Sunny walked casually across the silent streets of the Dark City. Once upon a time, he wouldn't have dared to do such a foolish thing, but nowadays the number of abominations left in the city could be counted on one hand. Soon, there would be none left.
"Hey Saint, why do you think I trusted them?"
The taciturn knight, as expected, did not answer.
"Yeah, I'm not sure either. I guess I'm just that much of an idiot." He laughed self-deprecatingly.
The silent knight did not answer that either, her gaze firmly set on exploring their surroundings. It was commendable how seriously she took her job of protecting him, but he still wished she would speak to him, even if only with gestures.
The isolation was slowly eroding his mind—so absolute it was that he could hear the beating of his own heart without even focusing. The only break from silence was his own voice and those recorded on the [Ordinary Rock]. Just two days ago, he had held a whole conversation with the rock, cycling through its recordings to simulate it.
It had been such a pathetic sight that even the Gloomy shadow looked worried. He had almost destroyed the [Ordinary Rock] right there; it was a slippery slope he wasn't sure he could escape if he continued. In the end, he relented due to its usefulness, but ordered Saint to consume it if he ever repeated that behavior.
And that was something he had to avoid. The rock was too useful to lose like that, especially with how terrible his luck had become when it came to memories. He had gotten plenty since the fall of the Crimson Spire, but none of them were useful in any way or form—aside from the bow. One of them had been a spoon that couldn't hold liquid matter, for Spell's sake!
[Shadow Name: Marble Saint]
[Shadow Fragments: 158/200]
At least Saint was progressing quickly thanks to them. Just a little more and she would achieve full fragments. Whatever would happen then, he hoped it would be useful. He needed all the help he could get, after all.
When he got out of the nightmare world, he would make sure to get her as many memories as she could handle as thanks. Just then, a funny image came to him.
Saint stood proud and regal, ready to face whatever challenge came to her. The only thing ruining it was the fact that her stomach was completely bloated from feeding on far too many memories. The image managed to drag the first sincere laugh out of him in months.
As if capable of reading his thoughts, Saint turned her gaze to him, her judgement silent but all too clear.
"You can prove nothing," he answered, his hands raised innocently in the air as if to demonstrate the lack of proof.
Thankfully, before he could keep digging himself further into embarrassment, he reached his destination.
In front of him lay a massive building that reminded him of the pictures of ancient temples Teacher Julius had shown him as examples of the kinds of ruins he could find in the dream world. His thoughts froze for a moment at the memory of the old teacher—he missed Julius far more than he had expected.
It was hard not to; the number of people who had shown him that much kindness could be counted on one hand. There would be fingers left, too.
Sunny shook his head to dispel the dark mood that had come over him and turned his gaze back to the building. It might have been magnificent once, but nowadays its splendor had been reduced to almost nothing. The grey marble it was made of was cracked. Of the eight columns that supported it, only two were whole. What once might have been magnificent carvings were now impossible to recognize as anything worthy of admiration. The final nail in the coffin was its great gates, which stood ajar—cracked and covered in so many scratches that they looked pathetic beyond measure.
He had come upon this building many months ago, back during his self-exile, but hadn't dared to approach. A Fallen demon had made its nest in the area, and he hadn't wanted to risk facing it. Now, the Fallen lay dead; Saint had killed it in one shot of the bow after six hours of drawing it. It would have been anticlimactic if not for how close he had come to dying while luring it out of its nest.
He had even gotten a great memory out of it: a one-handed sword with penetration and sharpness enchantments, topped with a potent venom that could corrode through stone. Sadly, he had to sacrifice it to Saint's voracious stomach due to its final enchantment. Its durability relied on how much light was present which, in the eternal darkness of the Forgotten Shores, meant that it was as brittle as glass. It had almost broken when he softly nicked a rock to test it.
"I'm the [Beloved Child of Fate]. Why can't I get an overpowered memory that will make me invincible?"
It seemed like enjoying its attention and interest didn't mean enjoying its gifts as well. How unfair.
Sunny sighed and set his focus back on the building—he needed to see if there was anything useful inside. He used his shadow sense, and upon finding no movement within, finally entered the dilapidated building.
Inside, he discovered that it truly was a temple. A temple meant to worship greed, more specifically.
It was a bank, though its state was not too grand after so much time in abandonment. The statues had crumbled, the gems and rare metals decorating it had become dull and brittle after so many years, and the paintings that might once have depicted grand scenes had been reduced to ugly parchments in which no detail could be appreciated. Even the massive safeboxes at the end of the hall had not been spared; all of them were cracked and rusted.
All of them but one.
The one in the center—which not so casually happened to be the biggest one. That vault looked pristine. Not a single scratch marred its surface, and no hint of rust could be seen despite the many years that had gone by. It was open, too, unlike its siblings.
He approached carefully. His shadow sense detected no movement, and his shadows had found nothing of note, but he could never be too careful. At his side, Saint was already drawing the bow, ready to unleash hell on whoever dared attack them.
When he finally got close enough to look inside the open vault, he saw… he saw heaven. Inside it were piles upon piles of gold and jewels, soul shards that could sell for a fortune, powerful weapons and armor that promised an end to his troubles. And far more important than all of them combined—there was a woman in there too.
She was mesmerizing, so much so that he couldn't even begin to describe how perfect her figure was. Her face—so beautiful that even Kai would look hideous beside her. A smile was painted on her lovely face, full of comfort and care, as if to tell him that all his problems would be solved once they met.
He accelerated his steps, desperate to reach her after being completely alone for so long. He didn't even pay attention to Saint's attempt to stop him from advancing further.
The closer he got, the more enchanting she became. Her lips begged to be kissed, her form to be embraced, her golden eyes to be stared into lovingly for days on end, her beautiful golden hair to be brushed with the utmost care. Gold was such a beautiful color—far better than silver could ever be…
Sunny stopped and enunciated a single order.
"Saint. Shoot."
He didn't have to say it twice. Not even a full second passed before an arrow whizzed past him and nailed the beautiful woman in the head. Even the blood pouring out from the wound was mesmerizing. Four more arrows followed immediately after, all of them hitting the mark.
[You have slain an Awakened Devil, Vault of Greed]
[Your shadow grows stronger]
[You have received a memory]
With the devil dead, he finally saw the truth. Inside the vault, there were no riches to be found, no weapons nor armor either. And most importantly, there was no woman in sight. Instead, the arrows had hit a disturbingly fleshy sphere that seemed to grow straight out of the vault's walls. Just as disturbing were the piles of bones resting inside the vault; judging by their state, their end had been neither swift nor painless.
He summoned his new memory and read its description.
[Memory Name: Safebox of Greed]
[Memory Description: The cult of Merias had only one tenet, followed with fanatical fervor: "There is no such thing as enough wealth." For that reason, it was no surprise when its members betrayed each other in search of further riches. Nowadays, only this cursed vault is left of them.]
He groaned in annoyance when the memory finished forming. The safe was small, barely the size of his head, and it was an affront to the eyes. Made out of what looked like gold, it was so gaudy his eyes almost hurt when looking at it. However, he was pleasantly surprised when he tried to store one of the bones inside and found that his arm couldn't reach the end despite how small it looked. A quick look at its sole enchantment confirmed his suspicion.
[Greed Is a Bottomless Sack: All kinds of non-living items can be stored inside the space of the safebox, and its size will grow according to their value.]
Sunny felt a smile come to life—one so wide that even Saint seemed disturbed by it. Slowly, his gaze turned toward the ruins of the Crimson Spire, where the corpses of hundreds, if not thousands, of nightmare creatures lay waiting for someone to claim their soul shards. He would have to test it to see how much it could expand, but the future was suddenly far brighter.
-------------------------------------------
[Shadow Fragments: 1098/2000]
Sunny couldn't avoid groaning in annoyance. A whole month of work and he had barely gotten three hundred fragments. Who would have thought he would miss the days when the Dark City was infested with nightmare creatures?
He sighed and kept climbing. The top of the western wall was quickly approaching, and he didn't want to delay it anymore. Once he finally reached it, he turned around and stared silently at the sight.
The Dark City stood tall and eerie, the last bastion of civilization in the Forgotten Shores. For years it had been teeming with sleepers and nightmare creatures alike—an endless battle that had only ended days ago, when he had slain the last nightmare creature in the city. The victor was humanity, but he felt no triumph. Only sadness.
And now, only silence remained.
He couldn't stop himself from reminiscing. It wasn't home—it would never be—but he had made important memories inside. Both good and bad, even though the latter held the advantage by far. He felt a pang of regret—of what, he didn't know.
"Maybe… maybe I'm sad because without me, no one will be left to remember that this place used to be better. That humans lived here once. That this place was a shelter against the tides of the apocalypse, a beacon of hope in the darkness. That happiness could be found here once, so long ago, fleeting as it may have been." Neither his shadows nor Saint answered.
He did not expect otherwise—and yet his heart broke a little more.
He once again stared at the silent city, remembering his first time gazing upon it.
And what a sight it had been when he first set eyes on it. At that moment, it had filled him with hope—hope of finding shelter in hell, hope of going back to the waking world, where his status as an awakened would surely grant him the chance to build himself a better life. Maybe even one good enough to one day be worthy of confessing the truth to Rain.
And… hope that both Nephis and Cassie would be there too. Back then, he had been sure that the whims of the Nightmare Spell had helped them forge an unbreakable bond—one that would brave the passage of time and the hardships that would surely find them upon returning to the waking world. He should have known better, and yet, inexplicably, he still insisted on fooling himself.
Once again, whether by the dead gods, the Spell, fate, or maybe reality itself, his hopes were proven wrong.
A year and three months later, he was completely alone in the Spell-forsaken city. There had to be something poetic about it, some sort of divine irony that would make for a beautiful and moving tale when told.
If there was, he couldn't see it.
He stood there for hours, just staring at the silent city, thinking of what could have been, of alternate scenarios that might have led to a different end. A happy one, where no one would have to be left behind, where they could all find their happy ending. Sadly, he could think of none. The world was far too cruel to allow such a thing.
Sunny dragged a hand across his face—it was just a sign of frustration. It had nothing to do with getting rid of the wetness coming out of his eyes.
"What a terrible moment for rain, right Gloomy?" The shadow—his first and most reliable one—for once had no sarcastic gesture to make. Instead, it slowly nodded its head in silent agreement. "Even you feel sorry for me now? Damnation, I have truly hit rock bottom."
The shadow offered no response.
"Well, enough moping around. It's time to leave this place. I'm sure we'll find a way out quickly. I can't wait to see the faces of Kai and Effie when I tell them how close we were to escaping all along."
Sunny kept talking as he left; it helped him forget, even if for a moment, that he was alone.
Behind him, the Dark City stood. For the first time since its inception, it was completely empty. No noise could be heard inside. No nightmare would come out of its bowels. No one would admire its tall edifices. No moment of joy or sadness would occur inside its walls. The city had no soul, and yet… and yet…
One could almost perceive its sorrow.