A blinding pain stabbed through Nico's temple.
The emotions in his head were no more than absent thoughts, not at all akin to what he truly felt when in the presence of other people. Instead, though the vast being tried to hide it, madness, hunger, and an insatiable desire to consume and grow was all that he could focus on.
Several kilometers away he sensed the six vile masses that composed its soul.
He easily realized the discrepancy.
'A mind-attack.'
The wretched tree was a Nightmare Creature, and not just any either. It was an Awakened Terror, and merely being in its territory could passively subjugate him. It even willed its own profane name into his head.
Luckily, Nico's very nature was to not be swept away by fantastical emotions without truth, so its hex would do nothing in that respect. No mind-attack, regardless of strength, would sway his feelings. Its ability to control him otherwise, though…
'Best not to tempt fate. Once it realizes that its typical attack doesn't work, it might simply try to take me by force.'
He gazed down at his Specter. Its possession was still buzzing in flight, carrying them along the crater's edge.
"Skirt around this thing's territory quickly. We'll loop the crater back to the Dark City."
Eagerly, Shaman broke into a terribly fast pace, distancing farther and farther away until the Soul Devourer's will no longer pervaded Nico's mind. The wind rushed by at furious speeds, seeping through the cracks in the Sleeper's armor and brushing frigidly against his skin. He gripped tighter.
Something wasn't right.
'It aggravated my wounds.'
He poured through everything he knew about his condition.
It worsened in the morning when he awoke, flared angrily after viewing the unfiltered depths of the [Herald's Locket], and continued to assault him when his soul grew stronger. It never fixed itself no matter how long he waited, only cascading further into failure like a single shattered gear in a precise machine.
He furrowed his brows in deep thought.
A dull pain assaulted him.
Then, it all clicked.
'It was so obvious.'
He should've recognized it the moment he left Kido's room with the pain in his mind — his mind: the very thing that controlled his entire body and soul, spawned his consciousness, and most likely housed his corporeal spirit within his head.
'Ah, I'm a fool.'
All this time he was looking for something visible and tangible. Something like blue blood. But, alas, he would've never found it. How could he crack open his head to view its interior? Even if he did, he reckoned it looked the exact same thanks to his keen observations with his soul sense.
It explained why he was in brief pain during the morning. Strangely enough, people don't dream in the Dream Realm, so his mind was just starting up, the broken pieces shaking off rust after eight hours of sleep.
It explained why his soul strengthening had only worsened him. His spirit was bound to mind, and that wasn't something he seemed capable of just healing. Increasing his own power only strained the deficient piece further.
Most of all, it explained why the whispers of deciphered emotions his Attribute showed tortured him. His mind simply wasn't capable of handling it.
'But… how do I fix that?'
After months of no progress, he had poured everything into the present, failing to wonder how exactly he would progress later.
Could he even fix his mind?
The first idea that arose was to find a healer, but he quickly dismissed it. That idea had already crossed him before. The healer Aspects at the Bright Castle didn't touch his soul injuries, so what were the odds they would fix a spirit one?
He pondered for a second.
'There's always that.'
Nico had figured, that first day after leaving, to create a new spirit. Sadly, the idea never came to fruition. The plan was to work with [Soul Roots] and have Shaman possess the body of a Nightmare Creature, then extract its spirit and use it as a raw material to rebuild his.
The [Herald's Locket] had… inspired him? Whatever it had done, it was long gone now, replaced with the usual emptiness. That path was a dead end. He was much too weak to interact with spirits.
'I'll just have to find a way.'
***
He spent the rest of the time in the air thinking, and several hours later, when they finally were out of sight of the tree's territory, he sighed and pushed his palms into his eyes.
'Nothing… Ther's nothing, and yet there are so many problems. More than there are solutions.'
Shaman retreated its influence, pitifully masquerading it as overexertion after the long journey.
Phantom pain blossomed once more.
He felt… unreasonably angry. It wasn't his anger, of course. It was Shaman's. Why the Awakened Devil wished for him to endure its own grievances for their situation escaped him.
But it lingered anyway.
Soon, he whispered to himself:
"Why is it always a punishment to feel anything? It's like I'm not even the same human anymore. I can't be angry without someone else. I can't be happy without someone else. Ever since my First Trial… No, before that."
He used to feel.
He used to have… goals.
Because first it was honest aspiration. Then his mom was murdered, and after that he lived solely for revenge — to bring a painful death like no other upon the man that had only sown ruin his entire life. And then, as if to mock him, the Spell struck even that pitiful desire from him. It snuffed it out like a blown candle and threw him into a damned region of the Dream Realm where he had no choice except forgetting it.
And after that… what could a man without any desire of his own want from the world? He reasoned that all beings had a purpose. He figured that he could follow what his old self would've done and was content with takings other's feelings for any meager enjoyment.
But that was wrong. Feeling any kind of emotion was foolish, and in the end, he gave up that path and followed the primal instinct shared by all living beings — survival.
He didn't need emotion to pursue that. He didn't need anything at all. It was intrinsically built into every being, and here in the age of the Nightmare Spell, on the Forgotten Shore, it meant power and freedom. It was the only thing that mattered, and since returning to the real world guaranteed his survival, he knew what he needed to get.
He knew what he 'wanted'.
But right now he couldn't help but feel indignant. What kind of lousy purpose was that? Why did he have to settle for less? There had to be something even he could find.
His finger twitched, and he suddenly got the idea to summon Jubei's morbid memento. Raising a hand, he watched the whirlwind of sparks appear, assemble, and dissipate, leaving only a silver teardrop in their place.
"What do you think?" he said, grasping the polished silver and flipping it open.
It had only shown him warped images, but perhaps that was for the better.
"What do I do? What other reason am I still alive other than living?"
He looked into the cracked mirror and watched it clear. For the first time, he felt like he understood what it was doing. It was so deceitful, that mirror, showing what should've been objective truth, but was really just his truth. What he really thought about himself.
Or maybe what someone else thought about him.
But, Nico couldn't really know, and just as the weight of reason overpowered Shaman's rampant emotion, the mirror pulled at his mind, and he found himself…
…in his very first nightmare.