"Master Arthur, are you awake?" He heard a feminine voice at that moment but couldn't identify exactly who it belonged to.
Turning his head in the direction of the voice, he found himself looking at a young woman with dark hair in a bun and eyes of the same color. Her face was delicate, yet she lacked the typical beauty of an Awakened.
Arthur actually knew who the woman was, though he had only seen her once.
"Ms. Beth?" he asked, though he already knew the answer.
The woman's cheeks gained a slight pink color as she nodded.
"Y-yes… it's me."
He put on a confused face at that moment… Coughing slightly, he asked.
"Can I ask what you're doing here?"
Beth looked at her hands, and following her gaze, Arthur noticed there was a screwdriver in them. Then he looked at the panel on the side and noticed it was slightly melted and had its cover open.
"Well… due to certain events, em… the panel overheated, and they asked me if I could fix it…" A breath. "I couldn't stand the feeling of doing nothing, so I volunteered at the hospital!"
Arthur nodded at the response and gave her a slight smile.
"I see… tell me, what caused the panel to overheat?"
Beth froze.
"Ah, uh… I was ordered not to answer that, Master Arthur." She turned painfully slowly toward the door, as if praying someone would come through it and save her.
Sadly for the scientist, that didn't happen.
Arthur put a polite smile on his face.
"Just call me Arthur, and please, I insist."
Beth hesitated for a bit, then she could only let out a sigh.
"After the incident you suffered, your father, well, he was emotionally affected." She swallowed. "He argued with a couple of doctors, and it seems he unconsciously used his Aspect, which… which burned some machines."
She closed her eyes upon finishing speaking. If there was one thing she was taught, it was never to speak about the relatives of members of Legacy Clans. Yet she had just done it, and as if that weren't enough, it was about one of the most famous Ascended of today! And to his face!
'I'm dead.'
"You mean that after I fell asleep again, my father argued with doctors and burned the machines without realizing it?" Arthur summarized everything directly.
'Oh, I'm so dead.'
Beth nodded but didn't open her eyes, expecting the worst.
But that never came. The next moment, Arthur began to laugh slowly, incredulously. When he finished, he raised another question.
"But why? What led him to argue with some doctors?"
She opened her eyes and gave him a strange look.
"I don't know how to say this, Mast—" She coughed. "Arthur… but, you didn't 'fall asleep' again." A breath. "You were dead for twenty-one seconds."
Arthur quickly turned his face toward the scientist. His neck hurting when he did, but he paid it no mind.
"Repeat that again. Please."
Beth shifted uncomfortably in her seat. And to her fortune, this time Fate did want to save her.
Sylvie's figure entered through the door running and, without hesitation, rushed to the side of the bed, completely ignoring Beth's presence.
"Arthur!" she said in an emotional voice while her eyes began to fill with tears.
He opened his arms, and she didn't hesitate to throw herself into them.
Her body fell onto Arthur's, generating a slight groan from his throat at the moment of contact, but that didn't stop him from wrapping his painful arms around her and squeezing tightly.
The image of Sylvie with a wound on her clavicle came to his mind like a crossbow shot, and his arms squeezed even tighter.
Beth, noticing she was superfluous in the room, closed the melted panel and checked that everything was working correctly. When she confirmed it, she got up from the chair and went to withdraw.
Before she could leave through the door, Arthur slowly raised his hand, and she froze.
Poking his face out to the side, he gave her a genuine smile and said softly, "Thank you."
Beth, frozen, began to gain an intense red color on her face, and from embarrassment, she could only nod and stormed out of the room.
On her way out, she collided with Sunny, but before she could impact the ground, he leaned forward and held her by the waist.
Their faces extremely close.
Beth went from having a red face to having it the color of hell. Her embarrassment was about to touch the skies.
"Are you okay?" Sunny asked, not realizing the scientist's state…
Beth's widened eyes traveled across his entire face, centering on his onyx eyes for a few moments before traveling to his lips, lingering there for a few seconds, and finally centering on Sunny's perfect pale skin.
She pushed him the next moment, moving a couple of steps away.
"What do you think you're doing!" she shouted without shame in her voice.
Sunny frowned and tilted his head to the left.
"What do you mean?! You were the one who bumped into me!"
"What!" she blurted out."Clearly it was you!"
His face transformed into confusion.
"Eh? Are you crazy?! You know what? Better not answer that, because I already know the answer!"
"Oh, you do?" Beth took a step forward while pointing at him with her finger. "Please, explain to me why then, if you dare!"
Sunny paled.
"Wha… yeah, I do! But no, I'm not going to explain anything to you!"
The scientist puffed her cheeks and circled him. When she was beside him, she stuck her tongue out at him and finished leaving.
Sunny gritted his teeth.
"How childish!"
Beth ignored him, and Sunny let out a sequence of curses.
Inside the room.
Arthur and Sylvie were holding back their laughter with all their being upon hearing the conversation outside. Both had their hands covering their mouths while suppressing all sound that threatened to escape from their temptation.
Moments later, both had to try to behave normally when Sunny entered the room.
Sunny was wearing a simple tunic of fine, soft silk the color of rich and beautiful black, with intricate patterns embroidered using silver thread along the collar, hem, and sleeve edges. The hem reached just below his knees, while the sleeves ended at his elbows.
His face showed that of an annoyed man.
Arthur and Sylvie looked at each other and mentally confirmed that neither had evidence of the laughter they had while listening to Sunny and Beth's conversation. Still, he looked at them strangely for a few seconds, standing in the doorway.
"Both of you heard that, right?" Sunny asked, but neither of them responded. Still, the non-response was a response in itself. "Damnation…"
Taking a deep breath, Sunny went to comment on the latest news.
"Arthur and Sylvie, First Command is calling us to a last-minute conference." Looking at Arthur's state, he asked, looking at him, "How are you feeling?"
Sylvie nodded while Arthur smiled politely at him.
"I'm alright. And by the way, I'm sorry about the death of the member of your cohort. Dorn must have been a very good person."
Sunny put a bitter smile on his pale face.
"Yeah, he was."
A slightly uncomfortable silence took over the room. But Sylvie broke it quickly.
"Sunny, go ahead to the conference. We'll catch up soon."
"Okay." He nodded and left the room.
As soon as Sunny withdrew, Sylvie approached a wheelchair that had been left near the bed and brought it over.
Arthur felt quite embarrassed at the possibility of important people seeing him in a wheelchair, but there was no other option.
Exerting the minimum force possible to avoid his muscles hurting, Arthur moved to the edge of the bed while Sylvie brought the wheelchair closer. In a coordinated movement between the two, he ended up seated in it.
Sylvie began pushing him through the hallways while they talked about the state of things.
The medical wing was far from the conference room, which was why it took them a while to get there. Along the way, the message that Regis killed a creature reached his ears every few seconds.
A couple of minutes later, both arrived at the conference room.
It was still in its usual state, with only an image projected on the false window, which had changed every day.
The number of people in the street was much fewer, with perhaps twenty million remaining to be evacuated. Visibility was worse every day, due to the storm that didn't stop increasing its power.
If in the previous conference the room seemed empty with eight people, now there were fewer… for different reasons.
None of the representatives of the House of Night clan were present. Arthur didn't know the reason. Then, Winter wasn't present either.
The few members in the room were Jet, Sunny, and his father. As soon as the two entered, they looked at him and then at the wheelchair.
Jet looked at him with compassion in her eyes.
"Are you okay, Art?"
"Yes, I am." He smiled at her. "My muscles hurt a little, but I'm fine."
Jet let out a breath of relief and nodded.
"Good, because we're going to need all your strength."
"What happened?"
Jet looked at the rest of the members and cleared her throat, abandoning her general posture upon feeling surrounded by people she trusted.
"The situation is very bad." Her eyes were somber and tired. "Saint of Sorrows is incapacitated and won't be able to continue fighting."
A gasp escaped Sylvie without her realizing it, while the expressions of the other three hardened.
Jet continued, crushing their morale.
"The Winter Beast is coming, and there's no one to stop it. It's over. Maybe tomorrow, or the day after that, anyone who still remains in this city will die… there's nothing else we can do."
Sunny shook his head.
"It's not all over. Even without the Saint of Song, we still have a Transcendent. Us five with Regis and Bloodwave… we should be able to give the Winter Beast a fight. Arthur already killed one Titan with Sylvie, and everyone else defeated another, so why can't we kill this one too?"
Jet somberly shook her head.
"There's an abyssal gap between a Fallen Titan and a Corrupted one in terms of power. Mournwing didn't represent the typical Titan—he was more like a Tyrant in relation to his powers." A breath. "Besides, neither Saint of Sorrows nor Cormac could actually fight the creature—they only harassed it, many times together. Even then… you don't really understand it, do you?"
Sunny frowned.
"I guess not. What is it exactly that I don't understand?"
Jet didn't respond, but Reynolds did in her place, letting out a grave sigh.
"Sunny… there are currently around twenty million people left in Falcon Scott, as well as twenty thousand soldiers or less. There are also a thousand or so Awakened veterans. However, all of them combined wouldn't be able to do anything against a Corrupted Titan. Even if there were ten times more, the result would be the same. Yet Saint of Sorrows and Cormac held the creature back for three months. What does that mean?"
He stared at him silently for a while, then turned away with a dark expression on his face.
"…It means that two Saints are worth more than twenty million people, twenty thousand soldiers, and one thousand Awakened."
"Even one Saint is more valuable," Sylvie added.
Arthur participated at that moment.
"Besides, it's not us five plus Bloodwave. I'm in bad shape—maybe Sylvie can help me recover, but even then, I won't be able to do anything against a creature of such magnitude. Also, do you think they're going to let the Saint travel across the strait unprotected?"
He shook his head and continued, "He is possibly unconscious and vulnerable. What happens if something attacks the ship? Neither Army Command nor Song would allow that to happen. So the House of Night will do their best to protect the most valuable asset… which means that Bloodwave won't be here when the Winter Beast arrives."
Sunny gritted his teeth, trying to suppress the blinding fury that threatened to consume his mind.
"…This is such crap!"
Jet's face twitched, but she calmly shook her head.
"No. It's simply resource management."
Sunny stared at her with bewilderment for a few moments, then suddenly laughed.
"So, what? This is it? It really is all over? What about the rest of the poor fools who are still stuck in this city?!"
Jet shrugged and remained silent. Then Reynolds said evenly:
"Well, there are twenty million people left here. With the current speed of evacuation… If the Winter Beast comes tomorrow, close to twelve million will die. If it comes the day after tomorrow, six million will die. Theoretically. Of course, in reality, things are not going to go that smoothly."
Sunny gave him a dark look.
"…How so?"
He sighed.
"Something like that… it won't remain a secret for long. As soon as the rumors spread, this whole city will go crazy. Evacuation queue? Forget about it. People will be storming the port and jumping off the cliffs. It's going to be pandemonium."
Sunny opened his mouth, startled by his callousness. However, it only lasted a moment, and then he cursed.
"So what are we supposed to do? The five of us, I mean. I… I refuse to believe that there's no way to slow down the Winter Beast. Come on! We just need to hold it off for a couple of days."
Jet gave him a long look. After a while, she said:
"Sunny… you might survive the descent of the Winter Beast. But what about the rest? Ascended like us have no business facing a Corrupted Titan. As for Awakened? Mundane? They don't stand a chance. So, if I were you, I would make sure that the members of your cohort get on a ship as fast as possible. Everything else comes later."
He smiled bitterly.
"That's it? You're a damn colonel. Can't you do something?" He turned and looked at Arthur and Sylvie. "And you two? A princess and prince of Song. Are you going to tell me Song don't care if so many people die?!"
Arthur and Sylvie looked at each other but didn't know what to say at that moment. Jet simply shook her head.
"Once the news breaks, my rank won't have any meaning anymore. Who cares about hierarchy in the face of annihilation? Sunny… this is going to be an every-man-for-himself situation very soon. We… we are all going to have to make some choices—even Art and Sylvie. The best we can do is make sure that we don't regret them later. So… keep that in mind, and do your best.
That's all the advice I can give."
She sighed, then briefly glanced at Reynolds, Arthur, and Sylvie and got up from the chair to withdraw. Before she left, however, Sunny shouted:
"Oh, yeah?! So are you going to get on a ship yourself?!"
She paused and remained silent for a few moments, then said without turning back: "…I sort of hate ships, to be honest. It is really a pity." And then she left.
Sunny found himself gritting his teeth hard and turned to look at the others. He said nothing as he shook his head, sneered, and walked away.
Arthur, watching him leave, could only let out a sigh. Looking at his father, he asked:
"Even now, you don't plan to leave?"
Reynolds shook his head. "My answer remains the same." And he followed the rest, getting up from his chair and withdrawing from the room.
Sylvie watched all this in silence. She had only participated once in the conversation. Looking at Arthur, she said:
"I'm going to talk to some Nightwalkers to get Beth and Professor Obel onto one of the ships before the news becomes public."
He nodded, seated in the wheelchair.
"Do you know if we can devise some plan to eliminate the Winter Beast?"
Sylvie puffed out one side of her cheeks and began to think.
"If we combine all our forces, maybe we'll be capable of doing something. You with Regis have the greatest offensive power possible, with Jet second. Sunny, with you, has the best mobility." A breath. "Your father, with his Aspect, is capable of withstanding the cold of the storm, while I am the most versatile with Sunny, in addition I'm a healer."
"If we play our cards right, we would be able to at least get close…" Arthur concluded.
Sylvie nodded while she began pushing the wheelchair.
"But before devising any plan to fight a Corrupted Titan, you should worry about recovering."
"I know." His face transformed slightly. Now there was a slight smile on it. "Let's try to kill a Corrupted Titan, Sylv."
---
Again in the hospital room, Arthur was finally alone.
Now he could start analyzing the dream—or whatever he had—in addition to confirming something he had realized when he woke up.
'The Aether channels of my core expanded…'
Comparing his only two moments, Arthur realized that with each increase in his rank, his channels expanded and allowed him to use more Aether, in addition to the increase in its quality and power.
When he was a Sleeper, his channels were like veins, then, the day before yesterday they were like hoses, and now they felt like small rivers, making the flow of Aether higher than previously.
That's where what happened to him the last day comes in.
The only difference between two days ago and today was his shameless use of Destruction and the brief moment Former King was activated.
Arthur doesn't consider that the first was the cause of the widening of his Aether channels. This is because, although he had never used the Attribute in such a way, it wasn't a characteristic of it.
Former King, on the other hand, was stranger.
Arthur noticed how, instead of a single new layer appearing in his mind, now there were several, clearly showing that the Attribute evolved once he Ascended. This could fit with the fact that Grey's presence was imbued in the Attribute.
So, as long as he keeps rising in rank, the Attribute will accompany him in his growth, allowing Grey's presence to amplify each time he uses the Attribute at a new rank.
When he becomes a Saint, the Attribute will surely allow him to have even more active layers of thought, and even perhaps more control over them.
Now, the matter of what he saw when he died. The thought of having died made his body tremble slightly.
Arthur realized immediately that the scene was strangely similar to his Soul Sea.
The clouds in the sky representing his knowledge of the Godrunes. The sand forming his island that would be beneath his feet…
Obviously, the seven suns shining with a purple light were missing, which meant it wasn't exactly his Soul Sea.
Then, the scene of the throne…
The first figure that formed on the throne was clearly Grey.
He remembers that in his First Nightmare, he was sitting in the same way.
Then the figure changed, and at that moment, he appeared on the throne with an expression of sadness, pain, and fatigue.
Representing his clear disdain for accepting his Fate as king.
The translucent hands represented the people around him and how they were the ones crowning him as a King. Yet, at the same time, it was Fate itself that controlled them to do so.
But he found something strange in all this.
Why was the background completely consumed by darkness? Why didn't Grey have hands placing the crown, or why were there no threads of Fate doing it? Were those actually threads of Fate, or something else? How could he even see them?
The number of questions Arthur found himself asking was too many…
Still, slowly, his head was generating theories…
'Maybe… that wasn't my Soul Sea…'
That would explain why the background was completely consumed by darkness and why there were no seven suns in the sky.
That Soul Sea was surely Grey's.
The issue was, how could he even enter it? Or see it? The answer could be because they are, in theory, the same person?
That could explain it…
'Grey didn't have hands placing the crown because he accepted wearing it… He accepted Fate's chains.'
While he hadn't. That's why the representation of other people crowning him with a displeased expression. The threads of Fate were forcing them onto him but using other people as a conduit to achieve their objective.
That generated another doubt… why would Fate use other people to achieve it? Isn't Fate supposed to be all-powerful? Being in the past, present, and future at the same time?
The only answer he could think of was that… he has no threads of Fate.
Something that should be impossible but at the same time being a reincarnated person should also be impossible…
'If Grey is dead and I am Grey, wouldn't that mean I have no threads of Fate connecting me to anyone—because I shouldn't exist, since as far as Fate is concerned, I am dead?'
Another thought crossed his mind: 'Since I don't go by the name Grey—but rather Arthur—people can remember me; but if I were to call myself Grey, would they forget I exist?'
The concept is confusing at the same time as very far-fetched. Yet what other explanation could exist?
This would also fit with the complete darkness in the Soul Sea and the lack of suns. In addition to the fact that he could see the threads of Fate, since Grey told him in his First Nightmare that he searched for them to see his future and found it hidden.
Maybe it wasn't exactly that they were hidden, but that they didn't exist, and Grey told him a half-lie, half-truth. Which would fit very well with his rank.
Now the issue is that due to all this, he can now feel the presence of the map Grey left in his soul. In fact, maybe it was always there, and he only activated it at such moment.
By becoming more like Grey in rank, he was able to make a stronger connection with the mark in his soul and come to feel it more clearly.
The connection amplifies each time Arthur rises in rank, meaning that the widening of his channels counted slightly as a rank increase…
'Am I now half-Ascended, half-Transcendent?'
It was an idea that brought much amusement to Arthur, especially now that in days they were going to have to face a Corrupted Titan…
Arthur couldn't help but smile widely at this realization, though he also had a slight fear at the possibility of Grey reincarnating in his body when he reached a high enough rank…
'…Better focus on the now.'