The rogue Fable finally ceased its violent stirring within Sunny's spirit. The turbulence died down, allowing his thoughts to regain their balance. Once his footing was secure, the three of them turned their attention toward the harvest.
Between the fallen Beasts, Monsters, and Demons, alongside the slain Corrupted Devil, the yield was staggering.
Ninety-eight Ascended Soul Shards, and four Transcendent ones.
Sunny did not hoard the spoils for himself. Drawing from this newly acquired haul, as well as the stockpile resting within his Widow's Pouch, he fed the shimmering crystals into Cassie until her Soul Core hit capacity. One thousand out of one thousand.
Now, traversing the far end of the shattered span, they proceeded toward the second district of the Nameless City.
Sunny and Saint glanced toward Cassie. The young Seer walked with a bounce in her step, almost looking as though she wanted to skip across the flagstones toward the distant temple. The sight was almost comical.
Saturating her core had granted her noticeable vigor. Her constitution had grown robust, her skin carried a healthier glow, and her steps fell with far greater firmness than before.
Sunny watched her with a faint smile. Then, the warmth vanished, smothered by a sudden prickle of cold at the base of his skull.
A phantom dread tightened around his chest.
He frowned, staring down at his boots.
'Just what am I so afraid of?'
No answer came. His thoughts remained silent, offering no rationale for the sudden disgust that coiled in his gut whenever he felt content.
A sudden movement from Cassie interrupted his dark reflections. She was shaking her head vigorously from side to side, as if attempting to dislodge an obnoxious insect buzzing directly into her ear.
"Just… Gods. What do you think that lullaby is?"
Sunny observed the surrounding colonnades. Normally, he would have written the music off as the hunting call of a specialized Nightmare Creature. But throughout their trek through these silent avenues, however, that assumption had eroded into dust.
His doubt was rooted in Saint.
He shifted his gaze toward the onyx-clothed woman and caught the irregularity again.
Saint's violet eyes flickered with strange, erratic sparks. Her fingers rose to press against the side of her temple, her lips pressed into a rigid line. Whatever the sound was, it produced a visible reaction within her.
'Why? She's immune to mind and soul attacks. How's she being affected, but not myself?'
Her Diamond Weave and Godforged attributes nullified any standard curse as well. The mournful song rising from the foundations possessed no needles. It did not gnaw at their reason or rot their essence.
Saint was not being attacked.
She was recognizing it, perhaps? Something woven into her very soul was answering the melody.
Sunny stepped up beside her, scanning her posture before answering Cassie.
"More than likely, it is an Enchantment. Sorcerers can make a spell produce almost any phenomenon, provided they possess the skill and materials."
He kept the rest of the thought to himself.
'Even more so if someone poured their Will into it.'
Saint caught Sunny's scrutinizing gaze. She lowered her hand from her temple and offered a faint shake of her head.
"I am alright, Milord. It is only…"
Sunny arched an eyebrow.
"If you tell me you have a headache, I'm calling bullshit."
A faint trace of amusement curved the corner of Saint's mouth.
"I was not planning on offering such an excuse. Rather… it feels as though I have heard this song before."
Cassie and Sunny halted their stride at the same second. Cassie turned her sightless face toward Saint with open curiosity, but Sunny's expression went completely blank.
'Huh? Where?'
When could she have encountered this melody?
It could not have occurred during his original lifetime. It could not have happened within the false streets of Mirage City Noir, either.
Sunny took two paces forward, spun on his heel, and began walking backward so he could keep both women in his sight.
"Could it be something you heard while down in the Underworld? Or during your time on the Forgotten Shores?"
Saint remained quiet for several seconds, her boots clicking rhythmically against the stone.
"I cannot confirm that. The memory is obscured. I only know that the cadence is familiar."
Then, her lips parted on their own accord. A faint, raspy whisper escaped her throat, reciting words that had surfaced from the dark depths of her body.
"'Wash clean the… salt tears from our hollowed… eyes…'"
She froze.
Her violet eyes widened in visible shock. Saint slowly lifted two gloved fingers and pressed them to her mouth, genuinely unsettled by the syllables that had just slipped past her teeth.
Cassie stepped closer, reaching out to touch Saint's arm in concern.
Sunny stood frozen upon the flagstones, his mind tearing through the words.
"'Wash and salt.' Wait… Storm God?"
Was the hymn dedicated to her? Did the tragedy that buried this place tie directly to an event involving the goddess of the depths?
His eyes widened as realization struck him.
'Of course she can hear it, then.'
Nether had sculpted Saint's flesh and features in the exact likeness of Nokstella. Every line of her face, every thread of her form, mirrored the Goddess of Disasters.
Her very existence was built to answer the call of the sea, it appeared.
Sunny turned around, his boots striking the cracked flagstones as he resumed their forward pace. He kept his ears tuned to Saint, intending to catch whatever other forgotten words her newly awakened tongue might let slip.
The three of them advanced across the remainder of the span.
At times, their eyes drifted over the balustrade toward the lower expanse of the metropolis. A milky haze rolled beneath the cold silver stars, pooling within the sunken plazas and half-drowned colonnades like glowing fog. At other times, they fixed their stares straight ahead, lost in their own thoughts.
There was little need for conversation. Each of them was occupied by the singular necessity of finding a route out of this subterranean tomb, though the path to that freedom remained entirely unknown.
The dark silk of Sunny's asymmetrical coat rustled against his trousers as they walked. Without the rigid weight of metal plate, his movements were light and fluid, the pale blue sigils on his sleeve catching the dim starlight. Beside him, Saint's long black coat swayed around her knees, the white lining at her throat gleaming like polished bone against the darkness of her unbound hair.
Soon, the grand gate on the far end of the bridge loomed directly before them.
Behind the monolithic barrier sat a second temple, carved from the same pale rock. Beyond that sanctuary waited the lower district of the city.
It was an expanse that descended deeper into the hollows of the earth, where the terraces broke apart and plunged toward what looked like an endless abyss.
Before Saint raised her hands to shove against the heavy stone, Sunny paused.
He tilted his head over his shoulder, casting a swift look back across the wide, empty span they had just crossed.
'Huh…'
Far in the distance, partially veiled by the drifting starlight, a figure stood motionless upon the bridge.
It was the Supreme Shadow.
The Shadow had not vanished after dragging them from the ruined Warpgate. It had not faded away after holding the Crimson Blight back from Cassie's soul, either.
Instead, it stood several hundred paces behind them, maintaining a fixed distance. Its dark silhouette remained perfectly still, watching their movements as if evaluating a test, or confirming a truth it had sought for many years.
Sunny studied the distant shape for a brief breath. A small smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.
Turning forward once more, he gestured to Saint and Cassie, and the three of them passed through the parted gate, stepping together into the cold silence of the temple.
The doors closed behind them without a sound, shutting out the grand bridge and the silent shadow of a demi-god observing from the mist.
Inside, the temple opened into a cavernous nave carved from midnight slate and pale, vein-streaked marble. High colonnades rose on either side, their fluted surfaces untouched by decay. Above, the vaulted ceiling had been hollowed out, framing another expanse of those faithful, immovable stars.
Unlike the first sanctuary that housed the resting Phoenix, this place contained no sleeping titans. Instead, it was an immense mausoleum of ritual. Shattered silver chalices lay scattered beside cold braziers.
At the far end, raised upon a dais of dark stone, stood an altar flanked by two grand obelisks.
Sunny, Saint, and Cassie walked down the central aisle.
The lullaby was far clearer here. The sound rose through the floor, a soft, choral hum that reverberated in their bodies. A song kind and sad, which echoed alongside their emotions.
Sunny stepped up to the dais and examined the carvings etched across the altar's surface. He used the edge of his sleeve to brush away a layer of fine, crystalline dust, revealing the relief beneath.
The carving showed a woman crowned with tempest clouds and sea spray. Her hands held a basin of overflowing water, positioned beneath seven silver stars that wept cold beams toward the earth.
Beneath the relief, a sequence of runes remained preserved in the stone.
Sunny frowned, leaning closer. Even though the Nightmare Spell could translate it, he could interpret the meaning with far greater precision due to his study of runic script. He pieced together the name carved into the base.
"Asteria… or perhaps Sideria. That was what they called this place."
Cassie tilted her head, her hand tightening around Sunny's arm as her Shadow Sense swept across the carvings. She turned her perception across the grand hall with quiet curiosity.
"Is it a temple dedicated to a God?"
Sunny looked across the vaulted architraves and the weathered frieze depicting oceanic tides and celestial charts. He shook his head.
"No. It was dedicated to a Queen. Upon the votive frieze, her name is cherished as 'Asteria.' Huh… the city was named after her, I see."
Saint walked to the opposite side of the altar. Her violet eyes reflected the silver light drifting from the skylight above, dark and unfathomable. Slowly, she extended one hand, her gloved fingers resting upon the carved storm clouds.
Sunny noticed the sudden solemnity taking hold of Saint's features. Her expression mirrored that of someone standing before a tomb she had visited in another life.
Unprompted by her conscious will, the [Blessing of Dusk] awakened within her. Faint ripples washed into her thoughts, as though the divine blueprint of her flesh were answering the litany dedicated to the Queen.
Words surfaced in her thoughts in soft, grieving tones, arriving with whispers she harbored little desire to hear.
Saint looked toward Sunny. Both he and Cassie felt their expressions change as they caught the sorrow upon her face.
'Why… does she look as though she wants to cry?'
Not even Saint knew the answer. Regardless, she spoke.
"Constellia's King. Though his name is fogged out by time, he was one who carried the Blood of the Sun. But its Queen… she was an Heir of Storm God."
Sunny nodded, casting a brief glance at Cassie. The young girl remained close against him, her fingers tangled securely into his sleeve.
'An Heir of Surya and Nokstella. Huh.'
He turned back toward Saint.
"A union of Sun and Storm. That explains why the architecture of this place shares so many connections and cultural traits with the cities of the depths."
Saint turned her gaze toward the relief once more. She continued to give voice to the tale echoing through her mind.
"When the King departed, the Miracle in all its whispers fell upon the surface. The light began to seep into their thoughts — although it does not appear that was always deemed an evil thing. In time, it drove the citizens mad. Thus, to escape the burning sky, the Queen led those who still held their reason down into these caverns. They tore a fragment of Nokstella's starlit heavens and anchored that fragment beneath the world to preserve their… 'Everlasting Night.'"
Cassie listened, her brow furrowing in concentration.
"Who is Nokstella, though? Is that the name of Storm God?"
Sunny nodded, a motion Cassie caught through the shadows.
She asked another question.
"…Does the inscription explain why all those people outside… turned to stone?"
Saint closed her eyes. A heavy breath slipped past her lips.
"The records state that the Miracle pursued them, demonstrating a tangible presence. Even deep beneath their kingdom, the corruption began to steal their memories and harvest their voices. They realized there was no victory awaiting them. And… by that time, the Queen had already succumbed to her own end. And so… they made a choice."
Cassie's expression fell. She recognized that the following words carried no joy.
Saint's voice had grown heartbreakingly solemn. She sounded like an observer who had personally stood amidst the ruin of that kingdom.
"They refused to become abominations, and they refused to become willing devotees of the Miracle. Rather than surrendering their minds to that false, sweet light, they gathered in the plazas, knelt beneath the stolen stars, and began to… sing."
Saint looked up toward the skylight. The ceiling had long collapsed, leaving the starlit void open to the elements. Millennia had marched past since that final hour.
"They sang to their dead Queen, praying for her storm to drown their tainted flesh and turn them into…"
Her breath hitched in sudden shock before she continued.
"…Into crystallized stars before the madness could claim their souls."
A bitter grimace twisted Sunny's mouth.
The nature of the lullaby stood revealed.
This song was a funeral hymn. An eternal song of devotion and the final plea sung by ten thousand dying voices who chose the cold peace of stars over the defilement of the Miracle.
Sunny spoke in a low, sharp tone.
"I see. They wanted to die as humans."
Saint sighed, her fingers falling away from the altar stone.
"Yes. And this song of theirs, called the 'Star-Drowned Canticle', was meant to serve as a beacon. The guiding lullaby for any survivors wandering the dark depths, showing them the route to their final resting place."
Cassie looked toward the floor. The horror of the crystallized figures they had passed along the avenue weighed heavily upon her thoughts. Her fingers dug into the fabric of Sunny's coat, and he placed a comforting hand over hers.
"Where does the beacon lead?"
Sunny turned his gaze toward the rear of the nave.
"Where else? To the bottom. Down into the abyss."
It was a song of stars, yet it was also an invitation to a grave.
Sunny evaluated the state of his body and Fables, confirming that another episode would not disrupt his thoughts for hours. A cold resolve hardened within his mind, pushing aside the exhaustion that was accompanying him in this life.
"Let's move."
As Sunny and Cassie began walking, Saint remained behind for a brief interval. Her liquid-violet eyes, devoid of pupils and reflecting the entire world upon their surface, stared at the face of the Queen. The carved features were worn and chipped by time, yet they felt hauntingly familiar.
Her expression tightened, the violet of her gaze deepening into a colder shade. A single question crossed her mind, though she wished it held no merit.
No voice answered her, yet she asked it all the same.
'Asteria… have we met before? Did Nether send me to the Kingdom of Constellia?'
Receiving only the hum of the lullaby in response, she turned and followed her companions.
They walked past the dais and reached the rear colonnade. There was no wall sealing the back of the temple. Instead, the floor ended at an immense, open-air terrace overlooking the second half of the city.
The sight that met them was staggering.
The lower district fell away in sweeping steps of pale stone, surrounded by towering spires and broken aqueducts that stretched toward the edge of a colossal fissure.
Half of the metropolis had collapsed into the earth. Beyond the fractured plazas, a bottomless abyss yawned in the gloom, where black, unseen currents churned in welcoming darkness.
Sunny, Saint, and Cassie stood at the precipice, their coats fluttering in the cold updraft.
All three held somber expressions.
Sunny stared down into the vast, shadowy drop, his dark eyes catching the silver gleam of the unmoving stars.
At least nine thousand years had passed since those people fell silent, yet their grief still lived beneath the stones. He could only hope that whatever waited in the depths possessed an end, and that he held the strength to grant it.
—
The marble staircase fell away into the hollow beneath the temple, curving along the cliff face in wide, monumental sweeps.
Each step was broad enough to host a wagon, carved from chalk-white stone that had neither chipped nor pitted over the ages. Below them, the lower district spread out like a sprawling boneyard of pale architecture. Colonnades of staggering height bordered sunken forums. Aqueducts spanned empty air between terraces, their channels bone-dry and encrusted with pale salt.
Above it all, the false heavens curved across the roof of the earth, thousands of motionless silver stars casting a cold, milky twilight over the streets.
There was no wind in this buried world, yet the hem of Sunny's dark silk coat flapped faintly against his boots. The draft did not originate from weather. It was an exhalation rising from the immense chasm cutting through the far side of the city.
Sunny led the descent.
His boots made no sound against the flagstones, his shadow stretching across the steps to map every fissure and angle ahead.
Behind him walked Cassie, her hand resting firmly against the small of his back, her cerulean eyes open and wandering the gloom.
Saint brought up the rear, her tall, lithe figure draped in obsidian silk, her liquid-violet eyes scanning the terraces below with the clinical precision of an executioner examining a scaffold.
As they descended the fifth tier of steps, Cassie's fingers tightened on Sunny's coat.
"Sunny."
Sunny paused, turning his head without breaking his balance.
"What is it? Did your sight pick up something ugly?"
Cassie shook her head, though her brows knit together.
"Look beside us. Not with your eyes. Use the shadows."
Sunny closed his physical gaze and let his perception expand into the darkness covering the staircase.
What met his mind made the hair on his arms rise.
The stone beside them was empty to physical sight. Yet through the shadows, hundreds of faint, transparent impressions drifted down the steps. They moved in silence, their forms vague and elongated, descending toward the lower district in an unending line. There were small silhouettes clutching the garments of taller ones, soldiers with broken spears, and priests carrying empty censers.
None of them possessed physical substance. They were impressions preserved in the bedrock, echoes of a populace that had walked this same route thousands of years ago.
More disturbing than the phantom shapes was their direction.
The shadows cast by the marble balustrades, the pillars, and even the loose pebbles did not fall away from the starlight above. Instead, every shadow stretched unnaturally forward, elongating toward the bottom of the city as though dragged by an invisible tide.
Sunny opened his eyes, his mouth twisting into a grim line.
"A funeral march that never ended. They are still walking toward the abyss."
Cassie shivered, pulling her torn cloak tighter around her shoulders.
"It feels as though they are crowding against me. They aren't hostile, but… their grief is so loud. It is humming right beneath the lullaby."
Saint stepped down to their level, her gaze sweeping over the empty steps. Her voice emerged smooth and low.
"Calm yourself, Cassia. They cannot harm you. They are merely residual frequencies. When thousands of souls perish with the same intent in an isolated space, sometimes the World's 'Story' records the event. The Memory of the World preserves their final actions due to the halted 'conclusion' of their tales."
Cassie tilted her head, her face twisting into deep confusion. Her sightless eyes blinked repeatedly as she tried to make sense of the terminology.
'The Story? Memory of the World? What are they even talking about?'
She had studied histories and lore before the Solstice, yet neither concept existed in any archive of the waking world. She stared blankly between Saint and Sunny, her lips parting before she clamped them shut.
With a quiet, exasperated sigh, Cassie shook her head and muttered under her breath.
"Why do you two always know such bizarre, impossible things…?"
Sunny caught the grumble and felt a smirk tug at his mouth. He glanced at Saint, noting how her violet eyes tracked the invisible procession with ease.
"You sound remarkably confident about that, Doctor."
Saint looked at him, her expression composed.
"I treated men who claimed to see ghosts every day in Mirage City Noir, Milord. Most were suffering from trauma. These, however, are genuine echoes. Treat them as landmarks rather than threats, and they will not impede your focus."
Sunny snorted, turning back to the descent.
"Easy for you to say. You don't have [Fated] constantly trying to make those "ghosts" solid enough to take a chunk out of you!"
Saint raised an eyebrow, her gaze fixing upon him with dry amusement.
"If my memory serves me well, Milord, I was standing directly beside you on every occasion those 'ghosts' attempted to tear your flesh away. Your survival was never an isolated achievement."
Sunny shook his head with a quiet chuckle, refusing to argue the point.
Behind them, Cassie's expression shifted.
Her empty eyes remained fixed on the space between Sunny and Saint. The familiarity between them was terrifying in its depth. They exchanged banter about places that should not exist, referenced battles that never took place, and spoke of lifetimes that could not have happened.
The distance between the Sunny who had vanished into the Dark City and the young man standing before her felt immense. Yet, listening to the cadence of his voice and watching his shadow protect her footing, Cassie felt a quiet certainty grow within her chest.
She was getting closer to the truth. She did not know what hell he had lived through, but the pieces were beginning to align.
They cleared the bottom of the great staircase and stepped onto the first grand avenue of the lower district.
Here, the starlit splendor of the upper city began to rot.
The structures along the boulevard were grand estates and domed halls of marble, yet nature had violently reclaimed them. Thick, woody vines the color of bruised flesh broke through the paving stones, their surfaces studded with cruel, black thorns. In some places, entire colonnades were bound together by thick nets of roots that oozed an amber, foul-smelling resin.
The scent in the air changed with every dozen yards they crossed. The dry, mineral odor of starlight was gradually swallowed by a heavy, cloying fragrance. It was sweet, thick as warmed honey, and carried the unmistakable tang of consecrated embalming oils.
Beneath that sweetness, however, lay the stench of putrefaction and sour sap.
Cassie covered her nose with the sleeve of her tunic, coughing softly.
"Gods… it smells like a crypt that someone tried to perfume."
Sunny sniffed the air, his inhuman senses parsing the composition of the vapor.
A memory from his recent Fable surfaced in his mind — the grand liturgies of the Church of the Mother of Mothers, recorded during the fall of Constellia. The priests had soaked their garments in this exact essence before offering themselves to the unyielding night.
"It is holy oil — I smelt it during one of Cassie's dreams. The kind used by the priesthood of Constellia during their final rites. Whatever is waiting at the end of this road was drenched in it."
He drew the [Burden of Conflict] from his side. The silver bastard sword caught the false starlight, its metal gleaming with cold promise.
"Stay close. The terrain is getting worse."
They had not advanced fifty yards into the avenue when the flagstones ahead buckled.
Three silver masses rose from the cracks in the pavement, their liquid bodies shivering under the starlight. Unlike the Tears they had faced on the bridge, these abominations did not hesitate to find vessels. They surged into the ruins flanking the street, pouring their molten metal into heaps of calcified briars and petrified bone.
The first emerged as a towering quadruped, its torso formed from tangled roots and its legs clad in plates of liquid silver that ended in jagged spikes. The second took the shape of a headless warrior whose chest was split open like an iron trap, lined with petrified teeth. The third, a Fallen Demon, rose as a six-limbed horror woven entirely from thorned wood and running mercury, its three faceless heads thrashing as blue lightning sparked between its jaws.
Sunny did not waste breath on commands.
He lunged.
[Burden of Conflict] became light as a feather beneath the enchantment of [Weight of Conflict]. Sunny blurred across the cracked stone, his boots leaving faint streaks of dust as he slid beneath the lunge of the root-beast. The creature's spiked forelimb struck the pavement where he had stood an instant prior, obliterating the marble into fine powder.
Sunny twisted mid-slide. His blade flashed in a tight, upward arc, coated in the dark, voracious edge of [Black Moon].
The dark crescent tore through the creature's front joints. The wooden sinew snapped with the sound of breaking timber, and the silver plating fractured into dull droplets. The beast shrieked, collapsing heavily onto its side.
Before it could thrash, Sunny drove his heel into its flank, vaulted over its thrashing spine, and brought the sword down through the center of its mass.
The creature burst into silver motes.
To his left, the sound of tearing metal and shattered wood echoed through the avenue.
Saint moved with terrifying grace. Her Soul Weapon — a jet-black longsword humming with True Darkness — traced two flawless lines through the air. The headless warrior lunged at her with its tooth-lined torso wide open, attempting to snap her in half.
Saint did not even raise her shield. She pivoted on the ball of her foot, allowing the snapping maw to pass harmlessly through the air inches from her silk mantle, and brought her blade down across its neck.
The black edge cleaved through petrified wood and silver alike as though through rotten melon. The abomination folded forward, its body splitting in two before collapsing into dust.
That left the Fallen Demon.
The six-limbed horror saw its pack slaughtered in seconds and let out a shrill, deafening hiss. Blue electricity surged across its wooden ribs as it crouched, preparing to launch itself directly toward Cassie.
From above, a shadow descended like a plunging hawk.
The Silvershade Harrow tore out of the starlit mist. Its great silver mask caught the electric glare as its wings snapped forward. A storm of razor-sharp feathers erupted from its plumage, whistling through the gloom like a volley of silver knives.
[Feather Blades].
The projectiles hammered into the Demon's three heads, pinning them against the facade of a ruined manor. The creature shrieked, its limbs flailing as it discharged a violent shockwave of blue current.
The lightning caught Silvershade's left wing. The great owl screeched in pain, several of its vibrant feathers burning to ash as the force knocked it from the air.
Cassie acted instantly.
Drawing upon the [Midnight Shard] she held in both hands, she channeled the shadow essence Sunny had shared with her. Augmented by her saturated core, she sprinted forward and thrust the black tachi straight through the creature's central core, piercing the knot of roots that held its life.
The Demon shuddered once, then melted into a pool of dead silver and splintered bark.
Silence reclaimed the street, save for the persistent, weeping lullaby beneath their feet.
Sunny hurried over to where Silvershade lay against the rubble, its chest heaving. The owl's wing was scorched, charred wood and electrical residue smoking against the silver down.
Cassie knelt beside the bird, gently touching its uninjured plumage. Her voice was soft, laced with concern.
"Sunny… can you heal birdy?"
Sunny stared down at the wounded Echo.
'Birdy…?'
Deep within his chest, [Soul Flame] smoldered, cold and plentiful. He knew that a fraction of that essence would knit the feathers and flesh back together in a heartbeat.
Yet he stood motionless, his fingers curling into tight fists.
The memory of the cold that had invaded his soul during his previous battle returned with sharp dread. [Lonesome Soul] did not inflict ordinary physical suffering. It was a torment that reached into the core of his existence, carrying the maddening whispers of an Archangel.
It was an agony born outside the laws of this world, something no mortal mind was built to endure. The thought of inviting that foreign blight into his thoughts while standing in these ruins made his stomach twist.
He exhaled slowly, keeping his voice carefully level.
"No. It's… not worth it."
Cassie turned her face toward him, her brow furrowing slightly.
"Not worth it? But it's hurt..."
Sunny offered a faint, strained shrug, deflecting the inquiry.
"The wound isn't fatal. Drawing upon my flame carries complications that aren't practical for minor injuries. It is safer to let it recover naturally."
Saint stepped beside them, her tone even and firm.
"Milord's decision is correct, Cassia. The power required to heal directly carries an excessive burden. Allowing the creature to rest inside his Soul Sea is the superior choice."
Cassie accepted the explanation, though her fingers lingered on the bird's crest for a moment longer.
"I see. Rest well, then!"
Sunny offered a wry smirk, breaking the tension.
"Don't look so offended… "Birdy." You fought well!"
The Silvershade Harrow rotated its head, clicking its beak softly before dissolving into dark motes. It returned to the tranquil expanse of his Soul Sea, where the Astérisque flowers and gentle waters could restore its form.
Sunny turned back toward the broad street.
"Let's keep moving. Stay alert."
They pressed deeper into the lower district.
The scale of the city seemed to expand the further they walked. Avenues stretched into massive civic squares, each framed by sunken baths, lecture halls, and crumbling theaters. Yet the grandeur was choked by an unnatural rot.
The petrified roots grew thicker, bulging beneath the marble like swollen veins. Briars wound around columns, their thorns dripping with thick amber sap that hissed whenever it touched the ground.
And everywhere they looked, the stone figures kept their vigil.
Thousands of statues filled the terraces. They stood upon balconies, knelt in gardens, and lined the broad avenues. Their faces were smooth, featureless domes of translucent stone, reflecting the cold silver stars above.
Saint's gaze swept across them, her voice barely a whisper.
[The entire population chose this end. I truly do hate seeing such a thing.]
Sunny kept his eyes on the road, his grip firm on the hilt of his bastard sword.
[They preferred eternity in stars over becoming cattle for some defiled, higher existence. I can't say I blame them...]
They walked for over two hours, descending deeper along the sloping district. Along the way, two more clusters of Silver Tears attempted to intercept them, but without their Tyrant commanders, they were dismantled with ruthless efficiency.
With every kill, Sunny's runes remained unchanged.
Shadow Fragments: [4000/4000].
The ceiling held firm. Without claiming a territory or establishing dominion over minions, the fifth core remained out of reach. He pushed the irritation aside; survival took precedence over tyranny.
As they reached the edge of the final terrace, the masonry beneath their boots began to fracture severely.
The street ended abruptly.
A massive chasm tore through the bedrock, dividing the city in half. Far below in the darkness, the black waters of an underground ocean churned in eerie silence, an abyss so deep that even their Shadow Sense failed to perceive its floor.
The lullaby was deafening here.
It rose from the mouth of the abyss, vibrating through their bones. Yet beneath the music, a heavier sound could be felt.
A slow, monstrous thrum.
A… heartbeat.
Cassie stopped, her hand seizing Sunny's hand with white-knuckled force. Her breath came in shallow, frightened draws.
"Sunny… the roots ahead. They're… alive."
Sunny looked across the yawning chasm.
Farther along the lip of the abyss, swallowed by a dense, suffocating network of petrified briars and thorny roots, a massive structure hung suspended over the void.
The air blowing from it was saturated with the sweet, sickening odor of holy oils and rotting wood.
Sunny narrowed his eyes, his dark gaze piercing the starlit haze.
The master of this fallen starlit city, Asteria, was close…
—
The edge of the terrace offered no further bridge, no crumbling balustrade, and no descending path. The white stones of the upper forum surrendered abruptly to the drop, shearing off into an enormous hollow where the dark held complete dominion.
Sunny turned his gaze upon Cassie.
"Hold on to me. Do not let go, no matter what happens during the fall."
Cassie gave a firm nod.
Stepping forward, she threw her arms around Sunny's neck and wrapped her legs securely about his waist, burying her face into the high collar of his dark silk coat. Her fingers bunched the fabric over his shoulders, holding him with every ounce of physical power granted by her saturated core.
Sunny felt little to nothing beneath the sudden squeeze, his ribs strong enough to endure the tightness of her embrace.
Saint observed the tangled arrangement from two paces away. Her head tilted, her liquid-violet eyes sweeping over them with an expression of dry, unsparing scrutiny that made heat prickle along Sunny's cheekbones.
Sunny cleared his throat, glaring back at her.
"Do you have a better suggestion?"
Saint offered no answer. Her mouth curved into the faintest hint of an aloof smile before she stepped into the void.
Sunny followed a heartbeat later.
They plunged into the abyss.
Beside their descending figures, the subterranean river poured over the precipice, falling through the black air like a ribbon of liquid mercury. Wind caught the hem of Sunny's asymmetrical coat, whipping the dark silk into violent motion as he focused his will upon the Divine Miracle of the Storm God.
[Arweiniad y Tymestl].
Guidance of the Tempest
Currents of blue Spirit Essence gathered beneath his combat boots. With each downward bound, the empty atmosphere hardened into an invisible foothold, allowing him to absorb the momentum of the drop and kick off anew, descending through the dark alongside Saint.
Down and down they plunged, tracking the thunder of the falling water while the upper city dwindled into a faint dusting of silver stars above their heads.
Minutes slipped away into the rushing cold before an abnormality broke the pitch-black floor.
Sunny narrowed his eyes, his shadow sense reacting before his physical sight could resolve the disturbance.
Far below, where the river should have crashed against bedrock, an immense expanse of distorted water lay suspended. The lake possessed neither banks nor bed; its surface rippled in rotating, concentric rings of prismatic luminescence, bending the surrounding space into a spiral.
Both Sunny and Saint recognized the construct through the principles of Runic Sorcery.
A 'Boundary Field.'
An isolated world carved from the fabric of reality, closed off from every rule of the outer realm.
Before Sunny could call out a warning, Saint acted.
She kicked off a current of air and plummeted toward the lake with terrifying velocity. Mid-fall, her Soul Weapon materialized in her grip — a long, jet-black blade whose edge swallowed the ambient light.
Saint drew in a deep, shivering breath, pulling upon the core of her transformed existence.
When her eyelids lifted, the violet of her irises had vanished beneath a shroud of absolute, pale mist. The concept of Nothingness bled through her skin, coiling along the dark steel of her weapon like a shroud of hungry ghosts. As an Ascended, commanding a law that belonged to the null of things placed a monstrous strain upon her new body; fine cracks appeared along her jaw, and her knuckles turned the color of chalk.
Yet her grip remained unyielding.
Raising the dark sword high, she gave voice to the truth engraved upon her soul.
TORRI'R CYNLEW!!!
O Blade of Nothingness, Sever the Loom of Current
The dark blade descended.
The strike met the distorted lake, and the concept of division took hold. The Boundary Field split open with a high, crystalline shriek. A rift of pure, blinding white light carved across the water, peeling the fabric of space apart to reveal a hollow passage into the depths below.
Saint plunged through the tear.
Sunny adjusted his posture, held Cassie tighter against his chest, and dove straight into the glowing breach behind his Shadow.
The world inverted.
They crossed the threshold of the field, and gravity reasserted itself with sudden, jarring force.
Sunny landed upon pale, polished flagstones, rolling across his shoulder to disperse the impact before rising to his feet. Cassie remained locked around him, her breath coming in quick, shallow gasps against his throat.
Above them, the dark cavern had vanished.
In its place arched a vast, radiant expanse of pale, low-lit blue. It was not a ceiling of bedrock, nor the oppressive sky of the Dream Realm; it was an illuminated sky that cast a soft twilight across the immense plaza beneath it.
Suspended mid-air between the ground and the false heavens hung countless spheres and sheets of water. They remained motionless, caught in a state of perpetual arrest by an invisible authority.
Cassie loosened her hold and reached out a trembling hand toward a floating droplet.
Her fingertips touched the water. The sphere rippled beneath her skin, yet it did not break apart. It did not spill or fall. It held its perfect curvature against her palm, responding to her presence without surrendering its form.
Before Cassie could voice her confusion, a new sound rose through the chamber.
It was the Lullaby, yet the words had changed. The choral cry of the citizens who had turned to crystalline stars above was replaced by a hymn of reverence, sung by a multitude of unseen voices rising directly from the pale floor.
O Horned Sentinel, O Shield of the Silent Dawn,
The King has departed, the golden grace is gone.
You carried his sorrow, you sheltered our plight,
And brought the red shroud to our hollowed-out night.
Rest with us, noble knight, at the Sovereign's side,
Let the storm of the Queen be your haven and tide.
Heed not our laments as we weep in the deep,
For our souls are at peace in our motionless sleep.
Sunny lowered Cassie to her feet, his fingers dropping to the hilt of [Burden of Conflict].
Ahead, at the heart of the sunken plaza, stood a colossal monument.
It was an immense statue of Queen Asteria, carved from moonlit stone. Her arms were crossed over her chest in an embrace of eternal mourning, her head bowed toward the ground.
Resting within that stone lap, tangled in a throne of petrified briars and iron-hard roots, sat a giant.
Sunny's breath caught in his throat.
Saint stood beside him, her dark blade lowering into a defensive posture.
Cassie could not perceive the full scale of the abomination, yet the suffocating terror radiating from the monument struck her like a physical blow.
Sunny's otherworldly senses flared within his mind, confirming the horrific truth.
A Corrupted Tyrant.
The knight wore plate armor of corroded, verdigris green, its surfaces worked with tempest spirals and the wave-crests of Storm God. Two massive, curved horns swept from the crest of his helm, etched with faint blue sigils.
Beneath the cracked plates, his body was visible. It was a hollowed-out husk, yet the flesh refused to decompose. It looked unnaturally whole, as if frozen at the precise threshold of death. Something vast and stubborn had held his lifeforce in stasis for thousands of years, denying him the release of life.
The creature stirred.
A sound of splintering wood and tearing bark echoed across the plaza as the petrified briars anchoring his limbs snapped apart. The roots binding his chest ruptured, spilling dark, viscous sap across the Queen's lap.
The giant rose.
Horns of bone burst from the sides of his helm, glowing with cold blue runes.
Wound tightly across his chest, arms, and throat were miles of shredded, blood-red bandages. The moment the knight stood, the runes inscribed upon the crimson cloth ignited with blinding radiance.
One section of the wrappings burned with the color of fresh blood. Others flared in orange, white, purple, green, blue, and deep midnight violet.
The seven colors of The Wrapped Agony.
The Corrupted Tyrant took a single, heavy step forward. The stone beneath his sabatons pulverized into dust.
Sunny's heart hammered violently against his ribs.
"SILVERSHADE!"
Black wisps erupted beside them, and the great owl materialized, its silver mask gleaming beneath the pale blue sky.
Sunny's voice turned into a harsh bark.
"Cassie, get on! We need to get the fuck out of here!"
Saint stood beside them, yet her usual composure had cracked. Beads of cold sweat formed along her temple, her violet eyes wide with disbelief as she measured the suffocating presence bearing down on them.
She had faced Corrupted abominations before. She had faced the Idol of the Golden Fleece and slain the Dreamlike Charred Visage…
Yet this creature exuded an authority that defied its rank. The living Relic bound to his flesh was magnifying his power to an obscene degree. In combat might, the being walking toward them did not scale to a Devil or a Tyrant.
It carried the devastating presence of a Great Monster. Perhaps even a Great Demon.
The Lullaby reached its final note and died.
Silvershade Harrow snapped its wings around Cassie, pulling the young girl beneath its silver plumage.
In that same heartbeat, the Tyrant opened his jaws.
A roar tore from his throat.
It was a cataclysmic blast of compressed air and corrupted essence. The shockwave surged across the plaza like an invisible wall, obliterating columns and tearing the flagstones from the earth.
Saint stepped in front of Sunny.
She slashed upward with her Soul Weapon, True Darkness erupting from the edge to cleave the concussive gale in two.
The redirected force slammed into their flanks, shoving Sunny, Saint, and the great owl backward across the stone. Dust was violently blown away, revealing the ground beneath their boots.
A colossal runic circle was carved into the bedrock, glowing with impenetrable, locking light.
Sunny and Saint glanced at the perimeter, cold dread sinking into their chests.
The Boundary Field had re-sealed.
There was no exit. To escape, Saint would need time to weave Nothingness and carve another rift through the lake.
The Tyrant took another step forward, his horn-crested helm fixed upon them.
Sunny and Saint looked at the advancing giant, the same desperate thought striking both of their minds at once.
Would they even have time to run?