The journey to the Island of Reckoning wasn't supposed to be easy but...
As it turned out, the journey promised to be even more perilous than he had expected. Awakened did not usually go that far into the wilderness of the Chained Isles alone, and even established cohorts were reluctant to venture this close to the Tear.
He didn't have stealth like Sunny so it made things much harder for him.
Still, Caster had enough strength to bulldoze through everything.
Even taking into account that some of the places he wanted to go through could turn out to be inaccessible due to entering the ascent phase, Caster was more or less sure that he could reach the Reckoning Island in two to three days while remaining comparatively safe.
Caster traveled northwest, trying to cover as much distance during the day as he could. He rushed across gargantuan chains as a swift shadow, soared up onto the island, traversed them on foot, and dove into the darkness once he reached the other side.
He was moving across the Chained Isles with enviable speed… but still not as fast as someone capable of flight would.
He was only fast because of his constitution as a titan, and the occasional use of his aspect.
The islands were teeming with Nightmare Creatures of all kinds, as well as deadly natural… well, unnatural, really… threats.
So Caster had to always remain cautious.
Still, most of the time, he didn't feel like there was a real threat to his life.
Caster's combination of Attributes, Abilities and Memories made him a very hard prey to hunt. No matter what kind of a horror tried, he always managed to slip away — for now, at least.
His aspect was really good at escaping after all.
If he had stealth on top of that, it would have made him nearly unkillable to most.
As long as he did not venture into the territory of the really terrifying Nightmare Creatures, like those Corrupted fiends that claimed some of the islands or the beings that dwelled on the dark side of them, he was going to be alright for as long as he managed his essence carefully.
With two skies full of bright stars, the Chained Isles were stunning at night. Even while rushing forward and hiding from the abominations populating this breathtaking and terrible land, Caster couldn't help but marvel at its dark beauty.
This kind of view, was something he could never have experienced in his previous world.
But beautiful things… beautiful things were the most dangerous. By now, he had learned that lesson all too well.
At dawn, Caster finally reached the island that was supposed to be the first stop on his journey.
It was a desolate place where nothing lived, with rocky ground and plenty of small impact craters that had been left behind by the debris on the neighboring island.
The chains holding that island in place had broken once, a long time ago. As the result, not restrained by anything, it soared high into the sky and eventually fell apart, ripped to pieces by the Crushing.
Its remaining neighbor was not of any particular interest to Caster, but it was a good place to rest and catch his breath.
He couldn't fight the Mirror Beast at anything but his best.
That night, he had a dream.
People don't usually dream in the dream realm...
But perhaps because of his nature as a crossborn—someone consisting of two souls—one that doesn't belong to this world, he dreamed.
It was a melancholic dream.
A dream about his past life.
In it, it was when he was seven years old, playing around the park with his friends. He looked happy. The scene felt bright and colorful.
The scene shifted, this time, he was wearing a black suit with the face that could be mistaken for a dead person. There was no color in his eyes.
The scene shifted again. This time, his leg was injured, a broken bone. Still the body of a child.
Now, he was an adolescent. He bumped into a girl. The scene felt happy again. It felt like he was feeling colors.
A few moments later, the colors disappeared, the scene turned melancholic again. The girl...
Then, the scene shifted again, fairly recent.
It was the scene of him getting adopted.
It was a bitter sweet scene, him having to leave his brothers and sisters from the orphanage.
But how did he get even get there?
The scene shifted again, this time it was a car accident. He was the one driving the car, probably without his parent's permission.
He didn't even have a licence after all.
He nearly died in that crash, but luckily he survived.
That's teenagers for you.
Now the scene shifted again, it was of him getting scolded by his parents.
But the he in the dream was smiling.
Why?
Now the scene shifted again.
Everything felt like it was boiling. The scene felt like it was tearing his mind and soul apart.
To the point that he felt like he had to wake up.
But he couldn't.
Faces blurred, a scream that was not his own, the smell of smoke, iron, and ash. Then the dream hardened into a cage.
He tried to turn, to lift an arm, to drag himself out of the mire of memory, yet it was as if he was stone.
The paralysis clamped him like chains. He tried to move... a finger, a twitch of his lips, anything! But the body that was supposed to be his was betraying him completely.
He saw it again: the fracture of his old life, the moment his body failed and his soul broke. A memory so sharp it bled anew.
The trauma lived not only in the dream but in his flesh, in the marrow that remembered pain better than peace. His scream was silent, caught in the throat of a body that refused to move.
What was happening?
The nightmare seeped into waking, and he lay stranded between two tyrannies... the past's cruelty and the present's paralysis.
In that moment, he was not alive, nor dead, but a relic of both, held hostage by memory.
Then... something snapped.
[The first fragment, 'The Fourth Wall' is thickening its walls.]
He tore free from the sleep paralysis with a sound half-sob, half-rend, gasping as if gulping a sea of air for the first time.
Moonlight slashed across Caster's face when he opened his eyes...
He did not move at once, but the paralysis loosened finger by finger until his hands lay trembling on the sheet, slick with sweat, the sheet he had summoned to sleep cleanly.
And then... tears began to well up.
[The first fragment, 'The Fourth Wall' is growing thin.]
Each tear tasted like blood.
His shoulders heaved as if trying to shake some weight from his ribs.
He cried for the life that had ended elsewhere, he kept weeping.
The faces of those he had loved flickered behind his eyes... the family that had been killed when he was no older than seven.
Killed by that wench of a mother.
He recalled his father's steady hands that held him and his brother, the sweet memories he had created with them.
The sweet memories he can created with his mother too.
He recalled all of them.
Now, all of them were gone, ripped away and left to rot in the grave his mother had carved.
Hatred for her burned bitter in his chest, hotter than any grief, yet beneath it throbbed the deeper wound: that he had lived while they had not.
Why had he survived?
Why?!
WHY?!
He clutched the sheet and sobbed harder, as if the violence of his tears could rewrite the past... as if drowning in them might somehow pay the debt of surviving.
It crushed him more than any nightmare could, and so he cried harder, as if drowning might wash away the sin of still being alive.
Or was he still alive? Was all this that was happening just a fantasy he was living through after his death?
If that was the case... he'd be relieved.
Relieved of the sin of surviving.
Perhaps his hate for his mother would have subsided if he successfully killed her.
He still questioned his existence.
Why had all that happened? What could have her mother possibly try to achieve?
Why did she go mad?
All these thoughts were bitter.
And all of them made him lose himself in his thoughts.
The night was spent like that.
And the next day too.
He was really not in the mood for any mirror hunting because of that shitty dream.
It reminded him of his trauma.
It reminded him of his losses.
It reminded him how everyone around him died.
Always.
He lost his father and younger brother at the age of seven.
After that, he lost his childhood.
No one came to take him. No relatives. No one.
They believed a murderer's son would become a murderer too.
His father's properties were taken over by his brothers.
His mother recieved twenty years in prison.
Only twenty years.
After that, he was taken to an orphanage where he spen the next eight and a half years, until he turned sixteen.
He bonded with everyone there during that time.
Overtime, more and more of his friends got adopted.
One of the friends who got adopted was his first love.
He was truly happy for her.
Lucky for him, he could even meet her from time to time despite them living far from the orphanage.
But then a couple years later, news came. She had died in a gas leak.
It broke him.
That was a changing point... in his life, his entire mentality.
He coped with it through multiple ways.
The one he liked the most was chasing thrills.
He couldn't live with his life, so he gambled it.
Yet he never died.
That was when he got adopted.
The new family, it was a loving family.
He had an older sister that looked out for him, and two loving parents.
He had wondered why they adopted him.
But he didn't ever find out.
And he didn't care much to find out.
He was happy.
For the first time in a while.
But that happiness was taken away from him too...
By sending him to this god forsaken world.
But he won't give up just like this. He wishes to go back and meet them again.
He'll do what he must.
And whatever he needs to do to reach his destination.
The only person... god... that seemed to have an idea about his transmigration is... the Demon Kind of Salvation.
He is his only bet.
And to do that, he'll need to advance in his aspect legacy.
His thoughts wandered again.
He wondered what happened to his body in the previous world.
Do they, his new family, think that he disappeared?
That he's dead?
That he ran away?
He hated the thought of worrying them. But... he'd be happy to see someone worry about him.
And just like that, he spent his night reminiscing... reminiscing due to that terrible... terrible nightmare.
***
His last couple days had been melancholic, but he soon overcame that. He had the fourth wall after all.
'This just goes to show that even the fourth wall isn't absolute. I am still vulnerable in some senses, albeit less than others. I really need to be cautious.'
And he couldn't remain down in the dumps either.
He had work to do damn it!
So he got up, freshened up with [Aquifer's gift] and warmed up a little before he left for Reckoning.
A day later, he reached the Reckoning.
The ominous island that so many people in the Sanctuary dreaded was large, spanning no less than a dozen kilometers across. What's worse, it was supported by only two chains, which were situated almost exactly opposite of each other.
So, escaping this island wouldn't be easy either.
The Reckoning seemed like a beautiful and tranquil place. Idyllic, even.
'How misleading... this place has a dangerous nightmare creature but looks like this...'
Sigh.
'Is it invisible right now? I wonder when it will start attacking.'
Just then, he saw a tall and broad figure standing opposite to him.
'Ah, here we go.'
It was the Mirror Beast, an ascended devil reflection of Mordret, wearing Caster's handsome face.
'This will be an annoying battle.'