Shadow Slave

Sunny dismissed Weave’s Mask and stared into the mist with a hollow look on his face. Jet, who was standing nearby with a raised hand, lowered it slowly.

“Huh? Your eyes are not cooked.”

Sunny remained motionless for a few moments, then turned to her, the golden glow slowly disappearing from the deep darkness of his dilated pupils.

Eventually, he grimaced.

“Still hurts like hell, though.”

His eyes had not turned into embers, this time, but the last image he had seen did end up burned into them, so his vision was a bit blurry. It was going to pass swiftly, though, so he did not mind that much.

Jet studied him, then asked in a neutral tone:

”Well? Did you divine any clues?”

Sunny could not understand what she meant, then realized that she considered his mysterious ability a shape of divination. Which... it was, in a sense.

He nodded slowly.

”Yes. It fell into the sea.”

Jet blinked a few times.

”What fell into the sea?”

Sunny just stared at her.

”The Eternal City. It fell into the sea.” Turning around, he raised a hand and pointed at the sky.

Well... he pointed into the mist, but his intention was to point at the sky.

”It entered the atmosphere, burning like a falling sun, glided majestically down to the horizon, and hit the water like an enormous asteroid. That thing was the size of NQSC, too, so the explosion its impact caused... well, I guess it was in the same weight category as when Nephis detonated six of her cores in Godgrave. Catastrophic on a global scale. That latter happened below ground, however, while the former had happened in the middle of a damn sea.”

He inhaled deeply.

“Needless to say, the entire city was vaporized. But the Demon of Repose did not care, I guess, because it still restored itself to flawless condition, complete with all the immortals populating it. And then, it drowned.”

Sunny glanced down, at the wooden deck beneath them.

”So, the map is pointing to the right spot. It’s just that it doesn’t have a vertical axis. We are in the right place, but... way above our destination.”

Jet scratched the tip of his nose.

”How did Nightwalker manage to sail away on the Night Garden, then?”

Sunny smiled darkly.

“T have no idea. Why are you asking me? Go ask Nightwalker-”

He remained silent for a while, then sighed. ”Maybe the Night Garden was at the bottom of the sea, as well. Actually, it is good news for us.”

Jet raised an eyebrow.

”It is?”

Sunny nodded.

“It is a fact that the Eternal City is at the bottom of the Stormsea, and it is also a fact that Nightwalker used the Night Garden to escape the Eternal City and sail to the safer waters near the coast. Which proves my theory that this ship is not just a ship... it can also be a submarine.” ŗÂɴ𝐎₿ЁŚ

He lingered for a moment, and then smiled in bewilderment.

”It can also be a spaceship, actually. We’re on a spaceship, Jet.”

She gave him a suspicious look.

”That’s cool. However, don’t think I don’t know why you’re saying that.”

Sunny glanced at her with an oblivious look. “Huh? Whatever do you mean?”

She smiled dangerously.

”You said it to distract me from the fact that you want to sink my ship, didn’t you? You want to try submerging the Night Garden and diving to the bottom of the sea.”

Sunny let out a chuckle, as if amazed by the preposterous nature of that remark.

Then, he added in a small tone:

”Yes?”

Jet let out a long sigh.

”I’ll give you that we can probably submerge the Night Garden by flooding the freshwater reservoir. However, your theory about the aegis holding the water at bay is questionable at best, and completely unfounded at worst. And since we can hardly test it without causing severe damage to the surface infrastructure of the city... it’s a no.”

Sunny, who was secretly reeling from catching a small glimpse of the harrowing battle between a god and a daemon, smiled weakly.

”Who says that we can’t test it?”

He commanded the shadows to rise, manifesting them into a miniature model of the Night Garden. Then, he built a translucent dome above its deck, and another one — a little smaller, and completely black — below it.

“I don’t think I ever tried manifesting shadows on that scale, but I am certain that I can cover all of the Night Garden with an airtight dome. We will submerge the ship until its masts are underwater and see if the aegis prevents the water from reaching that dome. If it does, we can descend further. If it doesn’t, we simply surface again, send the Night Garden back to the coast, and venture to the bottom of the Stormsea by our lonesome... you and I.”

Jet still had a dubious expression on her face.

“Why are you so keen on taking the Night Garden to the Eternal City?”

Sunny hesitated for a few moments, then sighed.

“Because the Dreamspawn is on the Moon.”

Jet raised an eyebrow.

”So wh... oh.”

She fell silent for a moment, then gave him a calculating look.

“You’re hoping that if we restore the Night Garden to its former glory, we will be able to attack that man before he attacks us?”

Sunny lingered for a while.

“It is one of the reasons, yes. I might not seem like it... but I am actually quite nervous about that guy. Ah, don’t get me wrong — I am not worried that he’ll be able to defeat me and Nephis. However, I am almost entirely certain that if he brings the fight to either the waking world or the Dream Realm, there will be a lot of collateral damage... a lot of it. If we take the fight to him, though... there are no civilians on the Moon.”

Jet studied him for a bit.

Eventually, she grimaced and glanced away.

”We can try flooding the reservoir. However, we will only continue the descent after making sure that the citizens of the Night Garden are completely safe, and that we can summon Neph’s Dream Gate underwater to retreat at the first sign of overwhelming danger-”

Sunny simply gave her a nod.

”Naturally.”

Then, glancing into the mist, he hesitated for a few seconds and asked:

”What’s on the bottom of the Stormsea, anyway?”

Jet turned back and started walking away, a troubled expression on her face.

Her answer did not make him any less apprehensive.

”Nobody knows. Because nobody has ever reached the bottom of the Stormsea. If we do... we will be the first humans to learn...”