After receiving the well deserved rest, he woke up.
He was lying on the rocky floor of the cave, sore all across the body, and despite the healing charm's effects, he had not healed very well.
The healing charm's effects had decreased ever since becoming an awakened, and he had grave injuries. The charm wouldn't be enough.
His injuries included, but weren't limited to, a number of cuts and scars of burns all over his body, multiple bald spots in his head due to burns on the scalp, no left thumb, loose joints.
Perhaps only Nephis could heal him out of his these.
The charm and his lineage attributes weren't nearly enough.
Crawling, he tried getting up, but failing to do so. Simply sat down, resting the back against the cave's wall.
His eyes darted around the place, it was sufficiently hidden, so he didnt notice a single corspe around.
If something came here, Evermelt would have likely killed it.
Maintaining an echo like Evermelt is draining on his soul, so all the essence he was regaining was rapidly being consumed.
Luckily the rate of extinguishing of essence was slower than the regeneration of essence, so even after spending who knows how many days sleeping, he at least had about one core full of essence. Which was lucky, as Caster didn't wish to spend a lot of time on Reckoning, he couldn't let this feat of his spread. Though, he knew that he'd likely get caught sooner or later, he wanted it to be later rather than sooner.
As long as his work on the Chained Isles is done, it would be okay.
Caster decided that its better to finish his work here as soon as possible, before people connect the disaster at Reckoning to him.
His current plan of action was that he'd go back to the main citadel, Noctic's Sanctuary, and recuperate before leaving for the Night Temple.
'Rumors will likely arise by the time I am done healing up, but it can't be helped. I can't go to the Night Temple without being at a hundred percent of my power. It's too risky.'
Taking out Aquifer's Gift, he chugged water down his thristy throat.
The water had healing properties due to an enchantment that it had.
[Healing Draught]: A sip restores vigor, easing thirst, fatigue, and minor wounds.
It consumed a decent bit of essence, so he couldn't just use this everytime and have near infinite stamin, but in emergencies like this, it was very useful.
It didn't heal Caster much, but that wasn't why Caster used it. He used it to get some energy and to decrease the pain.
He was paining all over, but it was better now.
It was more than bearable thanks to Fourth Wall as well.
'I want to rest more... but I can't delay this leaving this place anymore. I don't even know how many days I spent sleeping. I can't afford to get caught.'
He knew that barely anyone would ever go to Reckoning, but he was still in a hurry. Because who knew when the sword domain would launch an attack on him. As a matter of fact, he knew he'd get ambushed by them sooner or later. They might even be on his tail right this insant.
Still, he decided to rest for a bit more. It was early evening, he would barely cover any distance before it got too hard for him to see properly.
'Not worth the risk.'
So for the time being, he decided to recuperate further.
He couldn't do a lot, but he could at least please him self.
He summoned some food out of his stark black ring, Starhoarder, his dimensional ring memory that he got from Moonveil. The food was still warm and fresh due to the memory having preservation effects.
The food wasn't anything special, it was a simple chicken roll. But Caster liked to make it in his previous life, so it held some strange meaning to him now.
Perhaps it was just another medium for him to reminisce.
Still, it settled his mind.
He remembered how Keiron once made it for Leena, his dead best friend... almost a lover, back then Leena was impressed by its quality, so much so that she dropped the other one that was for Keiron.
He had used up all the chicken he bought, so he couldn't even make another one. He had to live on remaining fruits that night.
They were about fifteen back then.
Keiron wished he had spoken about his love to her back then, since Leena got adopted soon after and they could barely meet after that.
And soon after she had died.
It left a deep scar in his heart. He couldn't love anyone after that, could he?
Which was another reason he kept his distance from Effie, knowing full well what she thinks.
This was why he was comfortable with an arranged marriage, meant to benefit both parties. It wasn't a marriage out of love.
He could have maybe, just maybe, given Effie a chance if his life wasn't in danger and he didn't need to marry into the Song Clan, but fate had other plans.
His mind darted off again...
Reminiscing about the past as he ate the food.
[The Fourth Wall is trembling.]
Soon enough his mind snapped back, slapping his cheeks with both his palms, he focused again.
"So pathetic... I am..."
He finished his food, put the container back into the dimensional ring and cleaned his hands again with Acquifer's Gift.
After that, he stood up, finally, and checked how bad his legs condition actually was.
It was surprisingly okay.
He couldn't move as well as he would have liked, but he wasn't having trouble standing, except for the weakened joints.
He would just have to strengthen them using essence if he had no choice but to fight.
he just decided to summon some mystical bandages that he had in Starhoarder and decided to give his knees and elbows some support.
He also wrapped his left hand with them, because the wound from losing a thumb could open up anytime. It would likely close off soon enough due to his lineage attribute, but it was better to prevent that from happening at all.
After that he inferred back to the fight.
The fight against that reflection had sent him the closest to death out of all his fights. It was scary how well both of them countered the other, making the fight way too close for comfort.
It started small, just a physical battle, overwhelming Caster with speed.
Though, this cleared up one thing, as long as Caster stops ageing entirely, he can completely neglect his aspect.
As the reflection didn't age at all during the fight, despite abusing it at a much higher level and more blatantly than Caster.
Getting back to the fight, Caster had to outsmart the reflection in the battle, due to it outspeeding Caster, to trap it inside evermelt and force it into transforming into evermelt, making it lose the fourth wall's reflected powers.
He could have ended the battle right there using the Nameless Sun, but he'd have to destroy evermelt in the process, and who knows when the reflection would change into something else, avoiding the killing blow.
Caster decided it wasn't worth the risk.
In hindsight, he just didn't want to pay such an enormous price for killing the reflection.
He decided to flood the entire vicinity to try to trap it, but that didn't work either.
Lightning also barely worked.
He had to use the Daybreak's End Enchantment on the Nameless Sun, a lightbased soul attack, to force it to change back into Caster and utilize that moment to get rid of it, but it was just too strong.
In the end, only the last lightning bolt did any meaningful damage to it, because Caster used all of his over two hundred fallen shards.
Throughout the battle though, Caster had one more weapon that he never used.
[Starhoarder].
Memory: [Starhoarder]
Memory Rank: Transcendent
Memory tier: V
Memory type: Tool
Memory Description: [In the First Silence, before the stars were named, there were the [REDACTED], artisans not of flesh, but of thought and gravity. They wove space itself into shapes, folding worlds into hollows and locking suns into orbits with unseen chains. Their craft was not creation but containment: to hold the infinite in finite form.]
Memory Enchantments: [Infinite Vault], [Stillroom], [Hidden Firmament], [Singularity Rend], [Warp in Silence].
[Infinite Vault]
Description: The ring has a vault that is connected to your thoughts.
[Stillroom]
Description: Everything inside is preserved.
[Hidden Firmament]
Description: Anything that's inside can't be tracked.
[Singularity Rend]
Description: With just a thought willed into the ring, the wielder can collapse a stored object into a miniature singularity, hurling it outward as a black mote.
[Warp in Silence]
Description: Space around the wielder bends.
While this memory's main purpose was storage, it didn't mean that it had no combat application. It, in fact, did have combat applications.
However, Caster didn't want the reflection to utilize this memory, as the last enchantment would make the already hard to kill entity even harder to kill.
It would be more useful for the reflection, than it would be for Caster.
In the end, it all worked out but Caster had no choice but to focus on his mistakes, no Caster left himself no choice, especially on the flaws he had made in the split second decisions.
He can't stay like this.
Luckily he had a while to think it through.
He also would have to go through the crushing once again.
***
After spending the entire evening and night in the cave again, he decided that it was time to leave finally.
He still only had about a quater of the second core filled, but he couldn't delay anymore.
He freshened up, redid his bandages, suited up using Evermelt, and wore Ashveil Tunic under it and did some light stretches. Warming himself up.
Walking out of the cave through the fountain entrance, cleaning the Evermelt armor, he looked at the condition Reckoning was in one final time.
"I'm not gonna miss you."
The damage to this island was borderline catastrophic.
"Well, that's what burning through two hundred ascended shards does I guess."
The island only had two chains, and he just needed to retrace the path he took.
He walked towards it slowly.
He wasn't in a good enough condition to rush.
As the chain seemed to get closer and closer, he couldn't help but realise this weird feeling he had in his chest that he just couldn't seem to get rid of.
An arrow landed on his head from behind, almost piercing through Evermelt.
'What the fuck?'
Hurriedly he turned around, but as soon as he did he felt a sword piece through both Evermelt and Ashveil tunic before scraping his right thigh. The attack came from the direction he just turned away from.
'Ambush. Multiple people.'
Activating his Aspect at maximum speed he rushed away from the scene.
Multiple arrows shot towards him, none of them missing.
'The arrows are tracking me.'
Caster noticed that the longer the arrows tracked, the less effective the damage got.
He summoned Moon sabers and Nameless Sun to augment it.
Just then, a boulder suddenly turned into a metal giant, at least fifteen feets tall.
Another two people rushed over.
He was surrounded.
Each of them seemed to have powerful memories that only Master's or saints would have had. They all were also immensely powerful, physically.
He did not for a second think that these were awakened.
There was an archer somewhere, their exact location was not compromised yet but Caster had a rough idea where the arrows were coming from.
Of course, the archer was constantly on the move.
The metal giant was stopping him from going forward, while the other three masters were surrounding him, not giving him any hope to escape without a fight.
'It seems they know about my speed powers.'
This was going to be very annoying.
Caster was barely in a condition to fight a single master, let alone six masters.
Another arrow shot towards him, but Caster casually caught it.
Smiling, though it was hidden by evermelt, Caster spoke up in a unhurried and calm tone.
"You're all well prepared it seems. Five masters for a single awakened. Not taking a risk, are you? Should have just sent a saint instead."
The seemingly the leader of the group took a step forward and spoke up in an arrogant tone.
"We're more than enough to get rid of you, divine aspect or not."
Caster chuckled, trying to buy some time.
"Are you now?"
"You don't seem surprised that you're being hunted down. It seems you've anticipated this."
Just as the leader said that, Caster noticed the master at the furthermost distance from him give off a signal of sorts to someone.
Then he sensed movement behind him.
Then, the island shook over.