Caster had bookmarked the telepathy ability. With it's help, he let a finger inside the book on the page of telepathy, secretly, under the table. Not letting the other's notice it.
Using that, he sent a telepathic message to Kai.
[Act shaken up by what I'll say, not too obvious though. And obviously, tell them that I'm telling the truth.]
Kai nodded slightly.
Gunlaug spoke up.
"Repeat what you said earlier."
"As I was saying earlier, the terror, the fallen terror of the crimson spire, will evolve to a corrupted titan in about a year. And if it does end up successfully evolving, we'll all die soon afterwards."
Hearing that Kai was genuinely shaken up. Because what Caster said to him was technically the truth.
"I-It's the truth."
This clarified all the doubts they had on Caster, well, not all but a lot of the doubts. After that, before continuing what he was saying, Caster turned over 3 pages of the book of books and inserted his finger there secretly, to get ready for puppeteering at any moment.
"The method, that I mentioned, the way to escape that terrible fate is nothing much but to let it happen."
The entire room was shaken up again.
"The truth again, sir."
Gunlaug motioned for Caster to continue speaking and told to Kai: "Speak up whenever he lies."
"When the terror tries to evolve, that will be the exact moment to strike it. Because it will be vulnerable during that time. It will be closer to a fallen monster or demon in pure strength during that time, though this last part is purely a guess on my part. I just know that it will be doable during that time."
Gunlaug looked over to Kai again.
Kai simply nodded, indicating it's the truth. Because it was, Caster had not lied yet.
"I see... So we'll have to attack it in a year or we will all die."
Caster nodded.
"Yes, but that's not all. We'll need to go through the crimson spire. Because the evolution will happen at its top."
The room went quiet again. One bad news after another.
"It is literally do or die right now. But this isn't all either..."
With a slight pause, he continued.
"...The terror's main attack, is a soul attack. So not just anyone can go fight it either."
Gemma spat.
"This is ridiculous!"
"Kai are you sure he's telling the truth? Or are you lying to us?"
"No! He's telling the truth! Why would I lie about that?"
The bickering continued between them for a few moments before Gunlaug said: "Stop."
And after that he leaned forward slightly and asked Caster something.
"So what is it that you want to do? What's your plan? How can we take on something that will be closer to strength to a fallen demon and has soul attacks?"
Caster gave him a slight smile.
"Me. I'll fight it."
"Why would you fighting it be any different than all of us?"
"Because I have resistance to soul attacks."
Kai simply interjected again: "It's the truth."
Gunlaug seemed to consider what his words meant so far and as he was in though, Caster spoke up again. And while Gunlaug was considering his words, Caster started the puppeteering ability.
Translucent black threads effused out of the pristene book of books and wrapped around Caster's arm. Soon after hundreds of them bound around them and shot forward towards Gunlaug's soul core and his brain.
'Come on, work, please, come on. Come on.'
And they did.
Caster could suddenly hear and feel everything Gunlaug was hearing and feeling.
Gunlaug was feeling a massive sense of dread and he was immensely shaken up. Rightfully so, who wouldn't be? Only someone like Caster with the fourth wall.
Gunlaug seemed to be thinking a dozen different things at once, each analysing everything that Caster was talking about since earlier.
Breaking his thoughts, Caster spoke up again.
"Only on one condition though."
Gemma interjected: "It's life and death for all of us including you and you want something in return for this?"
Gunlaug held his hands up, on his own, signaling Gemma to stop speaking.
Caster then said with a calm tone:
"It's because I need to be as geared up to fight the terror as possible."
Calmly, Gunlaug asked Caster: "What is the condition?"
"I want your transcendent Echo."
That truely caught him by surprise. He would obviously never give that to Caster, he couldn't trust him with that at all.
'But so what?'
At that moment, Caster shut down Gunlaug's thoughts and took full control of him.
'Okay. I'll give it to you.'
"Okay. I'll give it you you."
This caught everyone in the room by surprise.
'But only just before the battle.'
"But only just before the battle."
After that Caster himself spoke:
"No, I want it right now. I need to get used to the armor and its enchantments. And I also need to saturate my core, so battling with the echo will be the best thing for us."
Using pupeteering he made Gunlaug seem like he's thinking.
The act couldn't be any less than completely convincing for the lieutenants, to tame them. So he was taking his time with the act. But he was rapidly loosing shards due to that.
'Hah, I feel like Klein manipulating The World.'
Using puppeteering, Caster made Gunlaug speak again: "That would give you all the power on this castle."
"Sure it will, but it will also be the only chance for you and all of us to survive."
Again, Caster made Gunlaug speak: "So you want to be king? Fine. I'll do it. You'll have to promise my complete safety from the others though, from the monsters and the humans."
"Complete safety in this shithole is hard to achieve, but I'll provide as much safety as I can."
Again, Caster made Gunlaud speak before making him stand up and extend his arm towards Caster.
"Deal."
Caster took his hands and saw the echo on Gunlaug's body disintigrate off him. And soon after, he heard sweet voice of the spell.
[You have recieved an echo...]
'Hell yeah!'
Using puppeteering he made Gunlaug look at the shaken up lieutenants and make him speak again.
"Serve him as your king from now on. And Harus, treat him as me."
Caster coughed.
"I'll give you a safe place to hide. Kai you come."
Again, Caster controlled Gunlaug.
"Lead the way, and don't follow me, lieutenants."
The entire room was in shock.
The exchange didn't seem very believable. Why in the world would Gunlaug give in so fast? Was he truly convinced by him?
It felt fake.
But Gunlaug himself agreed to that, in front of them.
They had no choice but to believe it.
Even Seishan, who was the most quiet and observant of them all was worried. She also knew that Han Li is a clan under song, so she could, perhaps, take advantage of her being a daughter of the song.
But the world didn't know of that. Only after awakening were the Song sister's introduced to the world of legacies.
Kai, who was shaken up, followed with disbelief as well. The guy truly did it.
After going to a secluded spot in the castle, Caster made Gunlaug give him all his memories. He got thirty three memories. Each one was pretty good. However none of them were charms. He decided to check up on these memories later.
First, he needed to kill Gunlaug.
After reaching a secret place in Gunlaug's massive, personal room, he found out that there was a secret bunker underneath the bed.
"Kai, look out and make sure nobody is spying on us."
Kai simply nodded and patrolled around the corridor.
Afterwards, Caster simply brandished his blade and beheaded the tyrant of the bright castle.
His head rolled over the floor, dirtying it with his blood. The body collapsed into the bunker and soon his head was kicked into it as well.
Strangely, he wasn't hesitant at all while killing Gunlaug, despite it being his first human kill.
[The first fragment, 'The fourth wall' grew thicker.]
'Ah, I see why.'
[You have slain a dormant human...]
[Your soul growns stronger.]
Gunlaug had perished.
His reign was over.
His tyranny was over.
His nightmare was over.
He felt a vast amount of soul fragments flow into his cores, reinforcing them, vastly.
Caster sighed in relief.
He was worried about Harus jumping on him at any moment. Thankfully that did not happen.
Afterwards, Caster carved the soul shard in Gunlaug and absorbed that as well.
[Soul Fragments: 334/2000]
'So he was fully saturated, I got exactly 101, and that's 10% of the fragments plus the one I absorbed afterwards.'
Afterwards he closed the bunker and cleaned the place. Following that he shifted the bed over the bunker again and completely hid all traces.
'Unless someone with a tracing aspect traces this place, people probably won't find out.'
Then something clicked him.
'Wait... it will smell in just a few days. I'll have to get rid of this corpse as soon as possible.'
He had made a mistake. Fortunately he immediately realised it.
Following that, he shifted the bed again, opened the bunker again and put him in the storage bag he had. It was heavy, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle for a bit.
Unfortunately the bag didn't have much space, so he had to empty his other stuff. He wore the bag towards his back, summoned the white cloak he had to mask it slightly.
He was looking pretty good. Black armor, white cloak.
After that he fixed the room again and called out to Kai.
"Look over my stuff over there, and don't let anyone enter the room. I have to do a lot of clean up."
"Okay, what happened to Gunlaug by the way?"
"I killed him."
"Oh..."
"I'll be back soon."
'There's a ton of things left to do...'