The cohort didn't stay for long.
Apart from Cassie, everyone left soon, not wanting to disturb Caster much.
Effie especially was the one who avoided Caster.
Caster hadn't given her any response yet.
In Kieron's eyes, it was inevitable, circumstances had forced him to not be able to give her any response, whether it be positive or negative. But in Effie's eyes, Kieron was avoiding her. She took the response, or the lack thereof, as a no.
Caster, who was now in control, didn't really care about that. But for the sake of not complicating his relationship with Effie, someone with immense potential, he decided to wrap it up.
Through the wall of impossible communications, that allowed him to talk to certain people, no matter how far away they are, Caster connected to Effie.
[Hi... Effie... It's been a while since we talked. I'm sorry for disappearing right after we left the shore, certain circumstances forced me and I'm sorry for responding to you only like this... I wish I could say this to your face but I don't have the heart to...]
After saying that Caster waited, seeing if Effie would give a response back to him but seeing as there was not the least bit of her voice returning, Caster gave up trying to test the waters. With a sigh he continued his response.
[...I'm sorry but I can't respond to how you feel. I truly respect you as a friend and as a comrade, but due to certain circumstances... at my clan... I am supposed to be wed to Saint Moonveil. I can't annul the arrangement. I don't have the power to, and more than that, I need the protection they can provide me. I'm truly sorry. I still hope to remain friends with you. And I hope you don't hold this against me.]
Effie was silent for a while.
Caster could tell Effie was just delaying her response. It was very natural. She was a young adult rejected by her crush.
'I'm sorry, but I do not have time for you. Even Kieron had no plans of ever dating you, but he's a softer guy compared to me. Maybe he'd have given in.'
Even though Caster had thoughts like that, he didn't believe that Kieron would end up acting that way. He knew Kieron very well after all.
Eventually Effie replied.
[So... you're not engaged yet, right?]
'What is her intention?'
[Uh... no. The engagement is supposed to happen only after I ascend.]
'It can't be what I'm thinking... right?'
[That means there's still time for us to be... you know?]
Caster shook his head, as if Effie was in front of him, but of course she wasn't. He just wasn't used to talking using the wall.
[No, Effie. That's a terrible way of thinking.]
If one thing was ingrained into Caster's soul, it was loyalty to his clan and the supremes. After finding the truth about the world, and finding out more about the supremes, Caster's respect for them dimmed but didn't die out.
And more than that, Caster had a moral code himself. Even if he may act brutal and evil in some manner, it wasn't that he could do just anything. He wasn't inherently evil who enjoyed such acts. He simply followed a code, and the code itself was evil in the eyes of many.
Of course, Caster himself didn't see it that way. Despite getting Kieron's perspective on his actions, Caster was unmoved. He believed he wasn't evil and rejected such a possibility entirely.
Nevertheless, infidelity was out of the question for him.
Not just because of his respect and loyalty to the supreme's but also because his sense of self wouldn't condone it!
Caster didn't want to backstab Moonveil due to loyalty ingrained in Caster, but Kieron had other plans.
[Yeah, yeah, I know... I was just trying my luck, okay? Well this sucks. Hope you have a wonderful... wonderful marriage. I wonder how you'll handle saintly backshots-]
As usual, Effie's mouth was dirty.
'Maybe it's a coping mechanism...'
It looked to be that Effie had sorted her emotions out pretty well during the earlier silence. Maybe Effie was already prepared for such a response, as Caster had not given her a reply for months despite having the communication wall.
[Shut your damned mouth! I'm not gonna get pegged...]
After saying that, there was an awkward pause in the conversation. Caster continued his last sentence in an attempt to make the mood less awkward.
[...And it's a political marriage, I don't know how 'happy' the marriage will be. I had never met Saint Moonveil before.]
However, it was of no use. Neither Effie nor Caster were in a mood to talk to the other.
The seed of love met its end before it even began.
The soil, that is Caster, refused to feed this seed that Effie had planted.
After an awkward farewell Caster cut of the communication wall and sighed.
He then looked at Cassie who had been sitting on a chair nearby.
Caster's engagement to Moonveil was only known by Cassie, Effie and a few of the members of Song Clan and Han Li Clan, but he was sure it would spread to others soon. Effie is not someone who has a tight mouth.
'I hope it doesn't complicate much...'
She had heard the entire conversation... well, only from Caster's side. So it must have been a little incomprehensible for her.
And even if she understood it all, Caster didn't mind.
How could such little things pressure him? He had much bigger worries.
Cassie had stayed behind to discuss the future plans, and start setting things into stone. Kieron and Cassie had many of these discussion sessions secretly, mostly through the communication wall.
This was the first face to face discussion they would have after leaving the shore.
All the information about the dreadful future were known to both Caster and Cassie. They had discussed lots from their time in the forgotten shore, so Cassie should have a fairly calm expression.
However, what Caster saw was a grave expression on Cassie's face.
'Why is she like that?'
He wished to ask, but he kept quiet and waited for Cassie to speak.
However she kept quiet for a few minutes, as if she was unsure if she even wanted to talk. But nonetheless, she didn't waste too much time and spoke up soon enough.
"Ever since a week ago... my visions have been much clearer. And, they've started including you too. I was unsure of what caused that but now... I can see your aspect again."
That was worrying. Why did he suddenly start appearing in her visions when Kieron never did?
He had a suspicion...
"You... you lost the fourth wall didn't you?"
'Ahh, so we came to the same conclusion.'
Caster didn't want to reply to that.
Fourth Wall was the greatest resource that Kieron and Cassie had to fight against the visions Cassie got.
The lack of a response gave Cassie all the knowledge she needed.
With a sigh, she her expression drooped down.
Fourth Wall was Kieron's aspect legacy that seperated his soul from the world and made him look at it as if he was looking at a fictional world. This meant his thought process would be calmer, he'd be less mentally affected with the situations at hand, he'd feel less pain, he'd be completely immune to almost all soul and mind attacks, but the best benefit it had by far was that it allowed Kieron to alter fate, or to be more exact make it easier to deal with the consequences of altering fate.
Fourth Wall didn't alter fate itself, it was Kieron's and Caster's actions that did. After all, The fourth wall wasn't something that broke fate completely.
It was unlike what the Vile Theaving Bird did. The fourth wall lacked both power and initiative to do that. Maybe if Kieron returned and grew stronger, he'd be able to fully destroy fate, but there is nothing that indicates that to Caster at the moment.
The fourth wall was something that hid Kieron from his own and the world's fate. There was no destruction of his connection to fate. Instead it simply hid it. Making it harder for fate to fight back.
But because it caused ripples in the essence of the world, there was something equally powerful that opposed it.
The Demon King of Salvation, that Kieron had met through his aspect legacy, called it the Fate Restoration phenomena.
It would have occured even if he didn't have the fourth wall, but only on a larger extent. Kieron theorized that the reason he was given the fourth wall in the first place was to fight against this phenomena.
The fourth wall's true function was to cause ripples in the fate restoration phenomena. Everything else was secondary. Even the hiding of Kieron's fate from fate was part of the resistance against the restoration phenomena.
It was described as the most dangerous foe Kieron would face without fourth wall.
But now there was no fourth wall and Caster couldn't allow the fourth wall to return either. If, by change, it got restored earlier than Caster can make some preparations against it, Caster was sure in his mind that he would fall dormant again with potentially no chance to take his body back in the future.
If Caster lost this chance, would Kieron be stupid and incompetent enough to fall into such a situation again?
No!
Caster had no doubts that Kieron would do all in his power to make sure nothing like this happens again. And that is why Caster had only one chance to win this internal tug of war with Kieron.
Caster believed that Kieron's plan of attacking the Night Temple to get rid of Mordret this early was a major mistake. He believed Kieron rushed too much.
Kieron had everything going well for him, there was no need for him to rush so much simply due to knowing the future. Caster knew that Kieron just wanted to prepare for Antarctica much earlier, but so what? Him rushing nearly got him killed. It was a big risk.
And because of that gamble, Caster was the one in control!
Kieron lost the gamble.
If Kieron was patient and had went over to Mordret after becoming a Master, or a Saint, he'd have not made such a mistake. Caster would never have gotten the chance to take over.
Ever since Kieron's transmigration, he'd never made a mistake this severe. His leadership at the shore wasn't perfect and definitely had places he could have done better, like he dealt with Harus and Gunlaug in a rush, not making proper use of them. All this pointed to one thing.
Maybe it was due to the pressure of knowing the future, maybe it was due to the fear of death, maybe it was just his nature... or maybe it was an acculmination of all this... But the main point was, Kieron was impatient.
That impatience was something that led to him making big mistakes. And Caster was dead set on making full use of this.
The dead gods had given him a chance to fight back.
Getting back to the point, facing the fate restoration phenomena was less ideal too. In fact, he was not even sure whether or not he'd be able to continue with the grand plan that Kieron had left behind so kindly for him.
However, Caster had yet to see the effects of this dreadful phenomena. He couldn't make preparations against something so otherworldly and godly.
So a sense of anxiety was taking over him.
Not only did Caster have to somehow figure out a way to win this internal tug of war with Kieron, he also had to deal with the damned fate restoration phenomena.
The odds were stacked against him, but he wasn't one to give up so easily.
He had already sworn to see the task given to him, by himself, to the end.
Breaking Caster out of his thoughts, Cassie soft voice rang in Caster's ears again.
"The visions I saw of you... all of them were bad, almost downright deliberating."
Caster looked up and sighed.
"I expected that... this plan of mine ended up being a big misfortune. Fourth Wall was the only thing I- we had to fight against fate. The battle against Mordret didn't end up well. It was a humbling experience."
"So, what do we do now?"
"Report all the future sights you see to me, no matter how clear or cryptic they seem. Even if they may seem unrelated. We will discuss all of it together and try to decipher fate. And just maybe we'll be able to resist it. Apart from that, we continue with our plan as is. We'll make changes to it if it seems necessary, there's no point in being unpredictable because in the end, no matter how unpredictable we are, fate will always we one step ahead of us."
Cassue nodded. She was in tune with Caster's reasoning.
"Looks like we'll be spending much more time together now. I have a question though? Why are you so hell bent on resisting fate? Even more than me."
Caster didn't give much acknowledgement to the first part of Cassie's sentence and coldly replied:
"Because it is blocking my path."
'And to reap the greatest amounts of benefits for the future, its best to just alter the future which I can not do without altering fate.'
Cassie looked at that with a sense of understanding.
Cassie's reason to fight agaisnt fate is to not let her become entrapped by the knowledge she has. She wants to fight against fate so that no knowledge about the future burdens her.
Caster's reason was similar to hers.
Caster's involvement in the forgotten shore had left Cassie satisfied, knowing that her visions were alterable. But now she was in a perilous situation now that Caster lost his medium to resist fate.
However, she wasn't one to give in so easily.
It was now time to truly begin their discussions and analyse the future.
Cassie had her future visions and Caster had the Book of Books which could give him all the information in the world, as long as he had enough essence.
Without these, the two would have no way to do anything against fate.
***
In their meeting, after discussing all the information they had with each other about the future and discussing some key points, they planned on a few things to immediately start working on.
One was fixing the chain breaker for their second nightmare.
Cassie said that she'd get Sunny, Nephis and a part of the Gold Reapers to help her with that.
Caster had interjected and told Cassie to start working on it by herself only making use of part of the Gold Reapers, only for now though.
He told her that there was a more important thing for Sunny and Nephis to do.
That was for them to go hunt Marvelous Mimick.
Caster couldn't let Sunny not have that.
But last time Sunny fought the Mimick, he fell into the endless sky below, the literal void. He didn't want that to repeat, so he decided to send Neph's help.
The two were super close these days, so it was a good thing, it'd probably progress their relationship a bit.
'Why do I care about someone's love life?'
But maybe because Caster himself was getting married, Caster was getting more interested in the love lives of others around him.
Moving on, the most important plans for now was setting up the majority of Gold Reapers at optimal places.
It goes without saying but, the entire group can't stay at Ravenheart.
To squeeze out their effectiveness, a majority of them will be given tasks suitable for them. Whether it is to create memories, create a trading business with the Song Clan, training the new members of Gold Reapers that they will eventually get, or most importantly, to set the strongest of the members to get ready for the second nightmare.
Kieron's future plan near the climax of antarctica required a lot of masters.
And Caster wanted to follow it. Albeit, he'd have to make some changes as things go. Since nothing in this world works as one wants it to, especially if there's a restoration phenomena.
After Caster had analysed Kieron's plans, no matter how insane or reckless they seemed on the surface, they looked to have very high potential.
It was not that he had chosen to trust Kieron's plan, but he had chosen to believe in his judgement about the plan.
It is a risky game to try to change fate. Because altering it doesn't necessarily mean that it will be for the better.
One must be ready to take risks if they're aiming to obtain something better.
Especially if you're aiming for a better future.
Afterwards, Cassie was also given the task of spreading Nephis propoganda on top of fixing chain breaker.
Caster wanted it spread across the whole waking realm. If possible with strong foundations.
It would help Nephis a lot if- when she becomes a supreme.
There was a whole lot of things to consider as the ones in charge of a small organization. And because of that, there were a lot more things that were to be considered.
And because they were having a meeting after so long, and discussing the ways they could potentially control the future without fourth wall's help, it took hours upon hours to discuss it all.
They barely took breaks, only time they had a breather was when they ate.
They had been discussing from around 10 in the morning, to 11 in the night.
The next day, Master Raon went to check up on Caster since it had been reported that he hadn't came out of his room even once, despite having getting healed by a healer at the Santuary and also Nephis.
Since it was part of his own residence, he had forgotten to give a knock, due to the nature of it being so unfamilar.
He opened the door and what he saw gave him a slight smile. Caster and Cassie, both asleep on the large table, right next to each other with notebooks and stationary equipment spewed all over.
Raon found the moment heart warming.
'You'd never guess that the youth is a monster who defeated five masters by himself.'
Raon gave a chuckle and left the room. He decided to be tactful and let the youths be.