Shadow Slave

Far in the distance, a mountain of shattered black stone loomed above the dusty sea like a colossal gravestone. The terrain surrounding the monument was littered with the remains of countless Nightmare Creatures that had died here. The human bones, however, had been buried farther away, sheltered from wind and weather beneath a barrow.

A stone colossus knelt silently on the ground, unmoving, gently holding its severed hand with both of its massive remaining hands.

These were the remnants of the Crimson Spire.

Sunny, or rather another one of his incarnations, was seated in the heart of the ruins, resting on the rim of a deep well with a thoughtful look on his face.

At the bottom of the ancient well lay a massive pool of black water. Its surface was perfectly calm and flat, resembling a sinister mirror formed from pure shadow. Gentle ripples occasionally moved across the surface of the imprisoned sea of darkness, as though it yearned to escape its prison and surge past the edge of the pool.

It was the Dark Sea.

Once, long ago, the Dark Sea had appeared to be a force of nature, something unfathomably vast and devastating, beyond anything Sunny could hope to oppose. He had barely survived encounters with scavengers that fed off the grotesque remnants it left behind, let alone the creatures that truly inhabited its depths. Confronting them had been a certain death sentence.

But times had changed.

Now, Sunny understood that the Dark Sea was actually a Great Titan, a blasphemous entity born from the darkness that had once lived inside the radiant figure who fell to this land, back when it had yet to be called the Forgotten Shore.

That radiant being had likely been a nephilim, or perhaps an angel, wounded in one of the ancient battles between gods and daemons. The people of the land where it fell had slain the luminous being and, in doing so, unleashed a curse of darkness upon their world. That curse later transformed into the Dark Sea.

In any case, the Dark Sea had become a Great Titan, and Sunny himself was now a Supreme Titan.

Strangely enough, they were equals. It was an odd realization.

But as strange as it felt to be considered equal to the Dark Sea, which had once represented certain and inescapable death, Sunny understood that he could destroy it.

He just had not figured out how.

There were legions of Nightmare Creatures inhabiting the sealed sea. Slaying them would significantly boost the Shadow Legion’s capacity for naval warfare. But those beings were not the Great Titan itself.

In truth, Sunny could sense seven vast masses of darkness hidden somewhere in the sea’s unreachable depths. He did not know what they were, but he was convinced that locating and eliminating them would likely lead to the Dark Sea’s demise.

He was weighing whether or not to dive into the black waters and take the risk.

But something held him back.

Curses.

The issue was not with the Dark Sea itself. The problem was the seal that confined it beneath the shattered Crimson Spire.

Even if Sunny succeeded in destroying the Great Titan, he might simply end up trapped at the bottom of the well in its place, at least one of his incarnations would. ṙ𝘢𐌽ỗΒËȿ

So, he either had to be willing to sacrifice an incarnation or find a way to unravel the sorcery of the seven heroes of the Forgotten Shore before plunging into the depths to kill the Dark Sea.

“Ah. Damnation.”

Even after spending a full year studying the well, he still had no idea how the seal had been constructed. It was not woven magic, nor did it appear to be based on runes, and he was fairly certain it was not Shaping either. Shaping was a fleeting form of sorcery. It was not meant to last, or at least, it was not supposed to.

There were exceptions to every rule, of course. His own sister was one such exception.

But Sunny still did not believe the Seven Heroes had been Shapers.

He reviewed everything he knew about the creation of the Crimson Spire, which was not much, honestly. All he was sure of was that a massive human sacrifice had taken place to create it, resulting in the birth of an artificial sun. At the same time, the curse of darkness had been bound beneath the Spire.

He also suspected that one of the Seven Heroes, the Builder, had been heavily inspired by Nether. There were traces of the Builder’s attempts to imitate the Demon of Destiny scattered throughout the Dark City. The Black Knight in the ruined cathedral had been one such imitation. Sunny was rather sure the monstrous Devil was the outcome of the Builder’s efforts to produce his own variant of the Stone Saints.

The enormous statue of the Builder now kneeling behind him was another such imitation, albeit far more ambitious.

That was why Saint had looked upon both the Black Knight and the walking colossus with scorn.

So what kind of sorcery had they used to forge the seal?

There was no answer, for now.

Which meant Sunny could not slay the Dark Sea, not yet.

How frustrating.

Why was it so difficult to destroy one minor Great Titan? If Sunny had still been Fated, he probably would have stumbled face-first into the answer by sheer luck.

He could not even ask Cassie for help, since there were no runes left for her to analyze.

Shaking his head, Sunny cast one last look into the dark abyss of the well and rose to his feet.

“Count yourself fortunate. I will be back for you someday.”

The Dark Sea gave no reply.

With a scoff, Sunny stepped backward and vanished.

A heartbeat later, he was somewhere far away. Specifically, he now stood in the eastern crater, nestled between the Dark City and the Ashe Barrow.

The ruins of the Crimson Spire, on the other hand, lay west of the Dark City. When the Dreamer Army had once marched to siege it, they needed a full week to reach the foreboding tower, but now, Sunny could cross that distance instantly without even expending much essence.

“Alright. Next on the list…”

Here and there on the crater’s dusty floor, bones of monstrous sea creatures lay in scattered heaps, looking like mountains of yellowed ivory. Closer to the crater’s center, however, the ground turned to black glass, and at its very heart, a large round hole plunged into the earth’s depths.

That was where the Dark Sea had emerged each night and where it had retreated at dawn. Vast caves existed beneath the Forgotten Shore, accessible through several such gaping wounds in its surface.

Sunny had a theory that one of those cavern systems might hold a hidden passage to the Underworld.

So, he had been exploring them at a relaxed pace lately.

Transforming into shadow, Sunny dove headfirst into the darkness.