Chapter 610: Mind of a Beast
"Shadow! Shadow! Shadow!"
…Sunny swayed, looking at the broken sword in his hand. When did it break? He didn't quite remember. This was one of the first weapons he had picked up in the arena, right after killing… wait, who had he killed for that sword?
Dead faces spun in his mind, staring at him with empty eyes. There were so many that he couldn't even tell whether all of them had once belonged to real enemies or were simply created by his imagination. No, that one was real… the first human he had killed in the coliseum. That had been the battle where he took the sword.
These days, he was having trouble remembering things.
Sunny threw the broken sword away and looked at the crowd that was chanting his name. Shadow… right! That was him.
'What is wrong with you, fool… since when was that your name?'
He growled, wishing that he had thrown the broken weapon at one of the humans. Not that it would have done any good — there were powerful enchantments permeating the ancient stones of the coliseum. Some of them were meant to prevent the fighters from escaping, others protected the audience from their ire. Some, he had no idea about.
All his attempts to break free of this cursed place had failed… for now.
"Demon… are you alright?"
Sunny lingered for a few moments, then glanced at Elyas, slowly returning from the bizarre state of mind the battle had sent him into. The young man was looking at him with a strange expression on his face, a bit of apprehension hiding deep in his light blue eyes.
The youth had grown considerably stronger in the weeks they had spent fighting all kinds of monsters — both of the Nightmare and human kind — in the arena. All those soul shards had not been wasted on him. His healing Ability was now much more potent, and his skill as a warrior blossomed. His face also changed, becoming gaunt and angular... almost mature.
One had no choice but to grow up quickly in hell...
The pain of the Flaw washed over Sunny, finally shattering his strange trans. He gritted his teeth, and nodded.
"Well… good. You are being weird recently, you know. I have some essence left, so let me heal you before they take us back to the cages."
Sunny allowed the youth to approach and activate his Aspect Ability, staring at the Warmonger they had just killed. This one was a bit of a challenge… the bastard had almost taken one of his arms off.
The slavers they fought were growing stronger lately.
'Something is wrong.'
Sunny was not thinking about the Warmongers. He was thinking about his own state. At the start of all this, he had been in very bad shape… day after day, he had fought in the arena, receiving terrible wounds and being beaten down, time after time, just to claw his way to survival, somehow, and be thrown back into the cage.
At frist, he had kept his spirits high despite all the horror of his situation. He kept thinking and studying his surrounding, searching for a way to escape. He still had hope.
But after a while, when nothing had worked, the weight of pain, torment, and hopelessness had grown heavier and heavier, and then heavier still. A seed of despair had taken root in his soul. And once there, it grew uncontrollably, threatening to break him into pieces.
…Sunny had not broken. But he had to search for a way to survive in the arena without losing pieces of his flesh each time, to bide his time until an opportunity to escape presented itself.
He had found that way in Shadow Dance.
The idea had been kept in the depths of his mind for a long time, but only now, faced with this soul-crushing despair, had Sunny summoned it into the light. He had decided to try and expand the purview of his battle style to include not only shadowing humans, but also Nightmare Creatures.
The result... was a resounding success.
Armed with a demon's body, Sunny had found it surprisingly easy to peer into the very essence of how the mad abominations carried themselves in battle, how they used their monstrous bodies and vile abilities to tear, ravage, and obliterate everything in their path. And then, he had stolen it.
He had claws, too. He had fangs and horns, too. He had plenty of hatred and cruelty burning in his heart, too.
…Not that having a demon's body mattered, in the end. It was the willingness to shift the way he thought that was needed.
Why couldn't he learn how to ravage, rip apart, and obliterate from these creatures?
He had done exactly that, and slowly, his performance in the arena started to improve. Being able to shadow the Nightmare Creatures not only enhanced his battle style, but also made them more predictable, and thus less dangerous.
Of course, the task had not been easy. In fact, understanding how the Corrupted fought and what impulses guided them was, in a sense, much harder than deciphering even the most sophisticated battle style. Their minds were perverted, bizarre, and alien to everything he had ever known.
And yet, he had nothing else to do but practice, as if his life depended on it. Because it quite literally did.
And eventually, his efforts bore fruit.
Sunny couldn't quite remember when he had made a breakthrough, but at some point, he found himself being able to understand the Nightmare Creatures much better. From that point onward, his mastery of Shadow Dance, which had been stagnating since the Dreamscape tournament, finally started advancing once again.
And with frightening speed.
Now, Sunny was able to use Shadow Dance to assume the shape and form of all his enemies, at least in his mind, and thus know how they were going to try and destroy him. By knowing that, he had been able to anticipate and kill them first, instead, one after another, day after day, week after week…
And here he was.
Barely remembering who he was.
As Elyas healed his wounds, Sunny stared at the dead Warmonger, his scowl growing deeper and deeper.
'Am I… becoming a Nightmare Creature?'
The thought sent a cold shiver running down his spine.
How did one become Corrupted, anyway?
…Some time later, back in the cage, Sunny stared into the darkness, scared. This… this was not a danger he had anticipated. Thrust into the terrible meat grinder of the arena, he had been so focused on surviving the terrifying battles that the possibility of having his very self annihilated, piece by little piece, had never occurred to him.
What, exactly, was happening to him?
Sunny stared at the unbreakable bars of his cage, and shuddered.
'Damn… I really, really need to get out of here…'
But how? He had been trying to escape all this time, with not even a hint of a chance. The damned collar around his neck made sure that he would never be able to leave the coliseum...
His black eyes narrowed.
'No… no, I have to hold on, just a little longer. This madness is not going to last forever.'
It simply couldn't. Half of the cages in the dungeon were already empty, their inhabitants slaughtered on the red stones of the arena.
The Warmongers were slowly running out of slaves to kill.
And when their number decreased too much, with only the most ferocious and deadly monsters left…
Something was bound to happen.
...Wasn't it?
A cold feeling of despair drowned his mind.
'But what if it doesn't?'
Chapter 611: Immortal Lords
After a while, shrouded in darkness, Elyas suddenly spoke, addressing Sunny in his usual one-sided manner.
In the past weeks, the young Awakened had developed a habit of sometimes speaking to his demonic partner, even though the frightening creature could not respond with anything more than an occasional nod, a shake of the head, or an indifferent shrug. Talking to Shadow was not much of a conversation, but...
Perhaps this was one of the few things that were keeping him sane.
…Sunny could understand why the youth had to do that, since his own inability to talk was one of the things that were driving him mad, that was robbing him of even more of his humanity.
"Hey, demon. Do you… do you think it's true? About the wooden sword…"
Sunny stared at the young man, then shrugged. He had no opinion on that topic, since he didn't know what the wooden sword was.
Elyas sighed.
"Before the Warmongers captured us, I had heard of their cruel Trials. Everyone back home has, really. The horrors of the Red Colosseum is something every parent tells their children, to make them behave."
He grew silent, and then continued after some time, his voice even:
"...But they also say that there is a way to escape this terrible place. If one is brave enough… if they are righteous enough… then they would eventually be given a wooden sword, and earn the right to fight for their freedom."
Sunny shifted slightly, tilting his head.
'What a nice fairy tale…'
The poor kid was deceiving himself if he thought that the worshippers of War were going to just let them go. Bravery, righteousness… these concepts were alien to the insane zealots.
Or rather, they understood it all differently.
Sunny had spent enough time observing the Warriors — or Warmongers, as Elyas called them — to understand that they were not evil people, or at least did not consider themselves as such. Their worldview was twisted and ruthlessly cruel, but more or less simple.
They believed in struggle, and glory. One had to struggle to achieve glory, and the struggle itself was the most glorious thing. That was why they were happy and joyful when watching their new favorite, Shadow, slaughter his way through the arena, no matter who or what he was killing — Nightmare Creatures or their own friends and family.
...Because dying while struggling against an overwhelming foe was the highest form of glory. Dying by his hand was a privilege and an expression of virtue.
The only thing more righteous than being killed by a stronger enemy… was to kill that enemy instead.
In their mind, the Warriors saw what they were doing to the slaves not as a cruel injustice, but as a benevolent gift. The slaves were not forced to slaughter each other for the entertainment of the crowd. Instead, they were generously given a chance to walk the path of righteousness and strive toward glory...
That was why Sunny didn't think that any of the slaves would ever be allowed to walk free of the colosseum. Doing so would be the greatest sin, a shameful offense that the Warmongers, in their perverse benevolence, would never visit upon their prisoners.
To them, that would have been the vilest form of cruelty.
'Damned lunatics…'
Sunny was not sure that all followers of War God were this bizarre. In fact, he was pretty certain that this murderous sect had been born here, in the Kingdom of Hope. The slavers he had met in the First Nightmare worshipped the same god, but were nothing like these battlesworn zealots…
The Kingdom of Hope was a very strange place throughout, from what little he had gathered from Elyas's words.
Sunny now knew that he had been sent into a time period around a thousand years after the destruction of the real kingdom by Sun God. Now, only the name remained. People inhabiting these lands did not even know who the Demon of Desire was, really, only that she had been punished by the gods and imprisoned in the Ivory Tower.
And that their duty was to guard her prison.
In this duty, the people of the kingdom were led by seven lords. Or rather, five, since two had already perished.
The Ivory Tower itself had not been separated from the rest of the isles yet, and remained at the center of the region, surrounded by a large city — the beautiful city of aerial bridges and white aqueducts that he had seen rebuild itself from ashes at the start fo the Nightmare. Elyas's home.
The Ivory City was populated by the followers of Sun God, and protected by two of the remaining five lords.
The west of the region belonged to the second most populous faction of the Kingdom of Hope, the followers of War, and this was where Sunny had the misfortune to find himself. He had seen the statues of War God here and there in the arena, even though they did not resemble the one he had witnessed on the strange island that a circular river flowed through.
These statues of the God of War, as well as of life, progress, technology, craft, intellect, and humanity all depicted him as a mighty warrior in heavy armor, wielding a bloodied spear and a cracked shield.
The Warriors were also led by one of the lords — a beautiful priestess of War whose name was...
Solvane. The dazzling beauty was one of the rulers of the Kingdom of Hope.
The followers of War God and Sun God seemed to be in conflict with each other, and so were the lords leading them. That was how Elyas and his family had ended up captured and brought into the arena, to serve as slaves fighting in the Trials.
The remaining two lords were neutral and of no consequence, since their factions were much smaller and wielded no real power. One resided far to the north, and the other somewhere in the east. Elyas did not know much about them, and so Sunny didn't either.
…He just knew that the five lords were, without a doubt, the eternal shackles mentioned in the description of the Undying chain. Immortal jailers created by Sun God to keep Hope imprisoned in her tower, chained… forever.
What had once been a suspicion of his now turned into a certainty. There were just too many clues, some of which he had collected before venturing into the Seed, and some that he had picked up from the young man's words.
And maybe… just maybe… that knowledge could help him gain freedom.
Chapter 612: Red Colosseum
'Wooden sword… fight for their freedom…'
Sunny shifted slightly, causing his cage to sway, and glanced at Elyas. The youth was not in a talking mood anymore and just sat quietly, staring into the darkness.
There was something, a hint of a meaning, in what he had said. Sunny tried desperately to catch that meaning, but for some reason, his thoughts kept returning to the statues of War God.
He had seen two depictions of the fearsome deity in the Kingdom of Hope. One was a warrior in heavy armor, wielding a bloodied spear and a cracked shield — both, presumably, representing warfare and battle — and the other was a woman wearing nothing but a beast hide around her waist, holding a spear in one hand and a beating human heart in another… the spear representing her dominion over war, technology, and craft perhaps, the heart representing her connection to life and humanity.
Why were these statues so different?
Sunny was still exhausted after the furious battles of the past day, his thoughts slow and feverish, as they often were these days. Frustrated, he rubbed his face, then scratched at it with sharp claws, slicing the skin apart. The pain washed the fog shrouding his mind away, allowing him to think clearly for a few minutes.
The Altar of War… that was what Solvane had called the island where the primeval statue of the Goddess of Life stood. And that was the right word — this depiction of the deity seemed much more primal, bestial… ancient.
The statue itself seemed incredibly ancient, too. Much older than the statues of the mighty warrior were… in fact, it seemed as ancient as the Red Colosseum itself, or perhaps even older. Old enough to have been created before the Kingdom of Hope was shattered and turned into the chain of floating islands by Sun God, as it was today, and would be thousands of years into the future.
Why would Hope have a monument to one of the gods in her domain? Well, the idea itself was not that strange. Gods and daemons had not been always at war, after all. In fact, the Prince of the Underworld had a shrine to the Goddess of the Black Skies, Storm God, in his very tower — despite the fact that later, she would become his mortal enemy.
So that question was not important… the important thing was that Sunny couldn't stop thinking about the statue, for some reason.
'As ancient as the Red Colosseum itself…'
Suddenly, Sunny tilted his head.
'Huh?'
The white amphitheater, and the arena it surrounded, were the derelict of the true Kingdom of Hope, as well. He had realized that fact a while back, partially from how they looked, and partially from how deep and ancient some of the shadows hiding in the corners of the dungeon felt.
In fact, Sunny suspected that the theater had not always been a battle arena. It reminded him of the giant quarry at the roots of the Hollow Mountains, where the seven heroes of the Forgotten Shore had excavated stone to build the mighty walls of their city, and the Crimson Spire itself.
Ivory City had to have been built out of something, too… so this place must have been a similar quarry, once, and had served as the source of the white stones used to construct those aerial bridges and aqueducts. Later, it had been turned into a theater, and later still, the Warmongers usurped that theater and made it into an arena, soaking the ancient stones with so much blood that they turned red.
His black eyes narrowed.
'This is it… this must be it…'
All this time, Sunny had been tormented by one paradoxical question. A question that was of utmost importance for his attempts to gain freedom.
…If this was an era where the Nightmare Spell did not exist yet, then how could Solvane put him on a leash capable of severing his connection to the Spell?
The collar was a simple piece of enchanted metal, with no lock or any other way of opening it. It was almost impossible to damage or destroy, but the enchantment itself was not very complicated… Sunny could feel that it wasn't. What it did, however, was tie him to the vast and incredibly powerful enchantments of the arena itself.
Those enchantments were harnessed by the Warmongers to maintain the cages, prevent the slaves from escaping by any means, mundane or magical, and ensure that they behaved while being transported to and, very rarely, back from the arena.
His inability to connect to the Spell almost seemed like a side effect of these measures.
But what could even interfere with the Spell, let alone accidentally?
And now, he felt as if he had found the answer! If the Red Colosseum was, indeed, not built by the Warriors, but only usurped by them, then it was indeed very clear.
…Sorcery of another daemon could. If the Demon of Desire was the original creator of the theater, then the enchantments left behind by her would probably do the job of messing with the Spell weaved from the Strings of Fate by her older sibling.
Sunny shifted, grasping the bars of the cage.
Suddenly, a powerful emotion burst in his chest, filling his muscles with renewed strength, and his mind with desperate resolve.
…Hope. It was hope.
He didn't think of it as poison anymore. No... it was the opposite. A most powerful antidote.
If the Spell had been created by Weather, and the enchantments interfering with it created by Hope… if all of this was the result of a clash between two types of daemonic sorcery…
Then why couldn't he, as an inheritor of a daemonic legacy, do something to resolve that clash?
Sure, Sunny knew nothing about weaving magic… but he had also not known anything about combat once, or how to live and fight in a body of an actual demon.
If there was one thing he was good at, it was learning new things.
Well… that, and lying.
And staying alive.
Staring at the ghastly dungeon surrounding him with new eyes, Sunny studied its ancient stone walls, and frowned.
So… how was one supposed to start learning sorcery?
Chapter 613: Schools of Sorcery
There were hours left until they were going to be taken to the arena again. Sunny stared at the walls of the dungeon intently, as though hoping to glean some secrets from the ancient stones.
But what could he see? They were just old stones. There was nothing interesting on their surface, and neither was there anything interesting beneath it.
After a while, Sunny took a deep breath and sat down again, trying to make himself as comfortable as possible in the narrow cage. Then, he shut down his senses, pushing away the presence of countless abominations surrounding him, the stench of the prison, the pain in his exhausted body… everything that distracted him from thinking.
'What do I know about sorcery?'
That was a daunting question.
Even the word itself was deceptive. Humans of his world used it to describe any Aspect capable of dealing direct damage to the opponents, as opposed to augmenting the Awakened's combat ability — especially those that could do so from range. But that wasn't what Sunny was after.
No, what he was interested in was not the type of abilities that existed within the familiar framework of supernatural powers, but the very means used to create that framework, or at least those that existed outside the realm of Aspects.
That, to him, was true sorcery.
'But there are different kinds of such sorcery, as well… what are the ones that I've witnessed?'
Three came to mind. The first one he was familiar with the best — the spellweave, which he believed to be Weaver's own sorcery. The Spell itself was created from it, as well as all the magical items that the Spell gifted to the Awakened — Memories and Echoes. This was the magic that all humans knew, and most believed to be the only kind there is.
Sunny, however, had already learned that sorcery was not synonymous with the Spell, and that there were ways of creating magic different from spellweave.
The first of them he had witnessed inside the Echo of Saint, which had remnants of a much more primitive weave hiding beneath the usual pattern of ethereal strings before he turned her into a Shadow. Later, he encountered the same type of alien weave within the walls of the Ebony Tower.
This type of Sorcery belonged to the Prince of the Underworld, Weaver's younger sibling. The similarity between them was hard not to notice, but Sunny didn't know which of the daemons had copied which — whether Weaver perfected the sorcery created by their brother, or whether the youngest child of the Unknown had based the method of his craft on the eldest's invention.
Judging by these two types of sorcery, it was easy to imagine that all of them involved some kind of a weave. However, that conclusion would have been wrong… Sunny knew this because of the third type of magic he had encountered.
The miraculous creation of Sun God — the obsidian knife he had taken from the white altar of the Sanctuary of Noctis before leaving for the Night Temple, and was now resting, inaccessible, on the bottom of the Covetous Coffer.
The black knife had no weave hiding beneath its surface… instead, it was full of blinding radiance, as if encompassing a boundless ocean of soul essence, with a single String of Fate placed into the pristine light as it folded on itself endlessly and formed a neverending circle.
That was the sorcery of Sun God… if a deific miracle could even be called sorcery. In any case, the obsidian knife — and later, the wooden one he had used to kill Solvane — proved that one didn't have to base their magic on a weave of some sort. This was just the unique way Weaver cast his, and their brother followed.
So… Hope's sorcery might have been completely unique, too.
Trapped in the iron cage, Sunny frowned. How was he supposed to search for something that could have looked like anything?
Come to think of it… there was another type of sorcery that he had encountered. Or rather, several different ones, all united by the same method of creation: runic magic.
The first time he had seen it was underneath the ruined cathedral of the Dark City, in a small cell where a corpse wearing Weaver's mask had been chained within a broken circle. That circle was carved into the stone floor, surrounded by countless symbols that Sunny had not recognized.
The Gateway within the Crimson Spire was surrounded by a circle of runes, too… as well as the stone arch on the last level of the Ebony Tower and the one connected to it, situated in the beautiful white gazebo on the Ivory Island.
Another place where he had encountered sorcerous runes was the Night Temple… there, they had been either inscribed by someone from clan Valor, or at least found and repurposed by them.
So, basically, he was familiar with three general types of creating sorcery. One was the spellweave, as well as a version of it used by the Prince of the Underworld. The other was the divine miracles of Sun God, which he couldn't even begin to understand.
And the last one was based on the inscription of runes, and seemed to have been mostly used by humans — here in the Kingdom of Hope and on the neighboring Forgotten Shore.
'Huh…'
There was a small discrepancy, however.
'Why was the portal in the Ebony Tower created with runic magic instead of the primitive spellweave, like everything else in there?'
Was it, perhaps, because the connecting portal on the Ivory Island had been? The Prince of the Underworld had built the tower in the Sky Below long after Hope had built hers, after all. In fact, he had done so after his sister was already imprisoned, to harvest the divine flames that had destroyed her domain. It would have made sense for him to use runic magic to invade an already existing system of portals that had been based on it.
So… was Hope, perhaps, the source of runic magic? Or at least a user of it?
Sunny sighed, feeling spent and tired, then closed his eyes.
He had to sleep at least a little, to allow his body and mind some rest before tomorrow's battles.
Especially now that he had not only to survive them, but also do so while searching for any sign of hidden runes throughout the arena…
Chapter 614: Hope's Canvas
A new day brought with it a new portion of pain, hardship, and despair.
Sunny and Elyas were dragged into the arena, the same Ascended warmonger guiding them by the chains attached to the collars. Sunny stumbled forward, his gaze locked on the man's broad back.
The jailer was incredibly tall for a human, his height more than even that of the shadow demon Sunny was currently inhabiting. His figure was solemn and powerful, a sense of terrifying strength radiating from it in almost physical waves. The apostle of War wore the same ragged leather armor and a tattered red robe, his features hidden behind a deep hood.
In all these weeks, Sunny had never seen his face, or heard him speak.
The great blade on the Ascended warrior's back looked special, too. It was definitely enchanted with very powerful magic… now that Sunny turned his thoughts to the nature of sorcery, he was silently studying the line of runes inscribed along the edge of the heavy weapon.
'Runic magic again…'
That made sense… how else were these ancient people supposed to enchant their weapons? It was not like they could rely on Memories and spellweave. That said, magical weapons seemed to be much rarer in the Kingdom of Hope than in the waking world. Most of the Awakened Sunny had fought in the arena wielded either mundane ones or those possessing weak, primitive enchantments.
It was the far cry from the powerful Memories he was used to, although Sunny did not know if that was the nature of this era, or just another sign of the ubiquitous regression that seemed to reign in what remained of the Kingdom of Hope. Everything here seemed devolved, worn out, and on the verge of falling apart.
The whole region was obviously in decline, and had been for some time now.
...While studying the runes on the great blade, he also noticed that it had a few new nicks. The leather armor of the silent giant had more scratches than before, as well…
It seemed that the Ascended was participating in the battles in the arena himself.
'I guess I'll have to fight that monster too, eventually...'
Finally, a rusty iron gate appeared in front of them, blinding sunlight streaming through its bars. The rumbling voices of the crowd echoed from the stone walls, washing over him like a cursed tide.
The gate swung open, and the chains came off of their collars. Sunny and Elyas entered the first killing box and watched as their opponents crawled out of a similar tunnel.
The young Awakened brandished his weapon — a short spear fashioned out of a long twisting horn — and forced out a weak smile.
"Luck... luck is on our side today, Demon! These creatures are called Burrowers. On solid stone, their main advantage is gone! Just don't let them swallow you…"
Sunny snarled, then dashed forward with a roar.
…Hard. Today was going to be hard.
He was forced to use Shadow Dance to peer into the souls of the Nightmare Creatures, despite suspecting that doing so too much threatened to destroy his already unsteady mind. He also had to both concentrate on the fight and thoroughly study the ancient theater, in hopes of discovering signs of Hope's sorcery.
It was almost like his first training sessions with Saint, when he had to resist the taciturn monster while simultaneously keeping an eye on his shadow to decipher the secret of its dance. The problem was that, back then, he had ended up beaten black and blue by Saint most of the time.
Now, he couldn't allow himself to lose.
Sunny descended upon the repulsive Burrowers, which looked like sacks of bulbous flesh with giant circular maws gaping in them, and tried to slaughter the abominations without being eaten alive.
…The first fight came and went, and then, it was time for the second one, and then the third one, and then the fourth.
Sunny had slain the vicious Burrowers, and then a creature that resembled a giant walking skeleton, its bones green and as tough as granite, and then a swarm of monstrous ants that covered the floor of the arena like a carpet, and then a being that was like an oozing mountain of mire sludge that had long, razor-sharp steel sickles protruding from it.
His body was torn, and sliced, and crushed, and gnawed on. Elyas had healed the most terrible wounds, but the rest remained, not worthy of having precious soul essence wasted on them, yet.
Sunny was once again overwhelmed by pain, rage, and the desperate need to fight for his survival. Everything else disappeared… the only thing that remained was battle, blood, and murder.
And fear.
...However, today, that wasn't enough.
He fought through the battle fog that encompassed his mind and kept searching, studying every corner of the Red Colosseum — the floor of the arena, the walls surrounding it, the rows of seats rising above — in search of intricately engraved runes.
But all he saw were the statues of War God, the jubilant faces of the spectators, and the weathered surface of ancient stones. There was no hint of any engravings anywhere.
'Where are you… where...'
The fifth battle almost cost him his life. While fighting against a familiar foe — a giant worm-like creature that possessed a seemingly endless reserve of vitality — Suny had tripped on the uneven surface of the floor of the arena, lost his balance, and tumbled down.
If not for Elyas, who fearlessly jumped forward and pulled the attention of the terrible abomination to himself, he would have been viciously mauled, or even lost his life.
Back when Sunny had fought a worm like that the first time, the creature eventually succumbed to the soul damage continuously dealt to it by the Cruel Sight. Today, however, he had no deadly Memory to help him… only his claws, his fangs, and his horns.
In the end, Sunny had to literally rip the giant abomination to shreds. Only when its body was torn apart completely did the worm stop regenerating new flesh and recovering from all the wounds, and finally died.
Exhausted, Sunny fell to his knees and breathed hoarsely, then threw a hateful glance at the crowd chanting his name. Finally, he lowered his head and glared at the wide groove in the red stone of the arena that had almost cost him his life.
There were several grooves like that in some of the killing boxes, cutting through the floor of the colosseum like broad channels meant for the rivers of blood to flow through them. Usually, he took note of their placement in advance to avoid losing his footing at a dire moment, but today, with his attention split between the battles and the need to study the arena, Sunny had failed in that regard.
'Damn thing… why couldn't they just make the arena flat?!'
Well, the answer was obvious. All that blood had to go somewhere, and if not for these grooves, the whole colosseum would have slowly turned into one giant crimson pool.
He frowned.
'Wait… that doesn't make sense, though…'
Sunny lingered, noticing that the gate to the sixth box was already opening.
The grooves were as ancient as the Red Colosseum itself… which meant that they had been here long before the Warmongers started holding their demented Trials here. Long before the name Red Colosseum was even given to it.
Which meant that these grooves had been cut through the stone back when it had still been pristine white, and had no blood spilled on it.
So… serving as channels that took away blood could not have been their purpose.
Sunny's lightless eyes narrowed. Suddenly, he realized his mistake.
All this time, he had been looking for the sorcerous runes while expecting them to look like they had the previous times he encountered them — intricate, small, and numerous, arranged into shapes and patterns. And yet, he had found nothing.
But, in fact, the runes were right in front of him the whole time… or rather, beneath his feet.
He was just too small and insignificant to notice them, like an ant crawling across a vast painting and failing to see the whole image for what it was.
There were no circles of intricate runes carved anywhere in the colosseum… instead, the whole vastness of the ancient arena was a runic circle, a canvas Hope had used to create her sorcery.
…He was standing on it.
Chapter 615: Ancient Runes
The runes Hope had used were not small, intricate, and elaborate. Instead, they were giant, spanning the whole width of the blood-soaked arena, and guided torrential floods of soul energy instead of thin streams of it to create the unimaginably powerful enchantments.
Once Sunny knew where to look, it didn't take him long to start noticing a pattern and meaning in the placement and direction of the grooves cut in the ancient stone. The problem was, their scope was too great to be perceived from the floor of the arena. He would have been able to see the entirety of the runes, perhaps, from the very top of the amphitheater.
But fighters were never allowed to leave the battlefield, unless it was to return to the dungeon.
…In the absence of an aerial view, all he could do was to try and compile the disjointed pieces of the puzzle in his mind. By now, Sunny had fought in most of the killing boxes in the arena, except for a few.
After defeating another group of Warmongers and being thrown back into the cage, he spent the entire night trying to remember each of the stages he had shed blood on, and the pattern of the grooves on their floor. It was like assembling a complicated puzzle, only instead of the actual pieces, all he had were fragmented memories of them.
Luckily, his memory had always been good. In fact, after becoming an Awakened and having the opportunity to interact with a lot of different people, many of whom were very smart and educated, Sunny realized that his ability to instantly memorize things were somewhat unnatural even among them. Before, he had just assumed that everyone could do the same.
Still, he had to have paid attention to a thing in order to remember it, which was not the case with all of the grooves — only those that had happened to appear in his way. Plus, he was also having trouble determining how the irregularly shaped killing boxes were situated in relation to each other, since that wasn't something he had thought about before.
The task of creating a perfect three-dimensional replica of the entire arena in his mind was not an easy one.
Over the next few days, he was somewhat distracted while fighting the Nightmare Creatures in the Red Colosseum. Confounded by the fact that their enemies were growing stronger and stronger as all the weaker slaves were being slowly slaughtered, his performance suffered.
And that meant more injuries, more pain, and more torment.
Sometimes, he felt utterly beaten, broken, and hopeless. Sunny was familiar with suffering and hardship, and had experienced a fair share of horrific anguish in his life… but the Trial of the Red Colosseum had turned out to be a hell so dire that even he was having difficulty enduring its burden. It was simply too cruel, too odious, too vile…
And that harrowing torture was not going to end until he gave up.
But he didn't. The strange task of peering into the secrets of the Demon of Desire kept him going, no matter how wounded his body and how broken his spirit became. It was almost like an obsession. Sunny continued to fight, and kill, and suffer… and study the ancient stones.
His mental condition deteriorated so much that even Elyas, who was going through his own terrible ordeal, noticed that something was very wrong with his taciturn demonic partner. The young man tried to encourage the shadow creature as well as he could, but what could he say to soothe the soul-crushing despair of their situation?
They were enslaved, locked in cages, and forced to fight for their lives against a swarm of deadly monsters, only to be thrown back behind the iron bars, fed the raw flesh of the abominations they had just killed, and go through the whole nightmare again the next day, with no hope of ever escaping except for through death… through being killed and eaten by the other prisoners of the Red Colosseum.
Even their captors seemed to be trapped by the Colosseum, chained in the same vicious cycle, and doomed to eventually share the same fate as their slaves. Inside this ancient theater, only bloodshed and madness reigned.
…And yet, all of it was not for nothing. Eventually, after Sunny had lost count of the days they had spent in the colosseum, he finally managed to create a complete image of it in his head. With it came the understanding of the shapes of the giant runes that were cut in the bloodsoaked stone.
And with that understanding came the ability to peer into their purpose.
After learning the shape and position of the runes, Sunny found himself able to peer beneath the surface of the stone and see their function. The ability had always been within him, hiding in the depths of his changed eyes… he just had not known where and how to look, like he had not been aware of his ability to see the soul cores of creatures before clashing with Mordret within the Soul Sea.
Armed with the new knowledge, Sunny was able to perceive vast rivers of soul essence flowing beneath the arena and through its walls, following intricate paths carved for it by the immense runes.
In the end, that was what sorcery was — the ability to guide and shape hidden energies, most often that of souls, to express one's will upon the world… the enchantments were simply expressions of the enchanter's will, and the runes were the building blocks with which the enchanter manipulated the movement of energy to achieve their goal.
But where was all this soul energy coming from?
At first, Sunny assumed that the Red Colosseum was similar to the Crimson Labyrinth, and fed on the souls of creatures slain within it.
Slaves slaughtering each other in the arena must have been empowering the sorcery enslaving them by the very act of slaughter… but after observing the flow of soul essence through the ancient structure for a while, he realized that his initial theory was wrong.
Instead of the fighters... it was the crowd of spectators that fueled the enchantments. It was their jubilation, their elation, their sincere excitement that were the source of all the power flowing through the ancient theater. Of course… why would the Demon of Desire base her sorcery on death?
Her domain was built upon dreams, emotions, and passion. It was only after the followers of War God had usurped the colosseum that the subject of all this passion became battle, bloodshed, and murder. The current state of the arena was not how it had been supposed to be... it was stolen, perverted, and made into something utterly different.
...Corrupted.
More than a month had already passed after Sunny entered the Second Nightmare. The dungeon was growing less and less crowded, most of the prisoners long killed on the bloody stones of the arena. The end of the hateful Trials — whatever it was supposed to be — was approaching.
Now, he knew the basic principle of how the enchantments keeping him tied to the Red Colosseum functioned…
So, the question was, how was he supposed to use that knowledge to escape?
Chapter 616: Black String
Sunny had no clue how to create, decipher, or manipulate runic magic. His inherent ability to see the weave and inner structure of magical items, the one he had received after consuming the drop of ichor that fell from Weaver's eye, also gifted him with an innate understanding of the essence of spellweave.
While studying the Memories created by Spell, Sunny was not able to fully understand the intricate purpose of the vast patterns of ethereal strings… but he at least could intuitively feel a hint of it.
He had no such advantage when it came to other forms of sorcery. So, despite the fact that he had managed to perceive the enchantments encompassing the Red Colosseum, it was not like he could simply change them, or create new ones to counteract the old.
He could study the runes, of course… but with no teacher and only his wit and intelligence to help him draw the correct conclusions from observing various enchantments, it would take hundreds of years to gain enough insight to learn how to create any meaningful runic sorcery of his own.
Sunny, however, wasn't discouraged. Yes, he would not be able to create runic sorcery any time soon.
But destroying things was always much easier than making them.
Locked inside the narrow cage, surrounded by the smell of Nightmare Creatures and filth, Sunny stared into the darkness and thought.
Destroy the enchantments of the Red Colosseum…
In theory, it was simple to achieve. He just had to break enough runes to disrupt the paths they created for the soul energy. The problem with that, however, was that the runes Hope had used were giant, and carved into nearly unbreakable stone. Sunny doubted that he would be able to do enough damage to the arena to cause its sorcery to fail.
...Causing a smaller and temporary disruption, however, was not entirely impossible. He felt that he would be able to achieve that much, at least… perhaps enough to free himself of the binding enchantment for a second or few.
Would several seconds of freedom be enough to escape this cursed place?
It was going to have to be…
As he waited in the darkness, a seed of a desperate plan started forming in his mind.
***
At some point, Sunny straightened and sat cross-legged at the center of the cage, causing it to sway lightly. Raising one of his four monstrous hands, he stared at it for a while, and then commanded shadow essence to stream forward, concentrating at the tips of his fingers.
Even since he had consumed Weaver's alabaster phalanx and acquired Bone Weave, the tactile sense of his fingers went through a strange metamorphosis. It was now much more nuanced, vibrant, and keen. Even though his hands were currently bestial and covered by thick calluses, this sensitivity remained.
As shadow essence concentrated in the tips of his fingers, he felt a strange, ghostly tingling sensation. It was so real as to almost appear physical…
Tentatively raising another hand, Sunny hesitated for a few moments, then pinched the air near one of his tingling fingers and tried to pull essence outward.
To his surprise, it worked.
In his mind's eye, a strand of darkness suddenly extended into the air, summoned by his hand. It didn't look like one of the radiant strings he was used to seeing inside Memories, and neither did it look like the flowing liquid that essence was usually depicted as.
Instead, the strand of shadow essence looked like a tenebrous fog, similar to the grey wisps that rose from Saint's armor when one of the shadows wrapped itself around her.
It was insubstantial, ephemeral, and elusive, not at all like the sharp and beautiful strings that spellweave was created of.
Sunny frowned slightly, and pulled the fog with one hand while trying to get a hold of it with the other, wishing to draw it taut, and thus more concentrated.
However, this small movement instantly caused the strand to break, dissipate, and disappear, blown away by a gust of wind.
'This… is going to take some time.'
Grim, Sunny continued to draw on his shadow essence and try to form it into a thin and durable string, emptying a small portion of his reserves with each failure. By the time morning came, he had not made any progress at all, and only managed to waste most of his essence in futile attempts.
Fighting after wasting so much power was going to cost him a lot.
Soon, the Ascended jailer appeared from the darkness, chains rattling on his belt. Sunny glanced at the giant in a tattered red robe, and then closed his eyes for a moment.
'Doesn't matter… it doesn't matter. I'll be dead either way. But now, at least, there's a chance…'
He fought in the arena, killed the Nightmare Creatures, retrieved the soul shard to empower Elyas, and then barely survived in the battle against the Awakened Warriors on the final stage.
At night, he continued to experiment with shadow essence, trying to shape the elusive fog into something resembling an ethereal, resilient string. When his essence ran dry, he slept for a few minutes, and then woke up with a startle to start all over again.
When the morning came, he fought. When the murdering was over and done with, hidden in the darkness, he tried to weave strings out of the effervescent fog. The idea itself seemed ridiculous, mad, and impossible… how could something so intangible become something strong, durable, and distinct?
He sundered flesh and had his flesh sundered, then struggled to create something out of nothing, day after day, night after day. Time lost any meaning… Suny had already been struggling to hold on, but now, drained by the lack of sleep, the constant pressure of trying to shape essence into a magical string, and the need to fight in the arena with his reserves half-empty because of it, he was slowly sliding into the dark and bottomless abyss.
And yet, he persisted in his obsession, teaching his fingers to feel the smallest fluctuations of the fog, to guide and shape it, trying one approach after another, endlessly, without resting or giving up.
And by the time his second month in the Red Colosseum was coming to the end and most of the cages in the lightless dungeon hung empty…
Sunny suddenly straightened, staring at his cut, trembling hands.
Between them, a single ethereal string hovered, black as night, thinner than a hair, and as sharp as a diamond blade.
A low growl escaped from his mouth.
'It's done... I've done it!'
Chapter 617: Simplest Weave
Sunny remained motionless for a while, then shifted slightly, causing the chain of his cage to rattle. Attracted by the sound, Elyas woke up from his restless sleep and stared into the darkness, a tired expression on his young face.
"...Demon? What happened?"
In the next moment, he heard the sound of a heavy body slamming against the iron bars, and then another crash. His partner's cage swung widely, and at the highest point of its swing, a long arm suddenly shot from between the bars, claws scraping against metal as Sunny took hold of the youth's own gibbet.
Elyas flinched.
"Wha... what are you doing?"
Sunny growled, trying to express his intention as best as he could. The young Awakened didn't know how to read the runic language he knew how to write, so this was the only way of communication between them. Luckily, an honest effort to answer truthfully was enough for the Flaw. It didn't punish Sunny for not being able to deliver the truth, as long as he really tried to.
Their cages hung diagonally, connected by his hand. Sunny groaned, straining his muscles to pull them even closer together. Then, staring at the young man's pale face, Sunny took hold of the bars with two more hands, and stretched the fourth one to grab the Awakened by the throat.
Elyas's eyes widened slightly, but he didn't even try to struggle. The youth simply looked at him, no fear written on his gaunt and emaciated, but still childishly soft face. Instead, there was only confusion... and trust.
Sunny sighed.
'What a fool. If I wanted to, I could have snapped his neck right here and now…'
Of course, he had no such intentions. Instead, Sunny brought the youth closer and stared intently at the steel collar wrapped around his neck, studying it. He couldn't really see his own, so this was the next best thing.
Elyas remained motionless for a while, then said:
"I don't know what you are trying to do, Demon, but you better stop it before the priest comes to check on the noise."
Sunny scowled, then let go, causing their cages to swing away from each other. Elyas was right… there were mere seconds left before the Ascended showed up, judging by how long it had taken the solemn giant to appear before. He was always somewhere near, ready to intervene in case the slaves misbehaved. Sunny had timed their jailer's reaction time many, so he knew that much.
It didn't matter, anyway. He had already seen all that he needed to see. The pattern of runes carved inside the collar, and the stream of soul essence running through it… this was what he needed to disrupt.
Sunny was going to have to work fast.
***
Several days later, looking more like a corpse than a living being, he was laying at the bottom of the cage, looking at his hands. Between them, a complicated cradle of black strings was weaved together, forming a strange and hypnotic pattern. Sunny had advanced a lot in his ability to thread shadow strings and loop them between his fingers… sadly, it was not without cost.
The strings were ephemeral and unseen to anyone except him, which also meant that they could not interact with the material world. However, they could interact with his flesh, which was why two of his fingers were missing, each sliced away so cleanly that it seemed as though they had never existed.
Even his phalanxes, reinforced by the evolved Bone Weave, had not offered the essence strings any resistance. All that remained were two bloody stumps.
The rest of his fingers were cut and mangled, but still in place. Considering that there were eighteen of them left, he still had more than a human would. Not that it diminished the pain he was constantly experiencing.
It would have certainly been helpful to have a tool to work the black strings, instead of doing it with his bare hands… something like a needle, perhaps. Coincidentally, he had one of those in his possession, a needle used by Weaver themself, no less. But it was locked away in his Soul Sea, safely kept and utterly inaccessible inside the Covetous Coffer.
So, he just had to endure and be very, very careful, lest the number of his fingers diminished even further.
…There was another problem, though.
Sunny had inherited an intuitive understanding of the guiding principles of spellweave, but it was not like he really knew what to do. All he had was his memory of the spellweave patterns he had seen before, and a vague feeling of the purpose behind them.
This was not enough to master sorcery… but it was at least a start.
Each Memory he had studied before had unique enchantments, so he couldn't draw parallels between them and extrapolate how their weaves produced the desired effects. There were magical qualities that all Memories shared, however.
The ability to be summoned and dismissed, the ability to repair themselves unless completely destroyed, and the connection to the owner's soul.
Knowing these three ubiquitous traits, Sunny could, in theory, determine which parts of the weaves were the exact same across all Memories, and thus were responsible for these effects. Then, he could try to recreate them.
Each spellweave was incredibly complex, so recalling even a single pattern perfectly was a challenge, despite him having a very good memory. Sunny, however, had to recall not only many, but also do so with a sufficient degree of precision to be able to compare and find similarities between them.
And then, he had to somehow rebuild the repeating parts of those weaves with nothing but his bare hands and shallow reserves of shadow essence. The task seemed nearly impossible…
But, fueled by obsession, resolve, and desperation, he had succeeded.
…And also failed.
After thousands of attempts, Sunny was finally able to perfectly recreate one of the three patterns he had managed to isolate. But as soon as the pattern was complete, it instantly fell apart. No matter how many times he repeated the process, the result was the same.
For some reason, the weave didn't hold. It wasn't able to sustain itself.
Something was missing.
Today, Sunny was going to perform another experiment… perhaps the last one. He was tired, drained, and terribly hurt. Whatever hope he had managed to find before, in this bloodsoaked hell, was on the verge of running out. He was… he was almost ready to give up.
But not just yet.
There was one other thing that all Memories contained… not a part of the pattern of ethereal strings, but something different. A bright ember that served as the anchor and nexus for the strings, a point around which the whole pattern was structured. Memories of the first Tier had one, and those of the higher Tiers had several.
After considering that fact, Sunny had brought something back from the arena today… a single soul shard that he he had not given to Elyas, instead keeping it for himself. The shard had belonged to a fearsome Awakened demon he killed earlier today, in one of the killing boxes of the Red Colosseum.
Now, looking at the cat's cradle of ethereal black strings drawn between his fingers, he hesitated for a long time, and then carefully placed the gleaming crystal in its center.
Then, holding his breath, Sunny slowly started connecting each of the strings to the shard, moving his fingers with extreme speed and nimbleness. Slowly, a black pattern started shaping around the bright ember, strangely not permeating a different object, but instead looping back on itself.
And after something that felt like an eternity, with drops of blood rolling down his hands… Sunny finally let go of the strings and stared at the soul shard laying on his palm.
A beautiful pattern of tenebrous strings hovered in the air around it, stable, without a single flaw or weakness to cause it to fall apart.
He sighed, and then weaved the last string into the pattern, connecting its other end to the shadow core in his chest.
Finally, Sunny closed his eyes and gave the mental command.
In front of him, the soul shard disintegrated into a rain of white sparks, and then appeared once again, creating itself out of nothingness.
Sunny let out a long, heavy breath.
...This was the first sorcery he had woven.
Chapter 618: Plan of Escape
Sunny breathed in, then breathed out, calming down his widely beating heart. His hands were trembling so hard that the softly gleaming soul shard almost fell out of his grip.
'Hey… hey, Elyas. Look... it's finished!'
He tiredly turned his head and let out a low growl, trying to attract the young man's attention. But his partner did not even move, laying at the bottom of his cage and staring into the darkness with bleak, hollow eyes.
The last few days, the youth's condition wasn't too good. He even stopped having his one-sided conversations with Sunny, and just sat quietly in the darkness, not moving, until the next morning came and it was time to fight again.
Sunny lingered for a few moments, then turned away.
'It's alright… rest. I'll get us out of here soon. We will be free… free, Elyas! Just hold on a little longer!'
There wasn't much time left. In all of the vile dungeon, barely four dozen Nightmare Creatures were left alive. Their grotesque forms towered in the darkness, locked inside enchanted cages, the long stretches of empty space between hinting that the Trials of the Red Colosseum were going to come to an end soon.
And then, Solvane and her followers would spend another decade hunting down a new hecatomb of monsters to sacrifice to their bloodthirsty god.
Sunny's mouth twitched.
'Who cares… they are all just illusions, anyway. The real Solvane is long dead… the real Elyas is dead, too. Who cares what happens to them?'
He stole a glance at the crestfallen youth, and then looked away.
…But were they, really?
Forcing his trembling hands to grow steady, Sunny hesitated, then studied the soul shard he had just enchanted.
He didn't know what the Spell used to create the embers serving as anchors for its weaves. Whatever it was, there certainly was a connection to soul cores… after all, the Tier — and subsequently, the number of nexuses a Memory's spellweave possessed — was directly tied to the number of soul cores that the source of the Memory had.
However, those embers weren't actual soul shards, most likely, since shards were harvested from the carcasses of Nightmare Creatures even if the kill had produced a Memory. Sunny didn't care, though… without a better alternative, all he could do was use one in place of the other.
He steadied himself, looked upon his demonic figure through the eyes of the shadow, and then dismissed the soul shard once again.
This time, however, Sunny did something strange… he willed the enchanted crystal to remain in an ambivalent state, not quite gone, but also not quite tangible.
Then, he reached into the weave of the black strings and slowly untangled it, breaking the loops and allowing the ends of the tenebrous threads to float free.
And finally, after that was done, he started to weave the whole pattern, including the ethereal soul shard, into the cold steel of his collar.
Slowly but surely, he integrated the spellweave into the band wrapped around his neck, submerging it into the flowing stream of soul essence. The task was tenuous, perplexing, and intricate… but it wasn't too complicated. The pattern was already made, and all he had to do was to connect it to a new vessel.
After a while, he was finished. The soul shard disappeared from his hands, and from the material world entirely. Instead, it was now burning beneath the surface of the collar, the black strings extending from it and spreading through the steel. Now, the collar looked almost like a Memory, and even its nexus was almost undistinguishable from the embers Sunny had seen before.
Of course, there was a second enchantment inside of it, this one much more complex and elaborate, crafted from ethereal runes. It was all a proper mess… just like he wanted it to be.
Sunny held his breath… and then tried to dismiss the collar.
The band of metal around his neck shimmered, and suddenly turned extremely cold. Inside, two energies clashed with each other, both enchantments momentarily failing.
He felt a sudden shift… a sudden change in the air, and inside of him, as though a long-forgotten part of his being had awakened from a long slumber. Full of fear and excitement, Sunny did something that he had done countless times before, but never knew to value.
'One…'
He summoned the runes.
Familiar symbols appeared in the air in front of him, their sight as sweet as honey.
Name: Sunless.
True Name: Lost from Light.
Rank: Awakened…
'Two…'
Sunny turned away from the runes and peered into the collar, observing the battle of the two enchantments within. Simultaneously, he grabbed the steel with two of his hands and threw all his monstrous strength into trying to pull it apart.
But the collar held firm, as if utterly indestructible.
'Three...'
On the count of seven, the soul shard he had placed within the band of steel suddenly burst into a myriad of sparks, and the weave of black strings he had so arduously threaded fell apart, turning into the grey fog and disappearing. The original flow of soul essence was unobstructed once again, and the runic enchantment resumed its function.
…Sunny was not disappointed. For now, all he wanted was to learn how long his sabotage was going to last.
'Seven seconds…'
A dark grin appeared on his face.
'...Seven seconds will be more than enough.'
***
The next day, hurting and barely alive, he brought another soul shard back with him from the arena. Tonight was going to be the night of their escape… Sunny wasn't sure that he would be able to endure any longer. If he had any chance to break free, he had to take it now.
The plan was long finalized in his mind, and even though he was frightened to put it in motion, there was no other way.
As Elyas fell on the bottom of his cage and closed his eyes, too tired to eat the disgusting raw meat thrown to them by the Ascended warrior, Sunny concentrated on weaving a new enchantment. He was now proficient enough to create black strings rather swiftly, even though hurrying threatened to cost him another finger or two.
Still, in a few hours, he had threaded enough to repeat the simple weave of a summoning enchantment.
Following the same steps that he had taken yesterday, Sunny created the pattern around the soul shard, and then integrated it into the collar.
The two enchantments clashed again, gifting him several short moments of freedom.
This time, Sunny did not waste any of them.
As soon as the enchantment of the collar was disrupted, breaking his connection to the Red Colosseum, he took a deep breath… and fell through the shadows.
A moment later, Sunny found himself standing on the cold stone floor, a couple of steps away from of a swaying, empty cage.
He was free!
For six more seconds, at least...
Chapter 619: Seven Seconds
'Seven.'
Sunny stepped through the shadows and appeared outside of the cage, his towering figure finally free and unconstrained by the suffocating iron bars. He staggered as excruciating pain spread through his mutilated flesh, a myriad of badly healed wounds reminding him of their festering existence, and hissed.
Elyas suddenly moved, confused by the direction from which the familiar hiss came. Then, he grabbed the bars and stared at Sunny with wide eyes.
"How…"
All of a sudden, he could see his partner clearly in the darkness, because the obsidian body of the shadow creature had become enveloped by a storm of swirling sparks of light. Sunny had begun to summon his Memories — the Undying Chain, the Cruel Sight, the Midnight Shard, the Prowling Thorn…
'Six.'
The stygian serpent drawn on his skin suddenly moved, slithering forth to turn into a fearsome black odachi. Its sharp tip appeared in the air above one of Sunny's hands, and grew, swiftly forming into the length of the great blade.
At the same time, two ruby eyes ignited in the depths of his shadow with a furious light.
Elys flinched, staring at the gaunt demon in front of him in stunned awe.
'Five.'
Saint stepped out of the darkness, her graceful figure as black as the onyx, her posture straight and indomitable. Her hands were empty, devoid for now of any weapon.
Sunny stared at his Shadow with grim joy, and then bared his fangs, greeting her. He wasn't sure, but he thought that he noticed a slight change to the set of the taciturn knight's shoulders. Had she... missed him too?
'Four.'
The hilt of the Soul Serpent fell into his hand, the length of the odachi considerably increased to account for his towering height. Sunny didn't hesitate and threw the great blade to Saint, who caught it calmly and weighed the weapon in her hand, the hue of her ruby eyes suddenly growing a little brighter. It almost seemed like the Shadow was… excited?
Sunny glanced into the depths of the dungeon, where dozens of mighty Nightmare Creatures still remained locked in cages, waiting for their turn to be slaughtered in the arena.
Then, he turned to Saint.
'Three.'
...And said:
'Kill them. Kill them all!'
She tilted her head, sparing him a short look, and then wordlessly disappeared into the darkness, the black blade of the Soul Serpent raised to deliver the first killing blow.
'Two.'
A moment later, something whistled through the air, and a bestial scream thundered in the silence of the nightmarish dungeon. Sunny wasn't paying attention, though… the plan was already in motion, and his efforts were required somewhere else.
The familiar voice whispered into his ear, making him shiver.
[You have slain…]
…Oh, how he longed to hear it once more!
[Your shadow grows stronger.]
In one of Sunny's hands, a somber shortsword appeared, weaved out of tenebrous fog.
'One'.
In another, a stalwart tachi manifested itself. Sunny gripped the hilt of the Midnight Shard with both of his upper hands, leaving the Cruel Sight in one of the lower ones.
The Undying Chain finally finished appearing from a whirlwind of white sparks, covering his body with a caparace of bleak steel. Its shape changed to accommodate Sunny's monstrous body, new plates of perfectly fitted armor encompassing his digitigrade legs, his four arms, and even his long tail, a sharp metal spike protruding from the tip of it.
His gauntlets ended in vicious steel claws, and his helmet had two holes at the top for his curved horns to fit through.
Instead of a gaunt creature with a terribly mangled body, a fearsome steel goliath now stood amid the empty cages, jagged horns crowning the featureless steel plane of his face.
'One.'
Sunny dismissed his helmet and felt the collar snap back into function. Immediately, he sensed that his ability to Shadow Step was restrained again, and his connection to the Spell was cut. The sparks that had almost coalesced into the Prowling Thord disappeared, and the unfinished form of the heavy kunai with them.
…It didn't matter. He had already achieved everything he needed to achieve in these seven seconds.
Sunny could have used that time to Shadow Step as far as he could, escaping the premises of the Red Colosseum. However, that would have left him with no essence in the middle of Solvane's territory, with the accursed collar still wrapped around his neck.
It was easy to leave the Red Colosseum, but it was much harder to escape it. As long as Sunny was collared, he was going to remain tied to the enchantments of the ancient theater. He was still going to be a slave.
Plus… there was a thing he wasn't willing to leave behind.
Sunny heard Saint slaughtering the second Nightmare Creature and turned to Elyas, who was staring at him with wide eyes.
The youth was still trapped in the cage…
Of course, Sunny could have left him to die. In fact, doing so was probably an obvious decision. The young Awakened wasn't real, after all.
Only, maybe, he was…
Sunny had no idea whether these people were illusions or not. That was what the government and the common knowledge had told him. But was that knowledge the truth? He wasn't sure.
All he knew was that the shadows of the Mountain King and the old slaver he had killed in the First Nightmare were still in his Soul Sea, undistinguishable from all the rest of the creatures he had slain in the real world and the Dream Realm. An illusion created by the Spell, if that was what they were, might as well have possessed a soul, and a shadow… if so, were they so different from real people?
In any case, it didn't really matter. In the reality of the Nightmare, Elyas was a living being. His partner. Sunny was determined to save him, as well.
The two of them were fated to die in the arena. Well… fate could go screw itself. They had kept each other alive in the Red Colosseum, and now, both of them were going to escape it. Together. That was his furious, adamant resolution.
Plus… Sunny really, really needed Elyas for his plan of escape to work.
The problem, however, was the cage. It was forged out of the same indestructible alloy as their collars. So getting the youth out of it was not going to be easy…
With a low growl, Sunny jumped onto the hanging cage, grabbing the bars with the curved talons on his feet, and swung the Midnight Shard. He wasn't aiming at the cage itself… instead, he was aiming at the chain attaching it to the ceiling.
Reinforced by the shadows, the austere tachi cut through the rusty chain, easily breaking it apart. The cage fell to the floor, sending a loud rumble rolling through the dark dungeon, and then toppled to the side.
Locked inside, Elys was thrown down. Almost immediately, though, the youth regained his balance and crouched, staring at Sunny with wild eyes.
"Hurry! Whatever you're planning, Demon, hurry! The priest is going to be here soon!"
Sunny shivered, remembering the aura of savage, crushing strength radiating from their Ascended jailer, and the cold glint of his terrifying blade.
Elyas didn't need to remind him… Sunny was painfully aware of how little time he had left…