Chapter 204 Mysterious Key
A while later, they were resting in the shadow of the giant statue. Every member of the cohort looked nothing short of terrible, however, beneath the bloodied сlothes and broken armor, their bodies were whole and sound.
Changing Star had healed them all, and now, she was the only one who was weak and exhausted. Using the white flame so much had taken a heavy toll on her.
Sitting in the mud, Sunny raised his head and looked at the giant statue of the faceless woman. She was just like the last time he had seen her, slender and graceful, with her light flowing robe rippling in the wind, as though made out of actual fabric and not hard stone.
The statue was tilted slightly to the side, with its one remaining hand reaching high into the sky. A long time ago, on the night of their harrowing escape from the Ashen Barrow, Sunny, Cassie and Nephis had taken shelter in her palm.
It was from its height that he had first seen the walls of the Dark City.
Looking down, Sunny stared at the other hand of the giant statue, which had broken off a long time ago and fell down, crushing through the dome of the underground chamber.
With a sigh, he closed his eyes and thought:
'Thank you for saving us again.'
Then, his face darkened.
Remembering the events that had transpired in the catacombs, Sunny felt his good mood evaporating. Although he had found the answer to one of the mysteries that had been plaguing him for a while now, he wasn't happy about it.
The fate of the inhabitants of the ancient city had always been something that Sunny was very curious about. As an amateur explorer who spent most of his free time studying the ruins of the Dark City, he was familiar with subtle details of their culture more than most. Learning about the mundane facts of their lives was somewhat of a passion of his.
He had known that the history of this ancient civilization ended in tragedy, of course. A cataclysmic disaster had destroyed it, turning the once prosperous land into the desolate hell it was today. But against all logic, Sunny still hoped that these people had somehow managed to survive.
Perhaps they had migrated somewhere, leaving the ruins of their city behind.
But now he knew that it wasn't so. All of them were right there below him, buried forever in a damp underground chamber, piled onto each other high enough to form a ghastly mountain of bones. More than that, their remains had been soaked in the cursed waters of the dark sea and turned into a vessel for the soul of a vile Nightmare Creature.
There were a lot of questions about the fate of these people still lingering in his mind. How did they end up in that dark chamber? Had they died there, or had their bodies been brought there by someone… or something… later? How was the Lord of the Dead born? Was its inception the same as that of the Soul Devourer?
But he didn't really want to know the answers anymore. He felt that learning them would only break his heart.
With a sigh, Sunny decided to distract himself from these depressing thoughts with something uplifting and summoned the runes.
One cluster, in particular, interested him the most.
Shadow Fragments: [322/1000.]
He had received four fragments for killing the Corpse Eater… even though the manner of its death was rather peculiar. Having now killed Nightmare Creatures of the Awakened, Fallen, and Great ranks, Sunny could surmise that his initial theory was right.
The Spell gave him double the fragments for killing enemies of higher ranks, according to the number of soul cores they possessed. An Awakened creature would land him two fragments for each core, a Fallen one four, and a Great one sixteen.
It was easy to guess that killing a dormant creature, which was equal to him in terms of rank, would result in one fragment per core, while killing a corrupted one would result in eight.
Made sense. It was the same as absorbing soul shards, with the difference being that shadow fragments entered his core at the moment of the kill and without making a distinction between Nightmare Creatures and humans.
Looking up, he glanced at the list of his Memories.
Memories: [Silver Bell], [Puppeteer's Shroud], [Midnight Shard], [Ordinary Rock], [Prowling Thorn], [Endless Spring], [Blood Arrow].
The last one was new. Slightly intrigued, Sunny read its description.
Memory: [Blood Arrow].
Memory Rank: Ascended.
Memory Tier: I.
Memory Type: Weapon.
Memory Description: [A debt of blood must be paid in blood.]
Memory Enchantments: [Rain of Blood], [Restitution].
Enchantment Description: [The arrows are created from the wielder's blood, and as such, can rain on the enemies for as long as the archer has any left in their veins.]
Enchantment Description: [If the arrow finds its mark, it will drink the blood of the prey and restore that which had been taken from the archer. If it misses, the archer's blood will be lost forever.]
'Huh. Creepy.'
Since Sunny didn't know how to use a bow, this Memory was useless to him. Which was a real shame, because it was the first Ascended one he had ever received. Memories of that rank were extremely rare on the Forgotten Shore.
He could either feed it to the Stone Saint for a couple of shadow fragments, or…
Sunny glanced at Kai and frowned, lost in thought. While the Blood Arrow was of no use to him, it would be a real boon for the charming archer. With it at his disposal, he wouldn't have to carry a quiver with him, not to mention that each shot he made would be much more devastating.
…As long as Kai didn't miss, of course. If he did miss, he would be sacrificing his blood for nothing.
Transfering the Blood Arrow to Kai would have made the cohort much stronger. But Sunny wasn't sure that he was ready to give up his first and only Ascended Memory. Not for free, at least.
Torn, he dismissed the runes and decided to think about it later.
In other news, the Blood Weave had revealed a new trait. Turns out, Sunny's blood was poisonous — or rather, damaging to anyone who ingested it. At least it seemed that way from the manner of Corpse Eater's death. He would have to experiment to find out more later...
Or not. Honestly, Sunny didn't even know how one would go about checking something like that, and wasn't particularly eager to find out.
After dismissing the runes, Sunny finally decided to take a look at the mysterious key. Subtly glancing around, he furtively took it out from beneath the vambrace of the Puppeteer's Shroud, where he had hidden it earlier.
The intricate iron key lay on his palm, glowing with a pale golden light.
The light of divinity.
Sunny had no idea what the key was supposed to open.
He had taken an insane risk and almost died to get it. Was it worth it? free𝑤ebnovel.com
Honestly, he wasn't sure.
But deep down, Sunny felt that it was. For some reason, he sensed that the small iron key would turn out to be extremely important to him.
Chapter 205 Journey to the Southfreёwebnovel.com
Sadly, the cohort did not get a lot of time to rest. Despite the fact that it wasn't even noon yet, they had a lot of ground to cover before sunset.
The plan they had made at the start of the day was to leave the Dark City from the south by climbing the wall near the grandiose Main Gates and then travel through the Labyrinth to the next safe height, which was about ten kilometers away.
However, due to the fact that they had ended up in the catacombs instead and had to escape through the chamber belonging to the Lord of the Dead, the party was now to the east of the ruins, near the beautiful statue of the faceless woman. Not only did they have to circle around the city now, but there was also less time to reach safety before the flood of darkness devoured the Forgotten Shore once again.
Standing up in a chorus of disappointed groans, the cohort assumed the marching formation and set out south. Walking through the mud of the colossal crater was not easy, but for the time being, they had no other choice… unless they wanted to scale the monumental stone wall and return to the Dark City, of course.
Luckily, with both Sunny's shadow and Kai scouting the way ahead, they didn't have to worry about being ambushed by monsters. So, for the time being, the only thing the party had to struggle with was moving their feet through the wet dirt.
The monotonous silence was broken only by laborious breathing and slurping of mud.
…A while later, the impregnable and seemingly endless grey wall that loomed some distance away and above them slowly twisted, drifting away from the edge of the crater.
They were finally leaving the cursed ruins behind.ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com
Turning around, Sunny looked back and studied the sight of the city that had been his whole world for these past four… almost five months.
Far away, the floor of the gargantuan crater sharply rose, forming a tall slope. On it stood the unassailable wall of polished grey stone, firm and unyielding despite the thousands of years that had passed since the demise of its creators.
From where he stood, Sunny could see the flood of crimson coral swelling at its base, sharp blades powerlessly scraping against the cold stone in hopeless attempts to find purchase. It looked as though the city was being besieged by the land itself.
'If it knew what awaits inside, the Labyrinth would be trying to escape as far as possible from that damned place instead.'
With a sigh, Sunny looked up and noticed a lone human figure standing on the wall, watching them disappear into the distance. That figure was crooked and dark, emanating a cold feeling of foreboding.
A few moments later, it turned away and disappeared from view.
Harus had chosen to return to the Bright Castle.
Trying not to shiver, Sunny lingered for a few seconds, and then hurried to catch up with the group.
They were safe from him, at least…
'For now.'
***
Because the crater was too big, the bent of its edge was almost imperceptible. Only by looking far into the distance could one say that it was actually curved. Because of this, the cohort could have continued traveling through the crater for a long time without having to move farther away from the goal of today's journey, which lay to the southwest of their current position.
However, they had to leave the crater and return to the Labyrinth sooner or later — not only to escape the black water, but also because there was nothing to hide behind on this vast muddy plain. If any flying Nightmare Creature decided to attack them from above, the cohort would have no defense against it.
The Labyrinth, while hiding its own fair share of terrifying threats, at least offered some measure of protection.
That's why, at some point, Nephis led the party to the sharp slope of the crater, and the six of them climbed out of it. With the help of Kai and the trusty golden rope, the task wasn't hard at all.
For some time after that, they walked on the ridge separating the crater from the Labyrinth proper, but then, finally, had to turn west and enter the maze of crimson coral.
Sunny couldn't help but sigh once the familiar coral walls surrounded him once again. He didn't miss the first months of his infernal voyage into the Dream Realm at all.
Well… maybe a little. But not because of the damn Labyrinth itself, that's for sure.
The crimson forest was simultaneously the same and vastly different from the region of it that he had traveled through before.
The coral maze itself was pretty much identical to how it had been east of the gargantuan crater. However, the creatures populating it in these parts were vastly different.
There were no members of the carapace legion around, at least not anywhere Sunny could see. Instead, the dominant tribe of Nightmare Creatures in this region seemed to consist of nasty, spider-like critters that had a habit of decorating the walls and passages of the Labyrinth with endless amounts of grey, incredibly sticky cobwebs.
What's worse, their web seemed to be made not out of spider silk, but out of thin metal wires that were as tough as iron and could cut the victim into little pieces if it thrashed too much after getting caught.
Needless to say, getting yourself stuck in these webs was tantamount to a death sentence.
The deeper into the Labyrinth they went, the more of these cobwebs surrounded them. It came to the point where they had to use Cassie's flying rapier to clear the path ahead every few minutes, slowing down the speed of the cohort to a crawl.
During one of these stops, Sunny rubbed his face and thought:
'I just hope that nothing attacks us while we wait.'
Turning to him, the shadow glared for a few moments and then tiredly shook its head. It then placed one palm across its face a looked down, as if defeated.
'...What? What did I say?'
A moment later, several massive spider-like creatures jumped out of the cracks in the coral and attacked them.