As Oberon remembered who he was, the Holy Energy enveloping Excalibur flared once more, brighter and more stable than before.
The radiant light burst outward, dispelling the cursed fog of Vorthax's technique.
Oberon narrowed his eyes, his grip tightening on the hilt as he felt the familiar weight of his own power coursing through his veins.
"My Lord," Ganevére said solemnly, rising despite her exhaustion, "I will bestow upon you a blessing—so that you don't need to think about its Cursed Technique."
She pressed the cracked base of her staff into the earth. The sigils engraved along its length flickered to life—once blue, now a vibrant green.
"By the Pact of Cernunnos, Keeper of the Wild Oath,
By the Circles unbroken,
By the blood of bark and breath,
I grant you His Blessing."
The land answered.
From the cracked stone beneath Oberon's feet, roots rose.
They wove themselves around his limbs and chest like living armor. Moss bloomed golden across his shoulders, pulsing with his heartbeat like veins of light.
A glowing rune appeared on his sternum—ᚠᚨᚲᛏ—the old Futhark: Pact.
Oberon's breath hitched. He felt stronger and more in balance. After awakening from Vorthax's Cursed Technique his energy and mind were left unbalanced, but now he was again in his best form.
Ganevére collapsed beside him, drained. "That was all I had left. Go."
Oberon waved his hand to cast spell after spell at Vorthax.
"Fulgaris rupta."
"Silvapyra."
"Pyroclastum."
"Spiraeviscerus."
Lightning surged from the heavens, green fire spread like a living forest consuming all in its path, spears of molten rock arced like comets across the battlefield, and spiraling vortexes carved the land with surgical fury.
And yet… Vorthax remained unharmed.
Its new form stood unshaken.
"Your endeavors… mean nothing," Vorthax spoke.
Each word it uttered was a curse in itself and every time it spoke, people weaker than him started forgetting something.
The bystanding druids clutched their heads. Names, memories, identities... all forgotten.
Some higher druids were able to resist to a certain extent, and along with Oberon, they started attacking Vorthax.
But it was like a fly attacking a castle.
"I will put an end… to this farce." Vorthax said with its shrill voice. "How do you dare to face me, a Cursed General, a being of a level you can't even fathom. You will die, and the world will forget."
Four arms erupted, fingers unfurling with purpose. Together, they formed a strange and eerie symbol.
"Domain Expansion: Citadel of the Unnamed"
A pitch-black sphere erupted from Vorthax's chest and expanded faster than Oberon could track. In an instant, the barrier swallowed everything. The light died. The ground beneath his boots vanished, replaced by a smooth and cold surface.
Oberon looked for Ganevére, but found only infinite ceilings and geometric corridors intersecting at strange angles – it looked like a psychedelic painting.
He gripped his wand and tried to point it forward. He wanted to shout Confringo, but only dry air left his throat. It wasn't that he couldn't recite the spell; he simply didn't know, didn't remember, what to say.
He looked at the wand in his hand; suddenly, it felt like a heavy, alien object – a piece of wood he no longer knew how to use.
The mountain of writhing, petrified corpses didn't expand. Instead, it began to collapse inward with a sickening sound of snapping bones and grinding stone. The thousands of screaming mouths merged into a single, shrill hiss as the mass condensed into a humanoid shape.
Vorthax now stood two meters tall, a knight of obsidian and dead flesh. His armor was forged from fused limbs and ribcages, polished to a dull black sheen. Through the gaps in the plates, petrified fingers still twitched, clawing at the air.
He didn't walk toward Oberon; the floor of the Citadel simply moved, sliding Vorthax forward like a piece on a board.
"You cling to that stick," Vorthax's voice vibrated through the geometric halls. "But a tool is nothing without a name. And your name is already halfway to the void."
Oberon tried to raise Excalibur, but the holy light flickered, dimming as the very concept of 'holiness' began to feel foreign, like a word in a language he'd once known but now forgotten.
Vorthax raised a hand, and the Citadel itself responded. The walls shimmered, and spectral, faceless figures emerged—ghosts of forgotten men and women, their forms wavering like heat haze. They drifted toward Oberon, their hands outstretched.
"Give us your face," they whispered in unison, their voices an empty wind. "Let us wear it until it, too, is forgotten."
The memory of sunlight, of wind, of the taste of water—all became abstract concepts, fading like photographs left in the sun too long.
Oberon stumbled back, his mind grasping for anchors. 'Father'—a name, Gellert, yes, but the warmth, the connection, it was... thinning.
He watched in horror as the spectral figures reached him, their fingers inches from his skin. He tried to summon a shield charm, but the incantation dissolved on his tongue into meaningless sounds.
As the first ghostly finger brushed against his cheek, a cold seeped into him—not physical cold, but the chill of being unmoored from reality.
He started to forget things. Seeing, breathing, thinking...
He was forgetting who he was, forgetting what being, existing... was. His soul was being forgotten even by the world inside this domain.
But as Vorthax's void was about to erase the core of his soul, Enlightenment occurred.
It was not a logical thought, but a metaphysical realization: The soul is one, even if its reflections are many.
Oberon stopped trying to manage Holy Energy and Destiny Energy as external forces. As Vorthax erased his "labels" from his mind, the barriers separating both attributes in his Mental Landscape collapsed.
The two flows of energy stopped clashing. They remained distinct attributes, but now they flow through the same channel with absolute harmony. The vision of the future now guides the forging of the sword instinctively, without Oberon's mind needing to mediate.
By eliminating internal friction, his Soul Density spiked and the metaphysical barriers containing his Magic Reserves exploded.
The world responded to this change in existential mass by finally recognizing him as a Special Grade Wizard. In the dark citadel of Vorthax's Domain, a beam of ethereal energy illuminated Oberon. His Magical Energy was being refined by the world. It was like compressing and expanding, again and again.
His mere presence now generated a pressure that stabilized reality around him, causing Vorthax's erasure to slide off him like water off a stone.
The spectral figures pressing against him shattered like glass, their hollow forms dissolving into motes of nothingness by the Holy Energy his very existence emanated
"What... have you done?" the General's voice wavered for the first time, the absolute certainty cracking.
Oberon looked down at his hands. The golden and blue tattoo of Excalibur on his arm was glowing with an intensity that threatened to burn through his skin.
"You tried to erase me, to make the world forget me," Oberon said, his voice calm, steady. "But doing so, you made me remember exactly who I was."
He took a step forward, and the halls of the Citadel of the Unnamed trembled. The oppressive weight of forgetfulness that had permeated the domain now recoiled from him, the Forgetful Energy permeating the domain couldn't directly affect Oberon existence anymore.
"Your domain is impressive," Oberon continued, raising Excalibur. Now, burning with a pure-white Holy Energy more vibrant and alive that before. "But you've made a fundamental mistake."
Vorthax snarled and lunged, his black claws morphed into a black sword. The weapon moved with impossible speed towards Oberon.
Oberon didn't panic, he responded with an attack of his own.
Excalibur's tip met the void-blade halfway. There was no clang of steel, no explosion of power. Instead, there was a soft chime, like a bell ringing in a silent cathedral. Where the two forces met, a void was created. Nothing could be seen or heard, except from Vorthax arm-sword being repelled by the Holy Energy of Excalibur.
Vorthax recoiled. "That damn sword again! Bastard of Avalon, you always interfere with their Eminences' grand plans!"
Oberon advanced, his presence expanding. He raised Excalibur, golden-white veins of energy pulsating along the blade, before lowering the weapon to let the tip gently kiss the floor.
"Domain Expansion: Radiant Sovereignty of the Celestial Lake"
The ground rippled outward from the touch. The oppressive black architecture dissolved like ink in water. In its place, a crystalline lake spread infinitely in all directions, its surface reflecting not the dark ceiling of the Citadel, but a majestic vision of Camelot in the distance.
The very air shimmered with holy energy, and Vorthax screamed as the purifying force seared its very essence. The obsidian armor of fused bodies began to smoke, the petrified flesh cracking and flaking away.
"No!" Vorthax howled. "This is my world! My domain!"
"Not anymore," Oberon said, now standing at the center of his own reality. "Here, your namelessness has no power."
Thanks to his Domain Expansion being an open one, it was easier to hijack another closed domain. Before, his Magic Reserves couldn't have supported this, the Domain Expansion of a General, even if severely weakened was something of another level. But thanks to his new grade, he was able to break into and maintain his domain.
He raised Excalibur, and thousands of celestial swords materialized around him, all pointing at Vorthax.
"You are the fear of being forgotten," Oberon said, his voice echoing across the Celestial Lake. "But now there is no one here to fear you."
With a wave of Excalibur, the celestial swords descended.
They rained upon Vorthax, the holy energy scorching its physical form.
Oberon hoped that by damaging Vorthax the souls used to resurrect him would return to Cernunnos' embrace.
His hope was misplaced.
As the celestial swords struck, Vorthax began to laugh. It was a dry, rattling sound, like stones in a tomb.
"Did you think this would work?" Vorthax's voice echoed, laced with a newfound confidence. "That these pretty lights could unmake what I am?"
The damage was superficial. Cracks sealed. Scorched flesh regenerated. Each strike from Oberon's holy arsenal did little to no damage to him.
"You are not damaging me," Vorthax declared, its obsidian form knitting itself back together.
From the cracks in its armor, the screaming faces grew more defined.
Vorthax raised its arms, and the Celestial Lake itself trembled. "I am the General of Isolation. You do not have the power to kill me."
It slammed its hands together, and the celestial lake of Oberon's domain convulsed.
"Maximum Technique: Shatter Sigil – Forgotten Monument"
The world shattered.
Not with a bang, but with a silent, horrifying implosion.
Directly above Oberon, reality itself buckled. Space folded inward, not crushing him, but erasing the space he occupied. A spectral monument erupted into existence, towering over him. On its surface, etched in glowing violet, was Oberon's own face—his silver hair, his piercing azure eyes.
Then, the monument crumbled.
Each falling stone was a piece of him being unmade.
The feeling of his father's approval, a ghost.
The incantation for a shield charm, gibberish.
His mind frantically scrambled to hold on, but it was like trying to cup water in a sieve. The very concept of defense began to fray.
This was not an attack on the body. It was an execution of history.
Oberon stumbled back, gasping. He felt… lighter. As if something vital had been carved out of him, leaving a hollow ache where a memory should be.
He raised Excalibur, trying to anchor himself in the holy weapon, but for a terrifying second, he couldn't remember its name.
He felt the memory of pulling it from the stone, the weight of it, the surge of power—but the name itself, Excalibur, he couldn't remember it.
He didn't know what to do. He already lost the blessing of Cernunnos when Vorthax used its Domain Expansion.
Even if he remembered what his Maximum Technique was, it wouldn't be enough to counterattack.
As Vorthax's attack continued to strip away Oberon's essence, another realization came.
If he kept defending, the maximum technique would erase him completely.
He looked at his sword, its name forgotten. The holy energy was still there, but it was still, unused.
He couldn't rely on a forgotten name to save him.
But even so, he wouldn't die without resisting.
He raised his sword in the air and used everything he could, all the strength he could muster.
Seeing his enemy still standing, Vorthax launched an attack to make sure Oberon will definitely disappear.
And just when Vorthax's attack was about to hit him, something in the crystalline depths of the lake of his Domain changed.
A holy light, like never seen before by Oberon, erupted from the lake.
From the mirror depths, a pair of colossal, ethereal hands emerged. They were feminine in form, their substance made from pure Holy Energy, and they held between them a sword of such immense scale that Excalibur looked like a kitchen knife by comparison.
It was a giant Excalibur, its blade made from pure holy energy.
The hands did not move of their own accord. They waited.
Oberon stared, transfixed. He felt a connection to this entity, a resonance that went beyond mere technique.
An absolute, final revelation clicked into place.
He raised Excalibur, and the colossal hands mirrored his movement perfectly, lifting their Titanic blade.
He knew what to do, he didn't need to remember the name of the technique.
"Domain Maxima: The Great Lady of the Lake"
As Vorthax's prepared to attack, not letting whatever was happening take place, Oberon struck with Excalibur.
At that same moment, the giant hands swung her Titanic Excalibur. The movement was synchronized flawlessly.
Vorthax concluded that Oberon had evolved beyond a mere nuisance to his masters. To rectify this, he entered into a Binding Vow with his own life as the collateral. By pledging his very existence to his Maximum Technique, Vorthax obtained a momentary release of his original, unrestrained power.
If Oberon didn't die within an hour, Vorthax existence will be totally erased.
The erasure from Shatter Sigil accelerated, an absolute wave expanding from the crumbling monument. It was designed to pass through any defense, any holy light, and strike the conceptual truth of its target.
Oberon, seeing this and knowing his choices were few, used Chronicle of Arcane Destiny.
He saw few futures, and only one sacrifice would led him to victory.
If he wanted his attack to reach Vorthax, he will need to face Vorthax's one head on.
As the Titanic Excalibur of the Great Lady of the Lake began its descent, the wave of nothingness from Shatter Sigil reached him.
The wave of absolute nothingness met the descent of the titanic blade.
Oberon didn't flinch. Through Chronicle of Arcane Destiny, he had already watched this moment shatter into a thousand possibilities, and he had chosen the only one that didn't end in his complete evaporation.
He leaned into the erasure, shifting his weight to the right.
The wave hit.
It wasn't a physical impact. There was no sound of breaking bone or tearing flesh.
Instead, there was a sickening, hollow silence that vibrated through the marrow of his soul. As the dark-violet light of the Shatter Sigil washed over his left side, the world simply ceased to acknowledge that part of him.
His left arm, from the shoulder down, became a blur of static before vanishing entirely.
It didn't fall to the ground. There was no blood. The universe, manipulated by the General's final vow, reconfigured itself in a heartbeat. The space where his arm had been was now occupied by a smooth, closed surface of skin, as if a limb had never grown there to begin with.
The memories of his left hand all of it flickered and died.
But the sacrifice bought him the opening he needed.
The giant Excalibur descended, unimpeded.
Vorthax couldn't evade Oberon's attack because of his weakened state after that attack. The colossal sword of holy energy passed through its body without an explosion. It looked as if nothing happened. Like a hot knife through butter.
But Oberon could see that something happened. Something deep inside of Vorthax changed.
A low hum emanated from Vorthax's core. A single, perfect crack appeared across its chest plate. Then another. And another. Like a window being struck by a precisely tuned frequency, the entire construct of forgotten corpses petrified into a statue of fractured obsidian.
"Impossible..." a whisper echoed from Vorthax, it couldn't understand anything. The sound itself seemed to be breaking apart. "My... my..."
The whisper died.
Silence.
Then, Vorthax form started collapsing. First, it expanded and deformed as a high-pitched sound reverberated. Then, it freeze and collapsed onto itself.
Not into gore or stone fragments, but into a silent, expanding wave of violet light that simply ceased to exist as it met the boundary of Oberon's domain.
The Celestial Lake's surface shimmered as the remaining forgetful energy of Vorthax was absorbed and neutralized.
With Vorthax gone, the Lady of the Lake lowered her titanic blade, her form slowly sinking back into the tranquil waters. The colossal hands vanished, leaving only concentric ripples spreading across the infinite lake.
Oberon stood alone in the center of his domain, Excalibur humming in his remaining grip.
And in front of him, a small stone-like thing was in the floor, Vorthax's core.
He instinctively tried to steady himself with both hands on the hilt.
His left hand never closed around the grip.
A jarring absence met the command from his brain. He looked down, expecting a bloody stump or a grievous wound - but nothing was there.
Just the smooth, unblemished skin of his left shoulder, closed and whole. As if he had been born this way.
The absence was more terrifying than any wound.
With Vorthax's gone and Oberon's Magic Reserve practically depleted, both domains disappeared.
Next to Oberon, Ganevére's body rested unconscious in the ground.
The battlefield came back, and Oberon recognized the faces of some of the druids that survived. Some of them started to approach him, cautious, their eyes wide with a mixture of awe and fear.
They had seen him defeat a Cursed General, a being that was used in their stories to scare the children.
"My Lord," one of the older druids, a man with a beard braided with twigs, said, his voice trembling slightly. "The General... is it truly gone?"
But before Oberon could answer, a new presence washed over the scene.
The entire forest became silent, as if to show it respect.
A presence, that wasn't holy, that was like the heavy breath of the earth itself.
The opulent smell of freshly cut grass, damp earth and pine needles invaded everyone's noses.
The surviving druids froze, some dropping to one knee, their faces pale.
A figure stepped from the treeline, the trees clearing the way for it, moving with a silence that defied its massive frame.
He appeared as an impossibly old stag, its antlers not made of bone, but of wood that glowed with a galaxy of green light within its interior.
Its fur was the color of dark earth with a golden hue.
It was Cernunnos' avatar.
His gaze was not on the druids or the aftermath. His ancient, piercing eyes were fixed on Oberon.
Oberon stared back, his lone hand gripping Excalibur tighter. The exhaustion, the phantom pain of a missing limb, the sight of fallen druids—it all coalesced into a cold, white-hot fury.
"Your Eminence," Oberon said. "You come to inspect your losses? Or to see the cost of your silence?"
Cernunnos's head tilted slightly. Its voice was not a sound, but a pressure in the mind, a vibration that resonated in the bones.
"Don't speak to me of wolves and rabbits," Oberon shot back, his blue eyes filled with discontent. "I fought for your followers. I stood where you did not. This General was not some natural predator. It was something corrupt that you didn't kill when you should have done it. You let your people die."
His voice rose, echoing in the sudden stillness of the glade. "Maybe my ancestor did, but I didn't owe anything to you nor to your people; yet I shed my blood and paid a price I shouldn't have to protect this land. Where were you? Where was the Lord of the Hunt when the hunt turned upon your own?"
The stag took a slow, deliberate step forward, its hoof sinking into the blood-soaked earth without leaving a mark. The grass beneath it did not bend; it seemed to grow *around* the intrusion, accepting it as part of itself.
"My arm was not a leaf to fall," Oberon snarled, gesturing with Excalibur at the smooth skin where his limb used to be. "You speak about cycles, but you forget the part where the shepherd protects the flock, even if a few wolves must be slain."
"So that's it?" Oberon said dissatisfied. He has lost an arm; it is something devastating for any Wizard - even more for a combat one with lots of enemies like Oberon.
The glowing antlers of the stag pulsed with a soft green light.
As it finished speaking, Cernunnos avatar's eyes glowed with an immense light that blinded everyone. Then, as he appeared, he simply disappeared.
The godly stag left only, where its form had stood, a golden-green and vibrant leaf.
Oberon took it as an apology gift and turned to look at the remaining druids.
"You should take Ganevére to the village. My sincere condolences for your loses." Oberon said as he vowed to them. He was prideful, yes, but as a leader he knew when pride should be left behind.
"My Lord! Please! Don't vow to us!" The eldest druid present said. "It was thanks to you that we were able to overcame this crisis. If it wasn't because of you, the village would no longer exist and not even the children would be left."
As he finished speaking, the other Druids vowed to Oberon.