Cassie found herself at the epicenter of a ferocious, roaring maelstrom of mories. They were like a vast nebula revolving in the great darkness of space, pulled toward a radiant core...
Toward her freshly rebuilt, settling mind.
It felt like it had taken an eternity to pick up the fragnts of her shattered mind and piece them all together. To rember who she was, to separate her own mories from those experienced by soone else, to endure the crushing weight of rembering it all.
But in reality, it all happened in the blink of an eye.
It was still happening.
Ti did not exist here, after all, in the dark mindscape of her broken self. There was no past and no future, only the present mont...
There was cause and effect, though.
And the distance between them was far less malleable and forgiving than ti.
By now, Cassie had reclaid all of her own mories and finished rebuilding herself. She was absorbing the vast ocean of mories bequeathed to her by the Nightmare Spell — the chronicle of existence as it was witnessed by the mysterious being who had collected them all in the past, then expanded upon by the Spell to encompass its own era.
The speed with which Cassie assimilated these mories was already trendous, and grew faster and faster with each revolution of the glimring nebula. The more mories poured into her, the firr her Will beca, and the firr her Will beca, the better she was able to fathom the mories.
Two things were happening at the sa ti, having beco inseparable.
Cassie was absorbing her dire Aspect Legacy, but she was also attaining Supremacy at the sa ti... in fact, she had already attained it.
Her body had not been reforged by rising to a new Rank yet, but her spirit was already infused with the power of a Supre. It had to happen in order for her to survive the crushing weight of the inherited mories — for her to will herself into surfacing from their dark depths instead of drowning in them. Instead of crumbling and ceasing to exist as a person.
There was no surprise that it had happened now, either. After the fog perating Cassie's fragnted mind cleared and she rembered everything about herself once more — after she rembered Sunny — she understood the reason for her Supremacy, as well.
Natural Supremacy demanded one to commit an act of supre defiance, and there was nothing more defiant than breaking an absolute law. Fate... fate was not an absolute law, though. It was sothing that existed above even the universal rules that governed existence.
Unlike these universal laws, fate had not been created by the gods. It dwelled on a plane of its own — one higher than all the rest and overlooking them all from up high. So, even the gods had to bow in front of fate... and the creatures of the Void did, as well.
Needless to say, breaking fate was quite an astonishing act of defiance. Why had Cassie not attained Supremacy earlier, then?
It was because breaking fate alone was not enough to beco a Supre. Imposing one's Will upon the world did not matter if the source of that Will was destroyed in the process — if all their defiance accounted for was being broken and defeated.
And that was what Cassie had beco after the Tomb of Ariel. She was broken and destroyed, walking the earth as a ghost of a person who had once been Cassia, Song of the Fallen... as a shadow of her forr self. But now that Sunny had defeated the Vile Thieving Bird and reclaid his True Na, weaving himself back into the tapestry of fate, Cassie's broken mind was restored to its forr state.
Which ant that her act of defiance did not end in defeat and self-destruction, after all. That her will prevailed against the tyranny of fate, and she erged on the other side triumphant.
That was great. But...
But even if Cassie had grasped Supremacy and rebuilt herself from the mory shards, using her Will to absorb and assimilate them... even if she was well on her way to completing the process of mastering her Aspect Legacy and becoming Supre... The rciless inevitability of cause and effect was still there to doom her.
Because in the process of regaining her mories, she had glimpsed a few that were ant to stay forever hidden, as well.
She had rembered being Tornt.
And so, the forbidden knowledge of the Defilent was planted into her mind, giving birth to Corruption.
There was a seed of darkness in the radiant heart of the glimring nebula, and that darkness was spreading swiftly, devouring more and more stars. It was already too late to cleanse the mories it had co from, and there was nothing Cassie could do to save herself from succumbing to the sa fate Mordret had succumbed to.
From becoming nothing more than a vile, abominable Great Beast.
‘Can't I?'
Transcendent Cassie could do nothing. Supre Cassie, however...
Perhaps she could.
Continuing to absorb the vast nebula of mories and resisting the spreading Corruption at the sa ti, Cassie listened to her intuition and silently assessed her Aspect.
Her Domain had not fully ford yet, her soul was frozen in a transient state between Transcendence and Supremacy, and her flesh was still that of a Saint.
However, the fifth seal of her Aspect had already been broken, and she could already wield her Supre Ability — she just needed to learn what it could do.
And what it could do was simple.
It allowed Cassie to manifest anything she rembered into reality.
Anything... or anyone.
So, Cassie called upon her Aspect...
And destroyed herself.
After destroying herself, she manifested herself back into existence — a version of herself that did not rember the vile secrets of the Defilent yet, and was therefore untainted by the Corruption.
The last of the glimring mory shards were absorbed into her nebulous mind, and she exhaled slowly, finally regaining her senses and control over her body.
Cassie opened her eye and faced Asterion with a cold, detached expression.
He seed to have studied her with a curious smile.
“Natural Supremacy... fascinating. And just in the nick of ti, as well."
Asterion took a step in her direction and added in a calm, insidious voice:
"However, you don't really think that a newborn Supre can threaten , do you?"
Cassie remained silent for a mont, then tilted her head a little.
A frail smile illuminated her face.
"You sound confident, Asterion... the Minotaur must have been just as confident when he faced Theseus, hasn't he?"
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