SHADOW SLAVE

Chapter 3065 Worst Place for a Shadow to Be

Saint landed lightly and gracefully, like a leaf carried by the wind. Neph's landing, however, had been quite violent, sending a net of fractures radiating outward through the weathered, dark stones beneath them. Once the dust settled, the world was enveloped by silence. The boundless darkness surrounded them from all sides, and even if Sunny could sense its currents and peer into its depths through Saint's, he still could not determine how vast the space around them was.

There was a stone surface under their feet, rough and uneven. Some distance away, jagged rocks protruded from it, basking in the endless darkness — beyond the rocks, something resembling a ruin loomed at the edge of Saint's perception, barely visible in the dark.

The sphere of light emanated by Nephis was still under assault, the crushing weight of elemental darkness bearing down on it with unrelenting force, but it did not shrink anymore. In fact, when Nephis focused and defied the pressure exerted upon her by the Underworld, the darkness retreated a bit, chased a hundred more meters away.

A radiant light illuminated the dark expanse of the Underworld for the first time in thousands of years — or simply for the first time, possibly — revealing a desolate vista. The three of them observed their surroundings, wary and on edge.

A minute passed in tense silence, then a few minutes more.

Finally, Sunny exhaled slowly.

“I don't think that the Dark One is going to attack immediately."

The Creature of Darkness seemed to have retreated, even if Sunny still felt like he was being observed. That feeling had grown weaker and was now barely perceptible — but it was still unnerving.

Nephis nodded slowly.

"Seems so."

She lingered for a few seconds and then added:

"If it is going to attack at all.”

Sunny was surprised to hear that.

“When has there ever been an instance when a detestable horror failed to try and attack us?"

But then, he caught himself.

"Oh. Right."

Sunny was used to dealing with Nightmare Creatures, who were all vessels of Corruption. As such, they were in a state of inherent conflict with the world around them, suffering a constant agony and driven mad by the desire to destroy and consume the Flame. That was why abominations were unfailingly aggressive and uncontrollably hostile toward humans.

However, what they were dealing with here was a Creature of Darkness. True darkness might have been born from the blood of a Void Being, but it was not a force of Corruption in and of itself — instead, it was uniquely unaligned, belonging neither to the Void nor to the Flame. Therefore, preconceived notions built upon his experience with Nightmare Creatures could not be applied to it.

‘How peculiar.'

Although the Creature of Darkness had attacked them, it was not inherently a hostile force. The reality of facing an abomination that was not hellbent on killing him for no reason whatsoever was a new and deeply strange experience.

It was an unfamiliar feeling.

Sunny scoffed quietly.

"So why did it attack us in the first place?"

He wasn't accustomed to asking such questions, so even speaking those words aloud felt weird.

Nephis lingered for a moment, then shrugged.

"The Creatures of Darkness you encountered before were feeding on shadows... so it might have attacked us because she sensed a Supreme shadow among us — a tasty snack, so to say..."

A mischievous smile found its way onto Sunny's face.

"Oh, so you think that I'm tasty, huh?"

Nephis glanced at him silently for a few seconds, then continued in the same even tone:

"Alternatively, it might have been hostile because of me. The Underworld is a land of darkness — the being hiding in it might have been provoked by the invasion of light into this dark realm."

Finally, she shook her head.

"There is no way to tell until we learn more about that thing... and about this place, as well."

She had been to the Underworld before, but only to its lowest, desolate reaches. The Underworld she knew was from thousands of years ago, too — who knew how it had changed in the wake of the world-ending war between its ruler and the gods?

Nephis did know a few things about it, though.

Looking around, she spoke quietly:

“We are currently at the base of the hollow mountain, on the boundary between the upper and middle strata of the Underworld. This cavern is technically already a part of the core expanse of Nether's realm... however, the Underworld is not one gigantic subterranean space. It is composed of countless interconnected caverns, some relatively small, some as large as underground continents."

Sunny nodded. The Hollow Mountains were vast — a long time ago, it had taken him more than a year to cross them. And he had been moving from south to north, as well, while the titanic mountain chain mainly stretched from east to west. So, a realm hidden beneath them had to be immense.

Nephis hesitated for a moment, and then added:

“Since this mountain had an established path to the surface world, there should have been a small settlement of the Stone Saints somewhere in this cavern. We can start our search there."

Sunny's expression was glum.

“But there's a problem, isn't there?"

He shook his head.

“The entrance we chose is situated in the outer reaches of the Hollow Mountains and is relatively easy to access. So, it was a good candidate for the one your father and his cohort had chosen to enter the Underworld. However... as Saints, they would not have survived the battle against that Creature of Darkness. In fact, after spending just a few minutes in the Underworld, I am not sure how they had survived that journey at all."

Nephis smiled faintly.

“As Saints, they would not have been as arrogant as we are. They probably used a different entrance and relied on caution and stealth to travel toward the Seed. My father was a resourceful man, and his companions were all exceptional in their own right as well. The King of Swords, the Queen of Worms... and the Dreamspawn. Now that we have defeated them, the shadows they cast do not seem so frightening. But in their own time, they were the strongest champions of humanity."

Sunny scratched the back of his head.

‘Yeah... and they weren't Fated, either.'

Who knew? Possibly, it was just his luck to stumble into an ancient horror of true darkness immediately after entering the Underworld.

He sighed.

“The problem still stands — if the Underworld is so huge, then how are we going to find what we are looking for?"

It was a rhetorical question. In truth, Sunny already knew that their course of action had to be.

The Underworld might have been impossibly vast, but the Stone Saints had never been a populous people. Their settlements were small and far between — except for the main city hidden in the heart of the Underworld, where Nether himself had dwelled.

And since Seeds of Nightmare mostly bloomed where sentient creatures congregated, the best chance of discovering traces of Broken Sword was to slowly make their way to the seat of Nether's power. They were not going to have to travel on foot, either.

People — those of them who knew what the Underworld was — mostly imagined it as a dark, cavernous expanse of desolate stone. A lifeless desert hidden in the depths of the earth. But while some of that was true, there were actually great subterranean rivers flowing through the Underworld, connecting its distant parts to each other. There was even a vast underground ocean, complete with its own menagerie of frightening depth dwellers — according to the stories Nephis had heard in her Second Nightmare, at least.

The civilization of the Underworld might have been unique, but the Stone Saints weren't that different from humans in many regards. They, too, had used waterways to transport cargo and connect their settlements, so most of the local settlements were situated along the shores of one of the three largest rivers.

And since there was supposed to be a settlement in the cavern Sunny, Nephis, and Saint had entered, there was a high chance that an outlet of one of those rivers flowed through it, as well.

Sunny hesitated for a moment and then sighed.

"Well, what are we waiting for then? Let's go find that settlement."

After catching their breath for a few seconds, the three of them cautiously headed toward the ruins vaguely seen in the distance. Saint served as the vanguard of their small party, walking in the darkness ahead. Sunny and Nephis followed, ready to react to any danger.

As they traversed the vast expanse of darkness, Sunny looked around, a peculiar expression slowly appearing on his face. Noticing it, Nephis raised an eyebrow.

“What?"

He hesitated for a bit, then shook his head.

“No, it's nothing. I was just thinking that it's a bit ironic. Actually, no. It might very well be the pinnacle of irony."

He smiled wistfully.

"I never thought about it before, but look around. Shadows have to pass through the Underworld to reach the Shadow Realm. But the Underworld is drowning in true darkness... so, shadows have to complete a journey through a realm that is inherently hostile to them in order to find peace. There's literally no worse place for a shadow to be."

Sunny fell silent for a moment, then chuckled.

“Although... perhaps it's not ironic after all. Maybe it's poignant and full of meaning instead."

Nephis studied him silently.

“Doesn't the Shadow Realm destroy the shadows, grinding them into pure soul essence? I'd say that is worse. So, the worst place for a shadow to be is the Shadow Realm."

Sunny stared at her with a funny expression.

After a while, he turned away.

"Now that's definitely poignant and full of meaning.”