Shadow Slave

Nephis could survive almost any wound, and as long as she was alive, Sunny was not going to die either. No matter what kind of terrifying injury he received, she could heal it in a matter of minutes — even for wounds dealt by especially terrifying foes, a few days was enough to completely erase them.

That did not only mean that they were difficult to kill in a battle - that also meant that their wounds did not accumulate, weakening them more and more as the expedition stretched. Their longevity as combatants was unmatched.

However, here in the Underworld, the advantage of Neph’s miraculous flames was not as great as it seemed.

That was because death was not the worst thing facing them, by far.

The stronger an enemy was, the more insidious their powers were. Abominations this powerful, this ancient — there was no end to ways in which they could threaten Sunny and Nephis apart from mundane physical attacks.

Soul attacks, mental attacks... even attacks that targeted the enemy’s spirit, as well as eerie methods of hunting prey that defied description. The horrors of the Underworld could lull you into endless sleep, twist your desires and emotions, poison your mind with ghastly illusions, turn your own powers against you, and so much more.

Each battle was a dangerous ordeal. If not for the fact that both Sunny and Nephis had already faced countless horrors, their minds would not have been able to cope with the sheer terror of what they were forced to endure in the darkness, shattering and turning them into raving lunatics.

In fact, a person of a lower Rank would have been driven mad simply by beholding the harrowing beings that dwelled in the Underworld.

That was where Sunny’s exceptional adaptability and Neph’s mastery of Shaping shone. Their powers were not only formidable, but they were also extremely versatile — and with Cassie’s help, they wielded the most dangerous weapon of them all.

They wielded knowledge.

Simply by knowing what their enemies were, they were already a step ahead of them.

So, it took the powers of three Supremes to stay alive in the Underworld.

As days passed, Sunny was more and more impressed by the fact that Broken Sword and his cohort had survived here as mere Saints. It wasn’t entirely clear how they had entered the Underworld — by venturing into the Hollow Mountains or simply using a Nightmare Gate to follow the Call — but even if it was the latter, they would have still needed to travel some distance to locate the Seed.

And then there was the way back, as well. Their incredible feat made Sunny feel hopeful. After all, if the original Sovereigns had survived the Underworld, then didn’t it mean that he and Nephis could survive it, too?

So, they continued forward, undaunted.

It took them about a week to reach one of the three great rivers of the Underworld. There, the waters ran much deeper, so Sunny could not march at the center of the current anymore, staying away from the shores. Even close to the shore, the water was up to his chest. Standing on his shoulder, Nephis could see the foam seething down below.

Saint was still moving ahead, skating across the flowing water at dire speed to keep up with Sunny’s titanic form. Darkness billowed around her like a vast mantle.

The enemies facing them only became more terrifying after they reached the great river. However, their speed did not diminish by much.

That was because Sunny and Nephis were able to maintain their strength instead of being weakened further and further as days passed. They were actually growing stronger.

It was partly because they were adapting to the Underworld and swiftly learning how to traverse it better. But it was also because Sunny was continuously collecting new shades.

There were two types of shades he could summon now.

The first type was the Great abominations he or Saint had slain. All of them possessed some way to resist elemental darkness, so they were not immediately destroyed when the Creatures of Darkness attacked — unlike his older shades, who had proven to be extremely vulnerable here in the Underworld.

The Dark Ones did not only vanquish shades, either — they completely devoured them, destroying the shades forever. So, Sunny hesitated to call upon the veterans of the Shadow Legion.

The shades of the Great Nightmare Creatures he had gained in the Underworld were more resilient, but did not last long either — they served as a temporary shield between the small expedition force and the Dark Ones.

The second type of shades he could summon in the Underworld, however, was far more tenacious.

They were the shadows of fallen Stone Saints.

The seven Supreme shades from the crumbling settlement were still following Saint. More than that, more of her kin had gathered under her banner over time. There had not been a lot of Stone Saints in the ancient past. The first generation of them had been created by Nether, and later, as their number grew, their civilization seemed to spread along the great subterranean rivers that flowed through the Underworld.

The mountain Sunny and Nephis used to descend into the darkness had sheltered one of the entrances to their dark kingdom, so even if there were no other settlements along the length of the tributary they followed, there were small waystations — each of them built in the intricately beautiful style of the Stone Saints, but also fortified to serve as a fortress.

And there were still Children of Nether using these waystations to guard against the horrors that dwelled in the darkness, even if they themselves had succumbed to Corruption and become those horrors as well.

These abominations were weaker than the seven Great Ones that had guarded the settlements, merely of the Corrupted Rank, but their number was greater. Being weaker did not mean that they were weak, either. The fact that they had survived in the darkness of the Underworld despite being a whole Rank below the weakest of the Nightmare Creatures Sunny and Nephis met in this lightless realm was a testament to their formidable strength.

The fallen Children of Nether had survived the endless tides of darkness, but they did not survive Sunny, Nephis, and Saint.

The four of them swept across the ancient waystations, conquering them one by one. Saint led the charge, augmented by both incarnations of Sunny — the seven Tainted Saints and Nephis followed, leaving the stalwart abominations no chance to survive. Like that, Saint’s army slowly grew.

By the time they reached the great river, she already commanded close to a hundred shades of fallen Stone Saints.

And that number only continued to increase.