"Boss! Come on boss! How long… are you gonna be out… it's been ten years, I may have been asleep… for a hundred or more, but now that I'm up, I can't wait any longer... Wake up!"
The flame on the feather might be burning but it was not producing a sphere of light, just luminescent to the border of its flames and sparks. Slowly, the vision started to return, revealing a dark scene, but even being covered by the void, there view was vivid and clear. The arm moved on its own, trying to silence the flames, and gesture for them to keep it down. It seems to have worked. Silence once again returned.
It did not last though, "no, no, no… don't get up just to go back…"
The flame got louder and louder. Then it stopped because the hand was trying to extinguish it, angry because now all the slumber it had was gone. Infuriated it resounded; "I said keep it down. I'm up."
'What's happening? Who am I? Oh right! I'm a Knight, but what's that racket, I don't remember anyone having the gull to speak to me so audaciously."
With its eyes fully up, the Knight could see the flame, not really a flame, more like a soul, moving like one.
"Oh right! Mugaw decided to become my follower and avoid eradication."
"Good you remember."
'Maybe I should eradicate him.'
Sounding respectful, "I won't bother you again boss, it's just that I got bored of waiting."
'Great, it can hear my thoughts, wait since when Mugaw could speak.'
The Knight decided to speak aloud this time, "You aren't mad anymore I see."
"Yeah! Since it was a pesky skill, I got from one of the beings I once assimilated. Slowly that skill turned me into a monster, and after that I travelled to this dungeon. When boss killed me and some of the souls still bonded to me dissipated, one of them was the one with the skill, but then boss took my soul too. Now, that I'm stuck here I was thinking that we work on finding me a suitable vessel."
"Well, aren't you ahead of yourself. You're the new one in the crew, and you destroyed the vessels of the others, if I had to put it, I'd be getting you a vessel last."
The Knight then looked around and noticed that the whole dungeon floor was covered with the void, after all, its previous void territory was just big enough to cover the immediate area, this must be even way more than what's visible. The Knight was now starting to remember what happened. Unlike when it was created the memories came rushing all at once. It remembers things a little fuzzy and knew why. The Knight had been using the void and its soul to augment itself for a hundred and fifty years.
'I guess that's what it'll take to tire me out, and I'm guessing that if I tried encompassing the current volume of void, I'll probably last less than a year and sleep for even longer. Wait does this mean I would have slept even longer if it was not for Mugaw?'
"You see boss I did you a favour…" after seeing the look on the Knights face it continued, "I'll keep quiet now."
Next the Knight realised that in all that fatigue, which came from releasing the void, it had claimed the void, wasn't it supposed to actually trade it to a void lord. Actually, the other dungeon conquerors from the void traded the territory to the void lords because they could not claim it, one needs to already have some of the void to be able to claim it. That's why the Yiril was shocked to see that a spawn already had some, because it is usually earned, even if what the Knight had was inferior, it is enough to claim. And now, that it had been claimed the Knight was sure that it would probably not be traded, the Knight felt deeply fused with it, as though it was part of it.
No need to worry about it though, there are other things that went better. Before the Knight thought about the situation better it noticed two rectangles, both smooth and dark lying next to each other. One was a neat book, a grimoire of sorts, and an intricate cover, and dark blue theme with light blue, even white, accents, the Book of Souls. It looked mistic in all its glory and splendour, more so knowing that it was going to make the Knight more powerful than ever.
The second was a stone, at least that's what the Knight thought it was. It knew one thing about it though, it was another mission, crushing it would begin it. So, the Knight just put both into its inventory, thoughts need to be organised first. Destroying Mugaw, gave it multiple souls, even if it did try to wrench some of them out. The Knight looked around and saw that some of the vessels were still up and about, probably almost starving, good thing the Knight woke up after ten years. It then fed them before their corpse vessels rejected them, unfit to be vessels.
"Vile, Tyun, Sirus, Yuva, Foiga, you survived" the Knight felt generous and gave each ten monster souls, the level 150 souls. Holi, Gyer, Orgas, and Quake were gone. Of course, it's more like the followers had lost these vessels, all their souls were still on the Knight.
'Damn Mugaw! You cost me five of my best vessels, along with their skills".
They were quite the same in that aspect. Mugaw fused with souls to get their skills, while the Knight made their vessels into its army to enjoy the same luxury, and in the end only one of them won. If it was not for Mugaw, another year later the Knight would have lost the remaining skills, through vessel starvation. And teleport was too indispensable. The Knight had to decide what its next set of actions would be, since the void territory had been claimed there was no need to head back to the void and negotiate for it. Actually, the Knight had multiple human souls, and more than a thousand other souls, the only reason to go to the void now, would be to find the Yiril, and the Knight was not keen on having to waste time on looking for it, it's not like there's something urgent the Knight needs from it. The Knight was thinking this because there was something more pressing, that it wanted to do, and going back to the void might mean the Knight will need to take a mission to come back then there would be new problems. So, to be cautious the Knight decided to stay for a while. The reasons were few too, but one was too indispensable.
The Knight might be considered a void lord now that it has such a large portion of the void, and that might mean complications with having to go to the town. It seems the void lords seem to be hiding something about the void to the weaker ones like the Knight. The Knight was not going to go just yet since the Knight would be the weakest amongst the void lords, and if they are capable of using the void to strengthen themselves then it might be worse, since the other void lords are over level 400, and the Knight knows after the fight with Mugaw, it will not risk it.
Then was the main reason for staying, it's also related to using the void to become stronger. The Knight used its armour, and now that no other weapons will do, considering that the Knights void territory is on an inconceivable scale now, the other weapons might not even be possible of holding themselves together, that's how the Knight lost one of its favourite hammers. The Knight was going to go searching for the Sword, more specifically the Vile Sword. The Knight is sure that it's somewhere in the human world, since it used to be one, the Knight just had to go and find it. Outside being able to survive the power of the void it could possess a power of its own, the armour itself still has not been pushed to its optimum levels either.
Now, that the immediate decisions have been made, it is time to move onto what the Knight had always been anticipating, the reward, knowledge, thus, the power. The Knight pulled the book out of its inventory. Beholding it the Knight opened it. The pages were dark blue with white ink, some even written in blue or red, a second later everything flashed, the words vanished, they reappeared a second later, but there was whisps of white flowing into the Knight and compared to the power of the void this one was almost accepting, soothing, and calm.
The Knight then had visions and flashes of insight enter its mind. Large swashes of information being loaded into the Knight, containing revelations, understandings, inquisitions, deep foresight, and above all else, the experience of a couple of years, the book might have been huge, but modest in the hands of the Knight, but the information contained within was boundless. The state of it all was presented to such a degree that the Knight had the level of insight and understanding as the truth that the writer, if one even exists, wrote, no deviation, all perfect synergy between the information and having fully comprehended it. The Knight had no misunderstandings of what the texts contained, there was no confusion, not only was the information entering in such a way that it resonated with the Knight, but it was also as if a thought kept coming to clarify any and all misconceptions.
The strangeness continued, the book was tailored to the Knight not only to the point that it seemed that it had written the book itself and be able to reproduce it multiple times if needed, but some parts were specifically only applicable for the Knight, it was like this book was meant for its mind and its mind alone, or maybe just that the vastness of the information is so huge that it has detailed sections for each irregular case. Whether or not this was the case it served to enlighten the Knight at an alarming rate, time had seemed to halt, this process took a couple years for the reality of the Knight to catch up with the information.
There was also more, on a lesser note, now that the Knights knowledge and intelligence were increasing, the power rose to accompany this change too, because of the will the Knight possessed. Some parts of the Knight were even evolving, some subtle some majority. The five remaining vessels seem to also benefit from this growth. After the world had allowed the mind of the Knight to catch up with it the Knight finally became aware of reality once more. The book was still open in its hands, on the last page, having been concluded. The Knight was not drowsy as it was after waking up from the slumber due to the power of the void, but the Knight felt stronger, immensely so much stronger, but this was not what was making it appear slow as a being from sleep, it was that the Knight had come to know so much about the world, the worlds actually.