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Chapter 428: Covetous Coffer
Shadow Slave

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The Error

The Error 18 Nov 2022, 08:55

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جيد ذاكرة مفيدة جدا..

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CrimsonCrow

CrimsonCrow 1 Nov 2022, 01:43

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I wonder if the dagger on the alter is related to the Ivory Tower?

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Harris10

Harris10 15 Sep 2022, 07:23

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The moment Sunny's essence touched the black wooden surface of the divine Memory, Weaver's Mask suddenly reached into his very soul and hungrily drank more… and then more, and more, and more.

In a fraction of a second, all of his reserve of shadow essence was sucked dry, with only a tiny bit of it remaining… almost as if these pitiful drops were not even worth being consumed by the mask.

And even then, all it could achieve was activate the [???] enchantment for just a single moment.

…That single moment, however, was enough to almost drive Sunny insane.

Suddenly, a horrifying pain pierced his eyes and his mind, akin to the suffering he had experienced after consuming the Drop of Ichor, only so much worse.

Infinitely worse.

As he shrieked, all traces of intelligence disappearing from his voice, the world he saw changed.

Suddenly, all Sunny could see was an endless, beautiful eternity of twisting threads. Those threads transfixed everything in existence, connecting every living being and every object, every thought and every concept, every dream and every nightmare, stretching infinitely into every direction, as well as into the past, the present, and the future.

These were the Strings of Fate.

They were just like the threads of light that the Spell was woven of, but while the magnificent and inconceivably complex pattern that Sunny had seen twice in the empty void between dream and reality composed the function of the Spell, what he glimpsed right now connected… everything.

All of the universe as it had existed, was existing, and was going to exist.

...Much worse, when observing the weave of the Spell, Sunny could only sense and guess at its meaning. But the terrifying enchantment of Weaver's Mask not only allowed him to see the tapestry of Fate, but also forced the understanding of it onto him.

The knowledge of everything, everywhere, all at once…

Of course, such knowledge was too much for any human to endure. Just the tiniest, infinitesimal amount of it was enough to instantly destroy any living being… except, maybe, for a god.

...Or a daemon.

As blood streamed out of Sunny's nose, eyes, and mouth, and a silent scream died on his lips, he instinctively did the only thing that could save him from being obliterated by the sight of the Strings of Fate — he dissipated into the shadows.

This was, perhaps, the reason why his eyes did not turn into smoldering embers and his head did not just explode right there on the spot. Shadows had no eyes and no skulls, after all.

However…

Falling into the embrace of darkness, Sunny realized with cold horror that Weaver's Mask, somehow, was still resting on his face. When he turned into a shadow, it had turned into one, too. His vision shifted from that of a human to the colorless sight of a shadow, but he could still see the eternity of Strings of Fate.

There were especially many of them near him. The infinite threads were tightly wrapped around his body, as well as around his soul, encompassing and piercing it… it looked almost as if he was strung on them like a small marionette.

And among those threads, two shone much brighter than the rest.

One was made out of pure white flame and stretched far away into the distance, leading north, toward the Hollow Mountains.

The other was made out of beautiful golden light, and led… down.

Down and away from both the Shipwreck Island and the Twisted Rock, diving into the Tear and disappearing into the boundless darkness of the Sky Below.

…Although it seemed as though eons had passed, in reality, it was no more than a fraction of a second.

Sunny's head did not explode because he had turned into a shadow, but his mind was still on the verge of utter, irrevocable destruction. A fraction more, and it was going to be wiped out from existence by the divine knowledge of Fate.

'But what… what can I do… the mask is a shadow now…'

His thoughts were scattered and weak. And yet, he fought through the shock and managed to remember an important detail.

He could dismiss the Memory.

But that… would be too slow. Even if it took only a second, there would be nothing left of him by the end of it.

A wave of desperation rose from the depths of his heart.

And then, the shadow essence that Weaver's Mask had absorbed finally ran out.

Instantly, the enchantment deactivated, and the ruthless worlds of endless threads disappeared with it. Sunny could only see what all humans… and shadows… were meant to be able to see.

A piece of dark stone soaring into the sky as the merciless grinder of the Crushing was slowly breaking it apart.

Sunny sensed hazily that there was something urgent about the situation, but he was... was not entirely there.

Although the terrible visage of the Strings of Fate was gone, his mind was scattered and empty. He couldn't really lose conscience while in the form of a shadow, but not being able to think or even recognize the existence of his self was very close to it.

Soon, however, he started to slowly gather the pieces of his wounded, shattered mind back together. He was in dire danger, after all…

The entire Twisted Rock was shaking and rumbling as it rose higher and higher into the Sky Above. Wide cracks appeared on its surface, growing larger with each second. The blackened bones had already been turned into dust, and now, the only thing standing above the stone was the ramshackle, lop-sided, dead treasure chest.

The corpse of the Mordant Mimic, strangely, seemed to be much more sturdy than the ascending island itself. It was still in one piece, at least, and almost whole.

'...I need to come up with a plan.'

As this thought formed in Sunny's mind, he suddenly came to his senses... and realized several things.

One of them was what he had to do.

The other was that the pitiful drops of shadow essence left in his soul cores were about to evaporate, which meant that he would not be able to remain in the form of a shadow for much longer.

The third one was that he still had not retrieved the golden coins from inside the chest.

...Now, whether he lived or died depended on one thing — whether he would be forced out of the shadows and turned into a bloody puddle first, or whether the Twisted Rock would fall apart first.

Which would it be?

'Well… I might as well try, right?'

Flowing through the shadow cast by the treasure chest, he dismissed the Broken Oath. A tiny amount of shadow essence, from which the Memories were created, returned to his soul. Hiding on the surface of the dead Mimic, Sunny dismissed the Blood Blossom and the Puppeteer's Shroud, too.

Finally, he dismissed Weaver's Mask, which brought him much more essence than the previous three Memories combined… even if, in the grand scheme of things, that amount was still rather insignificant.

Still, if it could gift him even one second more, it was worth it.

Circulating his essence through the coils of the Soul Serpent to slow down its expenditure and enhance the speed of its regeneration, Sunny hid on the treasure chest and waited for his fate to be decided.

After something that felt like an eternity, when the Twisted Rock had soared so high above the Chained Isles that the Crushing started turning smaller pieces of stone into fine dust, the island finally shuddered... and cracked open.

One of the rifts that opened in the blackened stone was directly beneath Sunny and the dead Mimic. The whole section of the isle suddenly broke off, separating from it in a rain of rock shards. Sunny caught a glimpse of petrified bones encased in the solidified stone… and then the chest he was hiding on floated up.

For a few seconds, all of it — the remaining core of the island, the sea of stone debris, and the dead Mimic — continued to rise higher and higher. Larger pieces of rock were crushed into smaller ones, and then turned into dust. A deafening thunder filled the air.

But then, as if an invisible switch had been turned, the mysterious force that had kept the Twisted Rock floating between two skies for thousands of years was no more.

Suddenly, everything that was too heavy to be carried away by wind slowed in its ascent, froze in the air for a few moments, and fell down.

The cracked treasure chest tumbled down, too, falling toward the Sky Below. Sunny, who was still just a shadow adhered on its side, saw the world spin around.

The last drops of his shadow essence were about to disappear.

…But that was fine. They would last him long enough to reach the altitude where the Crushing wasn't immediately lethal anymore.

When it finally happened, Sunny suddenly appeared on the surface of the chest and held onto it for dear life. The pressure of the Crushing first threw him against the wood hard enough to break a few ribs, then tried to rip him away.

But Sunny would not let go.

His damned coins were in that damned chest!

Together, he and the dead Mimic fell lower and lower, until, finally, the Crushing weakened enough to allow Sunny to move.

Summoning the Dark Wing, he commanded it to turn into a blur and changed the direction of their fall.

However, he was not trying to move toward the distant silhouette of the Shipwreck Island out of desperation.

Instead, he was guiding the chest in the opposite direction, aiming it into the vast empty expanse of the Tear.

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yumtumtum

yumtumtum 14 Sep 2022, 22:33

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sunny doing an icarus and flying too close to the sun/pagoda

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Harris10

Harris10 14 Sep 2022, 18:43

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A moment later, a deafening roar of massive iron links being torn apart rolled other the entire island, which then lurched up by a few meters and suddenly came to an abrupt stop.

Sunny yelped, feeling the Crushing assault him with even more obliterating force.

'The chain… the chain is failing!'

Why did it happen so soon?

For a few moments, he felt nothing but pure, bestial panic. Then, he forced himself to regain control over his mind and threw a desperate glance toward the not-so-distant edge of the Twisted Rock.

Would he be able to escape in time?

He lingered for a moment, then gritted his teeth and commanded one of the shadows to slide off his body onto the ground.

As soon as it did, a muffled scream escaped from his lips. It felt as though a giant hammer struck his body, making every bone in it shudder and groan. Sunny turned his head to the side and spat a mouthful of blood.

'Curse it all…'

The shadow flew to the edge of the island and slid over its edge, desperately trying to reach the dying chain.

…But it was too late.

As Sunny watched in horror, one of the links of the heavenly tether broke. Only one, the weakest of them all… but that was all it took.

'No!'

The chain that connected Twisted Rock to the rest of the Chained Isles snapped in two, and as ten kilometers of gargantuan iron links slowly fell toward the Sky Below, the island suddenly shot upward. Since it was still in the ascent phase, and now unrestrained by anything, the speed of its rise was simply terrifying.

'No, no, no!'

The Crushing struck at Sunny with such fury that he couldn't even scream. He felt himself being slowly broken, and feverishly tried to come up with a solution.

'Step through the shadows… jump down and try to glide to the Shipwreck Island…'

No, that would never work. There were more than ten kilometers separating these isles from one another, which was far outside the Dark Wing's capabilities. He could try to chase after the piece of the chain still connected to the Shipwreck Island, but chances of catching up with it were close to zero.

The length of the heavenly tether was falling deceitfully slow, but it was just an illusion caused by its colossal size. In truth, the torn end of it was flying through the air at tremendous speed, moving both down and away from the Twisted Rock.

The repulsive silhouettes of the gluttonous Chain Worms were growing smaller by the second.

Sunny was already late to rush in pursuit of it, and every moment that passed made the probability of success lower.

'Great! Goddamn great, you fool! You finally let your greed kill you!'

Sunny growled, full of fury at himself, but then suddenly stopped.

No, that didn't make any sense. He was not on this island because of greed. Even though Sunny had made several risky decisions in order to get to the miraculous coins, at the end of it, standing on the edge of the Shipwreck Island, he put his avarice aside and made a sober choice.

pan,da-n0vel,c-o-m He came here because his intuition had told him that something on the Twisted Rock was very important to his future.

But what was it?! There was nothing but stone and bones in this damned place!

What was he supposed to do? How was he supposed to survive?

Sunny tried to calm down and think. He summoned his shadow back, and briefly regained the ability to breathe.

It wasn't going to be for long, though. The Crushing was already overwhelming his physical ability to resist its lethal pressure. Sunny had a few dozen seconds, at most, before he would be forced to retreat into the shadows or die.

'Think… think… there has to be a way out. Hide inside the dead Mimic or the Covetous Coffer? No, the items inside the Memory maintain their weight, which means that they, too, will be affected by the Crushing. And even if not, what's the point? Even if the chest survives until the Twisted Rock itself is torn apart and plunges down into the Sky Below, I'll just be falling forever inside of a box instead of on my own… that's like dying inside of a coffin…'

And the Twisted Rock was going to be destroyed by the Crushing, inevitably and without a doubt. As it rose higher and higher, it was going to start to fall apart. When enough of it was destroyed to obliterate the mysterious force that kept the isles afloat, the remaining debris was going to fall down and eventually disappear into the Sky Below.

…Alongside what was going to remain of Sunny.

He lay motionlessly for a few seconds, then for a few seconds more. Another crack appeared on the corpse of the Mordant Mimic. Then, the stone beneath it cracked, too.

Sunny did not move at all.

The cracks on the stone widened and crawled in every direction.

A few moments later, a heavy sigh escaped from his lips.

Sunny had one last gamble left…

Gathering all of his strength, he groaned and pushed himself off the ground. Even though it felt as if he was lifting a mountain, and every muscle in his body trembled at the edge of bursting apart, he somehow managed to sit up.

Then, Sunny summoned Weaver's Mask.

After returning from the Forgotten Shore and deciding to create a separate persona to investigate the Sovereigns, as well as do all the things that Sunny didn't want to be associated with his name — the one which would then accidentally become known as the famous Lord Mongrel — he had decided to never use any of the equipment that it wielded if there was even the smallest chance of someone connecting him to the mysterious masked man.

But he had little choice right now.

His last hope was… fate. He knew that something had drawn him to the Twisted Rock, even though in the end he failed to find it. In the past, his intuition only reacted that strongly to the things that were connected to the gods, the Unknown… and Weaver. So, there was a high chance that Weaver's Mask would show him the way to salvation.

As the cool black wood caressed his kin, Sunny forced air into his lungs… and sent his shadow essence toward the mask.

He was going to do something that he dreaded doing for many months…

Activate the mysterious [???] enchantment of the divine Memory.

When the power of his soul poured into the Weaver's Mask, Sunny froze for a moment…

And then let out a horrible, inhuman scream.

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  Merow
  
  Merow 15 Sep 2022, 05:53 ➥ Harris10
  
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  Is this next chapter, or fanfiction?
  
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    Bloodbath
    
    Bloodbath 15 Sep 2022, 06:12 ➥ Merow
    
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    Ranobes are usually a chapter or 2 behind to other sites best example is panda novels.
    
    If you remember a month or 2 ago ranobes didn't update a single chapter for like 10 days (the arc they had to epic battle to leave the nightmare world) so one dude in comments literally every day was uploading a chapter.
    
    To state I didn't read Harris comment but usually they are advance chapters
    
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    Harris10
    
    Harris10 15 Sep 2022, 07:20 ➥ Merow
    
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    It’s the next chapter
    
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Rorolegros

Rorolegros 14 Sep 2022, 18:35

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Damn he can't get no rest LUL

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maxlimot

maxlimot 14 Sep 2022, 16:22

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Sunny's expression>

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Jubayer Siam

Jubayer Siam 14 Sep 2022, 16:01

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Time to drift afar

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Guru

Guru 14 Sep 2022, 15:00

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Greed finally caught up. I warned you Sunny!

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Yunus159

Yunus159 14 Sep 2022, 14:17

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Lmao Sunless really is unlucky damnn hahaha

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Chapter 428: Covetous Coffer | Shadow Slave

Comments 72

Chapter 428: Covetous Coffer
Shadow Slave