Ki Song stood at the top of the Lunar Tear, the first Citadel she had conquered. The home of the Beast God's Lineage was strange and ominous, yet it always felt like home. Even before she had taken in the ancient dead gods power.
The tower still stood to this day.
She was unsure if she could say the same for Fellwood, the region surrounding the Citadel.
The tower was clearly the last remaining remnant of a civilization that worshiped the Beast God, since it also survived to this day while everything around it had turned to ash, it meant that it had some absurd protections on it.
Indeed, the structural fortitude of the place was only inferior to the Jade Palace in design, not in quality of materials. Both places had been blessed by the most powerful of gods, after all.
So it was natural that it remained upright.
However, she had to admit she was worried for a moment.
After completing the ritual, she allowed the Beast God Lineage to awaken, in this state, her blood turned into a more pure form. The connection it had with the Beast God strengthened, and it allowed those who bathed in it to potentially be added to the Divine Lineage.
She has done this about two dozen times now.
Some daughters lived, only to die before becoming true Awakened after the Spell threw them in an untenable spot in the Dream Realm.
7 managed to survive and lived as the Princesses of Song.
A few of them simply did not resonate with the beast, and ended up either gravely injured or traumatized from the experience. So far, she had managed to make sure no one had died from the task.
Gehrman was the first male she had done this with, but his affinity was clear.
She imagined that once he was submerged, it would be but a few moments before the blood was absorbed into him and he became the first Prince of Song.
Unfortunately, that was not what happened.
Instead, the most dire sense of foreboding Ki Song had ever experienced ripped through her.
She felt the shift, the thing far below suddenly did not seem like Gehrman anymore. Instead, it was more akin to a Nightmare Creature. He started to enter his Transcendent Form, and black tentacles sprouted from him all across his body.
It looked like he was suffering from Corruption, but his Soul held no such darkness as far as she could tell.
Instead, it was something akin to the Madness that she had once felt from the boy when she first met him three years ago. It had grown an overwhelming amount, so much so that she quickly realized that it wasn't his own. The aura released upon the surroundings was not Gehrman's but instead something far more frightening.
The Madness was intertwined, Ki Song realized, with the Will of that entity. It was not a direct attack, merely a side effect of it extending its power to the point that a miniscule amount of it reached the outside world.
Looking from the tower, she considered the devastation the simple partial deployment of that entity's presence had caused.
For many kilometers around, the Fellwood was flatten and destroyed, the rocky terrain surrounding the Lunar Tear looked as if bestial claws had raked through the moon-like rock.
Then, miraculously, it halted.
From the brief interaction she had with that entity's presence she could feel the similarities it shared with the Beast God.
For one, it seemed their affinities were highly aligned. The symbolism of blood, beasts, and the moon were all present. It was something that only a seasoned Supreme, who had a deep understanding of Will, could pick up on.
That being said, there was a difference.
While the Void entity seemed to represent the pain and suffering of base beasthood, the Beast God represented the nobility of the base of life. The blood, muscle, and desire of living things to survive and reproduce.
There was no such noble mission in the beasthood of the entity, just as she expected from a being without the Flame of Desire, it did not have any purpose. There was only struggle and viciousness, without anything more.
It appeared though that things ended in success. The blood was absorbed into Gehrman, and a few moments later he climbed out of the secret area.
Afterwards, he climbed the steps, meeting Ki Song at the top of the tower.
"Well, it worked," he said. "I am officially your kid. Quite strange considering I'm older than you."
Ki Song did not say anything for a few moments. She just stared out at the devastation. In that moment, without her knowledge, a part of her cracked.
The hundreds of thousands of corpses that occupied her mindspace suddenly received a good bit more autonomy as Ki Song allowed herself to be split even more between all herself.
The body at the Lunar Tear had occupied most of her senses. The corpse had undergone a transfusion with Ki Song's true body that sat atop the throne of the Jade Palace, impaled by Vale's blade.
That way, she could still perform the ritual.
However, at that moment it did not seem that she was especially "present" in that tower.
Gehrman frowned a bit.
"Are you doing alright?"
She was not. The Sovereign of Ravenheart felt herself regressing a bit as she looked as the clouds of dust rose in the sky, obscuring the land below.
Ki Song had been marvelously happy to walk her daughter down the aisle. She had been overjoyed to receive Seishan's thanks, admiration, and loving embrace. Despite the future looking dark, she had grown happy.
Now, the door that led to the new world suddenly seemed to grow darker and more dangerous. No longer did warm light appear behind it, but instead a flickering not unlike a dying candle.
What have I created today?
Ki Song turned and smiled warmly. Allowing some other corpse to feel the dread that filled her.
"Welcome to the family."
…
The news of the first Prince of the Song Clan spread like wildfire. After the recent propaganda campaign, the "Red Judge" was already a household name, and the mysteriously powerful Saint was held in high regard.
However, the fact that nothing was really known about him led many to make wild speculations, all of which seemed to pale in comparison to reality now.
The origin of the Saint took a backseat to the fact that the man had managed to woo the famed Princess of Song who survived the dreaded Forgotten Shore.
A Government journalist had attended the ceremony, and described the decadence and genuine emotion behind the wedding with great detail.
The fact that the relationship seemed to be born of "true love" was also something of great surprise. Many imagined themselves in a whirlwind romance with a powerful Legacy, but it was also universally recognized to be a total fantasy.
The fact that this man had pulled it off naturally caused quite the stir.
Since this was so heavily focused on, the fact that ownership of the New Workshop had been transferred and to a man simply known as "Caster" (no last name given) went under the radar for a lot of people. The few people that did recognize him as the very same Caster who fought alongside Changing Star in the Forgotten Shore were met with backlash from the few members of the New Workshop that decided to indulge in social media.
A few had banded together to make an official group, and though they were small, it was universally recognized to be legit.
So when this group of net-citizens declared that Caster Han Li was a loser and that their Caster would "smoke his ass" the theory died down quite a bit. The fact that the new leader of the New Workshop was kept in a similar mystique as the old owner made it difficult to make any further arguments.
There were no proper photos or videos of the Master, and with the vehemence of the people of the New Workshop, the small number of people making a buzz about the change in leadership quickly moved on.
Within the Workshop, things actually didn't change that much.
…
Caster sat in the room that used to be Gehrman's office in New Yharnam. The guy had just finished moving out. It was very weird to have him living far away. Even weirder that he was now to take up residence in the Jade Palace.
For now, at least, Caster was the owner of the Citadel. In his Runes, the lines [New Yharnam] blazed in the new section. He was a bit confused on how Gehrman had managed to change the name, but with all the crazy things he had done, it wasn't the most shocking thing.
A few months ago, the Solstice had occurred, and a truly staggering number of Awakened were born under the banner of the New Workshop.
Naturally, Gehrman was not able to bestow Caryll Runes upon every single one of the thousands of Sleepers, instead opting to search out for people who were able to resonate with the mysterious power before even entering the First Nightmare.
Despite being mundane, the powers of the Caryll Runes were connected to the Soul, and as such they Attribute [Unnatural Rune Witness] automatically manifested within the challenger of the First Nightmare.
Because of this additional boost in power, these rare individuals who were found with trial and error had an extra advantage in the Nightmare.
The current climate of the New Workshop and New Yharnam was one that turned the dreaded trial of the Nightmare Spell into something more akin to just another test.
The training Hunters (or anyone who sought to become Awakened) had to undergo before taking on their First Nightmare was hellish enough that the actual situations they found themselves in during the Trials were sometimes not as bad as some of the scenarios that they were required to survive before undergoing the First Nightmare.
After immense training in combat and an in depth crash course on basic survival techniques as well as some knowledge about the history of the Dream Realm, one would be pulled into the Dream Realm.
Before actually entering a Gate and returning (which would then lead that person into directly entering the First Nightmare), they were required to kill a number of Nightmare Creatures.
With this, the Hunters of the New Workshop would be able to hopefully take out a few creatures in the First Nightmare.
After Gehrman had returned from his 3rd Nightmare, he had started working on the project of mass producing Awakened from the Hunters of the New Workshop.
As a part of this, he proposed a separate line of research that both he and Caster himself threw a lot of time into.
Since Gehrman was gone a lot, it was up to Caster to get most of the data, and it had consumed a lot of his life.
The line of research was simple: what determines the Rank of one's Aspect at the end of the First Nightmare.
The two of them had done a large amount of studying, and (despite Caster's protests) they had brought in Sunless as a consultant.
Much to his chagrin, this was undeniably the best move that could have been made, as the guy pretty much single handedly came up with the most important principle of the First Nightmare.
It was a theory that was later reinforced with the absurd amount of data Caster collected.
First, the Nightmare Spell values change. Which is to say, the more one breaks away from the intended "story" of the Trial and the more outlandish the new ending is, the greater the reward.
With this in mind, killing or otherwise leading an Awakened or powerful Nightmare Creature to their death would almost always result in a higher Ranked Aspect.
Bitz, who was granted a Transcendent Aspect, had slit the throat of an Awakened in their sleep. The man had been a slave trader, and had very much deserved this fate. As it turned out though, this was very different from the Awakened's original fate.
Despite the fact that the kill was sneaky and underhanded, the Spell seemed to appreciate this turn greatly, leading to a great reward.
Further research showed that killing Nightmare Creatures was much more valuable though. If that Awakened turned into a Master eventually, the impact of the change that the Dreamer had caused would be much greater, thus earning a reward.
The magnitude of the death of a certain Awakened could either lead to a great boon, or not much fanfare from the Spell. That was because an ordinary Awakened who didn't touch a lot of peoples lives in "original story" would lead to an ending that was not too different, and thus not worth much reward.
If that Awakened went on to become Ascended, or perhaps an even greater individual, the value of their death in the eyes of the Spell would cause an absurd leap in quality of one's Aspect.
Sunny, for example, had caused the death of an Awakened who actually received a name from the Spell.
Most of the time, one would receive a notification such as - [You have slain an Awakened Human.] And that would be it. However, in this instance Sunny had heard. [You have slain an Awakened Human, Auro of the Nine.]
It stood to reason that this individual would go on to have a great impact on the rest of the world due to the simple fact the Spell remembered him.
Since one did not know the true significance of any given Awakened until the kill had been completed however, it was a bit of a gamble.
This death of this "Auro" would have granted Sunny a high ranking Aspect in and of itself.
However, one way to ensure that one received a high Rank was to kill a Nightmare Creature of notable power.
Such abominations would invariably lead to many more deaths, after all, so killing them and thus preventing those deaths would be held in high esteem by the Spell.
Through unique circumstances, both Sunny and Nephis had pulled off such feats. With Sunny killing and Awakened Tyrant and Nephis killing an Awakened Terror.
Mordret was cagey about his First Nightmare, but did reveal that the Spell credited him with killing an Awakened Tyrant as well.
Gehrman also had a similarly remarkable feat, having killed a Fallen Monster.
It seemed that the mythical Divine Aspect was thus locked behind pulling off such absurd feats as killing a Tyrant as a mundane human.
This was, of course, impossible unless something truly strange happened.
However, after collecting more data from the Government and the young ones who managed to Awaken at the same time as Bitz and Milo, Gehrman had come up with a formula to predict one's Aspect Rank based on their accomplishments.
Killing a Dormant abomination would allow one to receive an Awakened Aspect.
Killing an Awakened Nightmare Creature would lead to an Ascended Aspect.
After that, things got tricky. Killing Awakened Monsters or Demons, and had mixed results. Most of the time, one would only get an Ascended Aspect even though the feats were far more impressive.
It seemed that only killing a Devil would guarantee a Transcendent Aspect.
On the surface, it seemed that a single tier difference of an abomination would drastically change the rewarded Aspect Rank.
However, it made sense when considering the first principle of the Nightmare Spell. The average Awakened, even in that ancient age where the Trials were set, could (most of the time) kill a Devil, even if it cost them their lives. Tyrants and those stronger than that, on the other hand, could wipe out a village and multiple Awakened under the right circumstances. It was only logical then that the change based on killing a Devil and Tyrant was vastly different.
That being said, Gehrman urged his Hunters not to try and go that far. One of the requirements of taking on the First Nightmare was hunting an Awakened Demon. However, in this scenario they had weaponry that would be able to easily harm the Awakened creature. In the Nightmare, they would either have to fashion their own weapon, or get lucky and get a Memory.
In the end, the first principle led Gehrman to enforce the mindset that improving their Aspect Rank through killing was something they should only do if they were very confident in the Hunt. After all, one could accomplish similar results with much safer means.
All of this knowledge led many of the newly Awakened Hunters to having Ascended, and a few Transcendent Aspects. In fact, the majority of them had Ascended Aspects, which made their worth all the more great.
Still, Gehrman had wanted more of the uniquely potent Supreme or Sacred Aspects. Unfortunately, such Aspects seemed just as rare as Divine ones. In the Government, only Soul Reaper Jet had a Supreme Aspect. Before Gehrman, this was actually the highest recorded Aspect Rank. No one else had managed to get a Sacred Aspect, let alone a Divine one.
However, it was possible some Legacy members, or even the Sovereigns themselves had Aspects of that Rank. They would never disclose such information though, so they didn't have much to go on.
It was for this reason that Milo was so absurdly rare and valuable. His experience in the Nightmare would no doubt grant even more insight into attaining the most powerful of Aspects. Of course, such information was forever out of reach due to his Flaw.
As it turned out, the search was not hopeless. After complaining about the lack of data in this area, Sunny had set up a meeting in the Dream Realm with Cassie.
As it turned out, Cassie's Aspect was of the Sacred Rank, and fortunately she could disclose the information on her Nightmare. However, it only seemed to reinforce what they already knew. It seemed that it was a stroke of luck that allowed her to achieve the Rank.
She had managed to manufacture a scenario in which she was responsible for killing a dozen Awakened Beast, and an Awakened warrior by breaking a dam and flooding an evacuated village.
Due to the Rank and Tier of everything killed being minimal, it was likely that either one of the Nightmare Creatures originally went on to evolve into something much stronger, or the Awakened became a Transcendent, or even Supreme (though that seemed unlikely).
Though the feat was impressive, the statistics did not support the fact she would receive such an Aspect.
Gehrman and Caster had thus concluded that in order to get an Aspect of a Supreme Rank or higher, one would need an absurd amount of luck. There was little one could do to guarantee such Aspects.
As it so happened, in the batch of 2,000 or so Awakened who had undergone the training of the New Workshop one person did manage to have such luck.
Fittingly, it was the man who would be the third leader of the New Workshop.
Oskar had received a Supreme Rank Aspect.
Caster frowned as he recalled that fact. He had been more passionate about the project than he had expected.
The results of the research, however, had gone far beyond what he had expected.
Of course, the Rank of one's Aspect did not mean that they were inherently more powerful or useful. Only a Divine Aspect, and the ability to form multiple Soul Cores, truly confirmed a different tier of power.
Caster, for example, had an Ascended Aspect. He recalled with bitterness how special he had felt for that. At the Awakened Academy, he had been lauded as a genius for managing to get such a reward from the Spell.
Not only that, his Aspect was absurdly powerful, the Dormant abilities granted to him allowed him to go toe to toe with the strongest of the Sleepers of the Forgotten Shore. Back then, he was not inferior to the Seishan, who had a Divine Lineage and (he suspected) a Transcendent or Supreme Rank Aspect herself.
Still, despite the fact that his Aspect could not be compared with other Ascended Aspects, the fact that Awakened that achieved the same "miraculous" feat he had managed was being mass produced stung a bit.
Statistically, he was not any better than the vast majority of those who Awakened in the New Workshop.
Despite this, despite the bitterness that filled his being every time he considered this, it did not make him angry.
It surprised Caster, but even though a part of him thought it unfair that people of the Outskirts were comparable to him, he couldn't deny that the work they had put in was very much worthy of such status.
Instead of feeling envious, he instead felt like a flame had been set under him.
He was their boss now, and the idea of not being a cut above them motivated him greatly. Despite only Ascending around a year ago, Caster was putting everything he had into preparing for the 3rd Nightmare. Refining his skills and resourcefulness to a degree that only Gehrman was superior.
Indeed, at Caster's current level, his Battle IQ was only inferior to Gehrman. From what he had seen (though it shocked him) he was most likely on the level of Morgan, Princess of Valor. At the very least, this was what Gehrman had speculated off-handidily a few weeks prior.
As it turned out, without the responsibilities of the Legacy Clan holding him back, on top of several extra hours of being awake due to the Caryll Runes, the hours and hours of extra training had granted him a truly unparalleled amount of technique.
Recently, he had also fully saturated his Soul Core. At the moment, the only thing making him unqualified from taking on the 3rd Nightmare was a lack of a solid team.
This quick turn around time between Nightmares seemed to be an unexpected byproduct of the New Workshops culture and environment.
Powerful weapons and attire were not at all difficult to get one's hands on. Sunless appeared to somehow have the abilities to turn the Trick Weapons and Hunter Attire into Memories.
A few weeks ago, he had changed his Anchor in the Dream Realm to New Yharnam, so he would occasionally stop by the workshops and turn the best armaments into Memories. The fact that he was the one doing this was kept a secret that only Caster, Gehrman, and Oskar were privy to, but the result was a great number of Ascended Memories that Awakened could take into Nightmares.
At this point, a lot of the Awakened from the first batch (who were mostly kids) actually had the strength and power to take on the 2nd Nightmare. It was only because Gehrman insisted they "be kids" and "chill the hell out" that they hadn't gone out to challenge a seed.
The idea of young ones actively hoping to return to the abhorrent Nightmares of the Spell was so ridiculous that Caster didn't even consider the fact that they may actually go out and take it on themselves.
The vast, vast majority of people didn't feel the need to go beyond Awakening, after all, but the New Workshop had created an environment in which the Awakened were so powerful that it seemed foolish for them not to take that next step.
Unbeknownst to Caster, his first "screw up" of being the leader of the New Workshop was happening at that very moment.
Now that Gehrman was not monitoring the Citadel, a few Awakened took it upon themselves to sneak out into the swamps surrounding the Citadel.
A few days later, they would arrive at a Nightmare Seed they themselves had long scouted.
They had learned the history of the area, become familiar with the terrain, they were each more than powerful enough to take on the test.
The only thing that was strange about this group is that they were so young.
However, these were youths who were not raised with the same logic as the rest of the world. The idea of waiting any more to become Masters when they were already qualified seemed pointless.
They had a few Transcendent Memories between them, courtesy of the New Workshop and (though they didn't know it) Sunless.
Not only that, each and every one of them had a powerful Aspect.
Bitz, now 17 years old, had a Transcendent Aspect that allowed him to turn incorporeal. His Awakened ability allowed him to extend the privilege to objects he was in physical contact with.
Clair was once a sickly girl who had been saved by "The Red Judge" after he had taken in her and her mother. As one of the very first to enter into the New Workshop, she had gained a good bit of backbone. The scrappy young woman was 16, and she had an Aspect that was quite insidious. Allowing ailments or pains to be transferred to others with her Dormant ability, with her Awakened Ability allowing her to create mundane ailments.
Anton was the oldest, a late bloomer who was one of the oldest recorded individuals to enter the First Nightmare naturally (without coming to the Dream Realm first). He was 19, and thus the leader. Besides Bitz, he was the only one of that batch to receive a Transcendent Aspect. The powers of which were simple and potent. With his Dormant ability, he could restrain others with his gaze. As long as certain conditions were met, he could effectively imprison a Nightmare Creature with ease, especially because his Awakened Ability allowed the prisons to physically manifest, and be maintained without eye contact so long as he had Essence.
Isa was also with the original batch, though she had only an Awakened Aspect, her agility was greatly enhanced, and with the training of a Hunter, she was perhaps the deadliest of them all in a one-on-one fight. At the age of 18, she held the second in command spot.
Finally, there was the youngest. The Salient Artist, Milo. The catalyst behind this cohort challenging the Nightmare in the first place.
Through what could only be called a masterful piece of art, his desires were accurately interpreted by his friends.
If all went according to plan, he would be the youngest Master in history, and perhaps one of the most powerful.