Shadow Slave

“Pathetic.”

Azarax was leaning on the rocks, hidden from the sun. Sunny was not sure if the ancient tyrant was aware that he had begun to shy away from direct sunlight as of late, but it was not difficult to notice.

The towering skeleton moved his axe slightly, staring at the two of them holding hands with his empty eye sockets.

“The two of you disgust me to the core simply by virtue of being who you are, but on top of that, you are an offence to the very idea of a Supreme.”

He clacked his teeth.

“A Supreme is someone who submits to no one… at least not voluntarily. On the contrary, simply by existing, he forces others to submit to him. Therefore, two Supremes can never coexist as equals. Ideally, one will kill and plunder the lands of the other — at worst, one will be conquered but stay alive.”

Azarax shook his head.

“Yet here you are, pretending to be love birds. How appalling. One of you should have killed the other a long time ago.”

He glared at them and spat:

“And how are you so ignorant and weak? Pathetic, truly pathetic. Is this what remains of the Flame? If so, you shame your ancestors.”

Sunny gave him a cold look.

The ancient tyrant was not entirely wrong. Compared to him, they were indeed ignorant in some areas and could be perceived as weaker than the dire enemies he had faced in the past.

However…

“Hey, you fossil. Remind me, what were you doing twelve years ago?”

Azarax grinned.

“Hanging on the tree.”

Sunny nodded.

“In all your Supreme glory. Do you know what we were doing twelve years ago, though? Trying to survive as mundane humans. It only took us ten years to become Supreme. How long did it take you?”

Azarax laughed.

“A Dormant human becoming Supreme in ten years? Preposterous. Even I, the great and terrible Azarax, spent centuries climbing to the throne of Supremacy. Stick to the truth, Shadow. You are a terrible liar.”

Sunny smiled.

“Oh, no. I am the most honest person in the world, actually — two worlds, even. So, let me tell you the honest truth… you’ve been around for thousands of years, and you are still merely a Supreme. Now that’s truly pathetic.”

He shook his head.

“Plus, the previous rulers of our realm had similar ideas to yours. The world is too small for two Supremes, gaining ultimate power through civil war conquest… crap like that. Not only did it bring unspeakable harm to our world, but we killed those Supremes — together. I’d say that proves my point, no?”

Azarax just gnashed his teeth silently. Letting out a sigh, Sunny looked around the desert.

As the sun rose a little higher, he sighed and spoke to Nephis:

“I don’t suppose we will be able to find the Black Skull. Now that I think about it, it’s a bit funny… and a bit sad. So many people died during the Battle of the Black Skull, but the Citadel they fought for ended up ownerless. The Skinwalker chased Mordret away, and even when he destroyed the Skinwalker years later, it remained empty somewhere out there, in the Nightmare Desert.”

Sunny hesitated for a moment, then spoke to Azarax:

“Hey, do you maybe know who that skull belonged to? It’s a huge skull, entirely black, with three eyes.”

Azarax glared at him darkly.

“Three eyes? Must have belonged to one of that abominable girl’s abominable kin, then. The nephilim.”

The ancient skeleton spat on the sand. Only, of course, he did not have any saliva… or lips, or a tongue, or any other part necessary to spit. So, it looked quite odd. Azarax spoke in a somber tone:

“Three eyes… it’s the sign of the Void. It’s the sign of the angels, and of what angels touched. Nephilim were the same, even if they chose to hide their third eye most of the time. Those horrid things. They joined our glorious army to fight against the gods, but even though we were glad to have their terrifying strength on our side, we weren’t happy to be in their company.”

Sunny gave him a long look.

“Why did you all hate the nephilim so much, anyway? I never quite understood it.”

Azarax scoffed.

“Because they were abominations. They were something that was not supposed to exist — their very existence went against the laws of everything. Things can be either Divine or Unholy, either of the Flame or of the Void. But they were both, and therefore, in contradiction to everything that is right, good, and holy:”

He glared at Sunny.

“But why are you asking me? You have one of those abominations right in front of you, holding your hand. You can just ask her.”

Sunny smiled.

“I am asking you because I’m interested to learn what you have to say.”

He remained silent for a few moments, and then asked:

“What about Godgrave, then? Was the giant skeleton lying there a nephilim once, as well?”

Azarax leaned on his axe.

“What is Godgrave? Did someone bury the gods?”

Sunny grimaced, then shook his head.

“No. It’s just what we call that colossal skeleton — it must have belonged to a creature that was at least ten thousand kilometers tall. And someone still managed to kill it.”

Azarax laughed.

“That is impossible. There has never been such a giant in the world. Only the World Tree could compare, but it obviously did not possess a skeleton. So, it could not have been a nephilim… in fact, I doubt that a creature like that ever existed at all.”

Sunny took a mental note of the fact that Azarax was not aware of the being whose skeleton had later become Godgrave. Did that mean that the ancient tyrant had been ignorant, or that the enormous skeleton was only created after he had been nailed to a tree?

‘Curious.’

That thing definitely had something to do with the Void, though.

So, Sunny was not sure that he wanted to know the answer.