Shadow Slave

‘Ah, crap...’

The Shadow Lantern was a Divine Memory, but it had always been subtle and understated. Usually, nothing flashy really happened when Sunny opened its gate — in fact, nothing happened at all. It was on him to either command or coax shadows into entering or call them back from the other side.

That was not what was transpiring at the moment, though.

As soon as the Gate of Shadow opened, a strange ripple spread through the void chamber, and the blinding radiance of the immolating star imprisoned in its center seemed to dim a little.

A powerful pull descended upon the shadows, drawing them toward the Shadow Lantern, which drifted away from Sunny in the weightlessness while spinning slowly. Then, the Shadow Lantern suddenly froze in place, rooting itself into the world like a pillar of existence.

That was when the trouble began. Everything seemed to stand still for a moment, and then the world shook.

‘What the...’

Sunny lost his balance and fell to his knees. Raising his head, he glanced at the distant Shadow Lantern with wide eyes.

Its small gate suddenly seemed vast and boundless like the Realm of Death itself, and the subtle pull it was exerting on the orphaned shadows turned annihilating.

More than that, it was growing more overwhelming with each moment.

Even Sunny was dragged into the air, only managing to hold himself in place by sinking the claws of his armored gauntlet into the metal floor.

All around him, the shadows of the immortals — hundreds of thousands of them — were slowly floating upward, pulled toward the boundless darkness of the Gate of Shadow.

It was like a dark, twisted version of the Rapture.

The laws of existence had been defied by the stubborn will of the Demon of Repose for untold eons, and now, the universe seemed to be zealously correcting itself, using the Shadow Lantern as its conduit. At least that was what it felt like to Sunny, who found himself caught in that violent process.

The fierce white star was still burning in the heart of the void chamber, but now, there was an opposite singularity mirroring it — a flawlessly dark dot that was pulling everything toward itself. Shadows were pouring into the maw of the Shadow Lantern, and it seemed as if it was consuming the torrents of blinding stellar light with them.

With every shadow that passed through the Gate of Shadow, the radiant light of the imprisoned star was growing a little dimmer.

‘N—not good:

Sunny had thought that the Shadow Lantern was only exerting its pull on the shadows, but when the metal floor he was clinging to deformed and bent upward, he realized that he was wrong.

The entire place seemed to be slowly imploding.

..Outside the Palace, Cassie was standing on the walls of the Dark Castle. The harrowing battle between the allied forces of the Flame and Shadow Domains and the dreadful union of the remnants of Kanakht was raging all around her, but she was suddenly distracted by something else.

A drop of something cold had just landed on her head.

Raising a hand, Cassie brushed her fingers across her forehead and then brought them to her lips.

She tasted salt.

‘Not blood... water?’

Raising her head as if wishing to gaze at the dark sky, she frowned.

She had to wait for one of her marks to do the same before she could see anything. Drops of water were falling down on the vast ruins of the Eternal City, splashing against the rubble here and there, as if it was about to rain.

Naturally, it was impossible for rain clouds to gather above the sunken city. Which could only mean one thing...

(Sunny. What... the hell did you do?]

It could only mean that the dome above the Eternal City was failing.

His voice resounded in her head a moment later:

[Well, about that... do you remember how I promised to unravel the sorcery of Repose? I think...]

Far away, in the heart of the Palace, Sunny’s avatar rippled and turned into the four-armed devil, using all his claws and even his tail to hold onto the bending floor. [I think I succeeded a little bit too hard!] Sunny cursed under his breath and rushed across the imploding void chamber, looking around frenetically.

The luminous star was slowly losing its radiance, while the black Gate facing it seemed to be becoming darker and darker. It was like a spherical rift in the fabric of existence by now, surrounded by a flowing halo of light that disappeared into its vast darkness.

The void chamber was gradually growing smaller as it collapsed on itself.

‘Where are you... where the hell are you?’ Sunny’s gaze was jumping between the floating shadows. His other senses were searching, as well.

He had almost made a full circle around the imploding chamber by the time he finally found what he was looking for.

”Found you!”

Sunny wanted to shout, but there was no air in his lungs, and none for him to inhale anywhere around.

Hesitating for a moment, he let go of the deformed metal floor and launched himself into the air.

The Gate of Shadow pulled him toward it with frightening force, but he had accounted for its draw already.

Flying across the maelstrom of stellar radiance and deep darkness, he reached a particular shadow and grabbed it. Grabbing a shadow seemed like an impossible feat, but he willed his hand to do just that against all reason.

‘Sorry, buddy. It’s not time for you to find peace yet.

The shadow he grabbed belonged to Nightwalker.

Twisting in the air, Sunny manifested a heavy kunai linked to a black chain in his hands and threw it back toward the caving floor. The kunai pierced deep into the weakened metal, and Sunny held to the chain for his dear life, relying on it to keep him from falling into the frightening black hole of the Gate of Shadow.

It was not time to leave the chamber yet. ‘Hold on tight!”

He did not say those words aloud, and the shadow of Nightwalker would not have heard him, anyway.

But it seemed to grow still in his grasp.. The void chamber was slowly coming undone around them.

And around the chamber, the Palace was coming undone as well.