A few hours later...
Merlin strolled through the city of Ravensong, he smiled as he greeted people that bowed to him as he passed by them.
He kept a polite smile, but inwardly, he was considering a lot of things, the things being how to get the Secret Order future members in one place.
He had finally gotten the perfect hidden location for the base of the members of his organization.
It was a location so secret that even the gods couldn't find it if they wanted to.
He was going to follow in the path of his predecessors. The location of their secret base was Sefirah Castle, his soul sea.
If the Tarot Club could do it, why couldn't he, it was secret, it couldn't be invaded, and he was in total control of what went in and out of it.
It was a very brilliant plan, however, he met his first roadblock.
The future members had no point of light in his soul sea, so he had to find a way to give them one, then he needed to do a thorough examination on them, and finally he would invite them to his soul sea for a little chat.
To make things better, he would even portray himself as a hidden Sovereign from ancient times that's interested in the Dream Realm, but he isn't in a situation to make a move himself.
To make things even better, he would even throw in Merlin as one of his followers to bait them, and slowly, he'll win their trust, then it's smooth sailing from there, but back to the original problem, he had no way to get them to read out his honorific name without him looking suspicious.
He sighed as his mind ran through different possibilities, all of them had a lot of downsides, however his mind settled on the one with the highest possibility of success and the least downside.
It was a rather foolproof plan, but it had one of the highest risks of all.
If he did it well, he'd gain just more than the points of light of the people he needed, he'd also get that of a few key members of the Song domain.
But if things went sideways, then the Song domain might not exist after his stunt.
He shook his head slightly and turned to the side of a building, then he stopped walking and rested his back on the wall.
"I was right, you really do have beautiful eyes... to what do I owe the pleasure, Prince of Nothing, Mordret"
As he finished speaking, the window on the building he was resting on shimmered and a figure was reflected on it. He had slick black hair and glassy silver eyes with a smooth face that had an amused smile.
"To think you would recognize me... It's a pleasure to meet you, Prince of Song, Merlin" Mordret replied calmly.
"I'm sure you didn't spend five days observing me so you could just extend a greeting... did you?" He asked with a light smile.
Mordret chuckled, "You did indeed notice me... since you know so much about me, you should already know why I'm here"
"I see..." He replied flatly "what do you think Ki Song will do about your actions?"
Mordret's smile widened as he spread his hands widely.
"Before I began to watch you, I did a few investigations about you, and I found out that the Queen is highly suspicious of you, and also very interested in your secrets... I'm sure that after I take your body and deliver those secrets to her, she'll be rather grateful"
"That's a really profound logic, she gets the secrets and you use my abilities to fight for her cause, a perfect win-win situation..." he nodded "since you're so confident, knock yourself out"
As he said that, he then felt a sudden intrusion on his mind, followed by a sudden change of vision, he was now sitting in the high back chair in his soul sea, and Mordret was standing opposite him at the far end of the long table.
"A very interesting place you have here, and wow... the set of abilities you have, it's truly wonderful" Mordret smiled as he looked around.
Mordret walked calmly towards the chair at the rear end of the table, however, just before he was about to sit, the chairs disappeared, leaving only his high back chair and Mordret standing in the empty space.
He stood up from his chair, and walked slowly to Mordret.
"You see there're two ways to get in here, the first being to be brought in through your astral form by me, and the other is to follow the regular entrance through the fog above the Spirit World..."
He sighed.
"You on the other hand, decided to force your way inside here... and by the looks of it, they're very pissed with your actions"
Before Mordret could even process what he had said, he was immediately pinned down by something with large paws, and the creature gave off the aura of a transcendent creature.
"Hounds for Fulgrim... also known as Sefirah Castle Keepers, I'm guessing if I leave you to them you'll spend a very long time navigating your way through the historical void" he spoke calmly as he stared at the large wolf opposite him, it was even bigger than Silver's transcendent form, it had curly black furs and gray wolf eyes.
He had noticed the Hound of Fulgrim ever since he used the cloak in the Spirit World, and he also tested its strength when he left the Corrupted Beast inside the Spirit World and it killed it swiftly, since then he confirmed that the Hound was active, as for why one was here, he knew that it was because he had a portion of Sefirah Castle, and that portion needed a keeper.
Although the Hounds of Fulgrim themselves were equal to transcendents in rank, these guys had been alive for a very long time, and they had full control of the historical void, if they're ever up against someone or something stronger, who knows what kind of monstrosity they would pull out from the historical void.
There was a reason why even though the original Spirit World held many powerhouses, none of them ever tried their luck with the gray fog above.
He chuckled as he approached Mordret that was pinned to the ground, he lowered himself and stared at him.
"You can try all you want, but you're going to need my permission before you can leave..."
He sighed and continued.
"Now you have two choices, first, I leave my soul sea, and let you wander around, trapped in here for as long I can bear to watch, or we play a game"
Mordret struggled for a while, but after being unable to escape the hound's grip, he finally gave up and raised his head to him with a glare.
"What game?"
He shrugged with a smile, "nothing too risky… it actually fits your style very much"
"So… what do you say?"
Mordret stared at him for a few seconds then smiled.
"Well since you're the host here, I'll happily oblige"
He nodded and raised his hand, and immediately, the Hound released Mordret and disappeared into thin mist, back into the historical void.
..
Mordret felt the weight on his body disappear, he sighed in relief as the suffocating pressure disappeared as well, he stood up and adjusted his clothes as his signature smile returned to his face.
"I'll have to thank you for taking the weights off" he said casually.
Merlin shrugged and didn't say anything as he turned around and started walking back to the high back chair.
His smile widened as he thought of how careless Merlin was, the only reason he played along was because of the powerful opponent pinning him down, now that the latter was gone, Merlin was left with the same abilities as him.
During the time he was held down, he had been calculating possible uses and combinations for the abilities he got.
Whenever he challenged someone to a soul duel, he always had little time to familiarize himself with their abilities, but Merlin had unknowingly given him that time.
He walked closer as he used the Marionettist ability to probe Merlin, just as he was about to engage, Merlin summoned a black and gold cloak that covered most of his body.
He immediately felt all access to his gained abilities cut off, he was left with nothing despite having them a second ago.
'Does this have something to do with that cloak?'
"What you're feeling is called suppression of beyonder characteristics from a higher sequence" Merlin said calmly without turning his back at all.
He was wary but it didn't show on his face as he walked forward, following Merlin along.
"It seems that it has to do with that cloak of yours…" He said with his regular voice.
"More or less…" Merlin nodded.
"That's a very interesting memory, Sunless had one like that too, he could completely block my perception" He smiled as he revealed his connection to Sunless.
"I know…" Merlin answered and stopped in front of the chair, but he didn't sit down.
He stopped a few meters away from Merlin, he stretched his hands and asked.
"So… what game are we playing? I really hope it's to my liking"
"Hey Mordret…" Merlin smiled, "ever heard of Russian Roulette?"
Merlin snapped his fingers and a round table with two chairs appeared from nowhere, and at the center of the table was a sheet of paper, a pen, and beside them, an out of date revolver.
He stared at them for a second, then turned to Merlin.
"A very interesting trick… since I don't recognize this ability, that means it's probably from that cloak of yours" his smile brightened.
"Speaking of abilities, I wonder if Ki Song knows you have this much hidden from her?"
Merlin's eyes scanned him for a few seconds, then he asked calmly.
"I wonder if Anvil knows your flaw is hidden right under Basiton?"
He froze as he felt an emotion he hadn't felt for a long time, fear.
The fear came from the fact that Merlin knew too much, his flaw was not something most people knew, and where he hid it was only known to him and probably the other one on the moon, but now, Merlin was standing here, revealing that he too knew where it was.
"You really do know alot" despite feeling fear, his signature smile never changed.
"Let's get on with the game now, shall we?"
"Sure" Merlin shrugged "best of three, just read the conditions and sign, then we can start"
He carefully picked up the paper and read the words written on them.
—Contract—
Game : Russian Roulette.
Players : Prince of Nothing & Mysteries.
Rules : Winner takes all.
Conditions : For each round, the loser loses something random (ability, attribute, memory, echo, aspect legacy…), and the winner gains what was lost permanently.
Warning : Use of abilities are prohibited during the game.
Penalty : Death.
Signature ↓
Prince of Nothing—
Mysteries—
After reading the words on the paper, he looked towards the revolver, and then towards Merlin in front of him.
Merlin didn't mind his gaze, he simply sat down and held out the pen.
"You don't exactly have a choice… you either sign, or you spend a few centuries in the historical void, I wonder, if your flaw dies of old age, will you die too?"
His eyes narrowed slightly as his smile wore off,he stared at Merlin with pure killing intent.
"What exactly do you want? If you wanted to kill me, you could have done it earlier, so why didn't you? Why play this bizarre game of yours?"
"Don't glare at me like that… I was perfectly fine on my own, you're the one who made your way to me, if anything, blame yourself" Merlin sighed, "as for what I'm doing exactly… it's testing your luck, if you're lucky, then you might gain something from me, if not?..."
He sat down and picked up the pen and signed on the paper, his eyes were still cold and all the cheery acts from before had completely disappeared.
Immediately he finished signing, the paper and pen floated up to the and signed itself right where Merlin's spot had been, then the paper crumpled itself as it disappeared, leaving behind a ball of mist, the mist swirled then shot right into his body, lodging itself inside him.
Merlin's voice rang out just as he was about to say something.
"That's the contract taking effect, and anytime you challenge me to a soul duel again, you'll have to repeat this game"
Merlin shrugged.
"Since you have no objections… let the game begin"
.
.
.
.
A/N— For the dreamscape chapters, I've run out of background characters, so please do me the favor of creating them and their abilities, you can also pick their alaises, I'll write the fights with them.
Dont expect your character to win... They obviously don't have plot armor offered by me, but they at least have fan armor, so I'll give them a fight worthy of recognition.
P.S: Create as much characters as you can...