Dawn

**Dawn** or **Bright Day** is the firstborn of the Three Horsemen, powerful cursed artifacts created by the oldest living white cored Awakened, Baba Yaga. The Bright Day is completely devoted to achieving the purpose Baba Yaga gave her, which is to find a way for the undead to assimilate knowledge along with the life force of their victims.

## Appearance

### Human Form

The Bright Day looks like a woman of untold age, about 1.78 meters (5'10") tall with golden eyes without pupils. Her skin is whiter than an albino's while her waist-long hair is pitch-black. Her body is covered by a full suit of crystal armor. Its countless facets absorb instead of reflects the light from her surroundings, restoring Dawn's powers and shrouding her in darkness. The armor is bright, acting as a conduit for the radiance that comes from Dawn's real body, the gemstone resting between her bosom. Just like her Daybreak spell, the contrast between light and darkness, between black and white makes her look as if a real dawn is taking place. Her voice is both young and old at the same time.

### Prism Form

Instead of being cut like a precious gem, Dawn's crystal form resembles a huge salt crystal, formed by several rectangular blocks fused together.

## Personality

Being the firstborn and most devoted to Baba Yaga, Dawn can't stand being beaten by her siblings in achieving their purpose. Dawn has never underestimated her enemies and always takes her time before making a move.

## Abilities

Dawn can generate spawn prisms to bond with and enslave undead, though each time weakens her will and diminishes her power. Dawn can change the shape of the prisms to form a sword, working as a scaffold for a light construct and further boosting its power. She can also cover her host with crystal-like scales that are an extension of her own body.

Undead are weak to sunlight, but those who merge with her share her mastery of the light element and become immune to it. Additionally, she is able to share a hive mind with her chosen minions and learn all of their knowledge, but when her minions die she loses any knowledge that she didn't practice herself. Dawn cannot be destroyed as she feeds on the light element that is present everywhere due to sunlight. The only way to fully stop her would be to destroy the sun. When one of her spawn dies, Dawn loses their abilities, but she also retrieves the power she bestowed upon them and the memories about their last moments.

Dawn is in a weakened state during the night because the only sources of light element are the stars and the moon, though she usually takes undead as her host to compensate for it. Despite being able to access the light element while buried underground, Dawn can't absorb huge amounts of the light element from world energy, as the resulting imbalance would kill her.

The Bright Day is a genius as well and she has lived long enough to devise spells that even geniuses like Manohar failed to even imagine. The element is the same, but with a similar level of genius, the gap in experience is unsurmountable. After her defeat at Solus' hands, Dawn decides to follow her lead and to become one with her host instead of just using Acala as a slave. His bright blue core and her power core beat in unison, generating a power greater than the sums of its parts. Her fusion with Acala and the presence of her steed are enough to allow her to easily dispose of a pair like Balkor and Manohar at the same time.

Dawn is also a master at the sword arts.

## Equipment

Dawn wields am Adamant sword called Twilight.

## Background

Over the millennia since her creation, Baba Yaga has used Creation Magic to constantly enhance Dawn's crystal body with modern Forgemastering techniques.

A couple centuries before Lith was born, Dawn encountered Lady Sinmara, an Awakened Elder Phoenix. Sinmara barely defeated Dawn but failed to destroy her so she approached the Beast Council, who entrusted the imprisonment of Dawn to the Rezar Werefolk Tribe. Dawn sacrificing her old host had given her the power to resist even the elder Phoenix's best attacks, forcing her to seal Dawn instead of destroying her. Due to their unique constitution, Werefolk are unable to bond to cursed objects, making them the perfect jailers for cursed objects like Dawn. To the pass the time during her imprisonment, Dawn taught light magic to the Werefolk, making them renowned as legendary healers and light masters.

During her imprisonment, Dawn opened a mind link with Mogar, who took the appearance of Baba Yaga. Since she didn't give the planet any reason to dispose of her, it listened to her ramblings. During her imprisonment, she used Mogar itself to make countless breakthroughs in all the disciplines she knew and even some that she invented herself. She used the Rezars as test subjects to test her theories and discoveries, using them as test subjects. What the werefolk mistook for attempts to escape and deception were actually failed experiments. Dawn used her time to find ways to use Light Mastery to perform almost everything, even affecting the arrays that kept her prisoner.

Ranger Acala was one of the few who managed to find the tribe's village. Acala spent a lot of time in their village, eventually even marrying one of the women. Dawn bonded with Acala and fueled his insecurities. The more Acala relied on Dawn's abilities, the more she became able to manipulate his thoughts and actions. Dawn/Acala massacred the entire village to make sure that no one lived to tell the tale, leaving Nalrond as the last known Rezar survivor.

### First Encounter

After escaping, Dawn hid in plain sight as Acala, planning to exploit his mortal body to more easily Awaken him while hoarding the fame and resources necessary for her research. Only once the Griffon Kingdom had outlived its usefulness would she turn her partner into an undead and join the Courts as their rightful ruler. She came across a set of Odi ruins and planned to use it to research the Odi's method to transfer memories in help her mission. She enslaves vagrant vampires and has them turn travelers into thralls in order to gain the humans' knowledge of modern magic and use the vampires to modernize outdated spells.

However, Dawn is interrupted when Ranger Lith Verhen is ordered to investigate her undead minions. She assimilates Acala and plots to exploit Lith's presence to elevate "Acala's" standing in the Kingdom to gain more power. She discovers Solus' existence. Nalrond comes for revenge, and forms a temporary alliance with Lith to confront Dawn together, forcing her to flee back to Baba Yaga to heal herself. She informs Baba Yaga of Lith's hybrid nature and ability to merge with cursed objects, intriguing the Red Mother. Afterwards, Dawn focuses on recovering her strength and reconnecting with her siblings, Dusk and Night. Dawn decides to follow Solus' lead and to become one with her host instead of just using Acala as a slave. His core and her power core beat in unison, generating a power greater than the sums of its parts. Acala also shares with Dawn his knowledge of where every secret of the Kingdom is kept.

Dawn's battle against Lith makes the three Great Countries aware that the Three Horsemen are still alive. Moreover, he spreads word about Dawn's experiments on the members of her own race and her plot to sacrifice a part of the Dawn Court to raise her host's status. This causes even her Court to lose trust in her and a lack of discipline among her ranks that causes countless failures, with her undead worrying more about becoming her latest test subjects than about the enemies in front of them and not hesitating to run away.

### Undead War

Dawn is conferring with Dusk when he is notified of an attack by the Master's Organization on a Dusk Court branch in the Gorgon Empire, prompting him to Warp to the rescue. Dawn intervenes when Xenagrosh gains the upper hand against Dusk, but are ambushed by the other hybrid-Eldritches, forcing a distress call to Night, who Warps them away.

Baba Yaga brings her Horsemen to witness Lith's battle in the Lost City of Kolga, as it is rare for an Awakened to resist a tribulation before the white core. The Three Horsemen convene with the Firstborn on the Garlen continent in the Blood Desert to discuss the state of the war. After Night's attack on Lutia, the Awakened Council as well as the Master's Organization become their enemies, throwing their war plans into disarray. Dusk attempts to rally the Courts, but the Firstborns decline to continue serving the Three Horsemen in their struggle, discontent with their offspring being treated as their lapdogs.

At Night's suggestion, the Three Horsemen steal their mage tower steeds from Baba Yaga and wage war on the Griffon Kingdom's major cities. Dawn attacks Belius, facing Manohar and Queen's Corpse member Qwor. Her centuries gap in experience as well as having become one with her host easily overwhelm the Mad Professor. Additionally, Night and Dusk's defeat leaves them free to channel the power of themselves and their steeds into Dawn's army, making them immune to sunlight and darkness and empowering them with Life Maelstrom and Origin Flames.

Manohar uses the Spell Hoarding Cube to unleash a Blade spell from First King Valeron which cripples Dawn's crystal core. Dawn, having grown affectionate for Acala, refuses to sacrifice him to mend her wounds. Baba Yaga arrives to save her daughter and Manohar, mistaking her as an enemy, unleashes another spell that summons the First King's guard. Baba Yaga takes Dawn and flees before healing the pair with Creation Magic.

Dawn lets Acala keep his body to make his wounds heal faster, nursing him in Baba Yaga's absence. She treats him as a peer, not as a steed which enables them to merge into a single being or exist as separate bodies as long as they are close. Dawn's power core becomes second only to a white core.

## Quotes

* *"Gods, if I love humans. So pure, so honest with themselves, so stupid. I should have given up on greater undead centuries ago. They are so annoying with their pondering each and every step before even taking it. Their long lives make them too cautious, whereas humans are like butterflies. Their existence is so short and they are so eager to get everything they want that taking over is almost too easy."* (Chapter 876)
* *"Maybe my long imprisonment made me lose my touch at genocide, but luckily, failing to kill a single Rezar is a mistake I can easily fix."* (Dawn to Nalrond, Chapter 880)
* *"I usually don't enjoy taking down a fellow cursed object, but for you, I'll make an exception."* (Dawn to Solus and Lith, Chapter 892)
* *"Not bad, boy. Keep entertaining me like this and I could take a fancy to your body."* (Dawn to Lith, Chapter 893)
* *"Please, Mom, save him. I'm finally changing. I'm finally learning. Acala makes me more than I've ever been."* (Dawn to Baba Yaga, Chapter 1399)

## References

2. ↑ Chapter 901
3. ↑ Chapter 895
4. ↑ Chapter 896
5. ↑ Chapter 873
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Chapter 877
7. ↑ Chapter 886
8. ↑ Chapter 877
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chapter 893
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Chapter 883
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Chapter 884
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Chapter 891
13. ↑ Chapter 888
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 Chapter 1396
15. ↑ Chapter 941
16. ↑ Chapter 888
17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Chapter 1399
18. ↑ Chapter 1184
19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Chapter 1447
20. ↑ Chapter 876
21. ↑ Chapter 881
22. ↑ Chapter 897
23. ↑ Chapter 1301
24. ↑ Chapter 1090
25. ↑ Chapter 1249
26. ↑ Chapter 1302
27. ↑ Chapter 1389
28. ↑ Chapter 1396