Shadow Slave

A graceful stone knight stood on a tall cliff, gazing at the magnificent city in the distance. She was surrounded by an endless expanse of flowing darkness, and so was the city — however, it shimmered with myriad silver lights, resembling a piece of a Starlit sky lost in the boundless depths of the cosmos.

The silence was broken only by the murmur of rushing water. Below the cliff, one of the three great rivers of the Underworld was flowing under a veil of ghostly mist, its surface glistening like polished black glass. Its current was faster here, in the heart of the Underworld — that was because somewhere out there, far ahead, the river plummeted into an abyssal chasm. The city that the Demon of Destiny had built stood at the edge of the abyss, facing its dark, bottomless vastness.

Beholding the distant city through Saint’s eyes, Sunny could not help but feel a sense of awe. It was a strange and breathtaking sight — cut from indomitable stone, but graceful and soaring.

The city had no name. Nether had never bothered to give it one, and if the Stone Saints had, it was long gone, lost from the pages of history. However, the city still stood, serving as a testament to their brief existence. It was worthy of being called a marvel of the Dream Realm, even if few humans had ever witnessed its exquisite beauty.

The city was located in the center of a colossal cavern. Enormous stalagmites rose from the cavern’s floor, and similarly great stalactites — each the size of a mountain — hung from its distant ceiling. The city was not built from stone, but rather carved from it.

The black fangs of the cavern had been carved like ivory tusks, revealing graceful shapes of magnificent buildings, serpentine roads, and exquisite monuments. Because of that, the city was largely vertical. The stalagmites and stalactites that composed it were connected by arching aerial bridges and aqueducts, creating a mesmerizing stone web.

Below the city, flowing clouds of white mist hid the turbulent currents of the great river. Above the city, impenetrable darkness swallowed the distant ceiling of the colossal cavern.

Suspended between nothingness and darkness, the city shimmered with radiant lights — those were myriad lanterns that contained divine flame, which still burned despite thousands of years that had passed since the gods perished.

It was the only source of light Sunny and Nephis had found in the Underworld, and after months spent in total darkness, the sight of it felt like a beautiful mirage.

And that was only what a human eye could see.

Sunny, however, could see much more.

‘That... mad bastard...’

He was stunned.

Because, in his eyes, Nether’s city looked like one enormous machine — or a vast sorcerous array, perhaps.

The energy needed to sustain the city and operate its many bridges and soaring elevators was drawn from the current of the great river below — there were enormous water wheels hidden from view by the billowing mist, setting an infinitely complex system of spinning gears in motion.

The clockwork gears produced a very mundane kinetic energy, but that was not the only energy suffusing the desolate city. Sunny could also see torrents of soul essence flowing through special channels that were carved into the stone. He did not know where the essence was coming from, but it was responsible for powering myriad runic enchantments throughout the city.

And that was not all, either.

What truly stunned Sunny was something that he had noticed through Saint’s eyes.

It was the third element of the intricate system that sustained Nether’s city — the element that harnessed true darkness itself, guiding its currents into stone channels and drawing some sort of power from it.

Nether had used one of the great rivers of the Underworld, soul essence, and true darkness to breathe life into his city. And even now, thousands of years after the Demon of Destiny fell, his city was still alive, shining like a jewel in the boundless darkness of this vast and harrowing subterranean realm.

Nether’s citadel itself stood at the very edge of the city, directly above the great waterfall that plunged into the abyss... or rather, hovered above it. There, the largest stalagmite of the colossal cavern rose to meet the greatest stalactite — the palace of the Demon of Destiny levitated in the empty space between them, functioning as the beating heart of all the sorceries sustaining the city, surrounded by slowly revolving rings cast from metal and cut from black stone.

The Jade Palace was ornate and opulent, built to be a magnificent home for a beautiful queen. The Mirror Castle was austere and stalwart, true to its nature as a fortress. Nether’s stronghold, however... seemed to have been built without a particular interest in style and aesthetics, serving a purely utilitarian purpose.

In fact, it did not even look like a single structure. Rather, it looked like an ensemble of structures that had been haphazardly joined together, most likely built one by one throughout centuries. There were mysterious spires, towering crucibles, domes carved from flawlessly transparent crystal, and intricately adorned black edifices supported by tall pillars.

Despite that, the complex looked graceful and imposing, one of its facades turned to the city, the other facing the boundless abyss below.

Unseen to the eye, it was the confluence for torrents of both the soul essence and true darkness that powered the magnificent city, as well.

The beauty and splendor of that view was stunning...

But Sunny only spent a few moments absorbed by the stunning sight.

Then, his attention shifted to something else.

A sense of somber apprehension rose in his heart.

That was because he had sensed something else hidden behind the dark beauty of Nether’s city — a vast ocean of alien Will permeating the world around it.

Something was waiting for them in the heart of the Underworld.

Something malevolent, powerful... titanic.

It seemed like their terrifying expedition was about to crash into the worst obstacle yet.