Merlin opened his eyes to the bright sun that peered through the window, it had been a few months since he talked with Seishan, during this period he had stayed with the team, their expendition had suffered setbacks because of Caster and it was then pushed forward.
He spent most of his time hunting with Sunny and performing in the bright castle, he also had a few more meetings with Seishan, as he exchanged blood for information about the bright castle, a truly profitable deal.
The cohort also improved their training coordination, Nephis trained Sunny and Merlin in swordplay, Merlin trained them in hand combat, Caster stuck around Nephis like a fly and occasionally Effie would join in.
Merlin and Sunny also took exclusive training under Saint, though it was less training more beat down, somehow Saint held a grudge against Merlin as even in friendly spars her attacks were always destructive enough to trigger his figurine substitute.
The threats from Gunlang had also increased as he now openly sent spies to cause chaos in the outer settlement, but with divination Merlin had killed over a dozen of them.
His first time killing a human was not intense at all, he hardly felt any guilt towards them as his flaw helped him pull through it, as Gunlang's attempts had been met with death he switched tactics to openly blaming random sleepers and attacking them when they were alone.
Merlin who witnessed the actions decided that since Gunlang was jobless he would help keep his mind occupied, from that point on there had been a series of deaths of the castle guards, some died of poisoning, some of a clean slash to the throat, some choked on foods while eating, and some even commuted direct suicide.
The situation immediately spread within the castle, someone had killed a lot of castle guards and no one seemed to see them, Gunlang had to leave the business of the outer settlement and focus on finding the intruder and thus the people of the outer settlement were relaxed.
Currently Merlin was busy preparing as today was when they would finally discuss the plan for the shards.
He made his way to the tent they used for meeting, on his way he met with Sunny and Kai who were also heading in the same direction.
He waved at them as he neared.
"Good morning Sunny, Kai"
"Morning Merlin" they replied.
Kai offered a smile while Sunny was staring at him trying to match his smiling face into that of the 'Ghost of the Bright Castle'.
"I'm not gonna bite you Sunny, stop staring at me like that" Merlin chuckled waving a hand infront of Sunny's face.
Sunny sighed as they continued walking.
As they walked they chatted about various things with Kai bringing up the topics, Merlin replying and Sunny adding occasional remarks, by the time they arrived everyone else was already there, in the round table they sat as Nephis, Cassie, Effie, Caster, Kai, Merlin and Sunny.
"Hello everyone" Kai greeted with a smile.
Nephis nodded while the others gave light responses.
After the exchange of pleasantries Nephis spoke up first.
"We're here to talk about something important if we're going to leave the forgotten shore"
She reached below and brought out a map, the map had seven red cross marks at different locations, the location of the seven headless statue.
"The reason for our expendition is to travel to this locations and kill the monsters there" She pointed to the farthest cross mark and continued "The first bright lord's group stopped here, they started it and we're going to finish it for them"
Merlin saw that Nephis was being very vague with the description probably because of Caster so he spoke up.
"Okay Kai... Caster could you give us some space I want to discuss something with the group"
Caster shot him a look while Kai nodded and made his way out followed by Caster.
After confirming that they had gone far enough he turned to the cohort and explained.
"Alright so here's the full story, they're seven headless statues and seven memories attached to the monster lords near them and they're absolutely necessary if we're going to leave the forgotten shore"
"What are the memories for?" Effie asked.
"When combined together they form a key that opens the crimson spire and seals the dark sea"
He paused then continued.
"We already have three, those are the midnight shard, zenith shard and sunlight shard, so only four left"
He pointed to the exact place Nephis did earlier.
"This is the edge of the hollow mountains, one of the most deadliest locations in all of history, and they're two shards here, dawn shard and dusk shard"
He pointed to another cross, one not as far as the hollow mountains.
"Here is the location of the starlight shard" he pointed to the edge of the dark city on the map "and finally this is the location of the moonlight shard"
As he finished his talk, Nephis nodded, Cassie looked a bit surprised, Sunny already knew too much to be surprised so he simply stared at the map and Effie simply stared at him with wide eyes.
As he finished, he went out to call the two back, Caster looked at their faces trying to deduce what they had just discussed meanwhile Kai just took his seat not asking any questions.
Nephis then continued still wearing her passive look.
"Now that Gunlang has taken his attention away from us, this will be the best time to move out"
She pointed to the dark city and continued.
"First we'll go to the statue here..." She then pointed to the hollow mountains "after that we'll head off to get this one, then__"
Merlin cut her words as he said.
"You can leave the hollow mountains to me, I'll be in charge of dealing with the nightmare creatures there"
Nephis shook her head and said.
"No it's too dangerous there, even the bright lord couldn't make it with an entire cohort, and Cassie's vision showed that we can only pass with sunny's help"
He smiled and replied her.
"Thanks for caring about me Neph but trust me, I won't ever send myself on a death mission"
'Until I become a miracle Invoker though... Heh'
He continued.
"I have a way to get through, and the monster lord guarding it is just a spire messenger, we've already killed one before so no big difference"
Nephis stared at him some more then nodded.
"Alright I'll trust you, then we'll be in charge of retrieving the other shards"
They planned the journey moving forward, occasionally Caster would ask a few questions to try to get more information, but Nephis who had learnt truth swapping from Sunny always have him a useless answer.
After they finished, they decided that the journey would begin in four days time, Merlin was satisfied with the decision as he still had something to take care of.
The rest of the day went about with their regular routine, Caster pestered around Nephis, Sunny and Effie trained and they shared the food that Merlin had accumulated during his travels.
As the night settled, Merlin was following some unlucky bastard who was making his was to the outer settlement, the so called sleeper had received a mission to go and get information about the inner workings of the outer settlement from Tessia.
Merlin followed behind Harper, the one who made Sunny say his true name, Merlin was determined to kill him before he even got to the outer settlement.
...
Harper was walking down the dark road to the outer settlement, he was one of the guards who regularly collected entry shards so he had received a mission from Tessia one of Gunlang's personal attendants, the promise was if he completed the mission he would be given a promotion, and the mission was to get close to one of Changing Star's cohort members and get information about the girl.
As he made his way through, down the road he could see a vague figure blocking his path, he immediately summoned his memory, a short dagger, and hid it in his sleeves.
As he got closer he could see the figure getting clearer, at some point he recognized the figure, it was a person in a magician costume, a long top hat and clown mask, before he could talk, the figure immediately streched out his hand at a speed that seemed like he threw something.
When he tried to call out to the Wandering Magician, his breath caught, he tasted an unfamiliar mercury like taste in his mouth, immediately his vision began to blur, he tried to speak once more but blood flowed from his mouth, as he reached to touch his neck, his hand touched something else, as he pulled out what was lodged in his neck, he pulled out an ace of spades throwing card.
Immediately his vision began to turn red, he couldn't breathe as he choked on his blood, his legs gave out and he fell to the ground, he instinctively knew it was his end, as he layed on the ground, he looked at the Wandering Magician who had walked closer, he could only squeezed out one word as he felt his mind slipping.
"W..wh..why?"
As his eyes lost the light, his ears picked up the vague reply of the Magician.
"It was necessary"
After those words reached his ear it continued to echo in his mind until it succumbed to darkness.
...
Merlin stared down at the corpse of Harper, his face held no emotions behind the mask, but his mind was a raging storm.
'It was necessary... really that's the best you can think of...'
'that shit sounds cliche as hell... ugh I can't even begin to say how cringy that line is'
He forced himself out of his mind and with a thought he turned the magician attire into a cloak.
'Standing naked in the middle of the road at night... this is so embarrassing'
He covered the dead Harper with the cloak, and he disappeared into his soul sea, off to join the other dozen or so spies at the top of his castle.
"Well that rounds it up on true name side... and everyone lives happily ever after"
Or so he thought...
...
Merlin currently stood in front of Cassie, it had been two days since he killed Harper, he had spent the rest of his days preparing for his long journey to the hollow mountains, he had used a ton of divinations, he had also asked about every information he could on the way, just a day ago he got back from his restock and performance in the bright castle
Now as he was resting outside staring at the dark sky, Cassie had run up to him, even stumbling a few times.
He held her up and saw as she looked disheveled and her blindfold was wet with tears that streamed from her eyes, seeing her like that he held her petite frame in his hand as he comforted her.
"It's alright Cas, you can talk to me... was it a vision?"
Cassie hugged him tighter and cried some more, after a while she finally stopped but she didn't leave his hands.
Her voice cracked as she spoke.
"M-Merlin I'm sorry, you told me not to judge the future with the present... but... I couldn't, I got scared and I did it... I'm sorry... they'll hate me, I'm... I'm sorry..."
He looked down at Cassie in his arms and sighed.
'Haa... fuck fate...'
"It's alright Cas... I'll fix it, I'll find a way to fix it... So no need to be sad, trust me on this"
Cassie sniffled from his chest then nodded lightly.
He took her and sat down on the ground as they both stared at the sky, neither of them said anything till Cassie had steeled herself.
She stood up and turned to him.
"Please fix it... and please fix my bad vision of the forgotten shore, I trust you Merlin"
He looked at her and gave an encouraging smile answering.
"Yeah.. leave it to me"
Cassie nodded at his words then turned around and left.
He then stood up and made his way to Sunny's tent.
As he arrived, he saw a small pool of blood but the place was empty.
"Sigh... So it happened anyways... is this some kind of canon event spiderman kinda stuff, that means it's plan b then'
He used dowsing seeking rod and flame jump and quickly caught up with Sunny, as he appeared Sunny's breath hitched but his eyes carried a faint sense of guilt.
"Yo Sunny" Merlin waved with a smile.
He looked at the dead sleeper in Sunny's hand, it was some random blonde npc, He sighed and turned to Sunny.
"First time huh, don't worry leave it to me I'll deal with the body, you can go clean up"
Sunny nodded stiffly and put down the sleeper before turning around to leave.
'He looks scarred but he'll get over it... Now then'
He turned to the body and sent it to join Harper and friends in his soul sea, he then turned around and made his way home to rest as they would be leaving tomorrow.
...
Merlin woke up with a soggy mood, the events from last night weighed heavily on his mind, he made his way through the room, he arranged, packed his stuff for the trip, did a simple divination and freshened up before heading out.
He made his way through the countless sleepers of the outer settlement until he arrived at the meeting point, as he arrived, he noticed only Sunny was left.
"Yo guys" Merlin waved.
"Hello Merlin" Kai replied.
"Hey there pretty boy" Effie added.
"Hey Merlin" Cassie waved with slight blush from embarrassment.
Meanwhile, Nephis and Caster nodded.
After a while, Sunny showed up, the dark circles around his eyes were so bold that it looked like his eyes were about to shadow step away from his face.
"Hey doofus, what happened to you?" At Effie's words, Nephis brows furrowed a littl, Cassie shuddered and turned slightly to Merlin, he nodded at her but alas she couldn't see it so she merely put on a brave face.
"Nothing Effie I just couldn't sleep much" Sunny answered lazily.
They refreshed the plan and finally Nephis stepped forward and said.
"Since we're all here let's head out..."