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Chapter 566: Lmprisoned

Sunny looked at the runes. Their eerie glow was swiftly growing brighter and brighter, drowning the chamber in a ghostly light. Slowly, a deep frown appeared on his face.

Then, suddenly, his eyes widened.

"Crap!"

But it was already too late. The runes shimmered, and in the next moment, he felt his reserve of shadow essence plunging. It was as though something was draining the essence out of his soul with terrifying speed.

At the same time, the range of shadow essence diminished even further, becoming limited by the size of the cage. The gloomy shadow recoiled, trying to get away from the shining runes.

Sunny hurriedly tried to summon the Cruel Sight, but he was a second too slow. Before the spear could form itself from the sparks of light, his essence ran dry, and it disintegrated before assuming a physical form.

"…Damnation!"

He looked helplessly at the bars of the cage and clenched his fists.

This was indeed a jail cell built to contain Awakened. Without shadow essence, he wouldn't be able to use Shadow Step to escape. More than that, he couldn't summon Memories anymore — manifesting them into reality demanded essence, as well, even if it was a tiny amount.

The same went for Echoes… and even Shadows.

He also felt weak, and was only going to grow weaker in the coming hours — without essence circulating through his body, Sunny's strength was vastly diminished.

…Whoever created this damned cage really knew what they were doing.

With a resentful snarl, Sunny turned around and allowed himself to slide down to the center of the dome, where Cassie stood with a lost expression on her pale, delicate face.

Raising one hand awkwardly, she tentatively moved it through the air around her and whispered:

"…I am blind again."

Sunny frowned, stared at her for a moment, and then turned away.

"You were always blind."

Of course, he knew what Cassie meant — without soul essence, the Aspect Ability that allowed her to perceive the world from several seconds in the future was gone, too. It wasn't exactly sight, but something that had replaced being able to see to her.

His words might have been cruel, but Sunny was not in the mood for pleasantries.

Being locked in a cage, powerless to escape… that was his worst nightmare.

And he had no one but himself to blame for ending up that way!

‘The source of this ᴄontent is .net.',

Turning away from the blind girl, Sunny sat down, lowered his head, and grabbed it with both hands.

‘Curse him…'

Suddenly, the cathedral shook again.

Cassie remained silent for a while, then said quietly:

"This must have been the Gateway. They… they really destroyed it."

Sunny closed his eyes.

"I guess you are right."

He heard her sitting down opposite him and wondered about the black altar that was now laying somewhere in the depths of the Citadel in pieces. Was the ivory knife destroyed, as well?

Had there even been a second knife, to begin with? Or was it just a lie Mordret had invented to lure him into the Night Temple?

What else had he lied about?

Sunny gritted his teeth, suppressing a groan. He felt scared, furious, and utterly humiliated.

He had been so careful not to trust the mysterious voice after hearing it for the first time. But Mordret had been so helpful, and had provided him with so much valuable information that proved to be true. Sunny was, most likely, only alive because of the lost prince's aid.

Even so, he had never lowered his guard. If there had been the smallest hint that Mordret wanted something from him, he would have suspected the worst. But the bastard was just too devious and cunning… terrifyingly so.

Mordret had played him like a fiddle…<sub></sub>

He had understood perfectly just how untrusting Sunny was, and went with the lightest of approaches. Knowing that any pressure would scare his paranoid mark off, Mordret had simply mentioned the ivory knife in passing and never spoke about it again… in fact, after the hook was in, he had never spoken to Sunny again.

Observing silently and waiting for his prey to come to him of its own volition…

Sunny shuddered.

‘Oh, gods… how much has he seen?'

He was willing to bet that there had never even been a need for Mordret to wait days between their conversations. All of it was just a part of an intricate web of lies and manipulation.

‘Fool! I am such a fool!'

How had he allowed himself to be fooled so completely?

A crazy smile suddenly appeared on Sunny's face, and he let out a stifled laugh.

‘,

Wasn't the answer obvious? Truth… his downfall was the truth! Like a masterful liar, Mordret had mixed just enough of it into his lies to make them believable.

"Oh, the irony…"

Cassie shifted slightly, and asked, her voice soft and cautious:

"Sunny? What exactly happened back there?"

He let out a bitter chuckle and answered in a dark tone:

"Why? Don't you know everything?"

The blind girl didn't answer, and after some more time passed, he sighed.

"…Sorry. It was me. I got us into this mess."

Sunny straightened and forced himself to calm down.

Dwelling on the past was not going to do them any good. The situation was bad, but not hopeless. The future was uncertain, and there would surely be a chance to turn everything around… he just needed to remain in control of himself and be ready to act when an opportunity presented itself.

Who said that Mordret was going to have the last laugh?

"Do you remember the mysterious Lost I told you about? The one who had taught me about the Seed, and the knives?"

Cassie nodded slowly.

Sunny lingered for a few moments, then shook his head.

"Well, as it turns out, he lured me into the Night Temple on purpose. He needed the piece of mirror I found a while back, for some reason. When Master Pierce saw it, all hell broke loose."

She remained silent for some time, and then asked:

"Do you think that this Lost is here, in the Night Temple?"

Sunny looked away. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded grim:

"I do. Actually… I think that this whole Citadel is a prison. A prison that was meant to contain a single creature. Him."

Cassie shivered and hugged her shoulders. A heavy silence settled between them.

After a while, she said:

"Maybe you are right. But, Sunny…"

Her voice trembled:

"…What kind of a being would require a hundred Awakened fighters, two Ascended knights, and a Saint to guard it?"

Sunny stared at her, not knowing what to say.

He had no idea.

Comments 17

  1. Offline
    SHADOW SOVEREIGN
    + 00 -
    Learn from this sunless
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  2. Offline
    Rakha Purnomo
    + 00 -
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  3. Offline
    Nigerian prince
    + 00 -
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  4. Offline
    Gerhman_Sparrow23
    + 61 -
    Well I thought inspection only meant something when its done outside the premises you want to protect. Seems like they are not bright enough to inspect items on people outside the citadel
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  5. Offline
    Mountain Fog
    + 50 -
    Not sure if his Soul Serpent needs shadow essence for tattoo summon, but imo it should be a very very small amount, if not zero. Maintaining the weapon/beast form should also be a super small amount. However, transforming seems like it'll use a bit more. So hopefully he can summon Soul Serpent and use Shadow Guide to flow shadow essence directly into the Soul Serpent, cause that's all I can think of right now.
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  6. Offline
    حمد
    + 43 -
    Chapter 568 Full Circle



    Chapter 569 On The Seventh Day



    Chapter 570 Thirst

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  7. Offline
    Om3ga Opiness😎
    + 51 -
    The chapter posted was a bit of a mess so I fixed it ...enjoy!
    Chapter 569 : On The Seventh Day
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    1. Offline
      Predominant smell
      + 10 -
      Bro how do you do the spoiler tag

      Bro how do you do the spoiler tag
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      1. Offline
        Om3ga Opiness😎
        + 40 -
        Just select the spoiler tag,the one with the three lines and dots underneath them and paste the text between the brackets of the spoiler text that appears
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  8. Offline
    Liminagenesis
    + 41 -
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    1. Offline
      Liminagenesis
      + 31 -
      Hmm. I took a lot of screenshots and used google image to copy the text. A lot of punctuation is left out, so it is extremely wonky. I will try to fix that. Sorry for the inconvenience. My device just doesn't let me copy from Pandanovel.

      Aight, try this:

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    2. Offline
      Predominant smell
      + 00 -
      How do you do the spoiler stuff,i can copy from pandanovel but I don’t know how to do then spoiler stuff
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      1. Offline
        Ovisionik
        + 11 -
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  9. Offline
    Predominant smell
    + 61 -
    C568 Full Circle


    He sat back down, waited for a while, and then turned to Cassie:

    "Did you take a look at her Attributes?"

    She sat down, too, and sighed.

    "Yes. Her, the four Lost with her. Sir Pierce, too. I also saw the name and Rank of their Aspects."

    Sunny frowned.

    "What? Since when can you read Aspects, too?"

    The blind girl shrugged.

    "Since my Awakening."

    He stared at her for a bit.

    'What a useful Ability…'

    In worse news, if she had not known some of his secrets before, she surely knew them now.

    '...How infuriating.'

    Sunny grimaced, lingered for a bit, and then said:

    "Good. Chances are, we'll need that information before all of this is over."

    He didn't press her for answers yet, since there was a lot he had to think about.

    Some more time passed with both of them remaining silent. After a while, the door of the chamber opened once more, and the familiar four Lost entered. The one with a bandaged head was carrying a tray of food and a waterskin.

    He studied them for a few moments, a cold expression on his handsome face, and then threw the food and the waterskin through the iron bars without approaching the cage.

    Sunny suppressed his anger and opened his mouth, assuming the persona of a cowardly researcher:

    "Hey! Sir… uh… sir Awakened! Can you tell us what is going on? Please, we don't even know what is wrong!"

    The sentinel glanced at him darkly and spat in a commanding tone:

    "Silence!"

    His voice was clear and strong, full of arrogant confidence… and deep animosity toward the two of them.

    Without saying another word, the Lost left, once again locking the door behind them.

    Sunny remained motionless for a few moments, then slowly lowered his gaze and glanced at the food that rolled down the slope of the dome to his feet.

    Then, suddenly, he threw his head back and laughed loudly.


    "Oh… oh, gods! Never thought I'll be eating this crap again…"

    Right in front of him, reflecting the blue glow of the runes, two colorless tubes of synthpaste were lying on the floor.

    He knew their shape all too well.

    ***

    They had a late supper, which consisted of a synthetic paste that had the consistency of mud and tasted about the same. Still, this vile invention was cheap to produce and supposed to contain all the nutrients one needed to — barely — survive.

    Sunny had not missed the damned sludge at all.

    In the outskirts, the easiest food to get was called a "universal ration pack"... or simply a rat pack. It contained a tube of synthpaste, a cheap water filter, and several dry, tasteless crackers. This was what he mostly ate before becoming an Awakened, so now, Sunny felt as though his life had come full circle.

    Such irony...

    After a while, tired and weak without the essence sustaining their bodies, they decided to sleep.

    The flat space in the center of the cage was so small that Sunny and Cassie had to settle with their backs against each other. With nothing but two layers of thin fabric separating their skin, Sunny could feel the heartbeat reverberating through her lithe body.

    ...The cage was cold and chilly, but at least his back was warm.

    They lay in silence for a while, trying to fall asleep.

    Before they did, however, Cassie suddenly spoke:

    "Sunny…"

    Her voice was quiet and hesitant.

    "How… how is she doing? Do you know?"

    He kept his eyes closed and remained silent for a few moments, then said with no particular emotion:

    "She is doing great. She is a devil already. Now stop bothering me."

    Cassie sighed, and didn't say anything else.

    …In the middle of the night — if it was night outside — he suddenly woke up, disturbed by a sudden change in her breathing. Through the thin fabric of their clothes, he could feel the blind girl's body tense up, her breathing rugged and uneven.

    Sunny hesitated, then turned around and looked at Cassie.

    In the pale glow of the runes, her delicate face seemed white and bloodless. It was contorted in a tortured grimace, with beads of sweat appearing on her forehead. Her eyes were moving hectically behind the eyelids.

    He lingered, not knowing what to do.

    It was obvious that Cassie was having a vision, and that like most of her visions, this one was painful and terrifying. Was he supposed to wake her up? Or would it do more harm than good?


    Before he could decide, she suddenly sat up with a stifled yelp. Her chest was rising and falling wildly, and there was a panicked expression on her face.

    The blind girl raised her hands and tried to feel her surroundings, clearly not quite remembering where she was.

    Sunny caught one of them, making Cassie flinch, and said darkly:

    "Take a hold of yourself, damn it. You're in a cage in Night Temple. Stop thrashing around."

    She froze, surrendering to his iron grip. After a while, Cassie took a deep breath and said weakly:

    "...I'm alright."

    He let her go, picked up the mostly empty waterskin, and put it onto her hand.

    The blind girl drank the last of their water and closed her eyes, her breathing slowly returning to normal.

    Sunny waited for a minute, and then asked in a gloomy tone:

    "Another vision?"

    She silently nodded.

    A dark grin appeared on his face.

    "What? Did we die again?"

    Cassie shook her head, then opened her eyes and frowned.

    "No… no, this time I saw someone else."

    She put the waterskin on the floor, hugged her knees, and spoke again, her voice still tense, but now much calmer:

    "It was one of the Lost — the man with grey eyes who advised Lady Welthe. He was in front of a large crucible, throwing shards of broken mirrors into the fire. There were thousands of them, all reflecting his image. Only… at some point, one of the reflections stopped."

    She shivered.

    "The Lost stopped, too, and stared at the motionless reflection, his eyes full of utter terror. It was as though he was paralyzed by fear. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out of his mouth. After that, he didn't move anymore… but the reflection finally did. It raised its head, and… and smiled."

    Cassie grew silent, and then added, her voice trembling:

    "That smile filled me with so much dread that all I could think about was to run away. But I couldn't. That… that was when I woke up."

    Sunny looked at her for a while, thinking. His face was cold and grim.

    It wasn't hard to understand what the vision was about. Mordret's Aspect was somehow tied to mirrors, after all… but what did it all mean? What were his powers, exactly?

    He sighed and turned away.

    "It's fine. You did well. Go back to sleep, if you can."

    She listened to him and slowly lay down. However, Sunny could tell by her breathing that the blind girl was wide awake.

    He couldn't sleep, too.

    …In the morning, the door of their cell opened, and the same group of Lost brought them more food.

    Only, this time, there were only three of them.

    The man with grey eyes was nowhere to be seen.

    SHADOW SLAVE
    C569 On The Seventh Day


    The three Lost seemed to be in a better shape than they had been the day before — their armor was cleaned, and their wounds were properly tended to. However, somehow, they looked worse to wear. Their faces were paler, their movements were full of tension, and there was a strange darkness hiding in their eyes.

    Only the sentinel who had spoken to Sunny before was the same. If anything, his cold resolve seemed to have grown stronger… as did his silent hostility. Without saying a word, he threw the tubes of syntpaste into the cage, then pointed at the waterskin laying on the floor near Cassie.

    Sunny tossed the empty waterskin out, and received a new one in return.

    "Sir! Can you please tell us what is going on? Where is your, uh... fourth friend? Did something happen?"

    The sentinel stared at him with a heavy, grim expression. When he answered, his voice was steady and even:

    "Don't speak unless spoken to."

    With that, the Lost left. The door of the cell locked with a loud click, the flame of the oil lamp trembled, and everything became silent once again.

    Sunny sighed.

    "...What an unfriendly fellow."

    Just like that, their imprisonment started.

    There were no windows in the stone chamber, so it was almost impossible to track the passage of time. Their only hint was the appearance of the three Lost, who brought them food and water once every day, and sometimes changed the oil in the lantern.

    Sunny and Cassie spent the first few days in silence and tense, grim anticipation. They slept back to back, sharing the heat of their bodies to overcome the chilling cold of the prison cell, and suffered through the daytime without speaking to each other unless absolutely necessary. Both were waiting for something disastrous to happen.

    However, nothing did.

    The Night Temple had not shaken again, and nothing came through the heavy door to either set them free or destroy them. Neither Master Welthe nor Master Pierce had visited the enchanted chamber, as well, as if Sunny and Cassie were completely forgotten. The stone cell was silent and unchanging.


    However, they could still tell that something sinister and dire was going on outside. The evidence was in how the three Lost that brought them food — their only connection to the rest of the world — looked and behaved.

    With each day, two of them seemed more and more frightened, while the third grew increasingly cold and grim. No matter how much Sunny tried to get the sentinel to speak, the arrogant warrior refused to tell him anything, and only glared at the prisoners through the iron bars of the cage, his eyes full of ire.

    Their actions changed, too. If before all three used to look at Sunny and Cassie while delivering the food, now only the sentinel did. The other two stood facing the door, their weapons drawn.

    …Sometimes, their hands were trembling.

    Realizing that nothing was going to change any time soon, Sunny had to reluctantly change his behavior. He shared everything he knew about Mordret with Cassie, and learned everything she remembered about the Night Temple in return. With nothing else to do but teach each other, they went over every little detail many times over… only to end up with nothing.

    No new clues, no deeper understanding, not even a good guess or two. It was simply a dead end.

    For now…

    On the seventh day, the three Lost arrived as usual. The sentinel walked forward and threw the tubes of synthpaste into the cage, while the other two assumed defensive positions behind his back. Their eyes seemed dark and hollow.

    However, before Sunny could toss the empty waterskin outside, a chilling scream suddenly resounded in the corridor outside the door. A long, drowning shriek echoed from the cold stones, full of torment and indescribable agony.

    How could a human throat produce such a sound?

    The Lost tensed and gripped their weapons, one of them taking an involuntary step back.

    The sentinel snarled and pushed the man in the back.

    "Get a hold of yourself, cowards! Remember your duty!"

    With that, he threw the waterskin to Sunny and rushed outside, a slender sword appearing in his hand from a whirlpool of dancing sparks of light. The others gritted their teeth and followed, shutting the door behind them.

    The flame of the oil lamp trembled.


    …On the next day, when the door opened again, only two Lost walked through it.

    ***

    One of the surviving Lost looked like a walking corpse. There were no wounds on his body, but his eyes were dull and glassy. He glanced at Sunny and Cassie lifelessly, then turned around and raised his weapon, staring at the open door with tired dread.

    p Even the arrogant sentinel seemed a bit… diminished. His handsome face was still cold and resolute, but there was a slight weakness to how his shoulders were set, and a slight uncertainty to his movements.

    He tossed the tubes of synthpaste and the water inside the cage, not even waiting for Sunny to return the other two waterskins. Sunny wanted to try to get the Lost to speak to him again, as usual, but then thought better of it.

    There was a sharp edge in the man's eyes that made the idea of pushing him even a little seem too dangerous.

    The two Lost left, leaving the prisoners alone again.

    Sunny stared at the door and the orange flame of the oil lamp dancing beside it for a few minutes, then shivered and turned away.

    Their jailers returned several more times. With each day, they looked more disheveled and exhausted, the darkness in their eyes growing deeper and deeper. A few times, Sunny could hear strange, disturbing sounds coming from the corridor, but the two Lost did not seem to react to them at all.

    A week later, the food did not arrive for an especially long time. Sunny glared gloomily at the door, feeling pangs of hunger torment his empty stomach. One tube of synthpaste a day was not nearly enough to satiate him, so he was always hungry… just like he had been in the past, living on the streets in the outskirts.

    Hours passed, but the two Lost were nowhere to be seen.

    'Where the hell are they...'

    Then, something suddenly crashed into the door from the outside with a loud bang. A bit of dust fell from the ceiling, and then, everything became silent once more.

    Sunny remained motionless for a few moments, then slowly looked down.

    Something was flowing from beneath the door, streaming down the slope of the dome toward the cage. In the dim orange glow of the oil lantern, the liquid seemed almost black.

    But he knew its smell too well…

    Blood. It was human blood.

    …After that day, no one came to feed them anymore.
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  10. Offline
    Essential2
    + 210 -
    Yes, they know they need to keep the mirror out it seems but do the inspection inside were it would apparently be 2 late. Real smart of them.
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