Shadow Slave

The Deathless were retreating from the Tomb of Ariel, leaving a vast swath of the desert around it empty.

Now, only the remnants of the invading army were left on the white sand in front of the towering black edifice of the great pyramid. Azarax and his undead warriors grew still, a sea of them facing the vast expanse of Ariel’s Hell. The scattering of battered shades was still slowly moving away from the mouth of the enormous tunnel, led by Saint.

In the pale radiance of the distant stars, her eerily gorgeous face was still and emotionless, her flawlessly white stonelike skin smeared with ruby dust.

Slayer was apart from everyone, still in the form of a grotesque lioness, her sable fur darker than the night. Her hide was covered in ghastly wounds, and she was breathing heavily, shrouded in a mantle of ghostly fog. Sunny shivered and turned to the Tomb of Ariel, sensing a terrifying swarm of shadows escaping from it into the night sky.

“Nephis…”

She must have sensed it, as well.

As she looked up, he could feel her tensing.

“What is it?”

After a long moment of silence, she said in a distant tone:

“There are clouds obscuring the sky…”

Then, she exhaled slowly and outstretched a hand, summoning the Blessing.

“No… those aren’t clouds. They are butterflies. The Nightmare Butterflies — thousands of them, perhaps tens of thousands. Maybe more.”

Sunny suppressed a groan.

Tens of thousands of Great Beasts and Monsters… at least. Millions of them had been nestling inside the pyramid in the Third Nightmare, so the clouds Nephis spoke of could spread to devour the entire Hell of Ariel.

The entire Dream Realm, even.

‘This night just keeps getting better.’

He gritted his teeth.

The Nightmare Butterflies were already moving down from the great height of the black pyramid, rushing toward them like a dark tide. He couldn’t see them, since his eyes were still covered, but he could feel the terrifying movement of their shadows.

The dreadful swarm had been summoned by the alluring scent of human souls… Supreme souls that were burning with the Flame of Divinity.

“We can’t defeat them all.”

He hesitated, and then said quietly:

“We need to escape. We need to escape into the Tomb of Ariel.”

That was the only way.

There were probably more Nightmare Butterflies inside the pyramid than there were outside. However, when Sunny and Nephis sailed the Great River, only a couple of them had ever descended from the inner walls of the Tomb to the endlessly flowing waters below. So if they managed to reach the River… then, perhaps, they would be safe from the nightmarish swarm.

Sunny turned to Nephis briefly and spoke in an even tone:

“Summon the Chain Breaker. The ship will be destroyed if we simply dive into a sea of Great Monsters, so somebody will have to clear a path through the swarm. Saint will steer it, while the rest of us will defend it. You will have to take point, Nephis. Azarax and I will help however we can.”

Nephis had been weakened by the loss of the Longing Domain and was merely a Supreme Demon now, but she was still the best person for the job. She excelled at aerial combat, as well as at fighting against vast groups of enemies. So, even if Sunny and Azarax were stronger at the moment, she could do to the swarm of Nightmare Butterflies what they couldn’t.

The Seventh Seed or not, they still had to survive. They still had to accomplish their mission.

‘The Seed…’

Sunny was distracted for a moment, almost succumbing to the maddening Call.

If the Seventh Seed crowned the Tomb of Ariel… the tomb where Oblivion had been buried… then the one on the Moon had to be the Seed of the Sixth Nightmare. The final Nightmare one had to conquer in order to become Divine.

The path to Seed of the Fifth Nightmare, meanwhile, was hidden in America.

So, the road to the end of all of this was already revealed.

Or, at least, to the end that Nephis envisioned and wanted to reach. Sunny himself still believed that the last Nightmare they had to conquer was the Sixth one, and that they had no reason to risk everything for an ambiguous payout after becoming Divine.

Becoming Divine, after all, would allow them to face Unholy Nightmare Creatures in battle. And that was all they needed to ensure the survival of humanity in the Dream Realm for thousands of years to come.

The gods, who had been by their nature Void Creatures, were dead. The last of them was imprisoned by the Nightmare Spell. So unless a swarm of new Void Creatures broke through the cage of existence or the Nightmare Spell started showing signs of coming undone, he saw no reason to tempt fate.

It was pure folly.

But, still…

The Nightmare. It called for him. Its call was so sweet…

‘Get a grip.’

Sunny shook off his reverie.

“I’ll get Azarax. Go!”

As the graceful form of the Chain Breaker slowly revealed itself above the white sand, he turned away from the Tomb of Ariel and rushed toward the undead army.

“Saint, get the oars!”

Abandoning the remnants of the Shadow Legion, Saint crouched slightly and then leaped high into the air. Her garments and hair whipped in the wind as she breached a great distance with that single leap, landing on the deck of the Chain Breaker like a jade goddess.

Nephis was already soaring into the sky to meet the terrifying swarm of Nightmare Butterflies, her wings and the blade of the Blessing shining blindingly in the darkness of the night.

Sunny was summoning somebody to help them, as well…

The last Sacred shade he could summon, at the moment.

Abundance had just been destroyed, returning into the nurturing darkness of his soul. The Wolf had long been mended… and then vanquished again, several times over. So was the Rat King.

However, the Puppeteer remained.

And who better to send into a terrifying aerial battle than the shadow of a Sacred moth?

Come to think of it, Slayer had some winged beasts in her repertoire of forms, as well.

“Slayer, help Nephis! Decimate those butterflies!”

On the white sands of the desert, an enormous black lioness raised its head and looked up, cold malice slowly igniting in her lightless eyes.

Sunny finally reached the Deathless army.

“Hey, fossil! Azarax! We need to…”

His voice trailed off.

Something was off.

The ancient tyrant was standing with his back to Sunny, his towering figure still encased in the heavy armor made of glass. His bones were entirely black now, just like those of the rest of the Deathless. His soldiers were facing away from the Tomb of Ariel, as well, as if watching their retreating kin.

They were too motionless, too still… and something about the way their tyrant’s shoulders were set that gave Sunny a peculiar, unfamiliar feeling.

“Hey, Azarax. Answer me, damn it!”

Sunny pulled the improvised blindfold off his eyes, tied roughly around his wrist, and looked at the Deathless Sovereign.

There were a few moments of silence. Then, Azarax turned slowly and gazed at him, a cold and unfeeling kind of darkness nestling in the deep chasm of his empty eye sockets. There was something eerie about that darkness now, something Sunny did not recognize.

No… there was a lack of something, rather. Azarax had been slowly losing himself over these endless, dreadful weeks. But now, it was as if he was utterly gone. As if his mind had been entirely consumed by the curse, leaving behind only malevolent Will.

Sunny took a step back.

“Crap.”

Azarax the Mighty, the Plague of Steel, the conqueror of a hundred thrones… had finally succumbed to the curse of Shadow God.

…He chose the worst possible moment to do that, as well.

As if brought back to life by Sunny’s call, the Deathless warriors of the cursed tyrant moved. Their rusty blades flashed, slaughtering the few remaining shades. Azarax himself, meanwhile, raised his fearsome battle axe and walked toward Sunny across the white sand, his steps making the desert shake.

Sunny took another step back.

“Damn it! I knew!”

His voice was full of indignation.

Behind him, the Chain Breaker was rising into the air, and an apocalyptic swarm of Great abominations was descending upon it.

“I knew this would happen!”

Sunny gritted his teeth, knowing that he had to hold Azarax back… somehow.

Now that the Plague of Steel had become an enemy, he was quite terrifying.

Sunny was outraged. He was appalled.

He was really quite incensed.

“I really, really didn’t want to do this…”