Chapter 2552: King of Nothing |
The Eastern Quadrant had been one of the four great strongholds of humanity once. It was perhaps not as large and populous as the Northern Quadrant, but hundreds of millions of people still called it home...
Now, mere years after Antarctica had fallen, Australia itself was on the verge of being consumed by the powers of Corruption. The difference between the two was that while the Southern Quadrant had fallen to an endless flood of monsters birthed by the Chain of Nightmares, the Eastern Quadrant was being devoured by a single, insidious Nightmare Creature.
The Great Terror, Skinwalker.
Of all the horrors brought to Earth by the Nightmare Spell, this one was perhaps the most harrowing — not because it was the most powerful, but simply because it could mimic human behavior almost flawlessly and blend in with mundane people without raising any suspicion.
And even worse than that, the Skinwalker had shown a frightening ability to learn and adapt with terrible speed.
Its first appearance had gone unnoticed, and by the time the powers watching over humanity learned of its existence, it was already too late. The Skinwalker had infected countless cities in the Eastern Quadrant, embedding its vessels among the mundane population, the Awakened warriors, the government forces, and even the private armies of the local Legacy clans. There were few of these vessels, at first — maybe because the Nightmare Creature was biding its time and learning the ways of humanity before starting to spread like a plague. Some of them were eventually hunted down and destroyed... but not all of them. Even if the Sovereigns reigned supreme, they could not fight a Nightmare Creature that they could not find.
And their forces had been pulled away to fight an internal war, regardless.
By the time the original Sovereigns had fallen and Changing Star of the Immortal Flame took the throne of mankind, it was already too late. Humanity managed to prevent the Skinwalker from spreading to other Quadrants or consuming the human settlements in the Dream Realm, but the sinister fiend became too deeply rooted in Australia.
A single settlement fell first, all of its citizens becoming vessels of the eerie Nightmare Creature. Then, another one, and then another one still. Before too long, the whole Quadrant had been washed over by the spreading plague, and a full-scale war against the Skinwalker commenced in earnest. That war was not going well for the humans. The Eastern Quadrant Siege Capital still stood, and they still controlled most of the coastal area facing the Indian Ocean. However, the inner expanse of the continent and its southern reaches were fully conquered by the Skinwalker. And almost every day, the Great Terror took more lives, gained more vessels, and conquered more land.
But even with her support and with the best Saints of humanity joining the war effort, the Nightmare Creature continued to spread. Eventually, it became clear that the continent could not be saved — so, a grievous decision to evacuate it was made, and the Dream Gate opened in the heart of EQSC to take the refugees away, the naval convoys arriving to ferry them north.
The arrival of Soul Reaper Jet and the Night Garden helped stabilize the situation. A fragile balance was achieved in the Eastern Quadrant... for a short while.
The Skinwalker had taken millions upon millions upon millions of vessels by then. Among them were millions of humans, both mundane and Awakened... but there were millions of lesser Nightmare Creatures from the wild reaches of the continent, as well. No one really knew how many vessels the Nightmare Creature possessed now, and even if someone did, there was no way to defend the vast expanse of the continent from that terrible, ever-growing force.
And worst of all...
Both the academics and the diviners in the service of the Human Domain were unanimous in their suspicion that the Skinwalker was on the verge of evolving — either to the Cursed Rank or to the Titan Class... or perhaps both.
If it did, neither Soul Reaper nor the Night Garden would be able to hold it back anymore, and the entire population of the Eastern Quadrant, including the military forces of humanity concentrated there, would be consumed without having time or opportunity to evacuate.
The situation was dire...
And it was in that dire crisis that something odd began to happen.
There were isolated reports at first, then a wave of them, all saying the same things — that the Skinwalker was behaving strangely. As if something was attacking the terrifying Nightmare Creature from within, fighting for control of its vessels.
..That something was Mordret, the Prince of Nothing — the banished son of the King of Swords, the traitor to the fallen Clan Valor, and the executioner of the House of Night. Mordret had gained a lot in the Palace of Imagination, even if he lost a powerful new vessel of his own at the very end. He managed to retrieve his only weakness and escape the wrath of the Lord of Shadow relatively unscathed. However, that was not enough... not nearly enough, considering what was coming and how little time he had left to prepare for the approaching calamity. So, he decided to play one last, desperate gambit — something for which he had been preparing for a long time.
He, who was nearly immortal, put his life on the line and left himself no way out but success.
Mordret challenged the Great Terror to a soul duel.
There, in the dreadful darkness of the Skinwalker's profane soul, surrounded by the unfathomable expanse of Corruption, Mordret fought the eldritch Nightmare Creature tooth and nail, not holding anything back. His own soul was mangled and poisoned, but he tore pieces of it out and continued to fight.
And in the process, he did something else. His own daring, impossible act of defiance. Ever since becoming a Saint, Mordret had been struggling to maintain his sense of self. Unwilling to become a demented and broken thing like the Soul Stealer, he limited the use of his Transcendent Ability to only separating himself to inhabit a handful of vessels — a dozen or two, at most.
Now, he abandoned all caution.
Mordret needed to splinter a fragment of his soul to create an independent incarnation, so now, he shattered himself into a million pieces. He, who had always dreamed of becoming whole again, tore himself apart completely — that was the only way for him to defeat the Skinwalker. Because with each vessel Mordret stole from him, the power of the eerie fiend lessened a little.
In a sense, trying to keep his shattered self from crumbling was as difficult as battling the Great Terror... no, maybe more so.
That was the limit he had to overcome. Mordret's and the Skinwalker's horrid, relentless, unseen battle lasted for a long while. Hours turned into days, and days turned into weeks. Each of his soul cores had been destroyed and reforged anew countless times. The pool of power he had absorbed in Mirage City slowly exhausted itself, and then ran dry completely.
That was when Mordret finally broke through his limit.
He destroyed the Skinwalker and took over all of its vessels — millions of human vessels, and millions of Nightmare Creatures.
And somewhere along the way...
Mordret became the seventh Sovereign born from humanity, and the third one to attain Supremacy without the help of the Nightmare Spell.
However, his Domain was unlike those of the other six.
That was because Mordret had no Citadels, no territories, and no subjects. His reign was not founded on anything, and he ruled nothing... only himself.
With his millions of vessels, Mordret was like a nation in and of himself — self-sufficient and self-reliant, depending on nobody, beholden to nothing.
With no weaknesses the Dreamspawn could exploit.
As the sun rose above the devastated Eastern Quadrant, the world welcomed a new Sovereign. Of course, his emergence caused a great stir among other powers governing the dying world — now, unexpectedly, they needed to decide how to deal with the new king.
The King of Nothing.
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