Kremnos, Cleanse Thy Rusted Blood (II)

Patch: 3.0 · Chapter: Heroic Saga of Flame-Chase · Mission 08 of 10Previous: A Cleansing of Gold · Next: A Witch's Scientific Repose

Official summary

With [[Mem]]'s help, you and [[Castorice]] manage to arrive at [["Bloodbathed Battlefront" Castrum Kremnos|Castrum Kremnos in the past]]. During this period, this city is thriving, and the [[Kremnos Festival]] is reaching a feverish height. You two and a warrior named [[Gnaeus]] sign up for the festival together, piercing deeper into the inner sections of the city. There, you learn that Gnaeus is a missing divine fragment that belongs to [[Nikador]]. With five fragments of the divine restored and the past and the present realigned, Nikador loses their immortal body. Yet, what stands before the [[Chrysos Heirs]] becomes a fully restored and glorious Strife [[Titan]].

Synopsis

Prelude: Opening the door to the past

Following the party's return from the Abyss of Fate beneath Janusopolis, the group has split in two. Phainon and Dan Heng went to reinforce the battle-worn Mydei, who is still locked in an endless duel against the mad Strife Titan Nikador. The Trailblazer and Castorice, meanwhile, harnessed Oronyx's power to gather the scattered memory fragments needed to journey into Castrum Kremnos' past — where the plan is to destroy Nikador's immortal body at its source.

In the present-day arena, the Trailblazer clears a blocked path (using a physics-ball puzzle) and reaches the "link to the past." Castorice can feel Mydei and Phainon's battle still raging nearby — "The battle is still raging... I can feel the intensity even from here" — but the two remind themselves they can only help once their own mission is complete. Mem demands the collected fragments so it can rebuild the past: "Past... Recreate, I will." The Trailblazer hands over the Bard's, Chartonus', and Damionis' memory fragments, and Mem opens a gate to yesteryear.

Castorice: Let's go, {Mr./Miss} (Trailblazer). We will unravel Nikador's secrets together.

Arrival in a thriving Castrum Kremnos

They step through into Castrum Kremnos as it once was — "before Aquila closed their eyes," a magnificent City of Warriors alive and prosperous. Castorice immediately senses the paradox beneath the splendor: "Under all this resplendence... is the distinct stench of death." The memory fragments all pointed to the final stage of the Chrysos War, so they resolve to confirm exactly which era they've landed in through observation rather than by drawing attention — Castrum Kremnos is no tourist spot.

Near the arena they encounter a silent, unarmed gladiator who dismisses both the festival's competition ("I have no interest in meaningless sports") and Nikador's festival itself as "utterly foolish." Castorice chalks his sourness up to the war's scars.

Investigating the surroundings pins down the timeline:

• Overheard Kremnoans argue over Mydeimos. A resentful citizen brands him a coward and deserter who shamed the Lance of Fury, insisting that King Eurypon, the rightful ruler, still stands and has "never given up on awakening the great Titan." Castorice privately notes that these people cannot yet know that Eurypon's reign would eventually be overthrown by Mydei — and that Mydei's departure was courage, not cowardice, because he was once Kremnos' greatest hero.
• The Festival Notice ("Five Great Virtues and Festival Notice") lays out Nikador's Five Great Virtues — Courage, Honor, Reason, Tenacity, Sacrifice — and explains the festival: warriors fight through the arena toward an audience with King Eurypon, with victors earning glory and the fallen "becoming fuel for Strife." The scroll's purpose is to "call forth the divinity of the Titans."
• A weapon merchant hawks blades supposedly crafted by the Grand Craftsman Chartonus. Castorice examines one and confirms the era from its inscription — but also notices the weapons "reek of blood" and are, she suspects, looted from the dead.

Piecing it together, Castorice concludes: they've arrived in the last years of the Chrysos War — Mydei has fled to Okhema with his people, old King Eurypon still reigns, and Nikador has fallen into a slumber while Kremnos gathers warriors from all over. The safest way inside is to enter the festival "by the rules" as participants, waiting for the right moment to strike. When it comes to it, Castorice vows, she will handle Nikador's kin herself.

Registering as a trio

At the registration area, the Kremnos Registration Officer mocks the silent gladiator, who keeps trying to enter alone despite the trial requiring a team of three. The Trailblazer and Castorice seize the opening and volunteer as his teammates. Giving their names at the gate, the gladiator finally speaks his own: Gnaeus. (The Trailblazer can register as "the Galactic Baseballer.") The officer sends them through in the name of Nikador's five virtues.

At the gate, Castorice asks what Gnaeus fights for. His answer is stark:

Gnaeus: Fighting needs no reason. I seek only to crush foolishness.

The trials within the city

The trio pushes through a series of arena trials — Prophecy Tablet pressure-plate puzzles, the destructive Hand of Zagreus (a giant fist Gnaeus notes was once used for thievery, the legacy of the Trickery Titan reduced to a plaything), and Oronyx-Orb time puzzles. Throughout, Gnaeus reacts to each relic with cold contempt for how the Titans' powers have been reduced to servants and toys for humans — Oronyx "reduced to a servant of humans," and he dismisses the festival trials as "a meaningless challenge to erode the patience of warriors."

A key character beat comes when the trio corners the fleeing weapon merchant, who has been looting corpses from the arena. Gnaeus moves to kill him as a despicable thief bound for Thanatos, but Castorice intervenes and talks him down. Her reasoning is a thesis statement for her character:

Castorice: Because... he still knows how to fear death. Despicable or scum he may be, but he doesn't deserve to die here... To answer your question, it is never the desire to kill that drives me to wield a sword, but rather, the fear of death.

Gnaeus spares the thief, explicitly framing it not as agreement but as a "commendation for your courage" — he recognizes she overcame tremendous fear to step in front of his blade.

Deeper in, they pass Chryseus Leo, a golden lion statue that speaks. It senses Gnaeus's "rare aura" and "blazing soul," lamenting that Kremnos' own blazing star (Mydei) has drifted away, leaving only a dim candle. The lion warns that "the aging and feeble king is plotting something unspeakable... one that seeks to defile Nikador's divinity, their soul, and the legacy they left to Kremnos." Gnaeus refuses the mantle of savior — "I am here to answer a call... to crush greed and foolishness once and for all" — but the lion blesses his path anyway.

The truth of the festival: sealing a Titan's soul

At the heart of the city, Castorice finally reveals their true goal to Gnaeus: they came to destroy Nikador, who has lost their reason and is trying to create an immortal vessel. Gnaeus reveals he already knew they weren't there for the competition, and declares their goals aligned: "Find the Titan and we can both get what we came for."

Castorice then uses her power to summon the restless souls of the sacrificed dead, letting the party hear echoes of the past. This exacts a visible physical toll — she coughs harder with each summoning, and admits "guiding souls takes a lot of energy." The echoes progressively expose King Eurypon's scheme:

• Soldiers & a Priest reveal the festival's function: keep challengers fighting endlessly, because "only by letting Nikador revel in the chaos of war can we control their descent into madness." The whole festival is a fabricated war to pacify the failing Titan.
• An Aristocrat & Advisor discuss the delay — "Sealing a Titan's soul is no easy endeavor" — carried out by priests captured from other city-states. Castorice connects this to the Sword Vessel in Lipos' ballad, forged by Chartonus.
• A Soldier & Craftsman reveal a long-planned "all-out attack on Okhema," subordinate to completing "the god-king's project."
• A Hero's echo delivers the crucial detail: Nikador's divinity was split into five parts — "Courage, Honor, Tenacity, and Sacrifice... but we're missing one fragment." The missing one is Reason: "Oh god-king... Where did you lose your reason?"

Between summonings, Gnaeus deduces the travelers are "not from this era," ruling out even Oronyx as the cause. Castorice confirms it — a mad Nikador will, in the distant future, drive their companions and homeland to the brink of destruction, and they came back to prevent it. Gnaeus, moved, notes their goals are the same and that "the destruction created by human folly is more than anyone could imagine." Castorice, overcome by the pain of ferrying so many wronged souls, breaks down momentarily:

Castorice: If only death didn't exist in this world. That way, they wouldn't have to linger here... and I wouldn't have to suffer.

The experiment and the reassembly

Confronting a maddened Furiae Praetor guarding the inner sanctum, Gnaeus explains the full mechanism. King Eurypon wanted to strip Nikador of their divinity and seal it eternally in an "intricate vessel" — first testing the technique on a Titankin before remolding the Titan itself. The fragments of Nikador's soul are sealed inside statues, and these are the source of the "calls" Gnaeus has been hearing. To defeat Nikador, the party must first reassemble the soul — restore Nikador's dignity as a Titan so they can be beaten in fair battle, and, in Castorice's words, "fix this point in history."

The Trailblazer uses Oronyx's Miracle to switch space-time into the present-day ruins of the platform. Gnaeus reflects on the "dark and derelict" future of Kremnos: "History has taken a wrong turn... and must be set on the right course once more."

The Soul-Forging Platform

On the Soul-Forging Platform stand only four statues where there should be five. Rewinding time on each embedded sword vessel replays the sealing ritual, restoring each virtue to the divine body while narrating what it meant:

• Courage — "they alone have raised their sword and faced the enemy head-on" against the formless black tide from beyond the fog.
• Honor — "they have never plunged their divine lance into an enemy's back," fiercely guarding the warrior's dignity.
• Tenacity — "their will is unyielding... No matter how powerful the black tide may be, enough to corrupt the wills of other gods, they stand tall."
• Sacrifice — their final vow before dormancy: to defend the world against the black tide, using "their own body as our city walls."

With four restored, only the fifth — Reason — remains missing. Gnaeus falls silent, then reveals he was wrong all along: "The final fragment of divinity was never lost..."

Gnaeus is Nikador's Reason

At the final platform, Gnaeus tells the whole story. When the black tide first crept toward Amphoreus, Nikador was the first Titan to venture out against it. In their prime they could "obliterate an entire archipelago with a single slash," yet they could not sever the corruption's root, and their sanity slipped away. Before their divinity could be fully corrupted, Nikador tore away and preserved the one fragment they valued most — Reason — trusting it would one day return to fulfill their sacred mission.

That fragment is Gnaeus himself.

Gnaeus: Courage, Honor, Tenacity, and Sacrifice... they're all versions of me. Hearing the murmurs of these soul fragments has led me to a conclusion. Nikador's soul is corrupted beyond the point of salvation.

There is only one path forward: complete the soul-forging so Nikador becomes whole again — which shatters the immortality Eurypon built, but presents the party with "a Titan nearly at the zenith of their powers." Gnaeus will merge back into Nikador's divinity, almost certainly to be consumed by the corruption himself. He accepts this calmly as his origin and purpose, teaching Castorice a final lesson:

Gnaeus: Do not detest your talent and do not abhor death. Journeys and epics are only glorious and magnificent because all things eventually fade to dust. Civilizations only grow under strife. Humans instinctively loathe suffering, yet suffering is the only thing that teaches them to stand unyielding and tall...

He extracts a promise: if the party sends him to his grave, they must use his Coreflame to fuel the ongoing fight against the black tide. Castorice pledges it "on behalf of all the Chrysos Heirs." Gnaeus then declares his true self and merges:

Gnaeus: I am Nikador, the Lance of Fury, the messenger of turmoil, and the embodiment of Strife! Remember this: I am the scar that this world needs!

The decisive battle

Across the space-time boundary, Phainon and Mydei — still fighting the mad Nikador — sense the Titan restored to full glory. In a brief cutscene, Nikador (through Gnaeus's voice) asks to be granted "an end befitting a warrior." The united party — Phainon, Mydei, and Castorice — battles The Giver, Master of Legions, Lance of Fury (Nikador's true form at peak power). Mydei, who has fought Nikador for what felt like eternity, relishes the resolution; Castorice keeps her vow ("Your nightmare will be over soon"). The finishing blow lands with Aglaea and Phainon in cutscene:

Phainon: No longer must one wield a sword... From here on, the world shall no longer know "strife."

Aftermath: the Coreflame and Castorice's grief

Nikador falls, leaving behind their Coreflame — the first Titan to fall in a long time, bringing the Chrysos Heirs "one step closer to the genesis as foretold in the prophecy." Aglaea's instruction is that someone must touch and absorb the Coreflame to become its temporary receptacle. Mydei defers the honor to Phainon despite his own claim to it. Phainon absorbs the Coreflame — and is unsettled by how easy it felt, as if he "didn't feel anything at all."

As the others leave for Okhema, Castorice stays behind. She picks up a fragment of Gnaeus/Nikador and speaks to the Titan's corpse, revealing her personal quest:

Castorice: Please, tell me... do you know where Thanatos is? I must find them. The half of me that I've been deprived of since birth... I must take it back from them.

Nikador's fragmented voice answers (untranscribed), and Castorice learns that even the Strife Titan never saw Death in the flesh. She resolves to continue her search across all of Amphoreus, then tenderly sends the Titan into "the gentle embrace of death, to a sweet land full of blossoming flowers."

Castorice: Farewell, Titan.

Return to Okhema

Back in the holy city, Aglaea and Tribbie welcome the victors. Aglaea confirms Phainon as the Coreflame's bearer and demigod-candidate. When Phainon argues Mydei — former crown prince of Kremnos, who fought alongside Nikador — is more deserving, Aglaea explains that those very qualities are why Mydei refused: "he does not want to lead his people down the same path again." Phainon accepts the burden of divinity. The Coreflame surrender ritual at the Vortex of Genesis is set for the next day, its cost unknown, and Aglaea warns "no one knows the true cost a mortal must pay to accept Strife's divine authority."

In a quieter beat, Phainon thanks Mem for the first time. Talking with Dan Heng in the bath chamber, the Trailblazer's group takes stock of their own plight — the wrecked car, lost contact with the Astral Express Crew, and the taboo against "everything beyond the sky."

Coda: Mem awakens, and a dream

Resting in the private bath chamber, the Trailblazer discovers that Mem can suddenly speak in full sentences rather than its former broken words — though it remembers nothing about itself. Mem insists that collecting the memory fragments scattered across Amphoreus will yield "something really, really good," and that this world is somehow "very important to me."

As the Trailblazer drifts to sleep, a whisper leads into the tutorial for "As I've Written," a book found "in the past":

Open this book, / I'll be waiting for you in the past. / ...Record Mydeimos' story on the empty pages / The Flame-Chaser's Path has been lit

Elsewhere in Okhema, Castorice keeps the sleepless Phainon company. He confesses his gnawing self-doubt — that "someone as ordinary as me" could never truly be a hero — and admits the Coreflame in his palm has already gone cold, worrying it means he's a poor match for Nikador. He reveals he lied to the demigods about being wholly devoted to the Chrysos Heirs' mission; in truth he thinks of "the past" every waking moment and longs for the fields of his homeland, Aedes Elysiae. Castorice notes Aglaea sees through all their lies but chooses to look past them, and gently reassures him he is "far from ordinary." Phainon also finally asks why Castorice stopped him back in the temple with the Scales of Justice, when Oronyx demanded "something more important than the fate of Amphoreus." Her answer: it was too cruel and unfair to ask that of him, and she knew there had to be another solution.

The mission closes on a hard cutaway: switching to Herta's POV — Herta is at the space station attempting to commune with the Aeon Nous, and "it seems the process didn't go so well."

Key characters

• Gnaeus / Nikador — The "silent gladiator" who joins the trio. Revealed to be the missing fifth fragment of Nikador's divinity, Reason, the part the Titan tore away and preserved before the black tide could corrupt it. He willingly merges back into Nikador to break the immortality curse and dies in the ensuing battle, leaving his Coreflame to the Chrysos Heirs.
• Castorice — Guides the Trailblazer through the past, uses her death-powers to summon soul echoes (at real physical cost), spares the weapon merchant, and articulates her creed that fear of death — not desire to kill — drives her sword. After the battle she reveals her personal quest: to find Thanatos and reclaim "the half of me that I've been deprived of since birth."
• The Trailblazer — Castorice's partner through the past; wields Oronyx's Miracle to shift space-time and reassemble the soul-forging statues.
• Phainon — Fights the final battle, absorbs Nikador's Coreflame, and is chosen as its bearer/demigod-candidate over Mydei. Privately wracked by doubt about his worthiness and haunted by his lost homeland Aedes Elysiae and "the past."
• Mydei — Ends his marathon duel with Nikador; declines the Coreflame, per Aglaea, because he refuses to lead his people down the same divine path again.
• Aglaea — The Goldweaver; oversees the Coreflame's assignment and sees through everyone's lies while choosing to ignore them. Sets the Vortex of Genesis ritual for the next day.
• Mem — Rebuilds the past from the memory fragments; afterward gains the ability to speak fluently, though it still has no memory of itself.
• Chryseus Leo — A speaking golden lion statue in the city that recognizes Gnaeus's blazing soul and warns of King Eurypon's blasphemous scheme against Nikador.
• King Eurypon (unseen) — The old ruler whose "project" is the soul-sealing scheme; still reigns in this era; his reign is later overthrown by Mydei (the killing itself — by Mydei's own spear — is not stated here; it is shown in 3.1).

Lore notes

• Nikador's Five Great Virtues — Courage, Honor, Reason, Tenacity, Sacrifice. Nikador's divinity was split into five soul fragments; four (Courage, Honor, Tenacity, Sacrifice) were sealed into sword-vessel statues on the Soul-Forging Platform, while Reason was self-removed by Nikador and became Gnaeus.
• The black tide — Named here as the formless corruption "from beyond the dense fog" against which Nikador was the first Titan to march. It drove Nikador mad and can "corrupt the wills of other gods." Nikador's Sacrifice-vow was to use their own body as Kremnos' walls against it. This ties the Titans' madness directly to an external existential threat.
• The Kremnos Festival as a lie — The gladiatorial festival was a fabricated war engineered by King Eurypon to keep the failing Nikador "revelling in the chaos of war" and thus controllable, while priests captured from other city-states worked to seal the Titan's soul into a vessel (the Sword Vessel of Lipos' ballad, forged by Chartonus).
• Immortality vs. restoration — Eurypon's scheme aimed to seal Nikador's divinity into an eternal vessel (immortality). Reassembling the full soul destroys that immortality but restores the Titan to peak power — the party deliberately makes Nikador killable again to end the corruption.
• Coreflames & demigods — A fallen Titan leaves a Coreflame; a mortal must touch and absorb it to become its temporary receptacle en route to becoming a demigod. The Coreflame is later surrendered at the Vortex of Genesis. Phainon becomes Nikador's Coreflame bearer. The cost of accepting Strife's divine authority is explicitly unknown — foreshadowing.
• The prophecy / genesis — With Nikador fallen, the Chrysos Heirs are "one step closer to the genesis as foretold in the prophecy." Kephale (Worldbearing Titan) keeps Okhema in perpetual daylight; Aquila is the Sky Titan whose "closing of eyes" marks Kremnos' decline.
• Castorice's origin — She was born deprived of "half" of herself and believes Thanatos (Death Titan) holds it; even Nikador has never seen Death in the flesh. This seeds her ongoing quest. [?] What exactly the "other half" is, and Castorice's relationship to Death/Thanatos, is left open.
• Mem's mystery — Mem's sudden fluency and its conviction that Amphoreus is "very important to me," plus the promise of "something really really good" from collecting memory fragments, foreshadow a hidden identity. [?] Who or what Mem truly is remains unrevealed.
• "As I've Written" — A book that lets the Trailblazer record Mydeimos' story and lights "the Flame-Chaser's Path," a "Nameless Recollection" mechanic. Connects to the chapter's Flame-Chase framing. [?] The full significance of the book and its author ("I'll be waiting for you in the past") is left dangling.
• Phainon's secrets — His preoccupation with "the past," his homeland Aedes Elysiae, the cold Coreflame, and his lie to the demigods are all flagged as significant — heavy foreshadowing of Phainon's larger arc. [?]
• Herta / Nous cliffhanger — The mission ends by cutting to Herta at the space station failing to commune with the Aeon Nous, connecting the Amphoreus storyline to the broader Astral Express metaplot. [?]
• Continuity — Directly continues from the split after the Abyss of Fate (Janusopolis); Mydei's desertion of Kremnos and overthrow of Eurypon are treated as established backstory; the present-day battle against mad Nikador (fought by Phainon and Mydei) runs in parallel throughout. Leads into "A Witch's Scientific Repose."

Sources

• Kremnos, Cleanse Thy Rusted Blood (II) — HSR Wiki

Hindsight (full arc)

• Reread with the reveal: Phainon absorbing Nikador's Coreflame "unsettlingly easily," and its going cold in his palm, is a symptom of his true nature — he is Khaslana, this cycle's incarnation of the Deliverer who has hoarded every Coreflame across 33M cycles (3.4); the absorption-mode trial itself fails in 3.1.
• Foreshadowing: As I've Written, introduced here as the record-book "waiting in the past," is revealed to be Cyrene's twelve-chapter oracle book and a Remembrance encryption key (3.6); its author is Cyrene = the Demiurge = Mem = PhiLia093 (3.4/3.7).
• [?] resolved: Castorice's missing "other half" and her tie to Thanatos resolve in 3.2 Through the Petals in the Land of Repose — she is the twin of Death; her sister Polyxia revived her, and Castorice ascends as the sole demigod of Death.
• [?] resolved: The "true cost a mortal pays" to accept a Titan's authority is answered in 3.1 — soul-splitting (Tribbie), fading humanity (Aglaea), and a glimpsed personal death-prophecy.
• [?] resolved: Herta's failed communion with Nous (who has no record of Amphoreus) is explained in 3.4 — Amphoreus is a discarded Erudition Scepter reborn under Nanook's gaze, hidden from its own Aeon.