Shadow Slave

While Jet butchered the specters aboard the leading ships of the wraith armada and the towering walls of mist slowly approached the Night Garden, another immense tentacle descended on the living ship, aiming to swipe the Ascended cannoneers off its deck and destroy the mighty armaments.

The invisible aegis protecting them held, but it seemed to be straining in the crushing grasp of Old Tom.

Just then, a black arrow fell from the secluded garden on the roof of the Mainmast Pagoda, followed by an enormous javelin that seemed to be forged from pure darkness. The violence of their impact was so horrific that the immense tentacle was torn open and maimed, releasing its hold on the Night Garden in a flood of oily blood. That was Slayer and Saint entering the battle from the privacy of Soul Reaper’s garden.

Sunny had not left the Great Citadel unguarded before diving into the dark depths, of course.

And there, in those dark depths...

Sunny, Serpent, Naeve, and Bloodwave continued to descend into the crushing cold abyss as they pursued the wounded tentacles of the ancient horror. No light penetrated the mass of water far enough to illuminate their surroundings, so they found themselves in utter, absolute darkness.

Of course, Sunny could sense the movement of shadows and pierce the veil of darkness with his gaze. The Saints of Night, meanwhile, navigated the lightless abyss with their own powers — if anything, they were more at home in the depths than he was.

Still, Sunny was certain that even the descendants of the House of Night didn’t dive that deep often.

The wounded tentacles retreated downward with spectacular speed, leaving billowing trails of oily blood in their wake. As he pursued them, the water grew colder and colder — much more palpable, however, was the mounting pressure of its great mass.

They had long passed the point where mundane humans, or even machines they created, would have been crushed by the pressure of the dark abyss. Then, they passed the point where Awakened would have been killed, as well.

By the time they reached the point where Ascended could have survived, even Sunny could feel the terrible pressure constricting his movements. The intricately shaped plates of the Jade Mantle groaned as they scraped against each other, and the Onyx Serpent Shell was sustaining minor, but continuous damage, forcing him to mend it as they continued the descent.

The water had turned eerie here, acting in odd ways. And yet, the tentacles continued to flee into the darkness, and Sunny still could not sense their source.

‘Just... how deep does that horror dwell?” The irreverent nickname made one forget what Old Tom truly was, at times... as well as the fact that nobody truly knew the shape and nature of that eldritch horror. All they had ever seen of it were the immense tentacles that reached toward the surface from far below.

And now...

Sunny finally sensed something.

It was not the body of Old Tom, though. Instead of it, a swarm of immense tentacles suddenly shot from the dark abyss, rising toward them like a terrifying forest of slithering, gigantic vines.

Sunny was taken aback for a short moment. During the previous attacks, the terrifying dweller of the depths had never attacked the Night Garden with more than seven of its long limbs. Now, however, there were dozens of them reaching toward Sunny and his companions, each comparable in size to the immense tentacles that could wrap themselves around the titanic vastness of the Night Garden.

It was as if the abyss itself had come alive to destroy them.

‘Now... where the hell has good old Tom been hiding all these?’

Sunny shook off his bewilderment and pushed his enormous body forward to meet the dark forest of colossal tentacles.

It seemed that they had underestimated Old Tom... a tad.

There was no time to regret this failure of imagination, though, because soon, the tentacles were upon them. Sunny was the vanguard of their group, and the most powerful among them as well — so, it was his duty to break the momentum of the harrowing tide of dark flesh. ř₳𝐍ỐΒΕs̈

Just before the tentacles reached him, he gritted his teeth and released the defensive barrier of the Onyx Serpent Shell, allowing it to dissolve into the darkness. He released the constraints giving his own shadow a shape, as well, and let it spread to its true, unfathomable vastness.

In the next moment, Sunny turned into a vast cloud of formless darkness.

And from that darkness, dozens of long tendrils stretched forward, clashing with those of Old Tom. Of course, Sunny was not quite as immense as the horror of the depths... but his Will was infused with the essence of death, so his touch was far more lethal.

The grotesque clash tore apart the abyss, forcing the mass of water crushed by the unbearable pressure to flow like a current. Somewhere far above, grotesque waves rose, scattering the ghostly armada and making the Night Garden sway.

Serpent, Naeve, and Bloodwave swam through the carnage of intertwined tentacles and tendrils of darkness, sinking their fangs into Old Tom’s flesh.

The frightening chaos of the deepwater battle continued unabated, and at some point, seething from murderous rage and pain permeating his wounded shadow, Sunny realized that the sea around them was changing.

It seemed that Old Tom was pushing them toward the surface.

At the same time, he sensed that the number of tentacles the terrifying depth dweller unleashed upon them was gradually reducing, as if not all of them were long enough to reach that far up.

‘It’s trying to retreat.’

Old Tom might not have been wary of Sunny and the Night Garden, but it seemed reluctant to let them close to its hidden body. So, it wanted to retreat back into the depths.

They had dealt it enough damage to make the horror of the depths take them seriously, at least.

Or perhaps it simply judged that the Night Garden itself had sustained enough damage to stall its arrival in the Eternal City.

The question was... would Sunny let the eerie horror escape once more?

‘Damn it all!”

Sunny forced himself to coalesce back into a human shadow and covered it by the fearsome carapace of the Jade Mantle, using the [Feather of Truth] to make it just buoyant enough to stay in place.

Casting a dark gaze at the battered tentacles of Old Tom, he gritted his teeth. The sea had turned black from the blood of the horrid creature of the depths.

But he wasn’t unscathed, either.

There was a decision to be made...