Shadow Slave

Sunny and Nephis could have eradicated the Nightmare Creatures that populated the slaughtered city. In truth, they could probably have slain every abomination in America. Even the unknown Cursed One who was presumed to dwell on this continent was not an insurmountable challenge — in fact, their track record of battling Cursed Creatures was quite spotless so far.

Perhaps Nephis wanted to avenge the destruction of her family, as well as too many other families to count.

But they had not come to America to fight this time.

Fighting a Cursed abomination on Earth could very well cause it irreparable damage. The planet itself would be fine, but billions of humans still populating it could perish.

Take America, for example... the massive volcanic eruption caused by the calamity that had happened here caused temperatures to drop across all Quadrants. The natural disasters that followed were devastating. If not for the fact that humans had caused several such cataclysmic events themselves in the past, and therefore knew how to survive them, they could have gone extinct by now.

New abominations would emerge from the Nightmare Gates eventually, anyway — if the whole continent wasn’t swallowed by the Dream Realm even before that. Besides, slaying endless hordes of Nightmare Creatures and battling a Cursed One was going to take time they did not have. They had come here to find the Seed, not to hunt abominations. So, no matter how meaningful this place was to Nephis, they had to move stealthily instead of engaging in all-out slaughter.

She was looking at the ruins with a distant expression on her face, white sparks dancing in the depths of her eyes.

Sunny looked at her with concern and asked quietly:

“What are you thinking about?”

Nephis remained silent for a while, then sighed and pulled her gaze away from the lifeless remains of the city.

”..The price of failure.”

She paused for a moment and added in a deeper tone:

“And the merit of trying, anyway.”

Immortal Flame and Smile of Heaven must have known that they would most likely die here. They had been mere Masters, after all. Even if no one had ever seen a Gate like the one that opened in America, they understood how terrifying the Nightmare Creatures that emerged from the apocalyptic Gate would be.

And yet, they still attempted to stall them so that more people could survive.

America still fell. Countless lives were still lost. But not quite as many as would have been without their efforts.

But would the world have been better off if Immortal Flame and Smile of Heaven had chosen to save themselves instead of helping the civilians?

There was no way to tell. Broken Sword might have been still alive. The Sovereigns might never have turned on each other. There could have been no Godgrave, no Dream Plague...

Nephis might not have grown up being hunted like an animal and watching her clan slowly wither and die.

The world would have definitely been different... unrecognizable, really. But better? Sunny was not sure.

He gripped her shoulder briefly and looked away.

“All I can say is that if I were in their place... I probably would have made the same choice.”

The soldiers of the Evacuation Army had known that many of them — maybe most of them — would not return from Antarctica. But that did not stop them. An overwhelming enemy was nothing new in the Age of the Nightmare Spell. Humans faced insurmountable odds all the time, but they still had to continue fighting.

Cassie, who stood nearby with her hand resting on the hilt of the Quiet Dancer, turned her head slightly at that moment.

”It’s strange.”

She hesitated for a moment, then raised a hand and briefly touched her blindfold.

“The Cursed One... I cannot sense it.”

The Nightmare Gate was hidden in the very heart of the continent, a thousand miles away. But to someone as sensitive as Cassie, such distance was not an obstacle. Even if she could not learn anything about the Gate Guardian, she should have been able to feel an echo of its presence, at least. Sunny frowned.

Come to think of it, he did not feel anything, either. America was that thing’s territory... its influence on the world should have already begun interfering with his Will, by now.

But while the atmosphere of America was oppressive, there was nothing.

The three of them were suddenly uneasy. An enemy who instilled fear with its mere presence was a dangerous foe. A being who concealed itself so utterly that even its power could not be felt, though... that was a far more frightening adversary.

An ambush predator was meant to be weaker than a true hunter, but it was also far deadlier.

“Let’s proceed cautiously.”

Leaving the ruined city and all the Nightmare Creatures that populated it behind, they rushed inland. By now, the strain of remaining in the waking world was pressing on them heavily, and as they moved closer to the source of the unimaginable devastation, the Call of Nightmare grew louder and louder, almost impossible to resist.

The Call of the apocalyptic Gate that had opened in America decades ago was unlike anything Sunny had ever endured. It was powerful, magnetic, irresistible... if not for the harrowing experience of witnessing the true Tomb of Ariel, he would have been tempted to succumb to it entirely. But everything paled in comparison to that terror.

They saw more destroyed cities on the way. They saw wreckages of military machines and signs of a desperate struggle, as well. The forces of humanity seemed to have been instantly overwhelmed, having offered little resistance — how could they, when the enemy had been of a much higher Rank?

The whole continent was like a graveyard... an empty, desecrated graveyard drowning in ash and blackened ruins. It was the sight that sent chills running down Sunny’s spine, as if he was looking at an ominous depiction of what all of the world would look like one day soon.

They crossed a desert and a grand canyon that split the earth like a festering wound. They crossed a rocky mountain chain, as well. Finally, descending into vast lowlands, they moved across them with as much speed as they could muster.

And then, they finally found the Nightmare Gate that had stolen this continent from humanity.

It towered above the world like a great pillar of darkness, visible from hundreds of kilometers away. But as they drew closer, its true width was revealed. The abhorrent fissure swallowed several kilometers of the desolate plain, its seething darkness moving eerily in the absence of light.

They found the Cursed abomination that guarded the Gate, as well.

It lay on the ground in front of the vast fissure, its flesh itself like a mountain. There were countless limbs, an endless expanse of pale flesh, and a terrible maw that could swallow entire Citadels...

And blood. There was a sea of black, fetid blood surrounding the ghastly behemoth, soaking the barren land and forming a dark and motionless lake.

”Its name was Desolation.”

As Sunny, Nephis, and Cassie stared at the dead god in stunned silence, a voice resounded from their side.

Flinching, Sunny turned and saw a man sitting on a slab of broken concrete — even though there had not been anyone there a moment before.

The man was wiping his hands with a piece of cloth, the fabric soaked with black blood. There was a subtly revolted expression on his face, and a detached coldness in his eyes.

Sunny also saw his own reflection on their mirror-like surface.

He grimaced.

”Look who decided to show up. How the hell did you...”

“How did I manage to kill that thing without destroying half of the planet?”

Mordret shrugged with seeming indifference.

“It wasn’t that difficult, really. I simply lured it into my Mirror Realm and killed it there.”

He smiled darkly and threw the cloth away. Rising, Mordret inhaled deeply and massaged his shoulder with a hint of displeasure.

”Granted, it was merely the sparing the planet part that was easy. The killing itself was... ah, it was quite unpleasant.”

He bowed slightly to Cassie and then turned to face Nephis.

“I would prefer it if we didn’t linger. The smell is quite dreadful.”

She studied him for a moment.

“So, you’ve decided to join us in the Nightmare, after all?”

Mordret remained silent for a short while, then looked around and smiled slightly.

“Well... it seems to me that I have gotten here first. So, if anything, it is you who are joining me.”

She tilted her head slightly, then nodded.

“In that case, we shall proceed. It’s... good to have you with us.”

Mordret seemed slightly surprised to hear those words.

The rest was easy. Far easier than Sunny had expected, which hinted that everything that followed would be impossibly hard. They simply crossed the realm boundary, attempting to return to the place where their tethers had been placed. However,

instead, they were pulled toward the Seed by the Call of Nightmare.

Thrown violently off course, Sunny found himself in an unfamiliar place.

The ground was white and as hard as stone. The sky... was black and jagged. Half of it was, at least — the other was blindingly white, suffused with incandescent glow. Light poured down like a waterfall, flakes of ash dancing in it like snowflakes.

And there was something else, as well.

A suffocating, animalistic feeling of fear that suddenly grasped Sunny’s heart. The same kind of fear he had felt in the Underworld, standing on the edge of the abyss and gazing into its depths.

As if he was in the presence of an Unholy Nightmare Creature.

Feeling a suffocating heat, Sunny froze. His intuition was telling him that if he moved, he would dearly regret it.

The Call of Nightmare was deafening here.

[Stay still, Sunny.]

The four of them had been separated while crossing the realm boundary, so Sunny could only hear Cassie, not see her.

He hesitated for a moment, then asked.

[Where are we?]

But even before she answered, he already put two and two together.

The strange texture of the ground beneath him, the irregular shape of the sky, and that name, Desolation...

Sunny suppressed an unbelieving chuckle. The jagged sky... was no sky at all. It was bone — the jagged edge was where the bone had been broken, and the blinding radiance spilling into the immense breach was one he was all too familiar with.

It was the incinerating sunlight of Godgrave.

After all this time, they had returned to this cursed place. In fact, they entered a part of it that even Anvil and Ki Song had not dared to disturb.

They were inside the titanic skull of the colossal skeleton.

And the Seed they were searching for... was right at its center, in the great Hollow where the dead god’s brain would have been.

They were not alone here, either.

‘Another... damn... Unholy...’

Despite the suffocating heat, cold sweat flowed down Sunny’s back.

[Sunny, listen to me carefully.]

He had no other choice, since moving meant being burned to ash by the sky of Godgrave.

Cassie seemed to take a deep breath.

[You should feel by now the direction the Call is coming from. That is where the Seed is... once I tell you, run toward it as fast as you can. That is the only way we will survive — if we reach the Seed faster than the thing that dwells here reaches us.]

Sunny cursed inwardly.

[When will that be?]

Cassie did not respond immediately.

[Once the clouds close... now!]

Sunny flinched.

‘Now? Is that an example, or...’

Even while thinking that, he was already flying through the shadows.

Faster, and faster, and faster still.

Feeling something vast and ancient stirring in the darkness behind him.

Sunny did not know where Nephis, Mordret, and Cassie were. They would have entered the Dream Realm somewhere in the vicinity of the Seed, as well, but the skull of the titanic skeleton was vast. At the moment, they were probably rushing toward the Seed just like he was, knowing that only by reaching it they could survive. But would they make it?

Would he make it?

Sunny did not know.

The transition from the feeling of being powerful and all but invincible to small and defenseless was too jarring.

Sensing that something malevolent had noticed him, Sunny attempted to accelerate even further.

’Faster, damn it!’

Who would have thought that he would run toward a Seed at full speed one day, praying to dive into a Nightmare sooner?

Sunny gritted his teeth and turned into a shadow.

[Cassie, what about...]

And there, finally, he saw the Seed.

It was vast and appalling, hanging in the

darkness like a pulsating tumor. Infecting the world with an endless stream of Corruption.

The grotesque sight made Sunny’s heart skip a beat. The Call washed over him like a tide, throwing his mind into disarray.

He was so close.

Witnessing the great Seed, Sunny threw himself at it...

And, without ever slowing down, plunged into its vile depths.

There, he heard a vaguely familiar voice whispering into his ear.

[Welcome, Lost from Light!]

[Prepare for your Fifth Nightmare...]

[End of volume thirteen: Prelude to Apocalypse.]