Shadow Slave

Sunny wanted to host Nephis in his castle, but sadly, they had to steer clear of the Dark City. The thralls of Asterion were still imprisoned in the settlement below its walls, and on top of that, he did not entirely trust the members of the Shadow Clan either. Asterion had already shown his ability to subjugate people without stealing them from the Domain of the Supreme they were loyal to, after all.

Saint Thane, the Dream Merchant, must have regretted being born as a result. Nephis had been consumed by wrath after Red Hill fell, so when their investigation pointed at the eccentric Saint and his treachery was revealed, she simply turned him into a screaming bonfire.

He did not scream for long, though, because the immolating white flames stole his voice. Nephis burned the enthralled Saint until there was nothing left of him but a shriveled, blackened stick figure.

But she did not kill him.

Instead, she used the same flames to restore him to flawless health, and then burned him again — and again, again, and again… until the name Asterion became synonymous with harrowing pain in his mind.

In the end, the agony and the horror proved terrifying enough to overpower the Asterion’s hex, erasing it.

And yet, Sunny did not think that the enthralled Saint had been happy to have his mind cleansed and his free will restored. He was not sure, though, because by the time they left, the Dream Merchant had not regained his ability to form coherent sentences yet.

Needless to say, Neph’s method of healing people of the plague was even less scalable than Cassie’s.

So, Sunny could not take her to the Dark City. The Chain Breaker travelled east for some time, and when they drew close enough to the city for the light emanating from the flying ship to be seen from the walls, Nephis released her channelling and let the world drown in darkness once more. Sunny replaced her at the oars. It had been a long while since he last steered the Chain Breaker, but his task was not difficult — they simply had keep heading east.

Sunny and Nephis left the Dark City behind and crossed the colossal crater that they had traversed more than a decade ago on a boat made from the bones of the Carapace Demon. Beyond it lay the Ashen Barrow and the charred remains of the Soul Devouring Tree — all that was left of the fearsome Terror was an enormous blackened stump, its jagged mass emanating an eerie sense of dread and malevolence.

The Chain Breaker continued on its way east.

Soon enough, they flew above the headless statue of the Knight — that was where Sunny had begun his journey once. The small clearing in the labyrinth of crimson coral nearby was where he met Nephis and Cassie…

Of course, there was no clearing anymore. The coral labyrinth was gone, after all, having turned to ash when the Crimson Spire fell. Nephis did not remember their meeting, either… still, she must have retraced her footsteps and visited these places while traveling to the Nightmare Desert.

She had remembered him back then. Sunny wondered what Nephis thought about while walking through the darkness alone.

Nephis seemed to be remembering those times, as well.

“The hardest part was not the loneliness, not the cold, not the hunger, and not the Nightmare Creatures either. It was water. I was dying from thirst, the second time I traveled through these parts.”

Leaning on the railing. Nephis smiled.

“Luckily, even though the cycle of day and night was gone by then, the weather still remained. There was a storm once I reached the Knight, and I was able to both quench my thirst and store some water.”

Sunny remained silent for a while, thinking idly about his own wanderings across the Forgotten Shore.

Eventually, he said:

“You know, I took Slayer to the statue of the Slayer once. She was not impressed.”

Nephis laughed quietly.

“That was where Cassie’s rapier came from. The sword grave around that statue… it was a truly lethal affair. We barely made it out alive.”

Sunny sighed.

“You know, every time I see these statues, I think to myself: now that I rule the Forgotten Shore, nothing is stopping me from bringing their heads back and attaching them to their necks. So, I always wonder… should I?”

Nephis turned her head at the sound of his voice.

“Why haven’t you?”

Sunny considered his answer for a few brief moments.

“l am not entirely sure. The Crimson Terror… the Nameless Sun… took off their heads because she hated them, and wanted them to be forgotten. She was entitled to her hatred, considering what they had done to her, don’t you think? So, I don’t really want them to be remembered, either. Plus, restoring the statues would feel like erasing history. And I am a big enthusiast of history.”

Eventually, they saw a line of pale lilac far away, on the very edge of the horizon.

That was where the Forgotten Shore ended, and the Nightmare Desert began.

Soon enough, they escaped the eternal darkness and dove into blinding sunlight. The cool winds were suddenly satiated by a blazing heat, and Sunny had to cover his eyes with a hand, hissing quietly.

The switch between darkness and light was so abrupt that it seemed like someone had pressed a button, changing the world to a different channel.

Sunny had not visited the Nightmare Desert since before his Third Nightmare. Now that he saw the endless expanse of flawlessly white dunes stretching into the distance once again — and the unreachable black triangle of the Tomb of Ariel looming on the horizon, too — he perceived it differently. The first time around, all he could think about was how to survive in this mysterious hell.

Looking at the Nightmare Desert now, though, Sunny was thinking about something else despite the imminent battle against the armies of the cursed undead that inhabited it.

He was thinking about the Demon of Dread and the Unholy Titan whom Ariel had destroyed.

This land had not always been a desert. It had been an ocean once, and that ocean was erased from existence by the ferocious battle between a daemon and the Stone Titan.

The corpse of the Stone Titan became the walls of the Tomb of Ariel, and his blood became the Great River. The seven shards of his soul became the suns that illuminated it, and if Sunny was not mistaken in his suspicion, the space within the colossal pyramid had been fashioned from the Titan’s Soul Sea.

And a tiny shard of that primordial horror became Goliath, the Fallen Titan who ravaged the Antarctic Centre thousands of years later.

That was the scale of battles between deities. Entire worlds were destroyed, while some were born instead. The mortal realm where the Stone Titan fell had become a lifeless desert, and even thousands of years later, it was still dead…

Before, this knowledge was purely theoretical as far as Sunny was concerned. But now, it wasn’t anymore, not at all.

One step. One step on the Path of Ascension — that was all that separated Sunny from battling creatures like the Stone Titan himself.

Would he be able to do what Ariel had done?

And how many worlds would be destroyed in the process?

The Chain Breaker began to descend and soon landed on the very edge of the white sands.

At that moment, Nephis suddenly turned her head and looked south, at the distant black wall of the Hollow Mountains.

Or perhaps beyond them.

Sensing a subtle shift in her presence, Sunny frowned.

“What is it?”

Nephis hesitated, then lowered her head and closed her eyes for a moment.

“There is one less Citadel in my Soul Sea, and all its people vanished from my Domain. Asterion must have taken another Saint.”

Neither of them said anything for a while after that.

Instead, they simply faced the Nightmare Desert, looking at the distant silhouette of Ariel’s Tomb.

The vast expanse of the white desert shone under the radiant sun.