Shadow Slave

”Crap!”

Sunny stumbled and leaned on the metal wall of the vast corridor to keep his balance. Sadly, there was mold growing on that wall, and as soon as his hand touched that mold, it started growing through his skin, too. Sunny stared at his hand, which was rapidly becoming something horrifying, then grimaced as he felt Blood Weave attacking the rapidly spreading mold with ferocious hunger. Not wishing to suffer the agony much longer, he turned his entire arm into a shadow, watched the disgusting black growths fall to the floor, and stomped them.

Then, he made his arm tangible again, surreptitiously summoned the Mantle, and encased himself in a carapace of black jade. The Handy Bracelet was still whispering into his ear by the time he did:

[Your shade has been destroyed.]

[Your shade has been destroyed.]

[Your shade has been...]

Sunny’s expression turned somber for a moment.

‘So, it finally happened.’

He had finally met a being who could irrevocably obliterate his shades.

The immortals of the Eternal City and the spectral warriors of the wraith army had failed to truly vanquish even one, but as soon as the captain of the Dutchman descended upon the Shadow Legion in person, wielding his ghostly viridian cutlass with practiced skill, a dozen of them were destroyed in an instant.

The bastard was strong.

In fact, he was terrifying.

And that was not even Sunny’s greatest problem, at the moment.

Nightwalker turned around to look at him questioningly.

”What happened?”

Sunny lingered for a few seconds.

“It’s the captain of the Dutchman. He joined the fray. And he’s... a familiar face.”

Of course, Sunny had recognized the sinister fiend instantly. He changed a lot from the last time he had seen him, being a wraith and a Nightmare Creaturer on top of that, but it was difficult to mistake him for anyone else.

The captain of the Dutchman was...

[Sunny! I know what the Dutchman is.] Cassie’s urgent voice made him sigh.

So, Sunny had recognized the captain of the cursed ship, while Cassie had gleaned what the ship itself was.

”How convenient.’

He inhaled deeply, a dark expression twisting his face.

The helmsman of the Dutchman was none other than the bronze-skinned sea captain who had been one of the Nine.

”The Nine again...”

He frowned.

Their malignant traces seemed to be everywhere in the Dream Realm, often turning into obstacles standing in Sunny’s way.

Was the ill-fated relationship between them and Weaver still pursuing Sunny even after he became Fateless?

Or was it simply that anyone who sought the heights of power had no choice but to stumble onto the echoes of their unspeakable sins?

Regardless, he would have been happier to learn that the captain of the Dutchman had turned out to be some Abomination than a corrupted ghost of one of the Nine. Having faced Slayer in battle, Sunny could not help but feel phantom pain at the prospect of facing another.

He let out another sigh.

[What the Dutchman is? Well, go on, tell me.]

Cassie answered in a moment:

[The Well of Souls... it’s the Soul of Kanakht.]

Sunny’s eyes widened a little.

Suddenly, a few pieces of knowledge clicked together, giving meaning to numerous of the mysteries of recent days. It was not a confirmed theory, exactly, but he had a strong feeling that he was on the right path. ‘The Soul of Kanakht... the Flesh of Kanakht...’

Nightwalker told them that the Dutchman had been hunting him for decades because the map to the Eternal City was in his possession. And that old legend about the Well of Souls told the tale of a lovesick captain who had spent a lifetime searching for the Eternal City out of one-sided love for the Demon of Repose, only to be damned instead.

But what if the truth had been twisted? Eurys of the Nine had been sent to infiltrate the Empire of War. Aletheia had been sent to uncover the lies of the gods. Auro had received a mysterious mission that was supposedly the most distressing of them all. But what about the other six?

Orphne had been sent to kill Weaver. Aemedon had been sent to Nether, so that Nether could rally his siblings and start the Doom War. Omer had been sent to convince Mirage to join...

Those were three of the Nine, receiving tasks having to do with three of the daemons.

Wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that the Nine had plans for the rest of the daemons, as well?

Dread, Desire... and Repose.

‘No, wait. Am I forgetting one?’

Sunny frowned, then shook his head.

If the captain was not in love with Repose, but instead needed to get close to her to accomplish his mission, then the quaint legend gained a far more sinister meaning. And as to why he would *** out the Soul of Kanakht, sacrifice himself to it, and then subjugate it instead... why, Sunny could come up with any number of explanations. The simplest of them was a desperate need to gain power. After all, the Nine had been meant to help the daemons win the Doom War, and for that, they needed to walk far on the Path of Ascension. And while they were all Fated, not all of them were Orphne, who had become someone who managed to kill the Demon of Fate twice out of sheer grit and determination. Some would have needed to *** out shortcuts to might and power.

Fusing with the soul of a Supreme cursed to immortality by Shadow God would have been one such shortcut.

It had worked so well, in fact, that the Dutchman and its captain survived the Doom Wer... while neither the gods nor the daemons did.

However, they had not survived it unscathed.

They had both fallen into the vile depths of Corruption.

Sunny scowled.

‘How much of that man is even left by now, after thousands of years of being corrupted?’

It wouldn’t be much.

Which posed the question of why that fiend was still so obsessed with the Eternal City. The answer to that question was quite obvious, though.

It was because the Flesh of Kanakht was here.

He had already subjugated the Soul of Kanakht, but once one tasted power, no amount of it was ever enough. So, perhaps the captain of the Dutchman had grown dissatisfied with being a harrowing wraith. Perhaps he wanted to gain a dreadful body, too.

‘Ah, damn it all’

Sunny cursed under his breath.

Suddenly, a chill ran down his spine.

‘No, wait. No way...’

The Flesh of Kanakht and the Soul of Kanakht were currently here, in the Eternal City.

But wasn’t the Heart of Kanakht here, as well?

Slain and trapped within Jet’s Mist Blade. And if three of the ancient fiend’s parts were here...

Then Sunny had a suspicion about what the mysterious Nightmare Creature in the east was, as well.