Several years ago:
The first ruler and his cohort arrived in the dark city one year before Sunny regressed.
They came and conquered the bright castle after fighting a juvenile spire messenger...a fallen beast only.
That landed the first ruler the dawn shard. After that, they spent some time to improve their living conditions there.
Soon, more and more sleepers arrived and a benevolent system of society was established in the dark city.
The first ruler and his companions ruled with much more kindness than gunlaug would do in the future.
They spent years gathering information about the forgotten shore, the shard memories and the way to escape this wretched place as well.
After the first year passed, Sunny was a few months away from regressing, so nothing really changed.
But then the next year, the effects finally arrived on the forgotten shore.
Many more sleepers were summoned on the desolate landscape. This was the pinnacle of the spell's panicking infection spree and so,
It brought over ten times the usual number of sleepers to the forgotten shore.
But the problem did not lie in the numbers. It lied in the individuals.
You see, for every new sleeper added to the equation, there was a new variable.
A new aspect, a new mentality, a new person.
The dark city was recieving all sorts of people and subsequently, all sorts of powers.
Ofcourse, most were inconsequential as they didn't gain much power but the ones who did ended up changing something about the dark city entirely.
And the existence of a single human being changed the overall story of the first ruler's cohort the most.
***
The first ruler had a problem with his cohort. He did not have an oracle.
That was the only reason they died at the hollow mountains too. They had gone to explore a way out of the desolate landscape of the forgotten shore through the mountains on the south.
Perhaps unaware that it itself was the death zone— hollow mountains too.
Anyhow, they had been killed by a creature of nothing back then and that was how the story of the legendary first ruler had come to an end.
However, this time when the new people arrived, among them was an oracle from the house of night.
Or rather, a child of someone who belonged to the house of night.
Mira was a thirteen year old girl, infected by the spell at a much earlier age due to the regression causing the spell's infection spree.
When she came to the forgotten shore, a group of scouts had found her before the dark sea or the nightmare creatures took her.
The particular group of scouts happened to be led by Andreas...a member of the first ruler's cohort who had also happened to stay behind in the dark city when the first ruler went to find a way out in the original timeline.
He had been the second ruler, who had then attempted to conquer the crimson spire and died...having failed.
This time however he met mira and they quickly grew close. And that changed everything.
Mira was a very young child, not in the usual age of infected, she was amongst the newer cases of the wider infection prone ages after Sunny's regression too, so while her situation had been anticipated— it wasn't something her clan was ready for.
Even worse was the situation at the forgotten shore, whose human residents had been surprised much more prominently by the new sleepers arriving en mass, far more than usual.
Nonetheless, Andreas took Mira to the city, among others and helped her get a standing in the city too.
Mira was weak, too weak to join the first ruler's cohort. Not only was she inexperienced and way too young, she hadn't learnt to use her aspect properly yet either.
And yet, her aspect was powerful...more powerful than any other seer the forgotten shore would ever see— atleast until Cassia would inevitably show up later.
Mira was appointed as a close advisor to the first ruler and his lieutenants over time. When the first ruler's cohort finally decided that they had prepared enough, they planned to leave the dark city and explore a way out.
They very logically asked Mira for help too, as she could use her powers to detect possible futures more actively than passively.
And that...that changed everything.
What Mira saw...left her trembling. She saw the cohort arrive at the outskirts of the hollow mountains...and lose a member right away to a harrowing abomination.
Then they entered a mineshaft, and had to fight against another grotesque monstrosity.
Luckily they didn't lose another member, but then everything changed as...as...
As a strange creature attacked.
It was an utterly alien existence, as if it should not have existed and just by looking at it, the three remaining members of the cohort died.
Leaving behind merely their leader who barely made it to the end of the cave.
Only to be left at a dead end.
It was a complete and utter Wipeout...with no hope of survival, it was defeat. Absolute inevitable defeat.
And so, she warned them about the harrowing end they would meet if they went on their expedition.
Now having learnt of their fate, they halted and gathered a strong force in the dark city.
Before the next year came, a force of several hundred sleepers gathered to invade the crimson spire and free themselves of the abominable wasteland.
Leading them were the members of the first ruler's cohort... Andreas was in the rear guard. Put there by the first ruler himself in case things went south, there needed to be a failsafe who could escape and lead humanity for the future of things went south.
And they did, they went south... terribly quickly.
Five spire messengers and hundreds upon hundreds of Awakened creatures rushed the invading human army.
Blood was shed, and so were dreams.
In the end however, the first ruler and some of his lieutenants managed to enter the spire itself, but that was a terrible mistake.
It prompted the cursed ruler of the tower to take action.
A powerful beam of concentrated light fell upon the human army, erasing their souls one by one.
By the time it reached the rear guard, Andreas had to call for a retreat hesitantly.
That day, hundreds of humans including all of the first ruler's cohort except for Andreas fell, and a terrible wound was inflicted upon humanity.
***
Andreas lay in grief, but soon gathered himself and went on to rule the land for several more years, gathering many powerful allies again.
This went on for several years until...until a man named gunlaug arrived.
He wasn't very promising in Andreas' eyes, another person in his year, Gemma however was quite valuable as a future asset.
Andreas assigned gunlaug to cleaning duty and had Gemma serve as a soldier for manning the walls.
Soon however, full of resentment, gunlaug returned.
With his golden armour.
He gathered a few power hungry allies and waged war on the second ruler, even Andreas' insidious power failed against his transcendent echo.
Andreas realised that if the war went on, not only would he lose but hundreds of people would also die.
So he made a deal with gunlaug, and left the castle with his supporters, exiled. For the first time in history, the outer settlement was formed.
But something far more important had also happened on the day of the first ruler's death.
***
Over three hundred humans died that day, most killed by the soul destroying light of the crimson terror.
When it had killed them all, and the rest had retreated. The terror ordered it's subjugated soldiers to bring their corpses to itself.
Unlike the original timeline, where it had gotten to eat several dozen humans after killing the force led by Andreas, it got to consume a far larger amount.
It also consumed far more souls with a saturated core and strong wills.
And then... something changed...the souls of the humans, they evolved the terror in an unseen way.
The crimson terror of the forgotten shore had been a human once, one who had fed on the blood and soul of her brothers and sisters. One who had consumed countless human souls to keep burning as the light that destroyed the cursed darkness.
Eventually it had been corrupted, and forgotten those memories, only her hatred for her past allies and people remained and that too in figments.
However now that she had slain so many humans today, that too many of the most strong willed ones, she gained something new.
She had not just slain her enemies, she trapped their souls within itself through its soul destroying beams.
Slowly, she proceeded to devour them...and soon she gained... Desire.
She became aware of many things. How the humans came to her home, what they were trying to achieve by attacking the spire...and much more.
She then desired to gain ownership of the shore itself, in its entirety. Her maw already encompassed the continent itself, but merely feeding on its deceased was not enough anymore.
The crimson terror...she wanted to destroy and conquer all of the forgotten shore— dead and living. And as such she launched a massive invasion on the dwellers of the dark city.
Hundreds of carapace soldiers attacked the dark city, the human civilization under the second ruler had to put all hands on deck.
And even then they barely survived the onslaught.
After that, the crimson terror changed its approach.
It had existed in equilibrium with the cursed dark sea for ages, but now that was going to change.
It waited for the times when the dark sea used to arrive and leave, when it was comparatively shallow, it would strike the corrupted nightmare creatures inhabiting it with its soul eviscerating power.
The dark sea would inevitably weaken the attack severely, only allowing minor damage to the creatures, and yet they would get aggravated and follow the path of the lights to slay their adversary.
Once they were out of the dark sea, the crimson terror would rain hell upon them and claim it's prize.
Becoming stronger and gaining food for its cursed army to devour and grow stronger through it.
As time passed, the crimson terror gained more and more power and became better and better at hunting the demonic residents of the harrowing dark sea.
As the first few years passed, the terror was focused on enhancing its own might, growing stronger and stronger as time passed.
Just around then out of some place a nightmare creature walked into the forgotten shore.
Whatever it's origin was, it had somehow been affected by Sunny's regression and was now walking into the desolate crimson land.
As it did, it found its way to the soul devourer tree. Entering it's proximity, the giant tortoise like creature was met by the abominable tree's enthralled servant, the carapace demon. Or rather the carapace tribune as the spell called them.
The enthralled creature was a champion of the forgotten shore, guarding a shard memory beyond its death. It was also enhanced by the soul devourer, becoming much stronger than a typical awakened demon.
Which was why it had taken Sunny and Nephis so much effort to slay it too.
The carapace creatures were in general also stronger than the average creatures of their rank and class.
And yet none of that mattered when the foreigner tore into its leg in an instant, having closed the distance within a few seconds.
It met little resistance as it threw away the enthralled defender of the benevolent wise tree.
The enthralled creature was thrown hundreds of meters away, broken, dismantled and half dead.
And yet...it was salvation for it...as slowly the mind hex put upon it started to unravel.
At the same time, the corrupted demon marched forward towards the guardian tree that protected it, but it was met with the soul devourer's insidious power.
Wait? Insidious? Blasphemy! It was the most generous gift of the ancient being that had been oh so kind to the poor corrupted demon.
The demon was nothing but grateful, after wandering for so long, it was finally home.
Without even realising it, the corrupted demon had fallen under the mind hex of the soul devourer.
Partially because the creature was especially weak willed and partially because it didn't mind anything as long as it got to eat the fruits of the tree. It was herbivorous afterall, and plant life was rare on the desolate hellscape it was travelling in.
Having found a far far greater enthralled than before, the soul devourer chose to focus all of its power into the tortoise, choosing to gain as much direct control upon it as possible even if it meant weakening it's own existence in every single other way.
Years later, the soul devourer would have used the corrupted demon to go on expeditions and bring him soul shards to evolve into a fallen terror.
It would have saturated its soul with them too, but that wasn't nearly as interesting as what happened to the carapace demon.
***
As the demon not only went beyond the territory of the soul devourer it had back then, the enthralling power was also refocused on the corrupted demon instead.
So while still enthralled, the effect was slowly wearing off the demon, in the meantime it chose to travel across the land randomly. Facing and fighting the creatures it met.
No longer bound to its mother either after having been enthralled, it was truly and utterly free in this imprisoning world.
Ultimately however, the creature was a child of the crimson terror, and so it went back to its mother. Whether it was nostalgic or feeling obligated, one thing was certain. The demon was not bound by the commands of its terror anymore.
The crimson terror could not force it into subjugation anymore, and so when it arrived, the human desires flowing withing the terror terrified it itself.
It couldn't kill it's own spawn, because that was too cruel.
And it couldn't keep its spawn, because it could stage a rebellion in the future.
Both of these emotions were borrowed, they were human. And yet the crimson terror felt them as if it had done so since eternity. Perhaps once upon a time, it really did.
After some time, it came to a decision. It had something to get rid of too, and it could exile its spawn to the far reaches of the forgotten shore with that item.
That item of course, was the dawn shard.
After the first ruler fell to the crimson terror, the nightmare creature tried to get rid of the shard memory.
But before it could attempt to destroy it, the memories of the humans came through in fragmented form, allowing it to learn that if it destroyed the crown now, it would be remade as the trophy of slaying another formidable opponent.
The dawn shard had caused it great struggle, and the thought of humans weilding it again was troublesome. So it made a proposal to its spawn.
The awakened demon didn't want to slave away in the crimson terror's empire anymore anyways, so it would be allowed to leave its mother's territory and live in peace. It could even take other slightly rebellious spawns with it, even when they were under control of the crimson terror.
The only thing it would have to do was carry the crown with itself to whatever hellhole it went.
The demon had great talent for growth and had its potential increased by the soul devourer too, so the crimson terror took advantage of the situation and sent the small horde alongside the demon to the edge of the hollow mountains, the place where one of it's spire messengers remained.
After months of grueling travel, the demon arrived at the edge, now a tyrant from all the bloodshed and combat it had seen, it entered the mine and slowly made it's home around its entrance.
Without entering the complicated mazes located within the cave, the tyrant made its lair stronger and stronger over time, eventually among its horde, the future mate of the tyrant would be born.
Years passed, and the tyrant became a titan. Even while separated from the rest of the world, it never stopped guarding the dawn shard.
***
As the carapace tribune had become a heroic legend of its tribe...a titan,
The soul devourer had used it's new puppet to become a fallen terror too.
And the crimson terror had attained the corrupted rank for itself, transforming and gaining a thousand eyes.
Now it would have preferred to instantly become a titan as it evolved but not only did that require it slaughtering a lot more creatures but it also risked it getting Targetted by the dark sea in return.
The dark sea was a living entity afterall, and after slaughtering so many of its inhabitants the crimson terror ran the risk of being attacked by the sea itself.
So the fallen terror evolved into a corrupted terror, hoping to once again evolved into a great titan once it's army had spread all across the forgotten shore and completely controlled everything entirely.
The crimson terror made many devils, four of which evolved into tyrants and took the role of the commanders of its military.
They were sent out towards the four corners of the forgotten shore to spread their mother's territory.
Out there in the west, was an ancient destroyed kingdom. Originally, the few sleepers sent there by the spell had been immediately erased and devoured by the creatures lying there.
But then after the regression, their number grew, and amongst them were some fine, powerful strong willed sleepers who fought through the horde of native nightmare creatures to survive.
They managed to stay alive for quite long, until they came across a cave— they had expected it to be a citadel, and so they tried conquering it.
They were met by a corrupted tyrant— the voidscale tyrant.
The western dragon like feind had been asleep for thousands of years, unbothered to wake up, but now it was disturbed.
After ruthlessly getting rid of the sleepers, it raised it's wings and flew off to look at the world it was in.
That was the first time the creature realised that it's home world was destroyed, and now it was incorporated into an alien realm.
But instead of feeling bitter about it, the recluse dragon felt... intrigued.
It quickly hunted down some creatures and made some spawns to use as it's eyes and ears.
The rift drakelings it made set out to the forgotten shore and told it about the desolate land.
Eager to hunt in a new territory, the voidscale tyrant began it's invasion of the forgotten shore— only to be stopped by the crimson terror.
The terror was capable of dealing soul damage but was weak to physical attacks while the tyrant was resistant to soul damage and dealt elemental damage.
Both of them were countered by each other. And so they decided to not face each other in direct combat, instead relying on their armada to do the talking.
***
Plenty of years passed still, gunlaug had shown up somewhere in the meantime and taken control of the dark city while exiling the second ruler and his loyalists to the outer settlement, which had kickstarted the existence of the outer settlement this time too.
With the added invading hordes of the carapace army and the higher number of sleepers, gunlaug had gained more men and made more fingers that is, lieutenants for himself.
Then, Sunny entered the forgotten shore, and so did Nephis and Cassie and Caster.
And so many more new sleepers. Some they had already met, some were spawned elsewhere.
One extremely extraordinarily unlucky fellow had spawned...in the nightmare desert.
Very close to the forgotten shore yes, but still in the nightmare desert.
His story went something like this:
It was an average day in the desert, when a young boy with purple hair randomly came into existence on the white sands.
Some distance away, a few gigantic humanoids weilding european weapons and plate armour that seemed to be made out of something that looked like stainless steel, only much stronger, were facing east.
In front of them, an even more gigantic behemoth was walking towards them, the behemoth was indescribably nightmarish and utterly devoid of logic.
It was a great titan that was advancing on some corrupted titans.
As the two forces clashed, the corrupted ones were wiped out in seconds one by one.
Finally, the last one remained.
The great titan raised it's tentacles and struck the arms of the corrupted titan, instantly breaking it's arm bracers.
Then it struck its legs, and then it's torso. All of the corrupted's armour was broken, even it's helmet came undone with the force that hit it's torso.
Finally, for the sixth strike, the great creature hit the corrupted titan's great sword, instantly breaking it. Then it raised it's tentacles high. Playtime was finally over.
But before it could hit the corrupted titan and kill it for good, a lone dormant arrow hit the eye of the great titan, ofcourse it did nothing at all.
No dormant arrow could ever do anything to a great titan.
However, the titan was annoyed, it had hit directly into its eye, and while it didn't even bother it and felt like a lone dust particle entering a human's eye— unlike a typical human, a great titan could feel even the slight touch of that dust.
It did not help at all when the sleeper started monologuing loudly either.
"Haha! Take that you vile abomination! I am Sammy shades! The only character in this novel to have a last name!! Im gonna become the strongest SSS ranked Awakened in the future!!"
Sammy shades had been a curious case in this world, in fact he had been the most unique case.
He had been a human in the real world who used to read shadow slave as a novel, before dying to an inability of answering any questions asked and getting reincarnated into his favourite novel.
Unfortunately, his flaw made him believe that he had gained op powers, and so the poor fellow had asked for the wrath of a great titan...as a sleeper.
Not even Sunless was capable of surviving what was coming for Sammy, not even as a regressor.
The great titan raised it's tentacles higher, and wrapped it around the corrupted titan.
Then, it threw it's victim at sammy, the hulking mass of flesh streaked across the air before landing right on top of sammy.
It's gargantuan size spanning hundreds of meters seemed minuscule in that moment when it was thrown, but when it landed— it was as if the world itself shook.
Sammy shades was dead, and so was the corrupted titan. But then... something changed... something moved.
Was it Sammy? Was it the indomitable human spirit causing him to defy death and stand once again? Unfortunately no. As much as humans love to lather themselves with praise about never giving up, the same feeling belongs to every living creature.
And as far as the living are concerned, a corrupted titan holds a much richer, deeper life than a mere dormant human.
And so, by some miracle, the corrupted titan's corpse moved once again. Driven purely on sheer instinct.
Make no mistake, the creature was dead. It's soul was gone, it's cores had become shards. And it's shadow had vanished into the shadow realm to be devoured by slayer...or time itself.
However, within the flesh of that once harrowing abomination, nestled something slightly less harrowing.
The corpse itself was moving now, consuming the remnant energy of the once alive creature, and moving away from the place it had died at.
Consequently, the opposite direction was also where the dark city was and, in a few months, the corpse of the corrupted titan would reach the dark city itself.
When it did, it's body would also have regenerated by then.
And in the span of all this, a very mundane phenomena would take place in the corpse as well. A cancerous development would occur, transforming the corpse into a new living being.
Granting it a mind, feelings, and the unnatural powers of the devil, tyrant, terror and titan cores.
If the sleepers of the forgotten shore wanted to live, they would have to kill the corpse before it came back to life... completely.
Unfortunately for them, they had no idea that this was even transpiring yet.