only friend that person has left?"
Harper gulped loudly, his voice distant. "W-what happened? They'll want reasons."
"Invent whatever you like," Zachary said dismissively. "The motives don't matter. The fact of the split is what they'll pay for."
Zachary reached into his inner pocket and pulled out the pouch Lester had gifted him. He poured ten Soul Shards into his palm— some of the spoils of his gambling and hunts—and handed them to Harper as casually as if they were candy.
Having been focused with practicing Flow Control, he had avoided consuming them completely.
Harper stared at the glowing crystals, likely more wealth than he had ever held in his life.
"If the guards begin demanding tribute, use these," Zachary warned, raising a finger. "If not, keep them for your work. Buy information. Buy friendship. Buy yourself some time."
He stood up and dusted his pants. Harper scrambled to his feet, his mouth working as if he wanted to say a million things, but the words wouldn't come. Zachary chuckled, stepping forward to bump a fist against the man's shoulder.
"Later, man... Stay strong." Zachary walked out of the hovel into the dark, salt-scented night, never looking back.
A screech in the far distance jolted him back to the present. Zachary exhaled a long, heavy breath and looked ahead. His destination rose darkly against the starless sky—sacred, ominous, and silent.
The Ruined Cathedral.
His heart hammered with a mix of dread and anticipation, but his mind remained a still pool of cold water. He took a single step forward, and Danger Sense suddenly flared in his mind.
Zachary threw himself backward, reacting purely on instinct before his eyes even found the threat. A jagged, whip-like cable shot out from the rubble, whistling through the air where his chest had been a millisecond before. He twisted mid-air to the left, Ender's Solace shimmering into his hand, but the cable flicked like a serpent.
It adjusted its trajectory with impossible speed, its edge cutting deep into Zachary's shoulder. Even with the resilience of Blood Weave, the strike was so swift and powerful that drops of crimson blood sprayed onto the cold stone.
Rolling to the side to avoid a follow-up strike, Zachary finally laid eyes on his assailant. The creature pulled itself from the debris, its body was a nauseating patchwork of ruined, grey flesh held together by thick coils of putrid, pulsing rope. It looked like a puppet made of corpses.
Essence began coating the edge of his blade in a faint, deadly glow. He lunged forward with explosive agility. After surviving the onslaught of an Awakened Devil, the chaotic, telegraphed lunges of a mere Monster felt slow by comparison.
The essence-enhanced edge of his blade sliced through the monster's rope-tendrils like they were wet silk. He moved through its guard, a blur of motion and steel, ending the dance with a single, precise thrust through the creature's core.
[You have killed an Awakened Monster, Tangled Pariah.]
Zachary exhaled, his shoulder in pain but the bleeding already stopped. He reached down to claim the shard, but the voice of the Spell continued.
[You have received a Memory: Ordinary Rope.]
"Nice," he muttered, pleasantly surprised. He summoned the new Memory.
A short, unkempt length of rope, appeared in his palm amidst a shower of sparks. Arching an eyebrow at its mundane appearance, he focused on the runes.
Memory: [Ordinary Rope].
Memory Rank: Awakened.
Memory Tier: II
Memory Type: Tool.
Description: [Man is a rope, stretched between duty and pleasure—a rope over an abyss. But sometimes the breach can be small.]
Enchantments: [Hold me tight], [Adolescent Dream].
Zachary's left eye twitched at the Enchantment names, sighing he continued.
Enchantment:[Hold me tight].
Enchantment Description: It attaches to anything it touches.
Enchantment: [Adolescent Dream].
Enchantment Description: The shorter it is, the stronger it becomes.
His left eye twitch increased. Zachary was about to lampoon when he shook his head in quiet defeat, dismissing the Memory. He turned his attention back to the path ahead. The sight forced all humor from his mind.
The Great Cathedral doors loomed before him, cracked and ancient. And beyond them... only True Darkness waited.
Zachary gulped as he stared into the Maw. The dark veil within the Cathedral was absolute; even Cinder Eyes failed to pierce it. He could detect nothing—no vibration, no scent, no sound. Only Danger Sense remained active, and its warning was maddening. It screamed with a frequency that sent a throbbing ache through his skull.
But he had to know. His entire strategy rested on this.
Channeling essence through Ender's Solace, he stepped forward until he stood just outside the broken gate. Danger Sense hit an unbelievable crescendo, a presence so heavy it rivaled the Deep Dwellers of the Dark Sea...
...And then, nothing.
A shaky, relieved breath escaped him. He knew from the novel that the Forsaken Knight inhabiting this place never ventured outside its walls. It appeared not even his attribute could override that ancient tether.
'It seems Nightmare Creatures react differently to [Blasphemer]...' Zachary mused, backing away.
This idea had already been forming on his fight against the enthralled Demon, gaining strength in his clash against the Soul Devourer. Despite being a Terror it had tried to control him instead of the usual purging instinct. Now, in the presence of a Fallen Devil and staying alive it had been confirmed.
'It might have to do with the rise of Ranks, or maybe the increased sapiense...' Shaking his head hee looked upward, toward the stone statue of a nameless goddess adorning a high balcony.
His new lodging was waiting for him.
It took a few minutes of scouting, but Zachary eventually found a section of broken masonry. He scaled the exterior of the Cathedral with practiced ease, slipping through a gap in the roof and navigating the support beams like a ghost. He dropped silently into a hidden chamber: the priestess quarters.
He looked around with genuine curiosity. Cinder Eyes rendered the room in sharp, monochrome detail. The stone walls were etched with patterns of sanctity and elegance. Pale, polished wooden furniture sat gathering dust—a wide bed in the corner, a cracked mirror on the wall, and a closet opposite it.
His gaze lingered on the closet for a beat. He shook his head with a dry chuckle. 'Thank god my complexion has nothing to do with a porcelain doll. I won't have to worry about the clothes inside trying to kill me... Socially.'
His lampooning faded as he turned serious. He walked to an empty section of the wall and, using the tip of Ender's Solace, carefully etched a mark into the stone.
"A little more than three months," he muttered.
He stood in the center of the room, a lone figure amidst the shadows. "This will be my last foothold before the end."
The original conflict of the Forgotten Shore was a binary one: Gunlaug's stagnant tyranny versus Nephis's zealous revolution.
But now, a third contender had entered the fray.
Gunlaug held the overwhelming might of the Host. Nephis led the desperate underdogs, fueling a fire that would consume them all. And then there was Zachary—alone, unaligned, trying to save the lives the other two considered acceptable losses.
He grinned, the expression sharp and honest. "I like those odds."
He laughed, though a tremor of nerves remained beneath the surface. He was fighting Fate—a task that had required a broken Seer, a fated Shadow, and the elusive intervention of a nebulous Deity...
Zachary was just a lonely Fool.
"I know of no better life purpose than to perish attempting the great and impossible," he whispered with a wry smile. 'That damn mustached man... he really knew how to turn a phrase.'
His confidence wasn't just bravado. He lacked an army, and he lacked "Destiny," but he possessed the one thing no one else did:
Certainty.
He knew the future in vivid, chronological detail—far clearer than the hazy, vague and frecuently caothic nightmares her conflictively favourite seer suffered through.
"Cassie..." Her name felt heavy on his tongue, thinking of her sent his mind spiraling.
After their conversation on the boat, the truth was unavoidable. The Endless Spring, the tearful apology... she had already made her move against him. But what could it be?
Zachary scoffed at his own thoughts. 'I thought finally knowing she'd done something would ease my heart. A known threat is better than an unknown one... but it's only made me more anxious.'
The question haunted him: How could she even weaponize her knowledge of him? He didn't have a True Name to bind him, no secret master to serve. Yet, Cassie was a Seer. She didn't need a sword to kill; she only needed to place the right word in the right ear at the right time.
'A True Name...' Zachary stroked his chin, his eyes narrowing.
Cassie knew his Attributes. She confesed seeing the raw data of his soul while her defenses were down in the Ashen Barrow. She knew the [Blasphemer] attribute would pursue him as long as he bore his "foolish name."
'It has to be that. I can't see any other options.' Whatever she guessed about his origins didn't matter, but his unclaimed True Name? That was a void waiting to be filled. 'I'll have to be wary of every word I speak aloud. I can't know for sure what she overhears in those damn visions.'
Another thought came suddenly, agonizing and clear. "And yet she apologized... She regrets what she did..."
He rubbed his eyes, the fatigue of the day finally catching up to him. 'Three months before the story moves...'
He knew the cohort's future. He knew they would eventually need him. When they descended into the Underworld, they would need someone who didn't rely on sight—someone who could navigate the deadly trap of the tunnels. He was going to rejoin them, whether he liked it or not.
"What a sad joke," he whispered with a tired chuckle.
Up until now, he'd managed to keep pace with Sunny with some difficulty. He could fill the "missing piece" in the cohort's formation for the Forgotten Shore. But after they escaped? That was where the gap became an abyss.
Sunny bore a Divine Aspect. He could form multiple cores. He could rise in Classes as well as Ranks. As a Dormant, the playing field was somewhat level, but once they returned to the real world, Sunny's power would explode. Zachary would be left behind, a relic of a story he could no longer participate in.
'The Chained Isles... the Second Nightmare... Antarctica.' The names of future battlefields felt like lead in his stomach. If he ever wanted to find a way back to his own world, he had to stand and survive in those calamities. He had to be strong enough to fight beside monsters.
A sudden, crushing tiredness enveloped him. He was trapped in this hellhole for another year, and even if he won, his prize was a foreign world that wasn't his. The road ahead felt infinite, a dark tunnel without a single flicker of light at the end. For a moment, he just wanted to curl up on the stone floor and let the darkness take him.
But he forced himself upright with a guttural groan. "One step at a time, come on."
He forced his mind back to the problem at hand, clicking his tongue in distaste. "Fucking Nightmare Spell..."
The Spell had denied him the Divine Rank, effectively capping his potential in a world of escalating anomalies. It was a death sentence in the long run. But Zachary wasn't a man who accepted a death sentence quietly. He had already begun to piece together a solution—a way to cheat a system that was built on cheating.
Zachary summoned his runes, the faint ethereal glow reflecting in his crimson eyes.
Name: Zachary.
True Name: Heaven's Equal. [Unclaimed]
Rank: Dreamer.
Soul Core: Dormant.
Soul Fragments: [602/1000].
Memories: [Ender's Solace], [Witness' Testament], [Antlered Wrath], [Midnight Shard], [Ordinary Rock], [Endless Spring], [Ordinary Rope].
Echoes: [Carapace Scavenger].
Attributes: [The Fool], [Mark of Sin], [Conqueror's Soul], [Blasphemer], [Enlightenment], [Spark of Divinity], [Blood Weave].
With a lingering sense of pride, he focused on the attribute that had changed everything.
[Enlightenment] Attribute Description: "You've discovered one of the defining truths of this world, and with it, you've opened the door to infinite potential. You are a pioneer of new ways of power — walk your Enlightened Path and declare your Noble Truths to the skies."
Attribute Traits: [Flow Control].
He had glossed over the finer details of this description while the Soul Devourer was breathing down his neck. But now, in the silence of the priestess's quarters, the words took on a profound weight.
'A pioneer of new ways of power.' That made sense; he had already established an unorthodox method of essence control by leveraging his unique biology. But it was the last part that made his heart hammer against his ribs:
'Declare your Noble Truths.'
Zachary's mind raced. Flow Control was his first Truth—the first step on his Enlightened Path. If the Spell was telling him to continue walking, it meant there were more Truths to be declared...
His heart cooled down as his intuition stirred. He was correct.
Similar to Ender's Solace that could evolve once with each Rank he ascended, Enlightenment allowed him to declare a Noble Truth to aid on his journey.
'Don't get ahead of yourself, Fool.' This wasn't a wishing well. For a Noble Truth to be declared, it had to have a foundation in reality. Flow Control worked because of the unique way his essence nested in his physical cells and the intrinsic link his Aspect created between his Body, Mind and Soul.
The Enlightenment attribute didn't create the power; it merely "finalized" and "systematized" what he had already achieved through effort and luck.
'It makes the plausible possible, not the impossible easy,' Zachary mused, nodding to himself. 'I have to build the engine before Enlightenment can turn the key.'
It was a hellish endeavor. A foolish one. But it was the only way to close the gap between a mortal soul and a Divine one. He needed to do the one thing the Spell had denied him.
He needed to create more Cores.
Zachary cracked his neck with a tired sigh. 'I'm still struggling to master one Truth, and here I am dreaming of a second. Typical.'
He shifted his gaze down the list of runes to two other attributes that demanded his attention: [Mark of Sin] and [Conqueror's Soul].
'I need to start thinking about a new Penance,' he thought with a painful wince.
His self was growing steadily, keeping him a step ahead of his Flaw for now. But once he reached the Awakened rank, Mara's Whisper would strike with renewed ferocity. He needed a new restriction—a new Penance—to keep the madness at bay.
And then there was the final, darkest piece of his soul.
[Conqueror's Soul] Attribute Description: "You were given the opportunity to become a unique existence, paving the beginning of understanding and cooperation between two distinct souls sharing a common goal. Yet your pride and your ego couldn't accept such an outcome. So, you conquered and dominated. Now your soul bears the potency of two, and a craving for conquest."
The Conqueror's Soul stood as a permanent testament to his refusal to walk the path of coexistence with the "Original One". Every time he looked at those runes, a bitter taste filled his mouth, a reminder of the ego that had demanded total control. But as he began to experiment with the raw mechanics of his soul, its importance became undeniable.
His essence was twice as potent as any other Sleeper's. It was a dense, heavy power that he had only begun to scratch the surface of.
'If I can even use it properly...' Zachary thought, clicking his tongue. He narrowed his eyes at the final line of the description. 'What does it mean by a "craving for conquest"?'
If the phrase was there, it mattered. The Spell didn't waste ink on flavor text. He tried to recall his recent battles—the desperate clash with the Carapace Demon, the quick encounter of the Spire Messenger—but he had so little experience with active Soul Essence that he couldn't pinpoint a moment where that "craving" had manifested. Was it a hunger for power? For shards? Or something more metaphysical?
He pushed the question aside for now. There would be time to understand the Conquest in his chest later.
"The board has been set," Zachary said aloud, his voice echoing softly against the ancient stone walls of the Saintess's quarters. "And tomorrow is already here."
His heart hammered against his ribs—not with the steady rhythm of confidence, but with the frantic, thundering beat of defiance. His crimson eyes burned in the darkness, ablaze with the promise of a future that didn't belong to him, yet one he intended to claim nonetheless.
The path ahead was finally clear of the clutter of the cohort and the noise of the settlement. In the silence of the Cathedral, under the gaze of a nameless goddess, it was finally time.
It was time to master Flow Control.