Chapter 2874: Success and Failure

Shadow Slave

Chained in the mirror cage, utterly alone and powerless, Mordret spent a long time thinking about his senseless life, all the people who had betrayed and abandoned him, the birthright that he had been denied, and the precious things that had been taken from him.

And slowly but surely, he was consumed by hatred. Or rather...

He allowed hatred to consume him. Mordret was full of bitterness, anger, and unbearable resentment, of course. Naturally, he wished to avenge himself on the Clan Valor — and on his heartless father, most of all. But in truth, the hatred Mordret felt was not that overwhelming, at least not at first.

It was just that he was tired of being aimless. So, he decided to make vengeance his goal. The fact that walking the path of wrathful retribution was a sober and conscious decision on his part did not mean that he wasn't earnest in his devotion to it, though. Sealed in the darkness, Mordret made a choice. He chose to surrender himself to hatred and made it the axis of his existence.... he forged his own destiny out of the dark desire to see those who slighted him ruined and gone.

That was how he endured his long imprisonment. Day after day, he waited and contemplated how he would destroy the Great Clan Valor and take his father's life. There was a lot to consider — his father was Supreme, after all, which meant that he might as well have been a god.

Rebelling against gods was a daring vocation.

Mordret waited, and waited, and waited... he was nothing if not patient, and eventually, his patience paid off.

Six long, torturous years later, Mordret walked out of the Night Temple covered in blood. He left behind the aimless youth he used to be and embraced the murderous, wicked man he had become.

That was how the Prince of Nothing was born.

Now, nearly a decade later, Mordret had reached incredible heights. He seemingly achieved all his daring goals, as well. Clan Valor was no more; his father, the King of Swords, was dead. Mordret himself, meanwhile, was Supreme — an incredible feat that only six other people in history had ever achieved. From the outside, his success truly seemed nothing short of remarkable... Not just anyone could fight against all of humanity alone, after all. And Mordret was not only waging war on the entire world all by his lonesome self — at the moment, he had humanity on the ropes. He had come a long way...

But in truth, Mordret life had been a mixed bag of success and failure.

He had successfully escaped the Night Temple. He challenged the Nightmare Seed in the Ivory Tower and conquered it, becoming Ascended — just as he had intended to once. Later, he joined the Song Domain and plotted against Clan Valor during the Chain of Nightmares, upsetting the balance of power and costing his sister a chance to pull off a decisive victory.

Madoc of Valor and an army of retainers perished in Antarctica, while Mordret himself challenged the Third Nightmare and returned Transcendent from the Tomb of Ariel.

During the Domain War, he decimated the House of Night and invaded the Sword Domain, singlehandedly opening the second front of the war and costing the King of Swords both the loyalty of his daughter and the great boon of ruling Bastion. These losses robbed Anvil of strength in the final battle against Ki Song, and ultimately resulted in his death at the hands of the King of Shadows.

However, Mordret had failed in his ultimate goal — taking the life of his father with his own two hands. Stalled in Bastion by Morgan and her merry band of government Saints, he missed the chance to cut the King of Swords down. Instead, it was the Lord of Shadows who had delivered the last strike. And therein lay the problem...

After the death of the King and the collapse of Clan Valor, Mordret found himself aimless once more. He had achieved all his impossible goals, and was not sure what to do with himself after that.

His hatred, which gave his life meaning, was suddenly pointless. With his vengeance delivered — albeit in quite an unsatisfying manner — Mordret found himself in a peculiar state of having no purpose anymore.

He had already forgotten how to live without an overwhelming, all-consuming goal dictating his every action by then, but there he was again, having no clear reason to go on.

In that colorless, confounding void, Mordret discovered a new fact about himself.

It was that he wanted to live.

It was ironic, really, how much he abhorred the idea of ceasing to exist and becoming nothing. Mordret wanted to be something — someone — and continue to live, with or without reason. In fact, the desire to exist was a reason in itself.

Perhaps it was only reasonable, though. After all, that was the nature of all beings born out of Nothing. They all yearned to be witnessed by the living and become something.

The problem, of course, was that Mordret already knew what was coming.

With the Sovereigns gone, the monster who had raised him would soon come back. And when Asterion escaped his seal, just like Mordret had once escaped his own, humanity was going to become its prey. Mordret knew the hunger and ambition of the Dreamspawn better than anyone... he knew what Asterion was capable of, as well. So, he abandoned the notion of finding some complicated meaning to survival and dedicated himself to survival for survival's sake — no different from a beast.

In order to survive, Mordret needed to achieve two things.

He had to retrieve his Flaw from the Great Mirror, so that Asterion did not get his hands on the wretched thing...

And he had to become Supreme.

The latter especially seemed like an insurmountable obstacle. Mordret had the example of Changing Star and the Lord of Shadows in front of him, and yet, he was not sure how to go about becoming a Supreme. Eventually, though, Mordret achieved both of those goals.

But his problems were only beginning.