Aspect: [Hypocritical Oath].

Aspect Rank: Transcendent.

Aspect Description: [Even medicine can be poison. Though you had taken an oath of
healing, war was thrust upon you. Your touch changes the bodies of living things, in ways
both benevolent and malicious.]

Aspect Abilities: [Healing Ward], [Metabolize], [Ripe and Rotten]

Flaw: [Oath of No Arms].

Flaw Description: [You cannot not wield weapons.]

Aspect Legacy: …
Relic: Surgeon’s Jar: [This jar contains a strong anaesthetic that replenishes over time.]
Relic Rank: [Awakened]
Relic Tier: [IV]

Relic: Bag of Needs: [This small bag can contain a large amount of things and can
immediately summon its contents upon the owner’s will.]
Relic Rank: [Ascended]
Relic Tier: [II]

Relic: Essence of Soul: [A pair of gloves that allows you to absorb the soul essence of
people you heal or provide your soul essence to those you heal.]

Relic: Stand-In : [A ghostly apparition that can make use of your abilities and memories, it
has its own essence but can also use yours.]
_________________________________________________________________________
Healing Ward Description: [Your touch can either increase or decrease the rate of healing of
a target, including yourself. The effect lingers after contact is broken. ]

Metabolize Description: [Your touch can influence the metabolism of living things, making
them sluggish or incredibly active, even if their bodies are unable to keep up, including
yourself. The effect depends on the amount of soul essence used, and lingers after contact
is broken.]

Ripe and Rotten Description: [Your touch can change the cells of living things, including
yourself, inducing tissue to mend at extreme rates, or for flesh to wither and rot. Efficacy
depends on the amount of soul essence used. The effect lingers after contact is broken. ]
_________________________________________________________________________

Dark and gloomy clouds hung above perpetually, providing an endless shower of rain to the
crimson tinged ocean which violently surged below as occasional flashes of lightning
illuminated it.
Steam hissed and vapour rose from the water as if there was a great flame capable of
boiling the ocean itself below.

There was no hint of a sun anywhere, Aside from the random flashes of lightning, a red hue
that escaped from below the water was the only light in this region of the Dream Realm. But
even that barely illuminated a few metres above the water level.

From a humongous rocky island, the alluring songs of Sirens penetrated the resounding
crashes and claps of waves and thunder, spreading far and wide.

The beautiful voices reached a wave relatively calmer than the rest on which rode a ship
made of pitch black wood fitted with black sails on great masts.

The bottom-side of the ship was slightly burned and seemed to be melting, there was also
an enigmatic energy circling it, returning the damaged parts to its original state as a vicious
cycle of melting and amendment ensued.

From its deck, an ominous and ghastly darkness light spilled out, casting a nearly
impenetrable veil of darkness over the immediate periphery of the eerie vessel which kept
away smaller monsters and hid the vessel from the entities of the depths.

Within a cabin illuminated by a ghostly blue lantern, Ezrah lay on a sickbed. Sweat oozed
out of her pores, bringing with it minute amounts of a tar like substance, it was her blood.
Her skin was pale, and her frame abnormally thin.

Underneath the nearly transparent epidermis of her stomach, a horrid growth festered. It was
charred black and stretched out with tens of miniscule tendrils which slowly absorbed her
blood and turned it into…something.

On her skin were lots of cuts from the surgeries attempted to get it out, they weren’t very
effective.

Beside her sat Marcus who tended to her, he injected an anaesthetic from his jar into her
vein while cleaning up the tar like blood that leaked out with tissues.

He summoned a thick rope from the bag by his leg and brought it to her mouth. “Bite!” he
barked, his voice hoarse.

She bit the rope at once, and then Marcus placed his palms over the growth.

A soft white light exuded from his palm, seeping beneath her skin and into the growth, which
awoke her diminishing senses. Her cells and blood began to work harder to eliminate the
alien existence attempting to eat her from the inside.

The growth retaliated violently, lashing a few of the tendrils against her guts.
She let out a muffled cry as she bit harder into the rope, and turned to look at him, her
drowsy eyes pleading.

“It might not work, Ez. It-it might get worse.” He sighed as the look in her eyes only
deepened.

The light diminished for a moment before returning to normal again, his hands trembled as
he hesitated. “Are you sure?”

Before he was done speaking, she painstakingly nodded.

Marcus paled, even though the gods had long since died he couldn’t help but pray within his
heart.

Letting out a shaky breath, he summoned white gloves on his palms.

Slowly, her essence left her core and entered his.

Activating his third Ability, the soft glow turned into a gloom. The gloom attacked the growth,
rotting it away.

After an hour of relentless decay, the growth finally showed signs of rotting and hopefully
dying, a glint of hope glimmered in her eyes before she shrieked! As the gloom ventured
deeper into the growth, the gloom seemed to grow weaker and turn into sustenance for it.

As gloom slowly resided, the growth turned dark and Ezrah’s shrieks grew louder.

It was absorbing her blood faster now.

Marcus’ heart dropped. Swallowing slowly, he changed his approach.

Straining his core, he released more of the dark substance.

However, instead of attacking the growth it stuck to the edges of the growth from where the
alien existence corrupted and absorbed her blood.

The gloom, instead of rotting away at the blood and cells which were under transformation,
began to eat away at the imperfections and return them to regular blood and cells. Another
almost invisible energy started invigorating Ezrah’s cells and blood to make the gloom’s work
easier.

The approach he decided to take was to not directly attack the growth, but to hinder its
efforts and machinations in hopes of fixing the damage caused in real time, cutting off its
source of energy…Ezrah from it and although quite unlikely, starving it to death.

Only after leaving a very minute amount of his essence and using every last drop drop of her
essence did he cease to sit by her side.
A wraith-like being separated from Marcus’ body, putting on the gloves and setting
everything it needed by the bed, and sat where Marcus sat.

It put its hands on her stomach, releasing more gloom and after a bit, he felt the small bits of
essence that his core replenished and leave his core and assist the apparition.

Looking at her tired figure, which had finally slipped into a slumber due to the anaesthetic, he
heaved a sigh of relief. He also eyed the parasitic growth.

He wasn’t sure if the growth would be defeated so easily, it had come from a Corrupted Teror
from the far west of the Sea of Flames after all.

The Sea of Flames was an unexplored region of the Dream Realm. Below this sea of water,
almost hundreds of thousands of feet deep, lay another sea, this one consisting of flames
which extended deeper into the abyss.

The water and fire seemed to be separated by a mystical force that prevented them from
meeting, but it was still enough to eternally boil this sea.
The only reason the sea hadn’t evaporated was due to the great amounts of vapour that was
guided by the very same mystical force to quickly form clouds and shower the sea with
water.

Opening and closing the door of the cabin, he made his way up a flight of stairs, a ladder
and through a trapdoor, reaching the deck.

A wave of hot air immediately washed over him, making him immediately want to go back
down, clicking his tongue, he made his way forward.

Walking on clouds of darkness, his steps made no noise whatsoever.

Breathing in the fresh air and feeling the humidity on his skin, he could almost taste the fresh
seawater, though that would scald his tongue.

A plethora of sweet voices singing of his deepest desires suddenly fell on his ears, his eyes
turned lucid as he took a step forward.

At that moment, the clouds underneath his feet began to seethe, causing a small part of it to
join in with the darkness spilling over the railings and into the sea.

The voices of the Sirens muffled, breaking Marcus’ reverie.

Clutching his temples with his hands, he massaged slowly, his expression turning sour. It
wasn’t very painful to succumb to a single mind attack but the same couldn’t be said for a
multitude of vicious attacks…not to mention the frustration of feeling your heart’s desires and
having that feeling ripped away from you.

However, Marcus understood that they were only hallucinations, dreams and trojan horses of
death. Anything that went near the Sirens more often than not, ended up dead.
With such a thought process, he shook off the mental mess caused by the mind attacks and
walked over to a marble tablet floating at the very centre of the deck.

The tablet had, inscribed on the four extremes of its periphery in the form of a cross, a
moving compass which portrayed the current direction of the ship as south east.
Marcus frowned, the ship was to be moving hard east as moving further away from the
Corrupted Nightmare Creature seemed to be weakening the growth, it only automatically
changed directions when coming across dangers that could be disastrous to the ship and its
crew.

This ship was a Sacred Memory from Ezrah’s Aspect Legacy, what kind of horrors would
make such a thing feel the need to veer off course…

Marcus wasn’t sure if it was the heat or the thought of such dangers, but his back was
clammy with cold sweat.

Readjusting his shirt and stopping it from sticking to his slimy back, he placed a palm on the
tablet and felt his mind connecting to the ship.

He commanded it to make its way as much to the east as it could without endangering them,
he felt the vessel shift slightly as soon as he thought of it, the ship was still heading south
east but it was a bit more…east. This was the best they could get.

Nodding, he moved away from the tablet and let his body drop into clouds.

Marcus lay down on the dark clouds, resting his tired body.

He retrieved a small polaroid from within a hidden pocket in the sleeves of his worn out
garbs.

He gazed at it ruefully, on it were Ezrah, Leny and him, with their arms wrapped around each
other’s shoulders.

The Ezrah in the picture was in much better shape than now, with lusterful black hair and
eyes so dark they seemed to devour all the light around her, her cheeky grin seemed much
more distant now.

Leny had long handsome locks of brown hair and golden eyes, his sharp jaw diminished by
a ruddy stubble. He looked far better in the photo than he did now, he was just a corpse
without a head now after all.

He was decapitated by a particularly ghastly Siren a few months ago, when they dared to go
towards the Siren’s Rock. It was the largest piece of land above water, spanning a few
hundred kilometres of unsubmerged dry land.
It probably held a gateway, but getting through there would be a dead man’s endeavour.
Each and every one of those damned Sirens were Ascended Devils, housing a few Tyrants
and a handful of Corrupted Beasts too.

None of them were as terrifying as the thing that caused that growth to Ezrah though.

Sharpening his resolve, he promised himself to pick off a few Sirens for Leny when they
passed the Rock, it too lay in the South East.

He also took a look at himself, with light blue eyes, dark hair and a nurturing smile, he was
quite the looker.

He was quite…diminished now, he had large eye bags, cracked skin and possessed a lot of
red in the whites of his eyes. He probably looked like an asylum patient now.

Shrugging off such thoughts, he placed the polaroid back and closed his eyes for some
much needed rest.

He was in deep sleep for a few hours, his chest rising and falling slowly when he was woken
up by Ezrah’s shouts. She didn’t sound to be in pain, instead sounding rather excited.

Drinking some rainwater collected in an open bucket, he entered Ezrah’s cabin.

Ezrah stood before a mirror opposite the bed, donning a nightgown. Marcus’ apparition kept
trying to convince her to lay down but she refused. Her eyes were jolly.

Not expecting her to be this strong as soon as she regained consciousness, he was taken
aback.

Turning towards him, Ezrah flashed a joyful smile and was about to speak when Marcus cut
her off.

“I didn’t expect this, I thought it would take a week or two for you to be able to even
stand…what happened?”

His eyes were doubtful.

She took a step forward and spoke in a measured tone. “Why are you surprised? I’m only
this well because of you.”

Marcus’ eyes turned grim. “It should be impossible for you to be this strong in only a few
hours, show me the growth.”

She did as he asked, her smile was much weaker now.

Her flesh and complexion around the growth had grown a lot stronger, her stomach was
nearly back to normal, making it nearly impossible to see through the skin and see what
exactly was happening.
Deep inside near her gut, the growth was no longer as widespread anymore, most of it had
gathered into a pulsing ball of charred black, while a few tendrils extended far away from it to
corrupt and absorb blood.

But its actions and speed, maybe even its complexions were far too strong for it to be nearly
dead…it had to be nearly dead if Ezrah was this strong.

On second thought, the tendrils were barely doing anything…it was like it was just distracting
the gloom and her body from what it was really doing.

His heart dropped before he paled, he picked up a scalpel and rushed towards Ezrah.

But before he reached her, the pulsing got a lot stronger. They could hear the thump and
almost heart like beating of it clearly.

Ezrah fell down and vomited a bit of healthy red blood.

Clutching her stomach, she looked at Marcus. “What's wrong?” Panic and agony laced her
tone as she screamed.

Not wasting time to answer, he bent down and pushed the tool into her skin to remove the
ball when it pulsed for one last time…and burst.

There was no sound, but it felt as if a nuclear explosion took place in the confines of his
ears.

A piercing and throbbing pain spread through Marcus’ forehead, and he could feel warm
blood flowing out of his ears.

He let go of the scalpel and covered his ears.

Blood welled up against his palms as he screamed. From the corner of his eyes, he could
make out Ezrah spasming as blood practically poured out of her ears and mouth.

Removing his palms from himself, he placed them on her temples and activated all his
abilities at once. The wounds caused within her ears and insides started healing as
metabolic levels of her arms, legs and neck lowered to a dangerously low level to control her
muscle spasms.

More blood spilt out of his ears as he continued to heal her. If this went on any longer, he
would die but if he stopped to heal himself, she would die.

Marcus’ heart practically threatened to jump out of its place upon this realisation, his arms
started to tremble.

He had to live, he had to get out of here. He had a family! And Ezrah didn’t.
As this sobering thought resounded in his head, shame threatened to kill him as he bit his
lips and a grim resolution overcame his shame.

He was convinced it was just an intrusive thought, his brain’s last ditch attempt to save him.
He wasn’t one to let his friends die for himself.

And even if he did, he could not wield weapons! His life had no worth here, no amount of
healing himself would do without a weapon to fend for himself. Even now he could only use
the metallic gauntlets of his armour to do any significant damage, making him a fighter with
countless openings and weaknesses.

…Maybe he would have been able to save Leny if he had been able to wield a weapon.

Most in his shoes would have to face the fact that they could not survive alone, and that
Ezrah would have a higher chance of surviving. Furthermore, the growth had died and she
would be fine if they went through with the healing.

But instead, he embraced this fact with glee as he cast out any doubt he had, his heart
coming to a slow.

His eyes were already blurry beyond visibility, there was no more time. Using every last drop
of essence he had, he focused all his attention on Ezrah. Every last wound, cut, damage or
bruise on or in her was healed. The growth rotted until it was dust and her metabolic levels
rose to normal levels.

With Ezrah no longer in fatal danger, or any, he fell into the warm embrace of sleep, maybe it
was going to be forever.

He felt someone pulling him into an embrace and another placing their hands on his head
when a roar shook his world, a roar unlike anything he had ever heard before.

It seemed to signify the end of the world…and it came from the west.

That was the last thing he heard before passing out.

***
His head hurt, a lot.

It was as if his head was being mauled by a boulder while having molten steel rods shoved
into his ears.

Gasping, Marcus awoke to find himself in a sickbed like the one Ezrah used, perhaps it was
the very same one.

Beside him, sat Marcus…a ghostly wraith of himself sat next to his body and placed its hand
on his head. Such a thing was almost impossible to believe until his memories hit him like a
truck. It was his echo.
Staring at himself, he almost felt bad for Ezrah…to gaze at such an utterly annoying
countenance while dying must have been a terrible ordeal in and of itself.

Suddenly, a soft white light and a gloom shone from its hands and blinded him. He felt his
head heal itself very quickly as his energy levels soared to accommodate such healing while
also removing all the soreness he felt everywhere.

While the soreness leaving felt like a burden removed from his back, the healing of his head
and ears felt anything but.

His screams even attracted Ezrah, who was half dead a day before, to come and stare at
him with a worried gaze. There were also a lot of wounds on her body, and she could never
stay for more than a few minutes before she went back up, returning with even more injuries.

Eventually, he passed out after being healed.

When he awoke again, there was no one in his room.

He heard the clang of a sword from the deck, and without thinking he ran out of the cabin
while summoning his armour.

By the time he had scrambled up the stairs and ladder, he adorned a gracious white armour
with beautiful and intricate patterns weaved of gold and black.

Ezrah was there, a jet black sword made of solid darkness jutted out of the body of a Siren,
there were another dozen Siren corpses strewn about the deck.

The crimson blood staining the floors of the deck almost made it seem like the sea had
leaked into the vessel. For some reason, the dark clouds had vanished from the deck.

Pulling the sword out, she flourished her sword, removing all the blood from the sword as
she turned to look at Marcus.

A tired smile greeted him. “Thank you for saving me.”

Hearing those words, he nearly burst into tears, “No, no worries Ez.” he croaked.

She smiled awkwardly and moved a strand of hair that covered her eyes away.

Looking at all the corpses around the deck, he asked. “Where exactly are we?”

“We’re extremely close to Siren’s Rock.”

Marcus hesitated before swallowing and finding the courage to ask, “Before I passed out,
that roar…is it following us?”

Ezrah nodded grimly, “Remember that pain in our ears? The parasite called out to it.”
“A high frequency sound”, Marcus muttered and asked with worry laced in his voice.

“Do you know where it is?”

She nodded, summoned a monocular telescope, tossed it and pointed behind him.

Letting out a shaky breath, he turned to look and brought it to his eye…and let out a gasp.

A gigantic leviathan with draconic wings, towering well over 200 metres above the water
levels with some of its body still under water was currently battling an entire army of
Nightmare Creatures, an army of its own mixed and matched creatures with weird growths
underneath their transparent skin helped it fight against them.

Under its vicious onslaught, thousands of Awakened, hundreds of Fallen and dozens of
Corrupted fell to their demise.

Most were not dead, yet barely alive when the serpentine dragon blew a smog of darkness
at them. When the smog disappeared, they all had growths under their now transparent skin.

Joining the rest of the army, they flew or swam through the region and slowly began moving
in the ship’s direction.

“It must have really liked you to bring its entire army just for you, haha.” He cracked a bad
joke, trying to alleviate his tension.

Letting out a shaky breath, she tried to smile but failed.

“So why are we here, so close to Siren’s Rock while we are chased by an army of Nightmare
Creatures?”

Paling, he felt that he should have just died yesterday instead of living to become one of the
Leviathan’s puppets.

Failing to answer for a few awkward moments, Ezrah responded meekly. “I’m not sure it’ll
work, but by the time the army catches up to us at about nightfall, we’ll be at Siren’s
Rock…they’re a lot faster than us after al. At most, from all the Nightmare Creatures they
cross it will only gather a few thousand more puppets, while there are hundreds of
thousands of Sirens at the Rock. The plan is to make the two armies clash while we sneak in
and find a Gateway. We’ll probably die but its better than not trying, right?”

She flashed another weak smile

Realising they couldn’t hear the songs of the Sirens, he looked over the ship's railing and
noticed that around an almost 50 metre radius of the ship was covered by the cloudlike
darkness.

It was probably the reason the other Nightmare Creatures disregarded them, and the songs
didn’t reach them.
He put the handy telescope back up to his eye and looked behind Ezrah, towards the
dreaded Siren’s Rock.

He could see thousands of Sirens laying on a rock.

The Sirens were shaped like body bags with a number of razor sharp teeth, they possessed
the ability to sing and bewitch their prey into hearing their most innate desires and wants,
however that was possible.

They seemed slow but very actually deviously fast.

To make matters worse, once they managed to kill their targets and ‘swallow’ them, they
could take on their shape and utilise their powers on top of their own.

He could see many creatures that resembled the ones in the Leviathan’s army.

Shivering, he wondered if he would find a Siren in the form of Leny.

Returning the memory to Ezrah, he went down the ladder towards the pantry.

This night was probably going to be his last, and it would certainly be long. He wasn’t about
to infiltrate an island where he would probably die on an empty stomach.

Soon he arrived atop the deck, seated with Ezrah. He chewed on some spiced Siren and
Winged Crab meat, and a few rotten fruits he ripened back up.

Noticing Ezrah had summoned the telescope again, he looked in the direction she was
looking at…he didn’t see much really.

Suddenly, the telescope’s glass cracked and the memory broke into shimmering white. The
memory had been destroyed.

“What was that?” he asked, forgetting to chew.

“The Leviathan, it knew I was watching…it looked into my eye.” She shivered.

He gulped, getting some unchewed meat stuck in his throat.

Coughing, he got it out as his face turned sour.

It was going to be a long night indeed.