Shadow Slave

[Nephis... I have an idea.]

Engaged in a dreadful battle against the abyssal horror’s creation, the very fabric of reality bending and parting in front of their blades, Nephis invoked the Name of Decay as she plunged the Blessing into the impostor’s flesh. The radiant surface of the sword blazed with a scorching radiance as it turned into a torrent of pure light, incinerating her adversary’s body.

At the same time, more Names escaped from Neph’s lips, echoing with primordial power and reshaping the world around her.

The Name of Withering, the Name of Erosion, the Name of Sundering...

Destruction took innumerable forms, after all, and she knew the Names of all of them.

The dark copy reeled and staggered back, her body disintegrating in a conflagration of radiant flames — only to be restored moments later. Her eerie smile remained the same, even if her lips had been turned to ash and made it into a grotesque grin.

Nephis pressed the attack, even as the adversary’s sword cut her flesh in turn.

[What... kind of idea?]

Sunny collected his thoughts and then explained in a short and concise manner.

[You are going to have to split your attention...]

Once he was done talking, something cold and frightening flashed in Neph’s eyes. Her lips twisted into a faint smile then, too.

She dashed back, intending to buy herself a split second of respite.

[...Damn.]

Huh? Was that really Neph’s reaction?

No, it couldn’t have been. That was so unlike Nephis... Sunny must have heard wrong.

Nephis grasped her sword with both hands and lunged forward, meeting her dark copy in a shocking explosion of annihilating carnage.

[Can we even survive that ourselves? Actually, never mind. Let’s do it anyway.]

Now that was Nephis he knew!

In the next moment, the tides of her Will shifted, and her soul began to exert a subtle pull on the world.

Forced to split her focus, Nephis suffered a harrowing wound just a moment later — unlike all the previous ghastly wounds she had received, that one went against her intent, weakening her too much and sending her staggering back. The dark copy did not miss the opportunity, pressing the advantage and gaining the initiative in their vicious clash.

The battle turned against Nephis then.

But even while being pushed back, she coldly calculated every painful loss, guiding her adversary into destroying the least vital parts of herself. Biding her time.

And all the while, the subtle pull her Will exerted slowly grew more forceful.

‘Come on, come on...’

Sharing her pain, Sunny gritted his teeth and counted heartbeats.

The solution he had come up with was not difficult to realize, but demanded a bit of time to implement. Usually, it would not have been a problem, but attempting it in the midst of a battle was immensely difficult — especially a battle as intense as this one, where even the slightest distraction could spell doom.

But this was the best chance to turn the tide against the abyssal horror.

When Sunny asked himself how the dark copy differed from the real Nephis, he found too many answers. The eerie creature was merely emulating her powers, after all — there were things it could only vaguely approximate, and other things it could not replicate at all.

The dark copy was not a carrier of the Nightmare Spell, for example. Its soul — if it had one — did not burn with the Flame of Divinity. It did not possess [The Fire], and its dark sword did not carry the [Blessing of the Fire] enchantment either — which made Nephis stronger the more her soul was damaged.

But among those distinctions, few could actually help Sunny and Nephis defeat the eerie Creature of Darkness. The most obvious choice would be to make use of the [Blessing of the Fire], asking Nephis to detonate her soul cores in order to harm her adversary and empower herself.

However, there was no guarantee that the abyssal horror could not replicate the effects of the [Blessing of the Fire] once it observed them. That was why Nephis had not resorted to that strategy herself yet. No... Sunny needed something more decisive, more final. Finding out a way to bend the rules of the game was not enough — he needed to break the gameboard completely, leaving the adversary no chance to respond.

That was why his thoughts turned to the Longing Domain. On paper, it did not grant Nephis any actionable benefits — except for an endless stream of spirit essence and the unfathomable weight billions of loyal souls added to her Will, naturally, which were both passive boons. On the contrary, it was Nephis who could actively help her subjects.

However, as a ruler of humanity, Nephis also ruled all the Transcendent humans. And with them came the ownership of all the Citadels they controlled, complete with various Components of those Citadels. Most Components only affected the Citadels themselves and the immediate areas around them, but there were exceptions. Those exceptions granted Nephis powers that she could use here and now, in the dark depths of the Underworld — while the abyssal horror couldn’t.

So, what Sunny wanted her to do was make use of one of those Components.

And after suffering a dozen terrifying wounds that left marks both on her body and on her soul, Nephis finally accomplished what she had set out to do.

A vertical fissure suddenly split the fabric of reality apart, towering between her and the spirit of darkness that besieged her.

That immense fissure was the first manifestation of an opening Dream Gate. The Citadel Sunny had wanted her to make use of was the Night Garden, which possessed a Component that allowed Nephis to open her Dream Gate between two places in the same realm. However, opening a Gate could not be done in an instant — just like using a tether, it demanded a bit of time and a lot of concentration. The smallest distraction could interrupt the process, as well.

It was a testament to Neph’s remarkable willpower and clarity of mind that she had managed to manifest a Dream Gate even while fighting an overwhelming opponent and being subjected to traumatic pain. Anyone else would have failed... but Nephis knew more about pain than any other human. She had taught herself how to remain focused even while suffering the most awful agony.

More than that, she had learned how to use the agony to sharpen her focus.

And now, her Dream Gate was about to manifest.

...Of course, not just any Gate could help them in their current predicament. Sunny had something truly special prepared for the abyssal horror.

The dark copy lingered for a moment, surprised by the sudden manifestation of the towering fissure. And before she could act, the nascent Dream Gate opened wide, exploding into a colossal, radiant portal.

Nephis froze, ceasing all movement.

In the next moment...

The world seemed to come to a violent end. Sunny did not have words to describe the apocalyptic devastation he and Nephis had summoned into existence. In fact, he did not even possess the capacity to fathom it. All he knew was that when the fierce light pouring from the radiant Dream Gate touched the elemental darkness flooding the Underworld, reality itself was torn apart.

All of existence quaked.

All of existence screamed in horror and pain.

There seemed to be a colossal and obliterating shockwave, but Sunny was not sure, since the very concepts of force and impact had lost all meaning in the jaws of the unimaginable cataclysm.

A deafening roar took away his hearing.

A blinding flash took away his sight.

An eerie cold took away his tactile sense. An immolating heart burned away his sense of smell.

All he could taste was ash and fear.

It was complete annihilation...

Annihilation in its purest form.

The Underworld itself groaned, the ground beneath their feet suddenly turning into a slope. Even the mist of nothingness below seemed to have been banished, revealing the rapid current of the great river for a brief moment.

The river boiled and evaporated, then was born anew.

And worse of all — the calamity was not instantaneous. It was still continuing to spread and rage, growing more annihilating with each passing moment.

‘H—hell...’

Indeed, it was hell. Sunny and Nephis had summoned hell into existence.

To be precise, they had summoned a very particular hell.

Because the Gate Nephis had manifested was not connecting just any two points in the Dream Realm...

Nothing as prosaic as that.

Instead, what Nephis had done was connect the dark depths of the Underworld...

To the merciless abyss of the radiant sky above Godgrave.