Shadow Slave

The Twisted Rock soared higher and higher into the sky, and as it did, a terrible crushing force assaulted the two living beings that were pressed into its surface, separated only by a dozen meters of dark stone.

The large adamantine chest did not look too good. The wood was slowly losing its color, the strips of metal reinforcing it showed growing patches of rust. It seemed as though the creature was struck by some terrible disease. In a sense, it was… after all, the Broken Oath was currently destroying its soul bit by little bit.

Sunny did not look that much better, though.

He was laying on the hard stone, looking at the merciless skies, struggling to breathe and endure the pain. His armor was soaked in blood, and his broken arm was pressed tightly against his chest. His face was deathly pale, almost the same color as the tall and majestic Ivory Tower that floated high above the world, shrouded in the whitest of clouds.

Every breath was a torture.

Sunny knew that he was not going to bleed to death because of the Blood Weave, but the wounds still needed to be tended to. His broken bones, especially, were in need of attention. This Crushing was turning out to be tragically long, though, not giving him the chance to do so.

Well, that was not a surprise.

The single chain connecting the Twisted Rock to the rest of the Isles was much longer than most, which meant that the small island was going to rise very, very high. Higher than Sunny had ever been in this strange and deadly land.

The Crushing was not only going to last longer, but would also be vastly more terrible than the few previous times he had experienced it. By now, the hours of hardship he had endured together with Master Roan several days ago seemed like a pleasant walk in the park.

Now, it seemed as though he was being slowly crushed under the weight of the entirety of heaven.

Sunny was only alive because he didn’t have to hide his powers anymore, and could use all of his abilities without restraint. Unlike on the day he had met the dashing griffin rider, both shadows were now tightly wrapped around his body, augmenting its resilience threefold. For that reason, he had not turned into a puddle of bloody goo yet. Although it certainly felt as though he was getting close…

If things became really unbearable, he could still escape into the shadows and either wait out the worst part of the Crushing or try to escape back to the heavenly chain before his shadow essence ran out. Since he had spent this whole time patiently circulating it through the coils of the Soul Serpent, there was a considerable amount flowing through his cores by now.

He had also spent this whole time waiting for the damn chest fiend to finally die, as well as considering his options on how to transport the gold coins back to the Sanctuary of Noctis.

Since it had turned out that only the upper layer of the treasure pile was real, he now had much more options… however, all of them required him to burn through a lot of essence to cross back through the swarm of Chain Worms. The problem was confounded by the fact that Twisted Rock was going to be destroyed soon, which meant that he could not risk making several trips to the Citadel and back. He had to carry his spoils away while the island was still attached to the rest of the Chained Isles.

For that reason, Sunny was trying to endure as much of the Crushing as he could before turning into a shadow.

…He also did not forget about the strange way his intuition had reacted to the dying island. Before the burden of the Crushing became too overbearing, he had sent one of his shadows to scour the whole place in search of anything that might have been important enough to affect the strings of fate.

However, there was literally nothing on the Twisted Rock except for barren stone and ancient, blackened bones. The shadow explored every nook and cranny of this miserable place, only to find nothing at all.

He had even sent it to take a look at the underside of the small isle, but it was as empty and desolate as the rest of it.

Sunny was left very confused by that turn of events. He was certain that there was nowhere on the Twisted Rock that he had failed to search. And yet, there was nothing on the island to cause his intuition to react so strongly. What was going on? Had he failed to notice something, or was he mistaken about the whole thing, to begin with?

Sadly, after a while, the Crushing had become too terrible for him to endure without the help of the second shadow, so he had to call it back.

And now, here they were.

A sudden sound attracted Sunny’s attention. Glancing sideways, he noticed that a crack had appeared on the surface of the adamantine chest. Black blood seeped out of it, soon turning into a stream. A few seconds later, a second crack appeared near the first.

He would have smiled if not for the fact that even such a simple action was rather strenuous now, this high above the Sky Below.

‘It’s not going to be too long now…’

***

A few minutes later, there was a pool of black blood surrounding the large wooden chest.

Sunny endured the pain and counted the seconds.

Before he reached a thousand, the vile creature trembled slightly and giggled one last time, its grating voice full of doleful outrage. Then, the bizarre monstrosity shuddered and grew absolutely still.

It was finally dead!

Sunny couldn’t help but grin slightly.

‘Finally… all those coins… are mine!’

As the heavenly chain rattled and groaned, the voice of the Spell resounded above the hellish stone island. Its words sounded like music to his ears…

[You have slain a Fallen Devil, Mordant Mimic.]

[Your shadow grows stronger.]

[…You have received a Memory.]