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Chapter 1558: First Thread
Shadow Slave

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Comments 78

  1. Offline
    Guru
    + 7 ⋅ 10 -
    Yeah yeah yeah sunny, cassie is a god at this point, just accept and drag your ass to do what she wants you to
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  2. Offline
    Foggy
    + 28 ⋅ 0 -
    I have to say… I gave this novel far less credit than it is worth. Dayumm
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  3. Offline
    yumtumtum
    + 0 ⋅ 0 -
    sunny probably needs to wish to to pass the nightmare, otherwise the cycle will continue
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    1. Offline
      Dummybaron
      + 4 ⋅ 0 -
      He can't, because there is no well of wishes. Cassie said "It might not be true for anyone else. But it's true for you, Sunny. If you reach the Estuary… your wish to be free will come true. Free of your bond, free to live your life the way you want. Free of fate itself.". Wich means THE ONLY WISH that can come true IS WISH TO BECOME FREE.
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  4. Offline
    ZEXOS
    + 21 ⋅ 0 -
    1565. Traversing the Mist


    Ananke's ketch was floating through a world of mist. The thick fog surrounded it from all sides, suffused with somber twilight. All sounds seemed both muffled and exaggerated, echoing across the vast expanse of shrouded water. Sunny could not see very far. Even his shadow sense was dulled by the mystical mist.

    It was a familiar sight.

    'Indeed... I've been here already.'

    This was the exact same place where Sunny had found himself at the start of the Nightmare.

    The Source.

    Here, covered by mist, the Great River flowed into itself, and the past turned into the future. He could not feel the current anymore, but it was still there, strangely jumbled and disjointed. The ketch was moving, yet Sunny could not tell in what direction it was being carried.

    If he allowed himself to be pulled by the invisible current and reached the edges of the Source... he would be sent back to the day he had entered the Tomb of Ariel, as well as to the point upstream where the person whose role he took had been at that time.

    'No... I can't allow that to happen.'

    Sunny did not know if he could endure another cycle of the Great River. Much more importantly, the Six Plagues — and the Mad Prince — had broken the rules of time, somehow, and invaded a cycle they were not meant to exist in.

    He did not know if their existence had become a part of the Great River by now, or if their heretical presence would be erased should a new cycle start. If it was the latter, then all the effort the Mad Prince and Torment had put into ensuring that all members of the cohort survived until the end of the Nightmare would be for naught.

    More than that... that end was so close. Nephis would be reaching Verge soon, armed with the means of destroying the First Seeker. Sunny desperately did not want to live through the horrors of the Tomb of Ariel one more time, especially since the result would be hanging in a fragile balance.

    No, he could not allow himself to get lost in the mist and miss his opportunity to enter the Estuary.

    Because there, at the heart of the great pyramid, lay the key to his shackles. His chance to gain freedom.

    Luckily, Cassie had made sure that he would have everything he needed to accomplish that goal.

    He had the Guiding Light to lead him to the entrance of the Estuary. He had the Mirror of Truth to resist the Defilement once he entered it.

    And he had the Sin of Solace, which had made it all possible.

    Speaking of the sword wraith, as soon as the mist surrounded him, the bastard had disappeared somewhere. He must not have been in the mood to talk, or simply unable to manifest within the Source. Either way, Sunny did not miss the company of the loathsome apparition at all.

    'Stay away for as long as you want...'

    Picking up the Guiding Light, Sunny studied the radiant crystal that was supposed to show him the way.

    Its light was behaving... strangely.

    It pointed in a certain direction, but after a few minutes of sailing through the mist, the light would suddenly change, pointing in an entirely different direction. That repeated over and over again, with the radiance of the sacred relic jumping around and shifting chaotically.

    It was as though the entrance to the Estuary was constantly moving. 'No... it's not moving. I am.'

    Sunny knew that it was true. The Estuary was stationary, but space itself was unreliable in the Source. It was Sunny who was being thrown around without any order, moving a few meters to one side only to find himself several kilometers to the other.

    It was no wonder that the Seekers of Truth, despite all their might and knowledge, had failed to discover the Estuary before Aletheia of the Nine showed up.

    The mysterious sorceress had even constructed her island in the image of the Great River, going so far as to create her own time loop, and her own sea of mist. Had it all been in order to learn how to navigate the Source?

    Sunny did not know, but he suspected that she had not succeeded in finding the Estuary by accident.

    How tragic it was, then, that all Aletheia had found there was her own doom... unless that was exactly what she had been searching for, of course.

    Who knew what goals the Nine had pursued?

    In any case, Sunny was not someone capable of raising a flying island in the middle of a mystical whirlpool and taming the time to make it flow endlessly in a circle. Therefore, he would have never been able to find the Estuary without the Guiding Light.

    Was it how he had found it the first time, as well? Or had his versions from the previous cycles come up with their own solutions?

    There was no point in guessing. Using the sacred relic of the sybils to illuminate the way, Sunny allowed the ketch to sail forward, moving the steering oar in accordance with where the radiance was pointing.

    There were no Nightmare Creatures in the Source, no danger... except for the danger that the Source itself presented. So, traveling through the somber mist almost felt peaceful.

    Sunny quickly lost his perception of time, so he did not even know how long he had been traversing the fog. It could have been an hour, a day, or an eternity... well, maybe not an eternity. Nephis would have obliterated the First Seeker long before that.

    Still, he had to be getting closer.

    'I wonder what Aletheia found in the Estuary.'

    He wondered what the Mad Prince had found there, as well.

    What secrets had Ariel hidden in the heart of his pyramid? What was the hideous truth he couldn't bear? Why had he hidden it all the way before time, away from the gazes of the gods?

    One way or another, Sunny was going to find out. And break the chains of fate that bound him tightly in the process.

    Just as he had always wished.

    He was growing tired of the dancing radiance of the Guiding Light. His hand was growing numb as it held the steering oar of Ananke's ketch. Time... was flowing.

    And then, finally, Sunny felt it.

    The same thing he had felt before being expelled from the Source the first time.

    He thought that he saw two tall pillars protruding from the mist far ahead, and then, the invisible current suddenly turned violent and turbulent.

    There was the sound of roaring water, similar to what the waterfalls of the Edge sounded like, and he felt the ketch being pulled forward at incredible speed.

    Then, there was a sense of weightlessness. And then, only darkness remained.
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    1. Offline
      ZEXOS
      + 16 ⋅ 0 -
      1566. The Estuary


      There was the sound of wind whistling in Sunny's ears. He was falling.

      Flying through a sea of darkness, lost and disoriented, unsure of where he was.

      'The... Estuary...'

      The wind howled louder, and Sunny felt his body plummeting through it at terrible speed.

      Belatedly, he remembered the need to summon the Dark Wing and slow down his fall.

      Or summon the shadows and turn himself into a monstrous butterfly. Or even a crow...

      But it was too late for what.

      Dazed, he caught a glimpse of an enormous black edifice swiftly approaching him from the darkness. It was like a rough, irregularly shaped, giant sphere of black stone that hovered in the void, eternal and indestructible. Strange mountains rose from its surface, hollow on the inside...

      It looked like a giant stone heart. Perhaps it was.

      A moment later, Sunny saw Ananke's ketch collide against the surface of the sphere below him and shatter, fragments of wood flying to all sides.

      There was no time to slow down his fall.

      Gritting his teeth, Sunny looked at the swiftly approaching surface of the back stone. The moment his body would have been broken against it, he activated Shadow Step and dove into the shadows, instead, submerging deep into their dark embrace.

      Hidden there, safe, he remained motionless for a while.

      'I... made it?'

      Sunny tried to calm down his feverish mind and moved up, returning to the surface.

      Emerging from the shadows, he stepped on the surface of the weathered stone and instantly fell, feeling gravity pulling him down.

      He was on a steep slope.

      Sunny slid down that slope, surrounded by the fragments of broken wood. Despite the sharp rocks tearing at his skin, he did not allow himself to cry out in pain. Instead, he gritted his teeth, wrapped the surrounding shadows around his hand, and turned it into the clawed hand of a shadowspawn.

      Twisting, Sunny struck the slope with his claws. They failed to penetrate the rugged black surface, sending sparks flying into the air — however, the friction alone slowed him down.

      Eventually, Sunny came to a halt at the very edge of an abyssal drop, his feet dangling above an empty black void. The pieces of Ananke's ketch spilled into that void, disappearing in the darkness.

      He remained laying for a few moments, catching his breath, then tried to access his surroundings.

      There was no light in the world. He was surrounded by darkness, with only the weathered surface of black stone separating him from the abyss. The sound of roaring water came from somewhere far, far below, turning into a barely audible whisper.

      It came from above him, too, and from all sides.

      The whispers assaulted his mind, making him dizzy.

      Sunny grimaced, then cautiously stood up, struggling to keep his balance on the steep slope. Finally, he looked around.

      'So... this is the Estuary.'

      The Estuary was supposed to be located in a place that existed before time, and therefore before the gods had been born. So... that place was supposed to be the Void.

      But either the Spell was unable to replicate the true Void, or unwilling to. Perhaps the Estuary was isolated from it, somehow. In any case, all Sunny could see was darkness and the surface of the vast sphere of black stone under his feet.

      His expression was somber. 'No time to waste.'

      Leaning forward, he arduously climbed back up the slope, eventually reaching its middle point — that was where he had first fallen. Without stopping to rest, Sunny continued to climb.

      'Cassie said... that I need to get to the very heart of the Estuary. This means that I probably need to somehow climb inside the sphere.'

      Remembering the strange hollow mountains, which resembled torn aortae, he continued to ascend the slope.

      Eventually, Sunny crested the top of what seemed like a tall hill, and looked down.

      He froze, shaken by what he saw.

      His eyes widened, full of shock and fear.

      'N—no... how can this be?'

      In front of him, nestled between several immense outcroppings of black stone, was a vast valley. And on the floor of that valley, shrouded by darkness... lay the remains of countless broken ships.

      It was a vast ship graveyard.

      The harrowing thing about it, though, was that each of these ships looked familiar.

      They were all the Chain Breaker.

      There, in front of him, thousands of Chain Breaker lay on the black stone, broken and destroyed. Although each was destroyed in a unique manner, shattered by a terrible impact, most of them were exactly the same. Some were a little different, seemingly modified before turning into a forlorn wreck.

      The shape of their rams was slightly different. The tattered sails were painted in different colors. The trees growing around the central mast of these ships were dead and twisted, devoid of all life.

      Some of the trees, though, looked perfectly healthy and alluring, countless succulent fruits weighing their branches down.

      Shuddering, Sunny decided to keep as far away from those wrecks as possible.

      There were countless broken ships in front of him — thousands of them. And it was just in that one valley.

      They weren't the wrecks of an entire fleet of similar vessels. Instead, they were the same vessel, destroyed countless times.

      Suddenly covered in cold sweat, Sunny felt his sense of reality shaking. 'What... that does it mean?'

      He shuddered, then began to descend into the valley. As he did, he noticed more wood fragments among the shattered ships.

      They were all the remains of Ananke's ketch, piled in tall hills. He just... he did not understand.

      'How is this possible?'

      As Sunny felt unsure of his sanity, a derisive laughter suddenly resounded from behind him.

      Turning swiftly, he looked into the darkness with wide eyes. But it was just the Sin of Solace.

      The sword wraith... looked more substantial, somehow. Walking out of the darkness, he looked at Sunny with contempt and smiled viciously:

      "What? Did you think that you were the first one to make it this far? Did you think that this is the first time you betrayed your cohort and decided to seek freedom in the Estuary, instead?"

      The apparition scoffed and looked at the ship graveyard, his dark eyes burning with strange glee.

      "Fool. There were countless versions of you that had come this far. Betrayal after betrayal, repeated endlessly in countless cycles... truly, your treachery knows no bounds."
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      1. Offline
        Dummybaron
        + 4 ⋅ 0 -
        goosebumps... that is the only thing I can say
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      2. Offline
        Turnc4406
        + 4 ⋅ 0 -
        Well, I think we all saw something like that coming.
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      3. Offline
        Royalty Ducky
        + 2 ⋅ 0 -
        so its official that he is going to try and make a unexpected wish not freedom
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        1. Offline
          Dummybaron
          + 0 ⋅ 0 -
          He can't, because there is no well of wishes. Cassie said "It might not be true for anyone else. But it's true for you, Sunny. If you reach the Estuary… your wish to be free will come true. Free of your bond, free to live your life the way you want. Free of fate itself.". Wich means THE ONLY WISH that can come true IS WISH TO BECOME FREE.
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          1. Offline
            Eightsixtwo_
            + 3 ⋅ 0 -
            You may be misinterpreting it.
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      4. Offline
        ExeS
        + 2 ⋅ 0 -
        Well, as we expected, there are more than a thousand ships, and these are the only voyages that managed to get here.
        This means that the cycle is repeated many times more than the number of ships.We don't know two thousand, three thousand.
        The time spent here must be thousands of years.
        I hope this will be the last and Sunny learns from recent expeditions and acts accordingly.
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      5. Offline
        BlankDjinn
        + 2 ⋅ 0 -
        Thanks :) and damn the nightmare spell was being very accurate describing him as the treacherous lost from light!!! I can’t wait to see what he decides to do will he wish for freedom or something else I can’t wait!!!
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      6. Offline
        Cj.17
        + 0 ⋅ 0 -
        That's why our boy sunny will make a difference this time around. Although it took him almost forever
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      7. Offline
        cloudlight
        + 0 ⋅ 0 -
        the prestige!
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      8. Offline
        Rei-absolute
        + 0 ⋅ 0 -
        G3 genio
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  5. Offline
    ZAKI
    + 0 ⋅ 0 -
    Moim zdaniem to będzie tak że Cassie kłamała że kohorta da sobie rade bez Sunny z walka z pierwszym poszukiwaczem ponieważ gdy będzie chciał złamać cienista wieź to Nefis pomyśli ze Sunny nie żyje bądź już mu na niej nie zależy i zginie wtedy od pierwszego poszukiwacza. i wtedy cykl znowu od nowa nastąpi a z keczu Anake sunny (szalony książę) napisze ze "uważaj czego sobie życzysz".
    Ale według mnie będzie tak ze w ostatnim momencie Sunny powie ze chce przezwyciężyć ten koszmar i wróci do Nefisa i razem jako kohorta pokonają ten koszmar i dzięki temu Sunny nie złamie obietnicy złożonej Anake oraz jednej z dziewięciu bohaterce.
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  6. Offline
    ErectileReptile
    + 19 ⋅ 0 -
    Damn, final boss feelings. Sacred rank Oracle really showing how OP it is. Anyone realise that the Sin of Solace never lied. From the beginning it warned Sunny not to trust Cassie, that she could hear him and that he was being manipulated by her.
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  7. Offline
    Dummybaron
    + 2 ⋅ 2 -
    Ok I understand that people hate Cassie and why, but at this point idk really, like why everybody call Sunny dumb for his choise, how... just tell me how you imagining his dialog with cohort about choise he have, like: "Idk I can left you here alone to fight probably the strongest Defiled creature we ever met, for mine and Cassie's egoistic goal to break fate(basicaly betray you), or I can help you and we gonna be alright" wtf. And even if it's Cassie's manipulation lets wait till the end, If that thing can make Sunny FREE OF FATE then it sure can get rid of Shadow bond once and forever.
    Edit: imagine if goal of the Nightmare is reaching heart of Estuary.
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    1. Offline
      ㅤㅤㅤ
      + 7 ⋅ 0 -
      If the goal was to reach the estuary wasn't that where sunny first appeared in the nightmare thus already completing it, and the mad prince has already reached it also in the previous cycle so you're wrong
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      1. Offline
        Dummybaron
        + 3 ⋅ 0 -
        Oh yeah thx for reminding me, but I said you need to reach it heart where most Dreadfull truth about world lies. Anyway you are right, I'm probably wrong.
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    2. Offline
      Cj.17
      + 4 ⋅ 1 -
      The thing is we are just throwing guesses here and also it complicated. We are also giving reasons for why we thing sunny is being dumb or Cassie to be blamed.

      Literally mad prince already went in the heart of the estuary and he still become corrupted. Cassie argument now is just cuss torment was a part of this planning he won't become corrupted. Mad prince warns him to be careful of what he wishes for.

      Yes he has the right to want his freedom but at the same time look at the bigger picture and make logical conclusions.

      We know that what's hidden in there is so hideous that the deamon of truth himself chose oblivion so who is to say that even if it can break his shadow bond that it won't have an effect on him. Fate and truth could go hand in hand but I'm sure there is a catch here. If his desire to be free rules him, then it will just bring a bigger catastrophy.

      I'm sure another plot is coming so we should probably just sit tight and see what's to come.
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      1. Offline
        Dummybaron
        + 3 ⋅ 0 -
        Yeah that what I said, we need to wait till the end of this vol, and only then when we see whole story, we can argue about what really happened, and come to proper conclusion.
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  8. Offline
    Awybin
    + 2 ⋅ 0 -
    Scary
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  9. Offline
    ㅤㅤㅤ
    + 14 ⋅ 0 -
    1563 Terrors of the Past

    Sunny raced to the Source, afraid of the passage of time. It was ironic, really...

    Before the fateful conversation with Cassie, he had been tense and concerned about how the cohort would survive the battle for Verge. Now, however, he was concerned that they would destroy it too soon.

    He had been worried for Nephis, but now, he was wary of her.

    Changing Star seemed like something almost inevitable, now that his fate — or lack thereof — depended on how fierce and unrelenting her assault on the monstrous First Seeker would be.

    Human mind was funny that way. It was colored by what one desired, making the same thing appear entirely different depending on the circumstances.

    And so... Sunny needed to hurry.

    He guided the ketch, pushing the currents forward with the help of the Crown of Dawn. The graceful boat seemed to be gliding on the water, moving with incredible speed. The shore of Verge had long disappeared from view, and there was nothing in front of him except for the vast expanse of the Great River.

    The air itself felt different here, at the dawn of time. The waters were treacherous and full of peril. Now that Cassie wasn't with him, Sunny had no way of knowing where danger lurked. So, he remained as alert as possible, extending his shadow sense as far as he could.

    That caution saved his life on more than one occasion.

    The far reaches of the past, which corresponded to the very dawn of the Age of Gods, were not only full of bizarre and lethal hazards, but also of all kinds of harrowing Nightmare Creatures.

    This span of the Great River was just as dangerous as the far reaches of the future, where Sunny had faced the Azure Serpent, the Black Turtle, the Dark Butterfly, and the countless other abominations that had almost feasted on his flesh.

    There were Great Nightmare Creatures here, too, each of them vastly more powerful than Sunny was, despite all his growth. Most of them were faster than him, as well, and possessed senses that reached much further than his.

    So, Sunny was in constant danger. He couldn't even outrun these abominable monstrosities... but, luckily, there was one thing at which he was superior to most, if not all of them.

    It was flexibility, and being able to adapt to almost any situation.

    When some inconceivable being rose from the depths to pull him under the water and devour him, Sunny summoned the shadows and turned into a giant butterfly, carrying the ketch with his six long legs.

    When a terrifying abomination descended from the sky, he turned into the onyx serpent, hid the ketch in his maw, and sought safety in the depths.

    There were other forms he could shape himself into, as well, each helpful in its own way. Of course, maintaining the shell cost him a lot of essence, so, afraid to drain his reserves of it, Sunny mostly remained in the ketch, guiding it away from potential perils by hand.

    Still, on that first day alone, he almost lost his life a few times.

    There was a moment when the water under him suddenly boiled and moved at incredible speed, threatening to overturn the boat. Sunny instantly summoned Saint, using her weight to balance the ketch, but that was merely the start of the disaster.

    An enormous span of the Great River, as far as the eye could see, instantly turned into a furious vortex. The speed of the current was so terrible that the hull of the ketch almost splintered, bombarded by powerful waves. It was pulled sideways, sliding deeper and deeper into the whirlpool.

    Desperate to save himself and his vessel, Sunny opened the gate of the Shadow Lantern and called upon the shadows, forming the shell of the Dark Butterfly. His vast wings moved, throwing him into the air. His six legs grabbed onto the ketch, lifting it from the raging water.

    Luckily, he was fast enough.

    As Sunny rose high into the air, he was able to observe the cause of the catastrophic turbulence that had turned the current of the Great River into a death trap. When he did, his very soul shuddered.

    There was a colossal, inconceivable maw hidden beneath the waves, stretching from one horizon to another. The terrible whirlpool that had almost shattered the catch was caused by these titanic jaws opening and sucking in an immense plain of water.

    And entire span of the Great River disappeared into the harrowing maw of the underwater colossus, whose body mercifully remained unseen....

    Sunny fled into the sky, never looking back.

    At another time, he noticed the air far in the distance trembling, as if from heat.
    However, as Sunny drew closer, unable to avoid the strange area, he realized that there was no heat. The air was not trembling, either.

    Instead, there were fissures in the fabric of space itself above the current, hidden in the sunlight and almost invisible. If not for his intuition ringing alarms, Sunny might not have noticed the hidden fractures in the world at all.

    When he did notice them, however, and tried to glimpse what was hidden in the folds between the broken pieces of space, he saw millions of dark eyes looking back at him, full of hunger.

    The current was pulling the ketch right into the area of the River plagued by the fractured space.

    Horrified, Sunny assumed the form of the onyx serpent and dove into the depth, hoping to hide from the gaze of the hungry abyss that hid in the fissures. However, the space was broken beneath the waves, as well.

    Only there were no eyes there. Instead, hidden in the shattered space, there were countless corpses of dreadful Nightmare Creatures, all broken, twisted, and partially devoured.

    Diving deeper and deeper into the darkness, until the pressure was crushing enough to almost destroy the mighty shell of the sea serpent, Sunny escaped that horror, as well.

    But there were many more to come.
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    1. Offline
      ㅤㅤㅤ
      + 10 ⋅ 0 -
      1564 Returning to the Source

      Some time later, Sunny saw thin lines moving in the air. Drawing closer, he saw something that resembled spiderwebs blowing in the wind, frayed and torn.

      The only thing was that each string of the ghostly spiderweb was many kilometers long, and there were numerous such strings, moving between the sky and the surface of the Great River like tattered sails.

      Some of them were white, but as Sunny guided the ketch between the billowing strings, he stared to encounter more and more of them that were bright red. Eventually, it was as though he was traveling through a forest of red threads.

      Navigating between them was not easy, but he was reluctant to come close to any of the strings, or allow the wind to bring any of them closer.

      Eventually, Sunny witnessed something else. Out there in front of him, far in the distance, an immense depth dweller was weakly struggling against the current, its body enveloped by several dozen of the white spiderwebs. The creature's carapace seemed impregnable, but the strange strings did not seem to care. They simply grew through it, penetrating the leviathan's body.

      As they did, their color slowly started change from white to red, the redness spreading from the point of contact with the abomination's flesh along the length of the strings.

      Blood. They were drinking the leviathan's blood.Turning pale, Sunny gazed at the forest of vibrant red strings that surrounded him, stretching far into the sky, permeating a whole region. His fingers turned white on the steering oar of the ketch.

      He escaped that horror, as well.

      And many more like it, although not unscathed.

      Sometimes, Sunny had no choice but to fight, unleashing the full fury of the onyx serpent or his other shapes on the creatures that wanted to consume him. Some of them, he managed to kill... but most of them, he simply escaped after delivering several painful wounds.

      By the end of the day, Sunny was bloodied and exhausted. His essence was on the verge of running dry, too.

      But then the dusk came, and the Crown of Twilight replenished his dwindling reserves.

      After dusk came the night, though, and it was more beautiful, and more harrowing, than any other night Sunny had experienced in the Tomb of Ariel.

      By the end of it, he was barely alive. But he was alive, nevertheless.Sunny did not allow his blood to flow, and his bone refused to break. Even his soul, which had received a few deep wounds when he used Shadow Incarnation to form his shells, was potent enough to withstand the damage without falling apart.

      Saint, Fiend, and Nightmare were beaten and battered, but alive, as well.

      The ketch too survived. Even though there were new scars on its hull, one of its masts had cracked, its sails sporting signs of hasty repairs, Ananke's boat was still in one piece.

      Throughout all of this, Sunny had not said a single word, and had not even allowed himself a single groan.

      Pain was his old friend. He could withstand much more than that.

      'Well... maybe not that much more.

      'He was exhausted, both physically and mentally. If there was one good thing about the horrors of the dawn of time, though, it was that the necessity to constantly be alert and on edge made it completely impossible for him to consider the consequences of what he had done... the fallout of breaking his promisese, abandoning his friends, and leaving for the Estuary instead of fighting side by side with them in Verge.

      'I wonder what they are doing, now...

      'The scouting teams must have returned, by now. Nephis and the others had already learned of his absence. They must have even had enough time to digest it, to a degree, albeit not come to terms with it.

      They were most probably advancing toward Verge....

      Which meant that he did not have a lot of time left.

      'Where is it?

      Where is it?

      'He was trying to calculate how far he had traveled from the Defiled city,and how that distance translated to what they had seen from the black void. From up there, it almost seemed as though the wisps of mist shrouding the Source touched the walls of Verge.

      But from the surface of the Great River, the distance between the two was nothing short of vast.Still... Sunny had been moving fast, both aboard the ketch and when summoning his shells.

      By all accounts, he had to be getting close.

      He glanced at the Guiding Light, which pointed directly forward, and summoned what little was left of his patience.

      Finally, the night was over.

      The seven suns rose from beyond the horizon once again, chasing away the darkness. The waters of the Great River grew dim. A soft twilight enveloped the world, and with it, a flood of essence poured into Sunny's soul.

      He let out a relieved sigh, summoned the Dying Wish, and used what little charges were left in the charm to heal the most dire of his wounds.It was then that he saw it...

      A wisp of mist drifted past him, disappearing into the gloom of twilight.

      Feeling his heart skip a beat, Sunny spun and looked forward, trying to see what was hiding beyond the horizon.

      The horizon... was hazy. It also seemed to be drawing nearer with each moment.

      'This is it!'

      Both relieved and excited, Sunny called upon the waters of the Great River, making the current run faster. The ketch flew forward, drawing closer and closer to the wall of mist.Soon, it was surrounded by tendrils of thick fog. They flowed past the ketch, drifting above the waves. In front of him, the world turned somber and gloomy, rare rays of sunlight breaking through the veil of mist.

      Then, the mist obscured the sky entirely, making it seem as though nothing else existed in the world.Sunny found himself in familiar surroundings.

      After nearly a year of wandering the dreadful expanse of the Tomb of Ariel...

      He had finally returned to the Source.
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  10. Offline
    Nyfeirg
    + 8 ⋅ 0 -
    The worst is the scheme is still going on...
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