In the Song domain…
Inside an exquisite room in the Jade Palace, Merlin sat crosslegged on his bed, his face was calm as a lake, but inwardly, he was nothing but calm.
And the reason for that was that today was the day Seishan was supposed to return, and also the day he would place the lives of everyone present in a probably foolish bet.
For his plan to take effect, he'd have to reveal one of his closest secrets, and even then, it probably wouldn't be enough.
But he was betting on the fact that his usefulness to Ki Song would outweigh his coming transgressions, if not, at least Valor's still hiring.
Outside,multiple sounds could be heard, the once serene and calm Jade Palace was now rowdy as everyone was preparing to welcome Seishan and her cohort.
He stretched his leg and laid down on the bed as he stared up at the familiar ceiling, he sighed again as he ran his mock plan through his head.
In his plan, most of the suspicious deeds were going to be done by a marionette that he would alter slightly using the [Cloak], and the marionette would be a one time use kind of situation.
As for how the marionette's actions would be tied back to him, it would be pretty obvious to anyone with ears, and he was going to sacrifice a few of his secrets for it.
He wasn't bothered about them sensing him using the [Cloak], because he would go the extra mile to hide his presence. He had learnt a lot about it from Eurys, and coupled with his affinity to [Nothing], he was confident that he would be able to avoid being detected for the most part of his plan.
The party for Seishan and her Handmaidens would be held in the late evening, not because of any special reason, but the people who just finished their nightmare would obviously need to rest and get accustomed to their new abilities, and that was just fine with him.
Merlin sighed again as he felt his eyes getting heavy and groggy, ever since he arrived at the Song domain, he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep, and meditation hadn't made up for his lack of sleep, the fatigue was also catching up to him recently, and that weakness was something he couldn't afford, not in the domain of a Sovereign.
Although Ki Song looked easygoing, she was anything but that, for one, she almost always had him in her eye view, and her constant probing never seemed to end, even inside regular conversations.
Somehow, the Queen of Worms had managed to discover that he possessed [Danger Sense], and she had tried multiple instances to bypass it, and although she was close, he was still always warned at the last minute.
Apart from that, she had tried subtly trying to influence his actions through her Will, there were multiple times where he had tried using [Travel], she had subtly attempted to Will him into failing.
He had noticed many times as he had become sensitive to the use of Will, right from his days in Karlax, and he had learnt a lot about it from Azarax and Eurys, so he could tell when she would try to Will him in place.
As for whether it worked, well it obviously failed, not only did it fail, she wasn't even able to slow him down in the slightest, he guessed that for a Will like that to take effect, she'd have to have precise control like Azarax or Eurys, or she would have to be at the rank of a Supreme Tyrant.
Although he said this, he still couldn't confirm how much control Ki Song had over her will, after all she had never seemed to use it to the fullest.
Although her probing icked him off quite a bit, he couldn't do much about it as he would be stuck with them for a while, and he also couldn't blame her, if he were in the same position, he would also need as much information as possible if he was going to deal with a possible problem.
He too had a few of those himself, well they were mainly prepared for the cohort and Silver, not because he didn't trust them, it was because he was going to face them in the Third Nightmare, plus to him who came from a modern era, power scaling had been one of the things he loved, well that's until some random guy on the internet popped up and was spouting things like One Punch Man could solo the Dragon Ball franchise. Either way, he had his own personal Batman level countermeasure to the cohort.
Pulling himself out of his wandering thought, he sighed, again, and stood up from the bed groggily, however, the moment his leg touched the ground, his vision changed.
Merlin who had been inside the Jade Palace, was now standing in an open place, not just any place, he recognized it as the far border of the Song domain.
On regular basis, he had never gone this far on his walk, always keeping a distance and watching it from the sky, it was usually covered in snow and the creatures that wandered around were mostly Fallen and Corrupted, but he still didn't go there, for one, he knew [Spirit Vision] wasn't exactly all seeing, the Spectre back at Civilth had proven that to him, and he wasn't sure how far the [Marionettist Vision] went, LOTM never mentioned its limits, but he sure as hell didn't let his guard down, this was not the LOTM world, who knew what kind of things the creatures here could cook up.
He looked around, and everything felt strangely realistic, but he knew it wasn't, his intuition had already told him what was happening since he arrived.
He was having a Vision.
From the looks of it, it didn't seem like this one was about his Third Nightmare, it was probably before or after it.
He looked around but didn't move from his position, more like he didn't need to, because the next moment, a titanic beast erupted from the depths of the snow, despite him not sensing anything earlier, even now in his [Spirit Vision], the creature didn't seem to give off anything, and neither was there anything from his [Marionettist Vision].
He stared at the beast, for one, it looked like a Large Polar Bear, except this one was over thirty feet tall, had four arms and two heads, and its jaw looked like it could take a large bite out of the Jade Palace and still not have anything stuck in its teeth.
As for its rank, Merlin had naturally figured that out, and it was a Great Terror. For a moment, he really wished that he was seeing a vision from the past, but unfortunately reality was not that kind.
The vision changed again, and this time, it was a rather bloody scene, for one, the Great Terror wasn't not one anymore, but three, of the same kind, and they were not alone, around them were an army of Corrupted abominations ranging from Beast to Devil, and they were locked in a bloody battle.
As for who they were fighting, it was obviously the Saints of the Song domain, no Awakened or Ascended could participate in this scenario that could literally be called a mini war, well except for the puppets controlled by Ki Song.
The Sovereign in question was out there battling two of the Great Terrors, and losing obviously, one because she wasn't using her true body for some reason, and second because those were definitely not weak opponents, from what he was witnessing, even taking off their head wasn't enough to keep them down, them or any other of the nightmare creatures around, these things seemed to never die, cut them down one second, and they're back the next.
He watched in pure horror as the undying nightmare creatures overpowered the Saints of the Song domain, causing them to fall back, he was naturally in the fight, and by the looks of it, his odds were just as bad, for one, he couldn't kill them, the [Cloak] was rendered all but useless, and his trump card was genuinely unavailable.
He was in charge of keeping the other Great Terror at bay, a feat he was hopelessly failing at, the nightmare creatures were immortal, and they didn't have [Spirit Body Threads], and for some strange reason, none of them seemed to have soul shards in them.
He had watched himself blast open more than fifty of the Corrupted creatures, only for nothing to be seen.
Watching from a third person POV, he was genuinely curious if he was witnessing what seemed to be the end of the Song domain due to a butterfly effect he had triggered, and he felt slightly regretful.
But from his point, something seemed to change, the Merlin who was down there seemed to falter a bit, then his aura immediately changed, into one Merlin could tell even from the vision.
He immediately felt his vision blur and turn red with blood as a splitting headache pulled him out of the vision.
"Ugghk!"
His body collapsed on the ground as he returned to the room, his head still splitting as his skin became pale, almost invisible as multiple swirling maggots were writhing underneath the skin, his eyes, nose and ears were bloodshot as gritted his teeth in pain.
He was teetering on the edge of losing control.
At that moment, a familiar phrase appeared in his mind.
'Do not gaze upon the gods'
What he saw was obviously not a god, but it was the closest it could have ever been, what he just witnessed was himself in a position of 'The Half-Fool'.
A King of Angels—
"Ugh… not a very interesting experience" Merlin said as he stood up, using the edge of his bed as support.
His mind ran through a series of thoughts as he recounted the vision he just had, it was both straightforward and complicated at the same time.
Just as he was about to form a thought, he felt a pull from his Soul Sea, he sighed and sat crosslegged on the bed, as he immediately entered his Soul Sea.
As he arrived, he was on the other end of the long table with high back chairs, while Jayson (Original Merlin) sat at the head, his expression carrying one of visible exhaustion and mild shock.
He immediately came to a conclusion, "It seems you had the vision too"
"Yeah…" Jayson nodded tiredly.
"The Half-Fool… what a terrifying existence" he added.
"Funny you say that…" Merlin chuckled, "because that's probably us in a few months"
"More like you…" Jayson rolled his eyes, "but then again, are you going to warn Ki Song about the Great Terrors?"
Merlin thought for a few seconds, weighing the options of both choices, then added.
"Yes"
"I see" Jayson nodded in understanding, "you're going to have a lot of explaining to do once the effect of the Half-Fool wear off"
"I'll figure it out, plus I'm sure she'll be a little understanding judging by the fact that I'll be saving the Song domain from possible near-extinction" Merlin shrugged.
"Anyways, do be safe out there, you might not be worth much, but my core is very important to me" Jayson waved him off and left the Soul Sea.
"Haha…" he chuckled as his body faded and reappeared in the head chair.
As he reappeared, he rubbed his temples and sighed.
The main reason he had chosen to warn Ki Song wasn't out of trying to avoid the future, at his current sequence, he knew too much about fate to think he could avoid the scenario.
He also didn't do it out of obligation, from what he had read and what he had seen, a situation like that never occurred in the novel, so without a doubt, it was obviously a butterfly effect caused by his arrival, he couldn't avoid it didn't mean he couldn't prepare for it.
As for the reason he was willing to incur suspicion to warn Ki Song, was genuinely because he cared, even if not for her, he cared for Eubin, Hel and the few people he had met and genuinely felt comfortable with, he obviously cared for Mordret too, but he was sure even if the Song domain fell, the bastard would still find a way to survive.
But all things said, he definitely wasn't going to warn her now, not when he was about to crash a party, instead he would crash the party, then warn them during the questioning phase.
'Yeah… that seems like a good idea' he thought as he replayed the plan in his mind.
"A Half-Fool huh… I'm definitely going to crash out from the backlash, not to mention all my saved up humanity…" he chuckled to himself.
He sighed and left his Soul Sea as he reappeared in the familiar room of Ravensong, he stood up from the bed and headed straight to the shower to wash the blood off his face, he looked at his skin noticing that it had returned to normal, but the earlier sight of it still lingered at the back of his mind.
After cleaning himself, he stood up and left the room, as he wandered aimlessly around the castle.
"This is going to be a long day…"