With her eyes locked on the intricacies of the sorcery within her memory, Asteria began to unravel it — bit by bit, aided by her newly formed intuition from [Eyes of Truth] and her prior knowledge of Runic Sorcery.
Although Runic Sorcery and this — what she called "Weaving" — were entirely different practices, they clearly followed the same fundamental concepts when put to use. The design of the weave itself, the specific power it created, and how it flowed through the object... they were all executed in distinct sections, matching the methodical way a Rune is carved.
Staring at the complicated silver weaves of the [Gourmet's Kitchen], Asteria finally sighed and shook her head in defeat. "Even if I have a good guess about what part is what, I still don't know what they actually do or how they do it."
'I'll need to start with something much simpler, I suppose,' she mused, resting her chin in her hand. 'It's not like Weaver is going to magically dump their entire library of sorcery into my head, will they?'
"Well. I can't put it off forever, and I'm far too curious now," she smiled, a spark of excitement cutting through her lingering fatigue.
Asteria was finally going to see what her new transformation ability actually meant when the Spell declared that its creations would abide by her changes.
Taking a deep breath, she pulled on the shifting power within her. Instantly, the Queen of Nightmare's body began to contour and shift, growing taller, leaner, and infinitely more fearsome.
With a quiet, fluid rustle, three more pairs of pale, slender arms extended cleanly from her torso like those of a spider. Glowing strings of pure violet essence floated lazily around her figure, twisting through the air whilst creating intricate, glowing geometric patterns directly on her bare skin.
She felt her face become covered by a thin, smooth veil — like wrapping her features in a translucent, light-absorbing substance that perfectly hid her identity yet didn't remove anything from her own line of sight. It was like a seamless, porcelain mask.
In short, she had transformed into a very special spider.
A creature remarkably like... Weaver.
"You're kidding? My transformation makes me look similar to that liar?" She huffed, instantly feeling a bit dejected. "I can't exactly say I'm not thankful since they've given me so many grand things, but I really didn't know I'd become just like them with this."
Looking down at her altered state, Asteria felt a massive multitude of conflicting things. She now had far more arms than she knew what to do with, and virtually no natural idea how to smoothly control them since the extra limbs felt so alien. To make matters worse, her physical vision was vastly different now.
It was deeper in some specific ways, yet shallower in others — she could easily see miles further, possessing a massive, panoramic scope of vision while simultaneously being able to narrow her focus down to the smallest of floating dust particles.
She felt incredibly expansive. That was truly the only way to put it into words. She felt bigger in the world, as if her presence took up far more space and she finally had the tangible ability to be someone important.
If nothing else, Awakened surviving in the Era of the Nightmare Spell were deeply adept at dealing with sudden randomness and physical change. She adapted quickly to her new multi-limbed reality and moved straight onto the next order of business.
The Queen of Nightmare decided to see what her transformation could actually achieve that wasn't just an alien change to her anatomy, and she was very surprised at what shifted.
Holding the [Gourmet's Kitchen] in one of her main hands, she reached towards the metal pan with her long, nimble fingers. Suddenly, she felt like she could directly interact with the glowing silver strings inside of it; her fingers could physically touch them, pull them across the framework, push them into new positions, or snap them entirely.
But what else could she do with this power?
She felt like she possessed far more direct control over her abilities overall — especially her awakened one. Before her transcendance, it was completely up to chance about what specific memory type would be created from a kill; but now, she had a sneaky suspicion she could actively choose the type it would be, and perhaps even dictate some of its properties upon creation — though she didn't want to put too much hope into the latter just yet.
Asteria could... truly and physically, interact with the Spell's creations. In fact, the sheer ease of it was almost baffling to her.
She looked down at the cooking memory in her hands once more and focused her enhanced vision on the individual shining strings. Asteria felt like she could grasp the true, underlying meaning behind their patterns; it was right on the tip of her tongue, as if she just needed a small, gentle push — no, maybe that was wrong to say. She naturally had an intuitive feeling about what the strings did and exactly how to recreate them; the power didn't force the understanding onto her mind, but it definitely guided her thoughts to the correct outcome.
"I wonder if I can create entirely new memories like this too," she whispered softly to herself, her voice muffled slightly by the porcelain veil.
The Queen of Nightmare had a few good guesses about how far her transcendent ability would let her manipulate existing items, and so she summoned her [Blade of Destiny], which was now equally elevated to the Transcendent rank.
The silver weaves inside the dark sword were horribly, beautifully complex — far more than she could ever hope to fully understand right now, even if she could intuitively break them apart and segment the patterns into smaller pieces.
However, she placed her slender, extra hands along the flat blade of the sword and carefully infused her essence into the metal — guiding the threads along like she was forming it into a better, more refined shape that was firmer, sharper, and far more deadly according to her own intentions.
Her [Blade of Destiny] responded beautifully, guiding her actions to further its own perfection. Her transfiguration ability was forcing her sheer will upon the blade to change its very complexion.
The cold voice of the Spell whispered in her ear after a few tense moments of concentration.
[Your Memory: "Blade of Destiny" has been enhanced.]
Memory Description: ["The Blade of Destiny is a weapon crafted and enhanced by the Daemon of Destiny himself — Nether.
It was uncovered by the Seeker of Truths upon learning the harsh reality of the Prince of the Underworld.
This blade has infinite possibilities and choices — just like the Divine who created it.
The Blade of Destiny will grow with its wielder, evolving in its strength and abilities.
This blade has been enhanced in its lethality, durability, and sharpness by the Queen of Nightmare."]
'Well. Now that's interesting,' she thought, her lips curving into a smile behind her mask.
Asteria knew a few basic facts about what she had just accomplished. Great Clan Valor was made largely of powerful warriors and enchanters — Infusers, Forgers, Spellsmiths, and Scribes. The Queen of Nightmare seemed to be able to seamlessly replicate the roles of both an Infuser and a Spellsmith using her transfiguration. However, as someone with a quasi-mastery over ancient Runic Sorcery, Asteria believed she could easily take on the role of a Scribe, too.
A Scribe could use Runes to enscribe directly onto an item to enhance it or add entirely new magical effects — namely using Runic Sorcery. A Scribe could most easily do their job when an item had already been properly infused by an Infuser, which Asteria could conveniently do all by herself, as she had just proven with her [Blade of Destiny].
"What would I even carve onto it, though? I already have nearly everything I need on this weapon," she mused aloud, contemplating through her massive library of Hope's Teachings.
Leading her sharp intuition along, Asteria began carefully carving three distinct runes into her Blade of Destiny, aiming to form a cohesive runic sentence that would fundamentally alter the weapon's combat effects.
She carved the Name of Separation, the Name of Piercing, and the Name of Finding a Path.
By combining these three specific runes, Asteria hoped to create a brand-new effect that would help her completely ignore the armour or physical defenses of another living being — or at the very least, allow her to strike the weakest point in their defenses consistently during high-speed fights.
The Name of Separation was a simple, clean line splitting a perfect circle — very similar to the True Name of Splitting the Sky. The Name of Piercing was shaped like a sharp arrow driving straight through a solid shield. The Name of Finding a Path was easily the most abstract of the three, looking like a small, soaring bird — whatever a bird was — flying within an empty sphere.
As her fingers finished tracing the essence into the hilt, the metal flashed with a deep violet sparks.
[Your memory: "Blade of Destiny" has been enhanced.]
Memory Description: [" ...This blade has been enhanced in its lethality, durability, and sharpness. This blade will ignore the defenses of those weaker than the wielder and strike the weakest points of those who are stronger.
The Blade of Destiny has been enhanced by the Queen of Nightmare."]
"Haha!" She laughed aloud, her voice full of pure glee as her multiple arms gestured in celebration. "I actually did it! I made a completely new effect! Suck on that, Noctis! Hundreds of years of study my foot, I managed it in just a few months!"
Asteria casually chose to ignore the convenient fact that she possessed a unique attribute allowing her an innate understanding of all sorcery, a transcendent ability that allowed her to physically manipulate memories, and that she had been handed the entire dictionary of Runic Sorcery directly into her head — because at the end of the day, only the successful outcome mattered, right?
The Queen of Nightmare checked her soul to inspect how much essence she had consumed while experimenting with her new ability. Activating the transformation and maintaining its form didn't cost much essence at all, it was practically negligible. However, infusing her sword was slightly noticeable — perhaps because the blade was already nearly perfect — and carving multiple permanent runes into a blade of the same rank as herself cost about a single core's worth of essence. Still, that wasn't a lot compared to the incredibly powerful armor-ignoring effect she received for it.
"Oh... right. I'm a Saint now," she pondered to herself, letting her transformation dissolve as her extra limbs melted back into her body. "I need to go officially claim my citadel before Eunbin does. I don't trust her to leave it alone."
Traveling between the waking world and the dream realm was much less disorienting for her now; she could at least tell what exact direction she would face upon arrival and felt much less resistance when pulling on her tether to travel. 'I can even bring other people along with me now, right? That would have been incredibly nice to have months ago. But I guess I never actually tried doing it before.'
The Theatre of Crystal was much quieter now than it had been during the invasion. The Queen of Worms had presumably returned to Ravenheart, and all that remained in the area was the minimal personnel stationed to protect the outer walls and maintain the Citadel.
And today, the grand Citadel was finally finding its true Saint.
Walking slowly towards the grand gateway, Asteria found her way through the hellish desert sand that still felt like a dim, annoying burn on her skin, despite her becoming much more like a powerful demigod than a fragile mortal. "I really hoped becoming a Saint would let me ignore the desert heat entirely, but I guess you simply can't have everything..." She shook her head disappointingly, though it wasn't a surprising outcome.
Binding a wild Citadel to yourself was very much like placing a tether in the waking world to return to; the process felt completely natural and was done almost entirely on instinct. Only, a Saint's tether was much more profound and carried far more symbolic weight on the world than a regular ascended's anchor. It bound the physical structures to her soul, granting her absolute ownership.
As she reached the central dais and placed a new tether, the voice of the Spell chimed.
[You have bound a Citadel: "Theatre of Crystal".]
Asteria smiled warmly when she heard that, a massive pang of triumph flooding her senses. "Ah... now that feels incredibly good. True territory!"
Suddenly, her [Spell Sense] alerted her that something else within the palace grounds had become tangible for her to feel and interact with. "Oh?"
Looking up towards the highest tower where the feeling was radiating from, Asteria felt a sudden wave of utter dread wash over her.
"That damn bell keeps haunting me every single time," she shivered, her mood instantly souring just looking at the structure. "I absolutely hate bells. Any kind of alarm, really, they're just gross."
Maybe she was overdoing her reaction, and maybe she wasn't actually truly scared at all — but she truly did dislike bells or grand clock towers — whatever a clock tower was supposed to be.
The Queen of Nightmare found herself begrudgingly climbing the winding stone stairs up the tower that reached toward the sky, quietly scolding herself the entire way up for going through with this all just to satisfy her own curiosity.
Staring at the gigantic, crystalline bell hanging in front of her at the top of the tower, the Spell whispered in her ear.
[You can use the Component: Shrouding Bell]
"Oh. So that's what this component is called," she nodded wearily, crossing her arms. "And why exactly does it have to be a bell, pray tell, Spell?"
Activating her Transcendent ability once more, Asteria gazed directly at the component the spell had alerted her about. After staring at it for a few moments, she sighed in heavy retaliation, throwing her multiple arms up into the air in mock failure.
"Interact with the Spell's creations... And yet I still can't change where the component is physically located?!" She sobbed dramatically, a fake tear rolling down her porcelain mask. "Fine, can I at least use the component as it is?" she politely asked the Spell.
All at once, without her physically touching it, the giant Bell began to heavy toll.
BONG...
BONG...
BONG...
The vast desert sands surrounding the Theatre of Crystal were suddenly thrown violently into the air like a massive, swirling sandstorm circling around the Kingdom of Glass. However, the horrifying whirlwind never actually touched or destroyed the glass kingdom, nor did it dirty the freshly cleaned white marble of the citadel.
The roaring sandstorm simply surrounded the perimeter, shrouding the entire kingdom in deep mystery and hiding it away from any prying eyes — looking exactly like how Asteria had found the secret Kingdom the very first time when she was nothing more than a mere, frightened sleeper.
"My daughter, you never told me you had officially become a Saint."
A sharp, familiar voice suddenly rang out from the stone archway opposite the hanging bell, cutting through the echoing tolls.
Asteria turned her head, her eyes narrowing. Sitting on the cracked stone railing was a small, pitch-black crow.
A personal puppet of Ki Song.
"Hello, Mother."