Resurgence

The remnants of darkness dissipated from Aldric's mind as he woke up. 

Soft silk beddings draped his chiseled body as he stretched his limbs. The silk bedding added a cold touch that cooled his bare torso.

Walking calmly to the large ceiling-to-floor glass that covered the entire wall to the left of his king-size bed, Aldric embraced the view. 

A large expanse of crystalline water enveloped the horizon. Shimmering like stardust against the sun's rays. 

Beyond, evergreen trees and grass covered the region. Showcasing an abundance of life and the land's fertility. 

A visage straight from the annals of myth and legend. The type of scene that a mundane human in the waking world could not even imagine in their dreams. A picture out of fantasy. 

Looking below, Aldric could see a series of tall walls that cut through the massive river. With each wall descending lower than the previous one, creating a staircase of titanic proportions. How else could you describe it with the difference in elevation between the first and last walls being over a kilometre apart?

In human fashion, each wall was expanded and developed. Utilised to their extreme. Connecting with each other to form a massive monument. With each wall housing Awakened and supporting battlements of siege weapons enchanted by both ancient sorcery and the hidden heart of Clan Valor. Their Forgemasters and Spellsmiths.

Aldric would never stop marvelling at the sight. The intersection between humanities desire to progress and the priceless legacy of those that came before them.

"Damn. I want my own citadel."

KNOCK.

KNOCK.

"This girl is too efficient."

Aldric complained with a smile on his face.

Quickly changing into suitable attire, a black premium long-sleeved shirt adorned his impressive physique. Tight around his arms and chest while loose around his midsection. Complemented by loose, baggy grey joggers.

"Come in."

He spoke to the door. 

A familiar girl entered the room quietly, a notepad and pen in her hands. 

"What's on the agenda today?"

He spoke in a relaxed voice. 

"You have a meeting with Wake of Ruin's subordinates to discuss the results of our last contract at noon. Team Artemis has returned from their expedition."

She listed as she read from her notepad. 

"The renovation for our building in the siege capital is complete and must be authorised. We have a request from the Archaeology Guild, and RSM Media has asked to schedule an interview with you."

She continued.

"The transaction of last month's soul shards has been finalised, and the movie premiere begins at 8 pm."

Iris finished. Seemingly unaffected by her long response. 

Aldric analysed what he had heard for a brief moment before he responded.

"Reject the interview with the same response you used last time. I'll look at the request from the guild later today. We'll make a journey to the site after the meeting."

Aldric listed off with an air of casualness. Having already gotten used to this. 

"Adjust the income on our books."

He gave his final order.

Feeling an emptiness of hunger inside himself, he looked at his attendant with a half-smile.

"Have you eaten yet?"

----------

In front of both Aldric and Iris was a large spread of breakfast foods. From breads, eggs, sausages, fruits, and more. While there was a larger variety of food, their quantity did not scream excess. 

Sat in a large open restaurant that rested on one of the gates' edges, they thoroughly enjoyed both the view and the assortment of food. 

Every day that he had spent here felt like a holiday. 

It was not shocking to Aldric that the majority of Awakened spent most of their lives behind the walls of their citadels. Enveloped in safety and security, he could understand the reasoning behind it. After all, why go out into the untamed wilderness when you had everything available to you here?

While Rivergate was not as big as clan Valor's capital, it held a sizeable population of Awakened. From awakened, ascended, and three to four Saints stationed at a time. With that came its own economy and systems. From restaurants to entertainment and markets. It had everything that one needed. 

Aldric's sight slowly veered to the astonishing view of the great river. The river that acted as a lifeline for the sword domain. 

As with most civilisations, strongholds were centred around easily accessed bodies of fresh water. 

With the entire structure of Rivergate acting as a lock and dam to control both the powerful current leading from the Storm Sea and as a system to block any intruders that may try to enter the Sword Domain by sea, it served its purpose and more.

Looking to his left, in the far distance, Aldric could see a small shift in the geography of the land. A slow waning of lustrous green, dying lifelessly into a barrier of fog. 

This was one of the death zones that was situated east of the Sword Domain. 

Aldric could tell that it was not the existence-erasing mist from the Hollow Mountains but more so fog created by the collection of water vapour. Supernatural or not. 

It had been a long six months since he had first set foot back in the dream realm. 

From the official establishment of his organisation, becoming well-respected and known across the dream realm and waking world based on his performance in the Forgotten Shore and everything since. To his personal achievements of getting stronger through several hunts outside of Rivergate. 

And that was barely touching the surface of it.

Before he started to reminisce, Iris began to talk.

"My father announced a 12% increase in revenue this quarter on our long-term assets."

Iris' father was the director of a large asset management firm. With him leading the company and his wife owning 82% equity of the firm from her late father, who received it from his father as an inheritance dating back generations, they held complete authority over it. Without the equity being distributed or diluted, it was more akin to a family business that was passed down.

With the utter chaos that filled the world the day that the nightmare spell descended, one of the first things to crash was the economy. 

With entire countries becoming overrun by nightmare creatures, the financial markets simply could not adapt to a change in the world's order. 

It was back to tangible assets such as precious metals like gold and silver as well as land. Even commodities such as oil, gas, and crops.

Close to ninety percent of all companies completely shut down. Whether due to having no revenue to maintain production or even the destruction of the supply chain because of the nightmare creatures. There was complete economic chaos.

Even the global currencies were not safe.

Luckily, Thornfield Partners only maintained a small clientele that held long-term assets that were inherited. Even a broken world needed someone to manage your land. So for them and a small few, it was business as usual with a few hiccups. 

Aldric had rendered their services to manage both his personal assets as well as his organisation's. 

To make things even better, they also acted as his financial representatives during the selling of soul shards and the occasional memory as well as buying assets like property. Making sure that he did not get taken advantage of due to his lack of experience. 

Aldric was fine with delegating his finances to Iris' family. It was their bread and butter.

And if you can't do something, hire someone smarter than you. 

It was as simple as that.

Between them and the government, Aldric was not lacking in connections. 

Iris' voice sounded beside him. 

"We need to leave."

Looking at the table, they had made a good effort to finish the spread of food. 

With a nod, he spoke out. 

"Let's go."

----------

Sitting in the back of a PTV, the vehicle screamed luxurious.

While not exactly like a limousine, the car was elongated towards the end. With a sleek black design, it was on the high end of publicly available vehicles. 

Aldric looked out the window, watching the buildings pass him by in a blur. 

He gazed at his runes absentmindedly. 

Name: Aldric.

True Name: First-Class Singularity.

Rank: Awakened.

Dark Core: [3/7]

Class: Demon.

Dark Sprites:[839/3000]

Memories:[Unwavering Spark][Cragborne Armor][Malice Of The Deep][Cavedweller Garms][Water Basin][Charm Of Balance][Silk Robes][Silk Pouch][Warding Eye][Stone Coffer][Tesseract][All-Seeing Eye][Mantle Of The Underworld][Cursed Mirror][Dark Wing][Red Spider Lily][Sundered Sorrow][Dark Sea's Covenant]...[Cool Edge][Essence Pearl][Wrath Carver][Maledictive Crucible]

Attributes: [Insight][Tranquil Core][Destined][Tenebrous Rule][Visionary]

Aspect:[Made In Abyss]

Aspect Rank: Divine.

Innate Ability: [Chalice Of Requiem]

Aspect Abilities:[Dark Well, Dire Ordinance]

Aspect Legacy:[Path Of The Unbound]

Flaw:[Tarnished Soul]

It had been a fruitful six months for Aldric.

While if he had been one hundred percent focused on getting stronger, he easily could have gathered many more Dark Sprites; however, there were other things to focus on. 

It was now the beginning of June. The summer heat was in full focus, at least what you could expect from the summer of a destroyed world. 

Even at seven pm, the heat was unrelenting. But to the awakened, it was nothing. 

With the car slowing down and the familiar flickering of lights, they were here. 

OPEN

Stepping out of the vehicle, Aldric walked straight through the small crowd. Not a single person blocking his path, with Iris following behind him. 

"It's him!"

"Singularity! Look here."

"Mr. Vesper! A moment of your time.

"What do you think about the developments that are occurring in Bastion?"

The crowd exploded in a shower of noise at his arrival.

In the last six months, Aldric had reached the pinnacle of global notoriety. While it was much more in the beginning with people hearing about his accomplishments and his vital role during the Forgotten Shore, a lack of engagement from his side with the public stopped any crazy ideas of being treated like a celebrity. It was now more akin to the high-level respect that a Saint or a Master would receive. 

'How do Kai and Effie deal with this?'

He thought to himself.

However, in the private sphere of Awakened, he was well-known.

Singularity.

The leader of Event Horizon.

The leader of one of the highest-potential collectives of awakened. A private group outside of the purview of the domains, made up completely of fifty strategic assets. Efficiently completing numerous contracts with extreme competence.

Exactly how they were outside of the domain's purview was something to talk about another time.

Their group had expanded by ten due to the awakened that were in pods outside of the Academy asking to join. Mostly referrals by friends that were part of the group.

Currently Aldric had eight different teams of varying sizes. Each with a particular specialty or focus.

Team Artemis is one of his main teams. Made up of seven awakened, they focused completely on the extermination of nightmare creatures in both the waking world and dream realm. The epitome of hunters.

Team Atlas consisted of eight awakened. They dealt with all the close protection contracts. Protecting cargo that traversed between citadels, often taking weeks at a time to even months. 

While their organisation was still in its infancy, they had made a lot of progress. With each contract, their network expanded, and referrals gave them more work. 

From extermination, close protection, supporting government missions, and exploration. 

Event Horizon was the perfect system for Aldric to generate work, connection, status, and income while maintaining a large collective of awakened. With their resources, Aldric had been able to give all members a stipend of income and soul shards with the occasional suitable memory. A big incentive to keep them. With each benefit that Aldric offered, they would be less likely to leave. Relying on the organisation. 

Even the premise of naming his teams and giving them a specialty. This was a calculated effort for them to associate their team with the organisation, making them less likely to splinter off.

With the premiere of "The Song of Light and Darkness", the entire capital was watching. Especially those in the upper echelon of society. It was time to finally see the first rendition of Changing Star, Singularity and their cohort's ordeal in the dream realm. 

With it being an invite-only event, most of the prolific survivors of the Forgotten Shore had received an invitation. With the majority of his teams either resting or on the field, it was up to him to make an appearance. So while he did not care much for the film, it was an opportunity to meet some familiar faces.

However, his own team was not interested either, even when they were available. Both Marielyn and Kura. 

So it was just himself and Iris. 

He looked at the woman behind him. Between her and that one, he didn't know which one was his biggest catch. 

Iris adopted the role of his attendant with no difficulties. According to her, she was trained from a young age to adopt a similar position in the family business.

Something that Aldric saved her from, she told him.

He could not complain. 

Both her aspect and mentality made her perfect for the role. 

Iris had explained that her aspect centred around her mind. Enhancing and fortifying everything about it. From her memory to her intelligence. Her dormant ability allowed her to partition her consciousness into three. Giving her the ability to process three times the amount of information in three different streams of thought. It genuinely shocked Aldric just how much information she could compute. 

Her awakened ability was even more ridiculous. 

He often thought about where she was in the original story.

'Did she die in the siege or the civil war?'

With there being no way to confirm his suspicion, Aldric discarded the thought.

He was glad that she was on his side. 

Her flaw did make her difficult to talk to, though.

Walking into their VIP box, Aldric could see a large, ornate space fitted with furniture looking over a balcony. 

While the theatre was typically in use for live plays, a large projector screen completely covered the main stage tonight. 

It seemed that he was not the first to arrive. 

"Hello, Aldric."

A feminine voice spoke out, facing the stage.

A casual look etched onto his face as he approached the woman.

"Hello, Cassie."

**********

Thanks for reading. 

Big time-skip. The story is moving.

Till the next one.