Shadow Slave

Visiting the Southern Island was not as useful as Sunny had hoped it would be. Too much time had passed since the days when Nightmare guarded the abandoned castle, consumed by madness. The castle had long turned into ruins, and the land itself had been transformed by the Crushing.

However... Sunny did end up finding a clue. That clue was not on the island, but rather in what was not on the island - when he had visited this place as a favor to Noctis, there had been beautiful white flowers blooming in the emerald grass around the castle. But now they were gone.

Of course, there was nothing strange about some flowers disappearing after thousands of years of desolation. Nevertheless, Sunny remembered that he had seen these particular flowers elsewhere on the Chained Isles - there was a whole island covered by them.

That island was considered extremely dangerous because there were numerous bones hidden beneath the beautiful carpet of white blossoms. Anyone who stepped on it would succumb to an overwhelming desire to sleep, never to wake up. Among the Awakened anchored in the Sanctuary, that island was synonymous with death.

There were too many connections for it to be a pure coincidence, and so, Sunny decided to visit the island of white flowers as well.

It was further east, however, so that stop was going to have to wait. First, the flying ship had to travel north and skirt the Tear for a while to reach the Shipwreck Island.

They spent two days making their way there. The ship had to stop once to give Cassie time to rest and restore soul essence. In the meantime, the rest of them made use of the idle time to enjoy some peace and quiet.

The ancient vessel turned into a leisure yacht for a few days. Nephis was in charge of cooking, while the rest of them were in charge of eating - they talked, enjoyed each other’s company, and tried really hard to forget the cold dread of Antarctica for a few fleeting moments.

They even tried playing several games... sadly, it was hard to find a suitable one, considering that Kai always knew when someone was telling the truth, Cassie could sense the future, and Sunny was not above using his shadows to cheat.

In the end, they settled for competing to see who was the best cheater.

Nephis lost pretty much every game after that. Observing her try to hide her frustration was rather entertaining... at least for Sunny, who won the most.

’Ah, I have forgotten how awkward she really is. She’s hiding it well these days... it’s cute. Huh? Crude, I meant it’s crude!’

Effie was still suffering from motion sickness and eating less than she usually did. Which meant only two to three times more than what a normal person would eat, naturally... luckily, the ship was attacked by a few Nightmare Creatures during their only stop so far, so they had plenty of fresh meat to feed her.

Kai was teaching Sunny how to play the flute.

It was... actually starting to feel like a vacation.

Eventually, they reached the Shipwreck Island.

It was exactly as it had been before, except for the fact that the feature that had given the island its name - the shipwreck - was now missing.

The corpse of the Sun Prince was still there, though.

The steel colossus was swinging forlornly below the island, its legs tangled in the remains of a torn heavenly chain. The first time Sunny had seen it, he wondered about what terrible creature could have killed the fearsome giant... who could have thought that it had actually been Cassie and Effie?

Well, technically, it had been someone else... but in the Nightmare, the immortal Chain Lord had fallen by their hands.

Nephis stared at the steel colossus for a long time. She had never seen it before, so he must have made an expression.

After a while, she asked:

”This is one of the immortals you killed?”

Effie tore her gaze away from the giant corpse and shivered.

”Yeah... this was where we fought the defenders of the Ivory City. The city itself is gone now, but that huge bastard is still here. See how his chest is cracked? That’s because Cassie rammed him with the flying ship at full speed. Crazy girl. We all thought she died, for a minute or two.”

Nephis lowered her head, while Effie sighed and added:

”It’s hard to guess now, but that giant was filled with molten metal. Within that metal was a human-shaped cage... and within that cage was a thing that had once been a human. I pushed the bastard over the edge of the island, then crawled to its chest, and killed the thing inside. It was a hot mess of a situation. I had plenty of burns to prove it.”

She made a disgusted face, then glanced at Sunny:

”So, doofus. We just need to bring you to what is left of the Sun Prince?”

Sunny shook his head.

”Yes... I mean, no. First, we need to get rid of the creature that lives below the island.”

He had not forgotten about the terrifying abomination that was hidden on the dark side of the Shipwreck Island. The memories of watching its long, root-like tentacles stretch from the darkness shrouding the bottom of the isle and snatch Fallen Demons like flies were still fresh in his mind.

That was how the creature fed - it used the corpse of the Sun Prince as bait to devour Chain Worms.

Sunny shook his head.

But things had changed.

Back then, he had been a mere Awakened. A Corrupted Nightmare Creature had been synonymous with death, despair, and hopelessness... but now, he had killed more Corrupted abominations than he could be bothered to count.

Sunny had grown much more powerful. Even when compared to how he had been as a Master before Antarctica, he was incomparably stronger and more experienced. A mere Corrupted creature did not scare him anymore.

Which did not mean that it was wise to abandon caution. No matter how powerful he had become, one mistake was always all it took to perish in the Dream Realm.

Throwing one last glance at the swinging steel corpse, he turned away and said:

”Cassie, let’s start lowering the ship.”