[Preparing for your evaluation...]
Ash opened his eyes upon hearing the voice of the nightmare spell. Instead of finding himself filled with pain, fear, and despair, he felt calm. Strangely calm.
The sensation of being watched and judged, the intuition that had been guiding him somewhere, had vanished. For the first time, he was safe, truly safe.
And yet, he still felt his chest tighten and his heart ache. He had won, he had passed the test of the nightmare spell, he had survived his first nightmare.
He was just an ordinary human, coming from a peaceful world without terrifying monsters, without the constant danger of death, without any talent other than his strong will to live.
To live.
That was the only thing he did, the only thing he could do: survive. He wanted to live. He didn't want to die; death scared and terrified him.
Ash sighed. His emotions were still chaotic, and it would take him time to assimilate the reality of his current situation.
Looking around, he observed fog, but it was thin, covering some areas. The sky was a light gray color, and the atmosphere was similar to cloudy days before rain.
Looking down, he saw he was standing on a watery surface. It was water.
No, more accurately, he was inside his Sea of Soul.
Ash had only one desire, and that was simply to have a peaceful life without having to fight anything dangerous, or not having to fight at all.
He had killed things that were above his level. He still didn't understand how he did it, but he got lucky. He killed a dormant beast, then he killed an awakened beast that took the form of his deceased mother.
Then he kept killing, and killing more awakened beasts, and perhaps some awakened monster, and in the end, he killed a Fallen Terror.
A nightmare creature so vast and powerful that the fact that someone like him killed it was unheard of. And he survived the Nothingness by clinging to his sense of identity, using his will to live to achieve it.
He let out a sigh.
[You have obtained a Memory: Mantle of the Mist]
"I guess that was the memory I got from killing the Terror," Ash murmured to nothing in particular. It was just him and nothing else.
As far as he knew, there were seven Ranks. The Ranks were the order to ascend: Dormant, Awakened, Ascended, Transcendent, Supreme, Sacred, Divine.
There were also seven Ranks for Nightmare Creatures.
Dormant, Awakened, Fallen, Corrupted, Great, Cursed, Unholy.
Ash knew he had killed a Fallen Terror, so following logic, he obtained a Memory of the sixth level of the Ascended Rank.
Ash waited there in his Sea of Soul, still assimilating everything that had happened in less than four days. Finally, after a while, he heard the voice of the spell. This time it was extremely clear and understandable.
[Awakened! Your trial is over]
[In the Misty Mountains, an -Unknown- awoke as a mercenary in a doomed caravan. Night after night, the caravan was attacked by the Spawn of Mist, who killed his companions. He saw the young man who saved his life die, the veteran who taught him to fight die, all of them. When only he remained facing the Fallen Terror, his body broken and without hope, he threw his last weapon directly into the beast's eye. Without strength, the -Unknown- was enveloped by the Nothingness, about to be erased. However, the -Unknown-, with his great will to live and his tenacity, overcame the Nothingness, surviving it.]
[You have defeated forty-two Dormant beasts: Spawn of Mist]
[You have defeated thirty-five Awakened beasts: Spawn of Mist]
[You have defeated one Fallen Terror: Progenitor of Mist]
[Your Attribute: Child of Nothingness is evolving]
[You have obtained a new Attribute: Blessing of Nothingness]
[You have achieved the impossible]
[Final evaluation: Glorious. Your need knows no bounds.]
[Sleeper Ashfall, receive your blessing!]
'Well, I guess this is where it all begins,' Ash thought, not really feeling happy about it.
[You have been granted a True Name: Dream of Oblivion]
[Your Aspect is ready to evolve. Evolve Aspect?]
Ash blinked upon hearing his True Name.
"Yes," he murmured distractedly.
[Aspect: Latent Wraith is evolving...]
[New Aspect acquired.]
[Aspect Rank: Divine.]
[Aspect Name: Phantom]
Ash summoned his runes, finding the lines of text floating before him that only he could see.
Aspect: [Phantom]
Aspect Rank: Divine.
Aspect Description: [Your existence is not tied to the physical world. You can slip between the material and the immaterial. Between presence and absence, between being seen... and being forgotten. While others live in the world, you walk the veil that separates it from nothingness. As a phantom, you possess great and strange powers.]
Innate Ability: [Soul Guide]
Innate Ability Description: [Your intuition guides you towards where you wish to go. As a guide of souls, you can attack the soul of those whose will is not superior to yours, or directly give it forms.]
Ash read the runes calmly. His head tilted slightly to the side. His innate ability was, at best, a genuine trick ability.
Honestly, he didn't know what to expect from it. Attacking the soul was undoubtedly very useful. Although there was the detail of the will. If his enemy's will was superior to his, his attacks wouldn't damage their soul. This was something he had to keep in mind.
Well, it wasn't that it was useless, but rather he simply didn't know how to use it yet and needed to experiment with it to see what might come of it in the end.
'I hope I have better luck with my trick ability. Maybe creating ghosts sounds pretty cool,' he thought with a slight smile.
However, Ash's smile faded as he remembered his True Name, Dream of Oblivion. He didn't know what it meant, or if it was related to the Demon of Oblivion or the Forgotten God that the gods imprisoned, whose awakening would mean devouring all existence.
Unaware of his thoughts, the spell continued its announcement.
[The first seal is broken.]
[Awakening latent powers.]
Ash felt something awaken within him. It was a strange sensation, as if something was touched and began to react. The sensation wasn't painful or unpleasant; instead, it was different, almost euphoric. He couldn't compare it to anything he had felt before.
However, he felt an energy coming from his very being. His emotions became clearer, his senses sharper, as if they had been dulled before. Even though he used to wear glasses, his vision now became sharper and clearer than ever. The world filled with new, warmer, more vivid colors.
He felt something settle in his chest like a tiny star.
Ash sighed and looked up. In the fog-covered sky, a sun appeared. One of a light gray color, radiating a cold and somewhat heavy air, but one that was comfortable for him.
This was his first Soul Core. He still had to acquire six more cores to be able to ascend to the Titan class.
He wondered how powerful he would become upon becoming a Titan. Naturally, those with Divine Aspects were cheaters.
Their power and strength go beyond the average Awakened, being able to fight things above them.
An example would be the protagonists, who fought against a Saint and killed him while being Ascended. They also killed Corrupted beasts that Saints could kill.
Also, the fact that they had hidden tricks. For example, Mordret of Nothingness who could create reflections using his Soul Cores, or Sunless who acquired the shadows of everything he killed into his soul, or Nephis who could explode her cores like a thermonuclear bomb.
So Ash had hope that his trick bar would also be great to compensate for his innate ability.
Squinting slightly, Ash observed three spheres of light orbiting around his Soul Core.
'Those should be my Memories,' he thought.
Again, the voice of the spell resonated in his Sea of Soul.
[Aspect Ability of Awakening...]
[Aspect Ability acquired.]
[Aspect Ability Name: Guide.]
Ash blinked.
'Huh?'
He quickly invoked his runes again.
Name: Ashfall
True Name: Dream of Oblivion
Rank: Sleeper
Phantom Core: Dormant
Soul Fragments: [94/1000]
'This is strange,' Ash thought.
He had killed forty-two Dormant beasts and thirty-five Awakened beasts. If he did some calculations, he should obtain a total of seventy Phantom Fragments since they were one Rank above him. And if he calculated the Terror, which was of the sixth level and Fallen, he should get at least...
'So, the Awakened ones give me double, and the Fallen ones are similar, getting double what the Awakened ones give. So in total, I got seventy fragments for killing thirty-five Awakened beasts, and I got around twenty-six from killing the Fallen Terror. Giving a total of ninety-four.'
Satisfied with his calculations, Ash continued examining his runes.
Memories: [Fang of Mist] [Nebulous Bow] [Mantle of the Mist]
Echoes: —
Attributes: [Nothingness] [Souls] [Blessing of Nothingness] [Spark of Divinity] [Shadows]
'It seems Mark of Divinity evolved into Spark of Divinity.'
Aspect: [Phantom]
Aspect Rank: Divine
Aspect Ability: [Guide]
Aspect Ability Description: [Your intuition leads you towards where you wish to go, whether it be a hidden treasure, a person, or an uncertain destiny.]
'What a shitty ability,' Ash thought.
A new set of runes appeared, and with it came the voice of the spell.
[All power has a price.]
[You have received a Flaw.]
[Your Flaw is:.... Clemency.]
'Oh no.'