Shadow Slave

Sunny lost track of time for a few moments. He just stood there, breathing heavily, drowning in the Call and in the peculiar, all-consuming terror that had been born somewhere in the depths of his being and washed over him like a tide. He did not know the source of that terror or why he was overcome by it, which only made him more afraid.

What people feared the most was the unknown, after all.

Sunny had long grown unaccustomed to the feeling of fear, so experiencing it now was strange and eerie.

Eventually, he managed to compose himself a little — enough to prevent himself from falling to his knees and crawling toward the great pyramid, at least, overwhelmed by the desire to come in contact with the Nightmare Seeds.

Sunny drew in a shaky breath.

“What do you mean? What is it, Neph?”

She was still covering his eyes to preventing him from beholding the top of the Tomb of Ariel, she whispered:

“It’s the end.”

Sunny was starting to feel concerned because of how Nephis was behaving — he had never seen her that afraid.

In fact, he did not think that he had ever seen her show fear at all.

“The end of what?”

The answer came after a few long, frightening seconds.

“The end of everything.”

Raising his own hand, he placed it atop Neph’s and gripped it faintly.

“You are not making any sense, Neph. Please, explain it to me, so that I can understand.”

Behind him, Nephis inhaled deeply, remained silent for a while, and then began talking:

“At the very top of the pyramid, there is a capstone. Just like all the other blocks it was built from, the capstone is a Seed. A Seed of Nightmare.”

Sunny nodded slowly.

“But there are millions of Seeds here. What makes this one so special?”

Behind him, Nephis shook her head and spoke in a low tone:

“No, Sunny. You don’t understand. There are no Seeds in existence like this one. There can’t be.”

He frowned, trying to decipher her words. All Seeds of Nightmare were unique… so what made this one so singular?

The Seeds on the bottom of the Tomb of Ariel were of a low Rank, while those higher up its immense expanse were more harrowing. The highest one, then…

Before Sunny could finish the thought, Nephis said quietly:

“It’s the last one. No… it’s the first one. Sunny, it’s the Seed… the Seed of the Nightmare Spell.”

Her voice turned into a whisper:

“It’s the Seed of the Seventh Nightmare.”

Sunny froze, losing the sense of time once again.

‘Seed of the… Seventh…’

The deep shock of those words shut down his mind for a few heartbeats. Or possibly an eternity — he couldn’t tell.

‘No, wait…’

It was too much, to be ambushed by that knowledge out of nowhere. Sunny was already straining to stay sane in the ocean of the Call, standing at the doorstep of the Tomb of Ariel, in the heart of an endless hell, waging a war against a cursed legion of ancient warriors whom Shadow God had banished from death.

What business did the Seed of the Seventh Nightmare — the source of all other Seeds, as well as the root of the Nightmare Spell — have here, as well?

They had never expected to find it here. They had not even considered the possibility, let alone set it as their goal.

The Seventh Nightmare…

Was the Nightmare.

The Nightmare of the Forgotten God, in which he was imprisoned. His consciousness was, at least.

Sunny shuddered.

But then, peculiarly enough, he calmed down.

‘Well… it had to be somewhere, I suppose.’

He had assumed that the Seed of the Seventh Nightmare was in the heart of the Shadow Realm, where the Void Gate stood — and where Weaver had died, ushering in the Age of the Nightmare Spell. But in hindsight, there was no indication that it was there.

Looking back, there were some other clues that could have helped him realize the truth. But then again, everything seemed clearer in retrospect.

Like the fact that his mind had refused to fathom the capstone of the Tomb of Ariel when he briefly saw it in the vision at the start of the Third Nightmare. Come to think of it… that was where the vision had shattered — it had stopped abruptly as soon as his gaze fell on the sharp peak of the great pyramid.

The very fact that every stone of the Tomb of Ariel was a Seed of Nightmare should have told him something. Why had he never questioned how it was possible for a single structure to give birth to so many Nightmares?

And the butterflies… the Dark Butterflies. The Nightmare Butterflies, an inconceivable swarm of them nesting on the inner walls of the pyramid — millions of Great abominations, or possibly more. Why had he not questioned what they were doing there, and how they came to be?

Now that he knew more, he could offer a theory. These peculiar abominations had to be feeding on the emanations of the innumerable Nightmares, using them for sustenance.

He was on the precipice of constructing another theory, as well — a theory about why Weaver chose the Tomb of Ariel as the place where the Seed of the Nightmare Spell would take root…

‘No, no. Now is not the time to go on a tangent, Sunny!’

The battle was still raging around them. They had reached the Tomb of Ariel, but making it inside was a different matter entirely.

And they had just discovered the source of all Nightmares, by the dead gods!

They were standing in sight of the closest approximation of a true god left in existence — of a Seed where the spirit of the last surviving god, the Forgotten God, was trapped.

Well, Nephis was in sight of it. Sunny currently had his eyes covered.

Why was she covering his eyes, anyway? Sunny’s hand fell down.

The answer was pretty obvious…

It was because Nephis possessed the [Longing] Attribute and was immune to corruption, while he wasn’t.

Gazing upon the source of the Nightmare was not much different from gazing directly into the Void. One glance, and his soul could very well bloom with the vile, virulent darkness of the Corruption.

“I won’t look. I promise. Nephis, you can lower your hand.”

However, she only let him go after tearing a strip of fabric off her tunic and tying it around his eyes.

Sunny caught his breath, trying to evaluate the situation. Azarax, Saint, and Slayer seemed to be holding the Deathless back — for now, and just barely. He could already sense the torrents of Will shifting, which was an ill omen here in the Nightmare Desert.

It meant that a Deathless Spirit was approaching… or possibly even a few of them.

Sunny and Nephis had to make it inside the Tomb of Ariel quickly.

However, that was a problem in and of itself.

There was surely a way inside the great pyramid. After all, the people led by the Sybils had reached the Great River somehow at the height of the Doom War. Daeron and his champions made it inside, as well…

And so did Sunny and Nephis, in the future — tonight. Even if they had not reached that future just yet.

But even if they had, Sunny still had to find an entrance soon.

“How do we get inside?”

Neph’s shadow shifted as she glanced up, almost taking a step back as a result.

After a short stretch of silence, she said:

“Up there, close to the top of the pyramid… where it is marked by claw marks. That is where the stone we used to enter the Third Nightmare had come from, most likely. The scars left on its surface run deep, so there must be a path inside one of the marks.” Sunny hesitated for a moment.

“You want us to… climb to the top? Close to that Seed?”

He wasn’t sure that it was a wise idea. Nephis shook her head.

“We can’t climb the pyramid — if we touch the lesser Seeds, I will be eventually drawn into a Nightmare, while you will be killed or corrupted. So, we will have to fly.”

Sunny nodded.

“Then it’s time to summon back the Chain Breaker.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he froze for a brief moment.

He realized that the pieces of the puzzle were aligning perfectly to repeat the future they had experienced in the Third Nightmare.

Did it matter, though?

At the moment, it did not matter at all.

The Chain Breaker was their best chance of getting into the Tomb of Ariel without ever touching its walls, so that was what they were going to use to get there.

“I will help Azarax hold the Deathless back while you draw it from your Soul Sea and prepare it to take air. Then, we’ll… we’ll…”

Sunny’s voice trailed off, and then he fell silent.

In fact, everything fell silent. The world was suddenly quiet and peaceful, the clangor of battle entirely gone.

That was because there was no battle anymore.

Turning away from the Tomb of Ariel, Sunny relied on his shadow sense to perceive the world.

What he sensed made him shiver.

The Deathless were retreating.

In fact, if he did not know any better, he would have said that they were running.

“What… why are they…”

All that remained on the white sands in front of the Tomb of Ariel were Nephis, Sunny and his Shadows, the pitiful remains of the Shadow Legion, and Azarax at the head of his undead army.

The Deathless were terrifying, but somehow, their absence frightened Sunny much more.

“What are they running from?”

It was then that he felt it…

The shadows.

Countless shadows were separating from the boundless form of the great pyramid… and moving swiftly in their direction.