Shadow Slave

The Palace was an eerie and inhospitable place. The smooth metal corridors stretched endlessly, filled with nothing but destruction, eerie black growths of mold, and spores. Nightwalker seemed quite confident as he navigated their complicated maze, but it almost felt like he was choosing directions at random.

Sometimes, they would go up, and sometimes, they would go down. Some corridors were angled at a steep incline, some opened into bottomless wells. Some were filled with unrecognizable debris, some were empty.

In any case, the longer they spent inside the Palace, the less Sunny was convinced that it was a place where a daemon had lived. The unidentifiable debris could have been furniture, true, but it looked more like broken pieces of esoteric machinery. There were no spaces fit for mundane activities. The layout was... inexplicable.

It felt like they were traveling the metal bowels of a giant, dead beast.

Sunny had been to several strongholds that belonged to the daemons. They were all subtly strange, as if built for someone who was similar in shape to a human, but not quite the same — except for the Tower of Hope, whose master had lived among humans and favored them. The Ebony Tower, the Jade Palace, the Mirror Castle, and the Night Garden all shared that trait, though.

The Palace of the Eternal City was entirely different. It seemed more like a complicated mechanism than a home.

Perhaps it was.

After all, the Eternal City was basically a colossal space station. It had been created to exist in the vacuum of space, so it would make sense that there was a sorcerous engine at its heart.

Sunny could just imagine how the Palace had looked when the Eternal City drifted among the stars. It would have shone brightly with silver light, powerful torrents of stellar flame and soul essence rushing through these corridors...

The Palace was dark and lifeless now, though.

Still... that did not mean that its sorcery was gone.

”What is happening out there?” Nightwalker’s voice sounded a little glum. Sunny hesitated for a moment, then allowed himself to take a breath and used the air he inhaled to answer.

“The wraiths are pushing my shadows back. Jet is fighting the Dutchman and its captor. Oh... the Dutchman is the Soul of Kanakht, as it turns out. Nephis is fighting the Madness of Kanakht.”

Nightwalker stared at him silently, which prompted Sunny to add:

”Naeve is still in one piece.”

His guide turned away and grunted quietly. ”Well... everything seems to be under control.”

Sunny sighed and shook his head.

“Does it? I guess it is — for now. Sadly, one guest is yet to arrive.”

The Shadow Legion was holding back the wraiths, Jet was holding back the Soul of Kanakht, and Nephis was holding back his Madness. All three battles were precarious, hanging in a delicate balance... but that was fine.

What was not fine, however, was that the Flesh of Kanakht continued its evolution as they spoke. And once it became a Titan, the fragile balance would be instantly shattered.

‘Not to mention if the pieces of Kanakht somehow merge:

That’d probably be an unmitigated disaster. Body, Soul, Mind, and Spirit. Those were all the parts of a living being Sunny knew of, except for the final one — Shadow.

The Flesh of Kanakh, the Soul of Kanakht, and the Madness of Kanakht constituted the first free. The fourth one — the Spirit — was with Jet in the form of the Heart of Kanakht. A part of that Devil was bound by the Mist Blade, while some of it had been fused with her shattered soul core.

The Shadow of Kanakht was missing, but then again, it was not supposed to exist. After all, Kanakht had been cursed by Shadow God. A person’s shadow was their death... so would a deathless being possess one?

Eurys did have a shadow, but it had felt like a hollow and lifeless thing — like a shadow of an object, not of a living being.

What was going to happen if the other parts of Kanakht merged? Would that ancient fiend be reborn?

‘That’d be suboptimal.’

Sunny did not even know how to deal with the Flesh of Kanakht after its evolution, let alone the entirety of that undying bastard. So, it was in their best interest to prevent all parts of Kanakht from coming anywhere near each other.

”It’s a bit funny though, isn’t it?” Nightwalker raised an eyebrow.

”What is?”

Sunny shrugged.

”That we went on this expedition to find the wharf, the lineage of Storm God, the trace left behind by a nebulous daemon... and some treasure, of course. There are so many things to be gained in the Eternal City. But the other two forces that reached it actually came for the monsters guarding the treasure, instead.”

The captain of the Dutchman and the Madness of Kanakht did not care about all the things that Sunny had wanted to take. All they cared about was the Flesh of Kanakht, which was why they had entered the deadly race to the Eternal City.

Time was of the essence.

”How far are we from our destination, anyway?”

Nightwalker lingered for a moment.

“We’re here.”

Before Sunny could feel surprised, they stepped into a vast hall. It was unlike any of the intersections they had passed before, circular in shape and grandiose in size. A deep pit took most of its expanse, surrounded by giant shards of a violently torn metal plate... almost like a bowl with a broken lid.

Or a prison with a broken seal.

The hall was dark and empty, like the rest of the palace. The mold was much thicker here, and wisps of grey fog drifted above the floor.

Just before Nightwalker stepped into the fog, Sunny grabbed his collar and pulled him back.

”Don’t touch that fog if you want to live.” Nightwalker frowned.

”Why? What is it?”

Sunny looked around and answered in a distant tone:

”It’s nothing”

Ignoring Nightwalker’s confusion, he studied the heart of the Palace with a dark expression.

Eventually, a pale smile appeared on his face.

”I guess we found the cage where the Flesh of Kanakht had been locked.”