Elizabeth drifted in a silent void one moment, and in the next, she hovered in the middle of a desert, standing on a gigantic bony hand outstretched in the heart of a raging sandstorm. Before she could even question how she had ended up there, time froze. Sand particles hung motionless in the air like suspended stars. Then, impossibly, they began to move backward, flowing in reverse.
Darkness swept over the desert as if nightfall had devoured the sky, only for morning to rise again soon after. Time accelerated, going faster and faster. It wasn't until she noticed the sun racing across the horizon in the wrong direction that she knew time was flowing backwards.
A blinding white light suddenly consumed everything. Her world turned pure white, so harsh that even with her eyes squeezed shut, she still saw nothing but radiance. There was no concept of shadows or darkness, only an overwhelming, searing glow. The light persisted for an agonizing stretch before it slowly dimmed, fading away entirely.
When Elizabeth opened her eyes again, she was in the middle of an ocean.
The massive skeletal hand she had been standing on now had flesh, and a colossal titan attached to it. It was a humanoid shape that was unmistakably not human. The sight filled her with both dread and awe. Its single golden eye stared directly at her, and the moment their gazes met, her mind went numb. Her thoughts evaporated. Her mind numbed so severely she could hardly assemble a single coherent thought, but she still sensed the world around her continuing to rewind in time, the titan, however, remained unchanged, unmoving. Everything was still except for the rising water level that soon submerged them both.
Instinctively, she held her breath.
The titan's golden eye flinched, as if in pain, and it lowered its gaze toward its neck. Suddenly, a colossal golden chain materialized around its neck. The creature howled a sound so monstrous and vast that her mind almost collapsed under the force of it. Her mind buckled under the weight of it, something, however, shielded her from the worst of the mental blow.
She shot upward, rising through the water until she burst into open air. A monumental golden chain stretched before her, and far in the distance, a massive ship materialized. Its shape resembled a crescent moon, glowing with warm gold. The chain was connected to it, one of seven total, each leading to titanic obsidian pillars.
Before she could process any of this, she plummeted downward at neck-breaking speed, closing her eyes in reflex.
When she opened them again, she stood aboard the ship.
The sun above froze mid-sky. The frantic backward motion of the world slowed until everything became almost normal again.
[Aspirant! Welcome to your Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your first trial...]
Her senses slammed back into her body.
"Wha—" was all she managed before she collapsed to her knees and vomited a colorless liquid onto the gleaming golden floor. When the last of it left her stomach, she gasped for air, shaking. Her mind felt foggy, fragmented, like two overlapping thoughts that wouldn't align.
She pushed herself upright, trying to inspect her surroundings, but everything around her was concealed by thick fog. She could barely make out the silhouettes of pillars in the far distance, the same obsidian structures connected to the chains. At least she knew exactly where she was.
She checked for immediate danger. Nothing but fog. Still, she wobbled as she got to her feet, her balance unsteady, as if her body wasn't entirely her own.
Then she noticed her hand.
It was… wrong. Inhuman. Her fingers were connected by thin membranes of skin, webbed like a sea creature's. Faint blue scales shimmered along her wrist.
Panic almost took hold, but Elizabeth forced herself to calm down.
"First things first. I need to check my runes."
She knew that to call forth her runes all she had to do was think about it, but for some strange reason, her mind seemed scrambled. It took her a second to truly focus. She focused on the thought, and strange shifting letters appeared in front of her until they stabilized.
Name: Elizabeth
True Name: -
Rank: Aspirant
Soul Core: Dormant
Memories: -
Attribute: [Split Spirit], [Siren of the Sea], [Spirited]
Aspect: [Ocean Maiden]
Aspect Description: [a being that tend to the ocean, protect the ocean, live for the ocean, hear the voice of the ocean and is the voice of the ocean.]
'Of course,' Elizabeth groaned. 'I get the cryptic kind.'
Nothing about "Ocean Maiden" screamed combat to her. There were many kinds of Aspects out there. The most common type of Aspects were combat Aspects, but there were Aspects that could enhance strength, that could heal, although that one was rare, or improve overall fighting potential. Hers sounded like some poetic job description rather than an Aspect, nothing about it screamed fighting potential to her. She decided she needed to see how her body had changed due to it before passing judgment.
She turned her attention to her attributes instead.
[Split spirit] Attribute Description: "Your whole body and mind are split in half. Each side can act independently."
'Oh wow.'
That would explain why her mind felt different and hard to organize thoughts somehow. Now that she thought about it, she had been fully aware of her surroundings while simultaneously analyzing her runes. Almost like two consciousnesses working at once. The combat potential was obvious, she could already think of a way to apply this: one mind fighting while the other surveyed the surroundings.
But the bodily split sounded more troublesome. Right now, her movements felt uncoordinated, now she knew the reason why. She somehow had to give mental commands to two sides of the brain to fully coordinate with one another, as if she was doing something that used to be natural manually.
She sighed. There went her hard-trained reflexes, but she wasn't all that sad. Although it kind of sounded useless, or almost like a big hindrance, as it would disorient her, especially now that she was in a life-or-death situation and probably had no time to get used to it yet, but she knew that if she survived and managed to adapt, she could think of a few ways she could adapt it to combat.
She just needed time and practice to adapt.
Her eyes moved to the second attribute.
[Siren of the Sea] Attribute Description: "Sea sirens possess unmatched beauty. Their allure draws all beings toward them. Their beauty on the outside often matches the beauty within, attracting beings who are only seeking what lies inside."
'What the hell…'
Elizabeth did not know what to make of this. This was not comforting. At all. First, unlike her previous attribute, this one had no combat potential she could think of. From the sound of it, it seemed to be an attribute that enhanced her beauty, which she did not need or want at the moment, and worse, apparently attracted beings searching for what lies inside of her.
That sounded horrifying. She did not want to attract anything, especially beings that were looking for her insides. Not only did it sound ominous as heck, this attribute seemed to be putting her in danger from these "beings," and she wanted none of it.
She shoved that thought aside for now and focused on her last attribute.
[Spirited] Attribute Description: "Your soul burns bright. Its fire is nearly impossible to extinguish."
"Nice, Finally, something straightforward" she muttered.
"It seems you've familiarized yourself with your abilities."
She turned her head around. Her brother stood beside her, smiling softly.
"It's rare to start with three attributes. I only had one in my first nightmare."
"So you told me many times," she whispered.
His expression darkened as he stared into the fog. "Your nightmare is turning out to be quite dreadful… it's considerably worse than mine. All I had to do was survive a wave of nightmare beasts. you on the other hand...i can't even tell. Be careful out there."
And just like that, he vanished from existence, at least she wished him out of existence. Now wasn't the time to be distracted. One mistake meant death.
She looked down at herself. She was wearing a white flowing tunic, with a pouch at her hip, with sandals, and a dagger sheathed at her side. She was still 5'8, which was pretty tall considering her age, lighter than before, with faint blue scales along her arms. Her muscle definition had softened, but strangely, she did not feel weaker.
She checked the pouch next. Inside were hundreds of glowing blue marbles she didn't know what it was, but they smelled strongly of seaweed. The scent made her salivate involuntarily, her stomach rumbling as a result.
"So that's my food…" she said, noticing the reaction she had as she glanced down at the pouch. She took a marble, examined it closely, before she swallowed one. The moment it touched her tongue it melted, and she swallowed the liquid.
'Urg… too salty.'
Still a single one of these blue marble managed to make her full. Putting the pouch back in place, she picked up her dagger next. The handle was coated in silver. She unsheathed it, admiring the semi-transparent blade. When she reached toward it to test its sharpness, it made a cut in her finger before she even made contact, a drop of blood falling on the golden floor.
'Wow, it's shar—'
Before she could complete that train of thought, the ground below her trembled. The golden floor suddenly illuminated, and strange runes started appearing on it. As soon as that happened, a golden translucent barrier suddenly appeared from the ground to the surroundings, pushing the fog away and revealing the ship in its full glory.
It was enormous, majestic despite the patches of vegetation growing across its golden frame, as if nature itself had begun to reclaim it even though it was made out of gold. In the distance lay a breathtaking golden city, built around the seven obsidian pillars, each linked to a chain like the one she had seen binding the titan.
She barely had time to admire the view before a thunderous howl echoed across the horizon.
She recognized that howl. It was the same howl as the titan's.
Fear shot through her, but she forced herself to stay calm and lowered into a combat stance, an awkward one, because coordinating her split mind and split body required effort she wasn't used to.
The ship trembled beneath her feet, although not as intense as before. Then it began to move.
She held the stance for nearly a minute, but nothing attacked. So she let one mind maintain vigilance while the other examined the ship. The more she observed, the more awestruck she became.
The golden vessel stretched endlessly, its architecture elegant and ancient. Vines and moss decorated its railings like jewelry. And beyond it, the city in the distance seemed so majestic she started to think she was aboard the ship of one of the six gods, as she had never seen anything so mythical.
"I am pretty sure that has to be the stage for this nightmare," she thought. Every nightmare had a requirement, or at least something must happen to pass its trial. It could range from surviving a tide of nightmare creatures or defeating a specific creature, and so on. Her condition of passing this trial was lurking somewhere in that city.
If that was the case, she needed to go there, but first, she needed to learn to fight in this new body.
She drew her dagger and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her brother stood before her.
She smiled faintly.
"Help me warm up, yeah?"
His smile widened. "Of course."