The way the city and even the palace itself were built was stunning, albeit it left its own questions.
The architecture was reminiscent of various human-made structures of the flying cities under the Alastor Union, but lacked a clear resemblance to any concrete one of them.
Looking at the world through a mismatched pair of eyes felt disorienting, forcing Cale to lean against the closest wall.
The city blurred through his left eye. After a while, he only saw the outskirts of the capital — it was nothing but a barren wasteland with blackened sand… There was no sign of vegetation, let alone life.
This is what he was supposed to rule over… a kingdom of husks, a kingdom of nothing.
His vision slowly circled back with Moonless returning to his side, taking his place once more on his forearm.
"Neat trick, isn't it? But I'm not sure if it's useful in the first place." As the figure of the King of Hollows made his way through the empty corridors, the raven chattered all the way through.
"You know, Cale — Altair — or whatever you call yourself now, I couldn't care less. But ever since I opened my eyes, I can't stop flying — left, right, up, down. There's something so freeing about going wherever the wind takes me. You saw it too, didn't you? Through my eyes."
"Um-hum."
"You are a pretty boring guy, Cale. You know that?"
"Um-hum."
Cale couldn't feign interest, even though he had a role to play; with the crown on top of his head, he didn't have to put that mask on in front of the hollows.
And in front of Moonless, it was futile in the first place, with the remnant spirit of Deon still inside the newly born Lamb class entity, he would see through him instantly.
So for the time being, he didn't need to put on the mask, but that was about to change at tomorrow noon.
Even if it was a nation of husks, he struck a deal with the former King of Hollows.
So he had to defend it, even in times of war.
With Moonless perched on his forearm, nonstop blabbering by his side, he made his way back into Gilran's personal room, which was now his room.
Entering the room, Moonless hopped off Cale's forearm, "For some reason, I feel exhausted, must be the shedding. I have a quick nap, talk to you later, alligator."
With that, Moonless slipped back into the space conjured by Covenant, vanishing in a gentle flash of white light as Cale's essence stirred.
I need to get used to the company sooner or later.
With a sigh, Cale walked up to the back of the room, where the large double window stood, offering a direct view of the city and its bustling, yet artificial, life.
He grabbed the maps he had taken from the war council room and placed them onto the ornate desk.
The first map he had to learn by heart as soon as possible was a map of the Continent's kingdoms.
The first kingdom that piqued his interest was the kingdom in the southwest of the continent; its territories were anything but large, and even its geographical placement was unfortunate.
Its northern border touched the edge of the Whirlpool, forming in the middle of the continent.
Those living in the Alastor Union rarely set foot on the ground of the Lawless Abyss continent, but even their youngest knew of the great Whirlpool forming in its center.
It was a strange phenomenon; nothing that entered ever left it, and even being in proximity to it caused heavy contamination to anyone who went near it.
This kingdom's border touched the Whirlpool; the name of this kingdom was…
The Kingdom of Nothing — Cale's kingdom.
Looking at the bordering nations, Cale felt an incoming headache.
The kingdom of Paradise from the West, the kingdom of Blood and Iron from the North, and the Kingdom of Madness from the East.
Looking around the room, Cale could see that Gilran had information on most of the bordering nations, but the one he had the most on was the Kingdom of Madness.
Other than that, the rest of the intelligence was surface-level information at best.
There seems to be a long period of animosity between the two kingdoms.
Through the countless notes of Gilran just on the Kingdom of Madness, Cale learned that the Entity called Deadman's Wonderland was the Duke of this kingdom and governed over a territory called Suicide Circus.
There was too much information available, so much so that he couldn't finish it in a month, much less in a single day.
I need to focus on the details relevant to the animosity between the two nations and Deadman's Wonderland.
Looking around the room, he picked up all the stacks of paper relevant to those two pieces of information and looked around for everything the former King of Hollows kept on his own nation.
By the time he gathered everything and set it on his desk, an hour had already slipped by. He'd even had to clear the rest of the documents off the desk, stacking them in a corner just to make space.
He cast an exhausted glance at the pile of papers before he sat down in front of them and began to read through them one after another.
There were so many on such a wide variety of topics that the already exhausted Cale was mere moments away from passing out.
Reading through paper after paper, Cale let out occasional yawns that only increased in frequency the more time passed by.
All of a sudden, with the crown on top of his head, he felt the same feeling when he was in close proximity to the hollows — one of them was approaching him.
Three rhythmic knocks resounded on the surface of the hard wooden door of the former king's bedroom.
"Sire, may I come in?"
"You may."
The faceless attendant entered the room, in his left hand holding a silver tray with a still steaming cup in the middle.
"Thank you." The King of Hollows reached for the steaming cup of coffee, only to see the attendant's featureless face show a wide grin before deeply bowing, the silver tray staying not even shaking for a second as he bowed and left the room.
Left alone once again, Cale slowly took a sip from his coffee. Can the hollows react to my will even when they aren't in the proximity to the crown? It truly is a strange artifact.
Taking an even bigger sip, he returned to the mountain of documents in front of him while going over the relevant information.
He already knew that the Duke of Madness was going to attack from the eastern border, and thanks to the deep documentation made by Gilran, there was even enough intelligence on the duke and the flock he was about to lead to his doorstep.
Yes, the Duke of Madness, Deadman's Wonderland, was another shepherd of the Sixth tier, compared to the first Shepherd Cale met just this morning, Deadman's Wonderland was leagues above Fallen Leaves.
And worst of all, there was no guarantee that the Duke of Madness would march onto his territory alone.
But this time, Cale also had his own allies, entities on his side. Thankfully, even if it was troublesome to collect them all, there was also deep documentation on them.
But as he looked at his own side, his eyebrows rose.
Shepherd of the fourth tier, Shadow of the Past — Renoir.
Wolf of the fifth tier, Winter's Chill — Eleanore.
Two nobles in the Kingdom of Nothing.
That's all he had.