After a bit more talking, Asher finally leaned back on the bed with a long sigh.
"Wow… that was a lot. I'm gonna need some time to process all this."
To him, it felt like the world hadn't changed much from the novel. Fate seemed to be stitching things back into their original pattern despite his presence.The only major deviations were the second Nightmare ending faster—thanks to Nephis—and Sunny being… well, stronger.
No surprise there.
Nephis was already brushing Titan-level after years of Valor support.Sunny, on the other hand, was a Tyrant like him—and clearly pushing himself harder than the canon version ever did, perhaps due to the active presense of Nephis surpassing him.
Sunny noticed Asher's look and smirked.
"We can continue this in the morning. You need rest anyway. The government should be ready to release you by then."He paused, scratching the back of his neck."Uh… this might sound dumb, but… do you have a place to go? Money? Anyone we should call?"
Asher blinked.
Then deadpanned:
"I'm supposed to be from the outskirts, Sunny. Forget a place to stay—I don't even have a single credit to my name."
Sunny's eye twitched.
A very, very bad feeling crept up his spine.
Asher grinned, eyes sparkling with menace.
"So I was thinking I could crash at your place!"
Sunny went pale.
Before he could protest, Asher flashed him the brightest smile he'd worn since waking up.
Sunny felt the fight leave his body instantly.
He hated it.
He hated how Asher's looks had somehow surpassed even Kai's—how he now looked unfairly good, comparable to even saints!
He hated how that stupid smile made it impossible to refuse him.
Sunny exhaled in defeat.
"…Fine."
***
Asher sat behind a PTV in silence as he ideally stared at the road through the window.
As he looked through the window, realisation dawned on him once more... He was really back.
Really really back.
And he finally had time to check his runes:
Name: Asher.
True Name: Echo of the Abyss.
Rank: Ascended.
Class: Tyrant
Dream Core: Ascended.
Soul Fragments: [17/5000]
Dream Fragments: [13/3000]
Memories: [Second Skin], [Box O' Plenty], [Spirewind Mantle], [Cicada's Cry], [Mirage Aegis], [Vagabond's Hearth], [Cantic of the Mad], [Gaoler's Chain], [Siren's Lyre].
Echoes: [Boomlet], [Blighted-Crest Vexer].
Attributes: [Spectral Sight], [Flame of Divinity], [Nimble Intellect], [Soul Veil], [Dreamspawn], [Within the Unseen], [Ember of Anomaly], [ ].
Aspect: [The Eighth Exile]
Aspect Legacy: [The Abyss Reflects Seven.]
Flaw: [Emotional Amplification.]
Asher frowned. There was a lot to take in—too much, really—but the first thing that caught his attention was his Attributes.
His affinity to Anomalies was back.
No…It had always been there.
"I knew it."
Dahila had been hiding it from him.
He had no idea why. Maybe now that he was stronger—mentally and spiritually—her influence was slipping just enough for him to see through the veil.
Or maybe her focus had been entirely consumed by holding his fractured mind together, leaving no room to maintain the deception.
…No.
Asher doubted both explanations.
The Forgotten God—whatever shattered fragment of her lived inside him—was not that feeble.
If he could see it now, it was because Dahila chose to let him see it.
But why?
Why hide it in the first place?
He groaned internally.
"This bitch… always so damn cryptic…"
He forced himself to the next Attribute.
Asher focused on it but nothing came.
He had gained this Attribute the moment he accepted who he was in the mist. That alone told him enough:
It was an affinity toward nothingness.
A fitting irony, considering his existence as a failed avatar was indelible according to Dahila.
Then there was his rank. He got a lot... killing humans, in the nightmare and after he woke up. No..
He knew it happened.
He just couldn't remember doing it.
The gap in his memory felt… wrong.Like touching a bruise he didn't know he had.
He shook his head, pushing away the unease.
Unsurprisingly, his Dream Core had advanced as well.And now… now he was almost certain:
The Dream weren't something that boosted his power.
It was a counter.
A ticking measure toward the next evolution of his lineage— or something very close to it.
He exhaled slowly, steadying himself.
Then, with a reluctant breath, he finally opened his Aspect details.
Aspect: [The Eighth Exile]
Aspect Rank: [???]
Aspect Description: [Seven were born of -Unknown-. Fate, Destiny, Imagination, Repose, Oblivion, Dread, Desire. But the eighth was never written. There is no title for what you are. You were an avatar that couldn't be possessed. Yet, the -Unknown- tried. Exile is not your punishment, but your freedom.]
Innate Ability: [Event Horizon]
Ability Description: [The weight of the world hums, and you listen. Where mass gathers, where space trembles, where silence bends beneath unseen force—you feel it. Nothing heavy moves unnoticed. Nothing immense hides from your gaze.]
[Aspect Ability Name: Unbound]
[Aspect Ability Description: The force around you heed your command.]
[Aspect Ability Name: Riftwalker]
[Aspect Ability Description: You tear through the skin of realms and step between two points. Where you walk, space remembers the wound.]
[Aspect Ability: Name: Shape of Nothing]
[Aspect Ability Description: You may mold the emptiness around you.]
Asher blinked once—then his lips curled into a slow, dangerous grin. There were so many things he wanted to test.
He already had a decent sense of how much stronger his first Aspect ability had become since waking. With Dahila's unwanted tutoring, he couldn't call himself a master… but he definitely understood essence flow far better than Nephis ever had in the early canon timeline.
His second ability was clearly movement-based. A spatial technique. He would test its limits later—but he could already guess its range. Something close to his gravitic sense, which now stretched nearly twenty–five kilometers.
He shuddered at the thought of expanding it here, though.
With the amount of gates around... he could already feel the headache...
Asher inhaled slowly, pulse quickening as he turned his gaze downward.
It was time.
He looked at his Aspect Legacy.
[The Abyss Reflects Seven.]
Aspect ability Description: [ In the depths of an endless nightmare, Echo of the Abyss saw himself clearly for the first time. Every scar he survived, every illusion that broke him, every nightmare that remade him, every bond he forged, every loss he carried, and every memory he had...
Those were what made him... him.
The Seven Daemons once carried their own isolated reflections of -unknown- each one a single facet of a greater, impossible whole.
But Echo of the Abyss is none of them.
And all of them.
For what was scattered across seven fragments find convergence only in one being capable of holding all that -unknown- is.
Thus, what was divided may be whole again…
…should the Abyss will it.]
Asher's breathing quickened. His eyes scanned the runes once… twice… a dozen times.
Each reading made his pulse spike higher.
This was…
'Crazy. CRAZY.'
His mind raced, poetry insight firing on instinct.
If his interpretation was right... if the runes meant what he thought they meant—
Then everything he believed about himself was wrong.
He wasn't a daemon.
He was—
Asher swallowed hard, a tremor running through him.
He was someone who held the potential to wield all of the Dream God's powers.
Not one fragment.
All of them.
The realisation hit him like a tidal wave.
He was the successor of the Dream God.