Savior with maddening flaw in a Shadow Slave

So basically, he possesses an Aspect that directly correlates to the Visionary Pathway—at least the first ability does.

"WTF, Spell, you plagiarist bastard!!"

Setting aside his comical display of cursing an Absolute Law of Existence—which does not even bestow aspects—let's first try to understand his abilities and see if they help him in the chain of monsters that will appear a year from now.

But isn't it weird? From what he knew from reading Shadow Slave, shouldn't he have been transported just before, or at most a week back?

"But oh well, I guess not even the Spell would send someone helpless like me to survive in this godforsaken hell. Let's check my status first."

Name: Murphy

True Name: —

Rank: Aspirant

Soul Core: Dormant

Memories: —

Echoes: —

Attributes: [Perfect Sorcerer], [Ember of Divinity], [Terror]

Aspect: [Spectator]

Aspect Description: Whether it is at an extravagant banquet or a lively street, a Spectator is always just a spectator—they can never take the stage themselves.

Aspect Ability: Body Language Analysis

Ability Description: You are able to read the superficial thoughts of others and simulate the trajectory of those thoughts and emotions to a certain degree. You also possess keen powers of observation when analyzing individuals—either one-on-one or in groups.

Attributes:

[Perfect Sorcerer]

Description: You possess unparalleled talent for all kinds of sorcery.

[Ember of Divinity]

Description: Deep within your soul, an ember of divinity shines, almost ready to erupt into a radiant flame.

[Terror]

Description: The more someone fears you, the less powerful their attack becomes against you.

So basically, his ability is an amalgamation of Telepathist and Spectator. That's why he was able to guess the superficial thoughts of Shen Xi and infer her intentions.

Now moving on to his attribute [Perfect Sorcerer]: He possesses talent to learn all kinds of sorcery.

In this world, there are five kinds of sorcery mainly:

Weaving [1], Nether's Sorcery [2], Divine Sorcery [3], Sorcery of Names [4], and Runic Sorcery [5].

And considering that only Rain possessed talent related to Sorcery of Names while the only person to have learned spellweave in the waking world—also known as Weaving in the modern world—is the protagonist of this world. So, his ability to do so is an incredible blessing.

The next attribute, [Ember of Divinity], is honestly confusing. I still don't completely understand what the Divinity series of attributes is supposed to do—aside from offering some resistance to corruption.

The last attribute is honestly interesting, because fear is something that every human feels—especially toward the Awakened, since there are myriads of aspects and attributes in this world.

For example: if he were to fight someone of his level while keeping all his cards hidden, they would subconsciously be afraid and wary of his abilities.

After all, the strongest and most primordial fear of mankind is Fear—and the oldest and strongest fear is the Fear of the Unknown.

And by using his Aspect ability to stimulate fear, it would increase his damage reduction even more.

Now that he knew his situation and had checked all four of his attributes, he could move forward with perfecting his plans.

By staying in the waking world for about a week, he confirmed a few things:

First, the time period he was in was just one year after the world lost America to a Category 5 gate. That means Autistic Blowtor—uh, Nephis—is not even one year old yet, and the protagonist of the novel, Sunny, is probably not even conceived yet.

Second, whenever he thought about the Forgotten God, he would receive a splitting headache and lose consciousness on the spot—but that didn't seem to affect him here. Instead, his mind felt constantly fatigued, as if tired from constant use.

Third, this Nightmare is weird. Extremely weird. Everything he liked could be found here—from trees to food to décor. Everything was exactly to his taste. As if this broken piece of heaven existed only for him...

He couldn't help but feel that this blasphemous thought wasn't even supposed to appear in his mind—but appeared nevertheless.

And for some reason, even with such an exhausted mind and beaten body, this particular thought didn't seem to go away.

Now that he thought about it… didn't Grandpa look... familiar? Like he had seen him somewhere bef—

Sadly, he couldn't finish his thought because an ant bit him on the thigh.

Apparently, he had stepped on a few ants while deep in thought.

'But what was I thinking about?'

Must not be important if he forgot it.

After checking his situation and cleaning himself in a hot spring, he went to bed and started thinking about what to do tomorrow.

Honestly speaking, being able to learn from a Saint was a huge boon—especially considering that the first four Saints would only appear in the waking world 1 to 2 years later.

So, he should try to learn and absorb as much knowledge as possible in the coming year.

While thinking about these things, he went to sleep—without even noticing that Shen Xi was standing behind him the entire time, like a shadow or an □□□□.

That night, Murphy had a weird dream.

In it, he was in the old temple of the Beast God in the village said to have been created by the third chief, who had reached Supremacy but disappeared.

He had visited this temple with his Grandpa. It was quite beautiful, honestly.

In the dream, he saw a version of himself—several years younger, likely eleven or twelve. Looking around, he noticed that no light was coming from anywhere, and a suffocating feeling hinted that he was underground.

There was dried blood everywhere, and even his young body was covered in scars and blood. Looking closely, he saw that the younger version of himself was walking awkwardly while carrying five bags—three in one hand, two in the other.

Wait… not bags.

Human heads.

Shockingly, they were people he recognized: one was Shen Xi, one was Grandpa, one a newborn child, one a rotten corpse, and the last… a cute, petite young lady.

Having a bad premonition, he hurriedly looked at the ground.

What he saw was so traumatizing and disturbing that he would've emptied his stomach—had this not been a dream.

The entire basement was filled with heads.

Hundreds of thousands of heads.

Their eyes had been systematically removed—as if to prepare for a grand sorcery.

Suddenly, his younger self looked up at him and smiled.

His lips moved.

He said something:

"Si□□□ S□□□th, remember to watch carefully."

The scene sent a shiver down his spine. He hit himself in the face as if pain would wake him up—not realizing this wasn't even a dream.

His younger self continued walking, reached the basement wall, nailed the heads in a square shape, placed a strange rock in the middle, and slit his own wrist—splashing his blood onto the wall.

Then, something mystical happened.

A gate appeared—as if a path to another dimension had opened.

Murphy's younger self walked into it. The tunnel began to light up, almost welcoming him.

At the tunnel's end was a vast space—hundreds of meters wide in all directions. There were two runic sorceries carved into the basement. Although he had never seen them before, he instinctively knew their function: one was to gather something. The other… he couldn't even comprehend.

Suddenly, his younger self began erasing and rewriting phrases in the runic circle—slowly and carefully, as if to be watched and learned from.

Next, he started moving his fingers rapidly—frantically. At least, that's what a bystander would have thought. But Murphy, who possessed the [Perfect Sorcerer] attribute, could see more. He could see that his younger self was weaving—an extremely complex and massive one.

Something he shouldn't have been able to understand… but did.

It was a weave of a memory.

Not just any memory—but one that belonged to a soulbound relic.

NOTES

1: The spellweave is Weaver's own sorcery. The Spell itself was created from it, as well as all the magical items that the Spell gifted to the Awakened — Memories and Echoes. This was the magic that all humans knew, and most believed to be the only kind there is.

2: The more primitive version of weave and the same type of alien weave that was seen within the Echo of Stone Saint and the walls of Ebony Tower.

It is a primitive and crude system of adamantine threads. These strings were seemingly made from diamond and entirely corporal.

3: This sorcery is a manifestation of a deity's will. It is a much more ancient form of sorcery. One cannot even begin to guess the tricks involved in divine sorcery, as it primarily creates miracles, not magic. In fact even in the novel, the only instance of it being used was by Lord of Light.

4: Shaping is the most ancient kind of sorcery. A sorcerer who can use this sorcery is also called shapers. You only have to invoke the Name of things and put them together into a verse. A True Name is used to serve as an anchor for the entire verse.

5: Hope's magic is also known as Runic sorcery, or Runic magic. This is the most common type of sorcery used by mortals without a true understanding of its nature. This type of sorcery is used with Sorcery of Names.

This is based on the inscription of runes and seemed to have been mostly used by humans. Enchantments were simply expressions of the enchanter's will, and the runes were the building blocks with which the enchanter manipulated the movement of energy to achieve their goal.

Runic Sorcery is the most widely known and easily accessible school of sorcery, similar to Shaping.