Everywhere the strange crimson eyes looked, space twisted, and the princess felt a piercing pain in her stomach when one eye glanced at her. Before the pain could get worse, a strand of hair spun into a needle, stabbed through it, causing it to fade away, and taking the pain it had caused with it. With a roar, the masked man launched himself forward, more eyes appearing around him, as he attempted to fight his way through the sea of hair between him and the queen.
Isabelle, who had been hiding in the charm Garrett had given the princess for the last month, fought furiously, trying to eliminate each of the eyes as it was manifesting, while also blocking the masked man's path forward, letting out a shriek that caused him to stumble backwards. She held the queen with one arm as she pointed her other hand forward. There was a flash of silver as a mysterious needle shot towards the man's mask, but the large vertical eye glanced at it, causing it to bounce away, as if struck by a physical force.
The chaos, which had largely died down in the palace after the princess was captured, erupted once again, as Garrett's supernatural forces battled against the masked man's nightmares. Though the masked man and Isabelle were evenly matched, Garrett had no attention to spare for them. He was currently sitting against the wall in the room where Duke Argov was trapped, desperately trying to undo the effect of the mysterious artifact that kept him in place.
Garrett had plenty of experience with liminal spaces, between the hollow space in the mirror controlled by Isabelle and Kabod's Maze, which he actually had on him. This, however, was a completely different matter, as there didn't seem to be an object it was tied to. Instead, whatever the masked man had activated had pulled the duke into the dream world, forcing him into a space inside his mind that consisted of only the single room he had been in, making it impossible for him to escape.
Garrett had been examining it for the last few minutes, and was at a loss. Had there been a mysterious artifact for him to deal with, he was confident that he could have at least disrupted it, but the folded space in front of him felt as if it would devour him entirely if he got too close. Wishing for the umpteenth ti that he had the drear's throne, Garrett finally took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and sent a strand of ntal energy into the prism.
The drear's throne was without a doubt his greatest advantage, yet Garrett knew that he couldn't wait until it was available to deal with this. As risky as it was, it was a risk he had to take. To Garrett, it felt like he had stepped into a world of mirrors. Everything bent around him, replicated millions of tis in every direction. As soon as he entered, he felt the familiar air of the dream, and stood up, his finger twitched, and a dream flower blood at his feet.
He could see Duke Arkov in the distance. Yet the problem was, there were millions, maybe even billions, of copies of the Duke, spreading out in front of him. Garrett had no idea how many iterations of the sa room the Duke had been through, but he had a suspicion that the Duke was burning through them as fast as possible.
Taking a step forward, he created another dream flower, planting it at his feet. One step after the other, he proceeded into the fractured world, leaving a trail of dream flowers behind. After walking for a minute, he stopped and turned to look behind him, where there should have been a single dream flower. There were dozens, which quickly multiplied to hundreds, and then thousands. The longer he looked, the more dream flowers he saw, until they filled his vision.
"Well, that's not good," he muttered.
Feeling a hint of a presence behind him, Garrett turned and saw a sight that chilled him to the bone. Hanging in the air was a single vertical crimson eye that blinked slowly. It carried the aura of the crimson eye of Shalmoroth, and it widened ever so slightly as it caught sight of Garrett.
"You are that thief."
Even as the voice rippled around Garrett, his surroundings changed, transforming into a wide, empty space. Realizing he had just been pulled into a ntal landscape, Garrett saw the eye in front of him had transford, into a tall woman whose beautiful body was shrouded in a sheer red dress. Her face was perfect, and all the more inhuman for it. And above her closed eyes, in the middle of her forehead, sat a vertical crimson eye that stared at Garrett emotionlessly.
"We finally et. Tell , what is your na?"
"Isn't it more polite to introduce yourself first?" Garrett asked, doing his best to calm his racing heart.
The woman's lips rose into a perfect smile, creating a creepy feeling when combined with the emotionless eye on her forehead.
"I suppose you're right, though one doesn't normally treat a thief politely. But have it your way. My na is Karis, Crimson Eye of Shalmoroth."
"I can't say I'm pleased to et you, Karis, but my na is Garrett, Drear on the Throne."
For a mont, the inhumanly emotionless eye trembled, revealing fury and a hint of terror. As quickly as the emotions had co, they were gone, and Karis took a step toward Garrett.
"Will you return to what you stole?"
"What's that?" Garrett asked. "I don't rember stealing anything."
"No? You don't rember destroying one of my eyes? Because I rember it. I rember it, as clear as if it was yesterday."
Holding up his hand to forestall her next words. Garrett tilted his head to the side.
"Tell though, how clearly do you rember yesterday? After all, it's in the past, so it's likely you got so details wrong. I an, let see if I can refresh your mory. I was in my ho when all of a sudden you attacked , trying to possess with your so-called baleful eye. I'd just like to point out that the na in and of itself indicates how terrible it is, and when I tried to defend myself, you tried to drag into oblivion.
“I was just defending myself. Furthermore, even after I defended myself, you tried to kill again, sending one of your chosen to possess my friend, sothing I still haven't forgiven you for, in fact.”
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“You took Shalmoroth's power.”
“Okay, I'll admit, maybe I did that. But, again, not my fault. I didn't choose which of your powers to take. Otherwise, I would have picked sothing you didn't care about. How was I supposed to know you deeply cared about this particular ability?"
Even as he was talking, Garrett's mind was working furiously, trying to analyze the space around him. Karis’ ntal power was different than the ntal power of the great rulers he had encountered before. It wasn't weaker by any ans, but it didn't feel stronger either. Instead, it was as if it was more integrated with the world around it, making it subtle and harder to pin down. That made it challenging for him to identify where her presence actually was.
For though she was standing right in front of him, Garrett could tell this wasn't actually her body. Instead, she was sowhere else, and simply projecting this ntal space in order to speak with him. This may have been because her true body was so far away. Though he didn't know where her territory was, it was clearly outside of the city, at least according to the map Karn had given him.
"You can make any excuse you want. That still doesn't absolve you of taking what was mine."
"Does it help if I say I didn't do it?" Garrett asked, continuing to try to buy ti. "If I'm honest, it's the throne that's been running the show."
Karis' emotionless eye stared at Garrett for a mont, and then her lips turned down in a frown as she shook her head.
"Enough playing around. I want to know how you're going to compensate ."
"Fine," Garrett said, taking a breath. "I'll tell you what. This is what I'm going to do. After I destroy every hint of your presence in this city, I'm going to co and find where you live. Any territory that you have captured, I will take, integrating it into my growing kingdom. And then, once you are reduced to only a single territory, I will find you and I will destroy that. Considering your attempts to kill and what you've done here, I think that's about fair."
Her eye flashing with anger, Karis covered her mouth and chuckled.
"The ambition of the weak is so amusing. You can't even free yourself from this ntal landscape. How do you think you're going to co and find ?"
Garrett just smiled and pointed his finger at the long shadow that extended from under his feet.
"Die."
The word rolled off of his tongue, landing with physical presence, shattering the world around him as his shadow screeched in agony, crimson eyes opening all over it. The emotion in each eye was different, but as the shadow was twisted by the power of Garrett's command, more and more of them transford from anger and disdain into fear and terror. The image of Karis opened her mouth as if she wanted to say sothing, but before she could, her body cracked apart, joining the shadow in death.
As the air shifted, Garrett found himself back in the prism, his head pounding from the exertion of wielding the throne's force through his soul spark. Gritting his teeth as he fought through the piercing pain in his head, Garrett spoke once more.
"Shatter."
An overwhelming force erupted from him as his soul spark unleashed its energy, smashing the scattered images and causing them to fracture. Without hesitating, he turned and ran, his feet landing on the trail of flowers he had left behind. Even though there were thousands of them spread out, the ones he had planted called to him, ushering him out into the waking world.
With a gasp, his eyes snapped open, and he felt a trickle of blood running from his nose. Wiping it with his sleeve, he breathed as deeply as he could, trying to ease the pain running amok in his skull. In front of him, the folded space shook, a large crack running down it. And then, with a bang, Duke Arkov was free. His presence exploded outward, blasting through the walls and roof of the room, completely obliterating a huge chunk of the wall as stone was sent flying into the distance, and blowing off the roof.
Realizing he had finally escaped, Duke Arkov let out a loud shout, causing every living being in the city to feel a deep sense of fear. A massive sword manifested in the air behind him, and everywhere Duke Arkov looked, the world seed to peel away, as if cut by a blade. The man in the red mask had still been fighting against Isabelle when the Duke stepped from his prison. And when he heard the furious roar, he shivered. Even as the Duke's gaze swung over, he frantically tore at the air in front of him, producing a thick gash that opened like a crimson eye, diving through just before the Duke's gaze landed where he had been standing. The eye was only half closed when it was torn apart, cut to shreds under the weight of Duke Arkov's aura.
Isabelle was still holding the Queen tightly, protecting her. With the dregs of his ntal energy, Garrett commanded her to retreat. Moving so fast it looked like he teleported, Duke Arkov suddenly stood in front of Isabelle, his hand reaching for her, past the Queen's head. Isabelle's body flickered as she retreated to the flower pendant. But before she could jump away, the Duke frowned and grabbed it. Seeing that he was about to crush it, Queen Eloise shouted for him to stop.
"Don't harm her. She was protecting ."
Her shout ca just in ti to save the small pendant from being crushed into a million pieces, likely taking Isabelle along with it. Duke Arkov looked around once more, the sword behind him thrumming, as the door was ripped apart.
"Follow ," he said, as he began to walk out of the room.
Her face pale, the Queen followed, while Garrett, who was lying as still as possible in the room Duke Arkov had just left, desperately sent commands to the flower ghouls to retreat. As the Duke walked through the palace and witnessed the devastation, his anger grew. Yet strangely, he found not even a single enemy alive. By the ti he reached the ground floor, he had seen hundreds, all half-eaten or drained of their life force. Yet not a single living creature appeared in front of him.
Garrett, who was still up in the room where Duke Arkov had been trapped, finally let out a sigh of relief as the last of the flower ghouls slipped away. Quite a number of them had died in the fight, but he had had their companions drag their bodies down into the earth to re-purpose in the nest. It was unfortunate that he hadn't been able to take the rest of the bodies as well, but Garrett knew better than to push his luck. He was just trying to pull himself toward the edge of the ruined wall when a dark shadow poked up over it, flowing into the room before rising to reveal Ryn.
"Wow, you look rough,” she said, flashing a wide smile as she looked Garrett over. Her gaze turned to the ruined room and the massive hole in the wall and ceiling, and she let out a long whistle. "This wasn't you, right? I an, I know you're strong, but—"
Interrupting her, Garrett shook his head.
"No, it was the Duke. But we don't have ti to ss around. We need to go.'"
"Sure."
"Co along," she said. Crouching next to him, she picked Garrett up and then whirled around, before dashing to the edge of the room and diving out through the hole Duke Arkov's aura had ford. Massive black wings snapped open on her back, catching the air just before they began to fall, allowing them to glide forward. The wind whipped at Garrett's hair and clothes, and he felt a lurch of vertigo as he caught sight of the ground slipping past almost two hundred feet below. But Ryn kept a good grip on him, and after a mont they were already over the palace wall.
"Hold on," she said, and the wings behind her suddenly tucked as she dove down towards the city below.
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