As they walked halfway towards the Crimson Spire, Arthur suddenly froze as he awkwardly told Abner, "Hey, remember that Fallen Devil guarding the cathedral? Any chance we can turn back to kill it without it being awkward?"
Abner looked at him like he was an idiot as he told him, "You want all of us to turn back now? You should have remembered before riling everyone up for battle!"
Arthur, who looked embarrassed by his stupidity, replied, "Sorry, I really am sorry, but I have to kill it! I've got a grudge!"
Abner sighed as he looked at Arthur. "Fine, but you have to tell them to turn back!"
Arthur turned to face the Dreamer Army, his face slightly red from embarrassment as he said, "Everyone, stop! We are going back!"
All of them looked at each other confused and asked in unison, "What!? Why!"
Arthur responded with a defeated sigh, "Well, there's a fallen devil I have a grudge against; I almost forgot to kill it!"
The people of the Dreamer Army just looked at each other and laughed. "That's such a ridiculous reason! It's really fitting for The Lord of The Mysteries!" Although they mocked him, they didn't disagree.
As the Sleepers weren't against it, they turned back as they walked back. Each step Arthur took seemed to only increase his embarrassment as he cursed his fate in his mind.
'damn it! damn it! damn it! Weaver, this is all your doing, isn't it!? If your shadow is still in the shadow realm, I will one day go and kill it; mark my words!'
Eventually they arrived at the cathedral, where The Fallen Devil was; Arthur had already told them of its abilities and weaknesses.
The battle was incredibly short. Kaelen used his Dormant ability Blink, and as soon as he touched the Knight for half a second, he activated his second aspect ability before he was stunned by his dormant ability activation.
Glorielle then smashed the Sword of the Fallen Devil with the Sunlight Shard, a War Hammer enhanced by her aspect.
[You have slain a fallen devil: Forsaken Knight]
Knowing it's weakness along with Arthur's danger sense warning him of the Fallen Devil's sudden ambushes really made this look far too easy.
Since Arthur got the key to the room where The Lord of The Dead was killed but completely forgot what it was for until he was almost at the crimson spire, he didn't need anything else to get Weavers Mask.
So he quickly made up an excuse to go get it: "Guys, I have a feeling there's something there, like a secret room!"
Arthur was just using his divination to find the basement of the cathedral; he had no such calling.
Kaelen, unlike Glorielle who agreed, looked at him and asked, "Do you really think we have the time to explore a secret room now? Let's go already!"
Arthur pleaded, "Come on, it will be quick!"
Glorielle joined him too. "Yea, we won't take long. What are you mighty legacy scared of the dark secrets of the Cursed Cathedral?"
Kaelen immediately took the bait, "What!? Of course not! Whatever, let's just get this done faster."
They soon found the room where Weavers Mask was kept, and Arthur got it and exclaimed, "It's a memory! I just got a memory!"
Glorielle and Kaelen asked, "What is it? What does it do?"
Arthur looked disappointed. "It's just a cosmetic memory. It makes it hard for others to recognize you; I guess it can have its uses. I will keep it just in case."
Kaelen and Glorielle nodded, not caring enough to ask about the rank of the cosmetic memory.
Arthur secretly smiled in his heart as he thought, 'Finally, with Weavers Mask, I can reverse my flaw!'
The walk to the cathedral was very embarrassing for Arthur, but the walk back to the Crimson Spire was the opposite, with Weavers mask, he was confident in beating his second nightmare and going to the Waking World.
As Arthur walked towards the Crimson Spire, he looked back at the Bright Castle; after this, he too would leave it to find a nightmare seed.
He sighed and thought to himself, 'I still haven't changed much. I don't want to leave home still.'
The Dreamer Army arrived at the corrals near the Spire before they had to camp due to the Dark Sea, and seemingly very soon, at least to the Dreamer Army, the sun rose higher, and the dark whirlpool surrounding the Crimson Spire became a little smaller.
Several bridges of red coral rose from its depths, connecting the island to the rest of the Forgotten Shore.
And out there on the island, countless silhouettes suddenly began to move, crawling out of the crimson mounds. They were the Nightmare Creatures guarding the cursed tower.
All kinds of horrors were among them. There were members of the carapace legion: scavengers, centurions, and demons. There were colonies of carnivorous worms, giant centipedes that secreted corrosive oil, and eerie vines that crawled on the ground like snakes.
There were creatures that looked like black masses of rotten bones, and creatures that looked like humanoids made of rock, with terrible maws full of jagged fangs. There were swarms of translucent insects that devoured everything in their path and massive spiders clad in iron armor.
There were beasts that could shoot deadly bone spears from their bodies and beasts that could turn their prey to stone with their gaze.
There were corpses with red flowers growing from the holes in their flesh and giant abominations that resembled praying mantises, if those were made of glass and bloodred clay.
And many more that Arthur had never seen, fought, or could describe.
All of them moved together in strange harmony, devoid of the usual territorial aggression that forced the Nightmare Creatures of different tribes to fight each other. They were subjugated by the Crimson Terror and now served to guard the Spire.
Like a terrible wave, the horde of monsters rolled over the bridges of crimson coral and flowed toward the Dreamer army.
The Dreamer Army soon left the Corals and got into position with The Attendants of Mysteries Arthur's cohort at the front, while he himself seemed to be missing.
They were meant to break the momentum of the nightmare creatures, and the people behind them were supposed to kill any who got past them, occasionally switching places to reduce fatigue.
Since there weren't as many sleepers as in the original story, it was going to be harder for them to fight the Nightmare Creature army but also easier in a way; after all, there were awakened people with them.
There were only a few archers and about 15 catapults made by a craftsman who arrived 2 years ago.
Making those catapults was a task given by Arthur himself for this Siege the moment he arrived, but he didn't rush him or urge him to make too many,
So the craftsman procrastinated a little and only made 15, thinking Arthur was just bluffing about awakening; now he wishes he were more diligent.
They already had ammunition, and they didn't need to worry about carrying it or running out; the ammunition was a bunch of huge rocks that Glorielle turned into memories with her Fusion ability by fusing the memory enhancement with another and placing it on a bunch of huge rocks. Now the memories, or used to be memories were just regular enchanted items.
But it was fine; they were useless anyway.
Brave looked at the 3 Spire Messengers he would have to shoot down and sighed, "My luck is rotten; at least Glorielle and Kaelen promised to help me if they find an opportunity."
Soon, Glorielle's glowing War Hammer made contact with The Skull of a Nightmare Creature as her zealous shout announced the start of the battle, "THIS IS FOR GLORY!"
Glorielle and Kaelen were not having that hard of a time compared to everyone else; while Kaelen couldn't use his aspect with so many enemies around, he also didn't really need to; he was a powerful Awakened, after all.
Glorielle though, had no such restrictions; wherever she went, tens of nightmare creatures turned into broken dolls flying away dead as she shouted madly about Glory.
Her strength and fearlessness brought comfort to the Dreamer army as they unconsciously moved closer to her, where it was safer.
Other than the awakened though, the one doing the most right now was surprisingly not Abner but Brave! Having activated his aspect,
he was walking back slightly as some of the nightmare creatures ignored the front lines made by the sleepers, and the two awakened and tried to rush at Brave, who was far away.
But that only resulted in their deaths, as they were soon cut and stabbed, some crushed even
Brave Shoot a Powerful Arrow at the Cursed Herald, trying to harass the second line of sleepers behind the front line.
The Herald dodged, only to be killed a second later by a spear thrown by Glorielle The last thing he heard was her zealous shout, "BLEED MORE THAT WILL BE PROOF OF YOUR VALOR AND DIE FOR MY GLORY!" In the eyes of the nightmare creatures, she herself started looking like a monster.
The other two Heralds were heading for Brave, but one got hit by his arrow hitting its wing as it collapsed to the ground, where it was finished off by a catapult.
The other got hit by the catapults in midair too as it got closer. The result was Having its wings and some bones broken, it was not dead, but it was incapacitated.
Abner, Alec, and Naamah had the hardest time out of the cohort, especially Naamah whose flaw stunned her for a second after each kill, so she had to be careful to leave her enemies barely alive.
As the nightmare creatures were seemingly avoiding Glorielle and Kaelen to a lesser extent, Abner and the rest had to deal with most of them, but it was not hopeless.
The catapults and archers were prioritizing their side, giving them the most support, and Glorielle would sometimes switch locations with them in her zealous state, where she only cared about battling more enemies and stronger ones too.
With Arthur's Dawn Shard, their memories were stronger, too. Although it wasn't easy, it was bearable.
While this was happening, Arthur was nowhere to be seen.