Mordret would descend upon them in a matter of hours. While the townsfolk reveled—cheering, singing, drunk on false hope—their supposed savior, the High Priestess, had already surrendered to despair. Unbeknownst to her people, she had abandoned all resistance, quietly delivering them into the jaws of oblivion. They would die today.
And yet, fate—ever unpredictable, ever cruel—shifted once more.
Klaus, the phantom behind the veil, had dispatched Lich to the North. The Priestess, rather than standing against Mordret, had been captured without bloodshed. The burden of revelation now fell to Cassie: she was to unveil the truth, to stir the people from delusion, and to orchestrate a mass evacuation before death came screaming from the mist.
But how?
Cassie had neither the authority nor the time. No matter how silver-tongued her plea, she could not conjure influence from thin air. No speech, no rallying cry would move thousands in the space of an hour. The situation was hopeless.
Worse still, Mordret did not fight like a man. While clashing with Lich, he could still unleash his nightmarish reflections to slaughter innocents by the hundreds. Rationality whispered that escape would be simplest. To flee, abandon the town, and leave the lambs to the butcher. But Klaus—Klaus had other intentions.
She let out a bitter breath, haunted by memory. The way she had looked at Klaus when he'd slain Cormac… with revulsion, with fear. And yet, now she contemplated abandoning thousands while Klaus, distant and unseen, was striving to save them all—even without stepping foot in this place. He had sent his spirits. He had laid his plans.
She and her companions had feared him. And they had every reason to. But to call him a monster, to equate him to the likes of Mordret? No. That had been unjust.
Cassie knew what this nightmare foretold. What she and the others would do. They would unleash Hope—open her prison and invite the end. They would doom the entire Chain Isles. Thousands would die. Not all were innocent, true, but many had been ensnared by Hope's corruption against their will. Some were merely children, untouched by darkness.
What right did they have to judge Klaus? A man who chose to save strangers, while they consigned them to death? A man who could have done nothing… and instead sacrificed to give others a chance?
He wasn't evil. He wasn't a saint either. His cruelty, his kindness—both were absolute, coexisting in perfect equilibrium. And perhaps that was what made him terrifying. And beautiful.
She shook her head, grounding herself. She had a task. She couldn't convince them all. Klaus knew that too. That's why he had contingencies—reinforcements.
Right on cue, the air chilled.
From the shadows emerged Miseria, drifting like a mournful dream. Ethereal and terrifying, she exuded a beauty too sharp to be comforting—like moonlight on a blade.
"Well, Lady Cassie. What an honor," she drawled, voice lilting with mock courtesy. "Shall we begin? Time is a luxury we do not possess."
Cassie nodded, inhaling deeply. Around them, the townsfolk still laughed, still drank, blissfully unaware of the abyss yawning before them.
Miseria's expression twisted in disgust. She regarded them as one might a plague—pitiful, blind, infected. Their ruler had condemned them with silence. This wasn't governance—it was cowardice in ceremonial robes.
Her gaze shifted to Cassie.
It was almost too cruel.
For this was the woman who had worn her flesh—Cassie, the one who had served the High Priestess in this illusion. To think Spell would chose her body for Cassie? That was surprising and also irritating.
This nightmare. This haunting mirror of the past.
And Miseria remembered everything.
She remembered how the Priestess had stood idle while the war erupted. How Noctis bartered with a demon of fate. How the world burned, and how, in the end, Hope broke free—unleashing that crushing, incomprehensible force that shattered bodies like porcelain and left the Chain Isles as a smear on the tide.
Only a few had survived. Miseria among them. But survival was no mercy.
Twisted by grief, corrupted by Hope's influence, she had wandered the ruins—wailing, killing, forgetting. Until she was no longer a person. Until only an echo remained. A wraith.
No. This is just a nightmare, she reminded herself. A illusion of the past...
Exhaling, Miseria expanded her essence. A ripple of invisible force swept through the crowd. Her dormant ability, Mind-Wrecker, stirred to life. Slowly, subtly, their laughter dimmed. Their spirits calmed. She began planting thoughts like seeds in soil—nudging their emotions, sharpening their instincts, bending the current of their minds.
She could not enslave two thousand minds. But she could… open a door.
She cast a sidelong glance at Cassie and gave a curt nod.
Now.
Cassie stepped forward, the bottled High Priestess hidden beneath her cloak, and drew in a breath. The crowd's attention began to shift. Miseria had paved the way. Their minds were primed, their hearts softened.
Now came the moment to speak—to turn the tide, or die trying.
___
Mordret was—well, mildly irritated. Just a tiny bit. A pinch of vexation, really. After all, his dear old friend had not only pilfered his cherished knife but had the audacity to destroy his previous vessel. An inconvenience, yes, but Mordret was no petty soul. He could forgive Icarus. Or was it Klaus now? That beast did love to change names like vain noble switching masks at a masquerade.
His goal remained unchanged: to slaughter the One in the North—the beloved High Priestess of the Night Temple. Yet without the Ivory Knife, recently stolen by Klaus, the act became complicated. Still, the alternative wasn't entirely displeasing. A town brimming with people to butcher, ripe for harvesting new reflections, their souls feeding the power of his reflections. That alone was a delicious prospect.
He gazed down at the town with a serene, almost affectionate smile.
"There you are," he murmured to himself.
Mordret vanished into a droplet of water, reappearing moments later within a shattered mirror in a nearby village—abandoned, forgotten, and hollow. He strolled leisurely through the quiet ruin, hands behind his back, long coat trailing like a shadow. He could have leapt straight into the heart of the town via his reflections, but it reeked of a trap. Why would they be celebrating so brazenly? It was suspicious. He preferred caution over vanity.
Perhaps the Eyeless Priestesses had set a trap. Perhaps High Priestess had. Either way, Mordret was not inclined to walk blindly into it.
He stopped for a moment and tilted his head, his many reflections observing him with mirrored curiosity.
Could he defeat Klaus now?
…No. Not yet.
The man wasn't invincible, but he was no longer the boy Mordret remembered. The years had sharpened him. Molded him into something dangerous.
Mordret and also Sunless had always been naturals—prodigies of death. Battle was a song they knew by heart, and murder came as easily as breath. Klaus, however, had once been different. Not instinctual, not god-touched. But he had carved himself into a monster with nothing but time, scars, and relentless obsession.
In combat, Klaus didn't feel the blows—he measured them. Every dodge was a calculation: trajectory, speed, force, timing. Cold, methodical. His intelligence was absurd, his cunning downright venomous.
So no, defeating him now was foolish. Patience would serve better than pride.
He strolled through the ghost village, hands clasped behind his back like a visiting scholar, idly admiring the decay. No signs of life. No souls to steal.
The village was too quiet. The distant festivities had gone mute. No laughter. No singing. The silence was thick, unnatural.
Mordret tried to leap into another reflection—any puddle, shard, or sheen—but failed. Something had sealed him in.
He exhaled slowly through his nose, then chuckled with bemused delight.
"Well… Why don't you come out? Eavesdropping is rather rude, you know."
A low, sinister laugh echoed from the cracked shell of a house nearby. Mordret raised an eyebrow and approached the door. With an almost playful curiosity, he pushed it open—
—and blinked.
There, seated comfortably on a moldy old armchair, was the Lich. Long skeletal legs crossed like a nobleman, a half-melted candle beside him, casting flickering shadows on the walls. His bony hands held a worn book, and his skull tilted slightly as he turned a page.
Mordret squinted.
"Is that… Best Racial Jokes, Volume IV?"
Lich didn't even look up. His bony finger turned the page delicately.
"Ah, Mordret. Glad you could drop in. Sit down, won't you?"
Mordret just smiled—wide and sharp.
"Oh, how I missed you."
___
While the Spirits of Klaus waged war in the North, their devotion unwavering, their strength tested in the fires of chaos…
Miseria strained to bend the collective mind of the people, weaving threads of despair and courage alike to hold them together. Lich found himself locked in a most disturbing duel—facing off against twisted Reflections that wore his own face, each mimicry grinning with ghastly familiarity. Cassie guided frantic civilians through ruined alleys like a beacon of order, and Hemera soared with Kai clutched in her talons, the boy cradled like divine cargo en route to Noctis's sanctuary.
Yes, all of them fought valiantly. Without fear. Without mercy.
And meanwhile…
Klaus was sitting in a tree.
Not just any tree—a massive, ancient, possibly sacred tree perched at the edge of a quiet forest. Hassan sat beside him on a thick branch, stiff-backed and silent, watching his master with increasing concern.
In Klaus's hands rested a suspiciously modern plastic bottle—part science project, part sacrament of degeneracy. A crude hole had been melted into its side, the neck crowned with burning herb. Klaus leaned in, inhaled deeply, and let out a long, serpentine stream of smoke. It curled upward in elegant rings, dancing toward the moonlight like lazy halos.
His eyes were bloodshot, dark circles painting half-moons beneath them. The whites of his eyes looked like they'd been through a warzone of red veins. And yet, he smiled. No—he cackled.
Hassan blinked as Klaus slapped his own knee with enough force to alarm several forest critters. The Oldest Dream was now laughing—genuinely—at the tragic image of a fish leaping from a lake only to be intercepted mid-air by a merciless hawk.
"Ohhh, Hassan, did you see that? Man just believed in himself, then boom! Bird said 'nah.' Nature's cold, man."
Hassan, whose expression had not changed in several centuries, glanced sideways. He looked at Klaus with the kind of silent pity reserved for mad kings and collapsing stars. Then, gently, respectfully, he reached out with his mind to scan Klaus's memories. There were no defenses. No psychic walls. Just chaos. A swirling cocktail of torment, brilliance, and—
Oh. Oh no.
Hassan blinked slowly.
So this was what happened: Klaus had gone and murdered every drug dealer in his entire district. Then he had studied their operations. Then he found a particularly nasty flower—plant-type nightmare creature whose spores were known to induce hallucinations and mild existential crises. And then… he used it to make weed.
Weaponized arcane weed.
Hassan was still processing that when Klaus passed him the bottle with a warm grin and eyes that looked like they hadn't slept since the Second Era.
"Your turn, buddy," Klaus said, grinning like a lunatic alchemist who just invented sentient fire.
"I… respectfully decline, my lord."
Klaus shrugged, took another hit, then looked toward the horizon—solemn now, as though peering into the veil of fate itself.
The Dark Knight, ever dutiful, finally asked, "My lord… What is our next course of action?"
Klaus patted his shoulder, smiling with the serenity of a man who had just transcended mortal responsibility.
"Well… We do what must be done," Klaus said sagely, "because that is why we exist."
There was a beat of silence. Hassan blinked slowly.
"…Understood," he said solemnly, though his expression said otherwise. "…May I ask—what, exactly, is that?"
Klaus fell silent. His bloodshot eyes gazed into the infinite.
"…Hype moments," he said quietly. "And aura... type shit."
Hassan, legendary commander of the Underworld, leaned back against the bark of the tree and stared at the moon.
He didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or start a revolution.
His new lord was completely, irreversibly high.