Chapter 431 Fall From Grace
As Sunny and the treasure chest plunged through the skies into the boundless black abyss, pieces of the shattered island pursued them. The Crushing was slowly growing weaker, but it was still strong enough to kill most Awakened.
If not for the power of his shadows, Sunny would have been long dead. And even with it, he was much closer to becoming a corpse than he would have wished to be. His whole body was bruised, bloodied, and in pain.
…Which he could see very clearly, because, in addition to being terribly banged up, Sunny was also currently completely naked.
'What a… glorious sight. Damn it!'
He had dismissed the Puppeteer's Shroud to absorb the shadow essence spent on its summoning, and had none of it left to manifest the armor again. The last drops had been spent to summon the Dark Wing.
As the result, Sunny found himself falling into the Sky Below atop a lop-sided treasure chest while wearing nothing but his pack and the strip of leather holding his broken arm in place. His only hope right now was that neither Master Roan nor Saint Tyris would suddenly appear to save the day and see him in this state.
He would rather plunge into the Tear than live through that embarrassment.
Well… not really.
'I take it back. Both of them can descend from the clouds and carry me away in their arms. I won't mind! No, really!'ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
But no one came to his rescue. Dodging the heavy slabs of shattered stone and desperately trying to glide through the field of debris, Sunny slowly pushed the chest toward the empty expanse of the Tear and prayed that nothing would damage his fragile cloak.ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
It was having enough trouble obeying his commands already.
The Dark Wing wasn't really designed to carry heavy weights. It could barely support just Sunny himself… and that was in normal conditions. Now that Sunny was refusing to let go of the dead Mimic, and with both of them being affected by the Crushing, the enchanted cloak was on the verge of breaking apart. Instead of gliding smoothly away from the falling rocks, Sunny and the treasure chest were more or less just falling between them at a slight angle.
Needless to say, dodging the debris of the destroyed island in these circumstances was not easy. But, somehow, Sunny managed to protect both himself and the Dark Wing for long enough to escape the danger zone in one piece.
By then, the Crushing had become almost bearable.
Sitting on the lid of the treasure chest and feeling the terrible pressure grow weaker and weaker with each second, Sunny grimaced from pain, then let out a relieved sigh. The cool breeze was softly touching his burning face, as well as his... well, everything. All things considered, the fall was not unpleasant.
But then, a sudden thought appeared in his mind.
'...What are you feeling relieved about, idiot?'
Oh… right.
Looking down, Sunny saw nothing but the swiftly approaching, boundless dark expanse of the Sky Below.
The endless abyss that stretched downward forever, and from which there was no escape. Not unless one knew how to fly.
That was where he was headed.
***
Except for the golden String of Fate Sunny had seen disappearing into the depth of the Tear, he had no reason whatsoever to believe that he would survive the fall into the Sky Below, let alone ever be able to return to the Sanctuary and the real world. Most likely, he was going to go mad and either be devoured by some terrifying abyssal titan or die of hunger.
His life, almost literally, was hanging by a thread.
…But right now, he didn't care. All he cared about was the physical relief of not being pressed down upon by the Crushing. He was still wounded all over and in pain, but experiencing just the normal amount of it was almost euphoric.
'It's the small things that matter…'
Like not being constantly crushed by an invisible, murderous magical force. Or resting comfortably on a wide lid of a treasure chest instead of having your limbs being crushed in its jaws.
…Simple stuff like that.
Now that the Crushing was almost gone, Sunny used the Dark Wing to push the dead Mimic deeper into the Tear, as well as keep it level in the air. The treasure chest was wide and long, and its lid was flat. In a sense, it was almost like a firm, narrow cot.
There were worse ways to fall into an endless abyss, really.
Sunny stared at the wide sweep of the Tear, trying to burn the memory of the golden string of light into his mind.
The Tear was situated in the center of the Chained Isles, and was both vast and absolutely empty. Some people believed that the Ivory Tower had once stood in its middle, and was the first island to break free of its chains. Over thousands of years, islands that had bordered it were slowly destroyed one after another, causing the Tear to grow.
By now, it was a couple of hundred kilometers across, and from what Sunny could tell, the String of Fate led to somewhere in its very center.
The question was… how deep in there was the thing on the other end of the String? The longest someone had flown down into the Sky Below before turning back was a week. Was the mysterious object hidden in an even deeper part of the abyss?
And what was that object?
Sunny could not even guess. The only thing he knew was that his intuition had pushed him toward the Twisted Rock because of it.
If so… it should have been something that would allow him to survive.
Right?
Of course, his fate might have been to just die there. Fate didn't really discriminate against any type of occurrence, including fatal ones. Regardless, Sunny was going to find out.
…It's not like he had a choice now.
Feeling the air get colder, he shivered and watched the sky around him grow darker and darker.
Soon, there was no light left in it at all.
Sunny had fallen into the Sky Below.
down.
Chapter 432 First Day of Nothing
'This is… sort of grim.'
Sunny was falling through a boundless, empty void of cold darkness. Far below, false stars were shimmering with pale white light. Their radiance, however, did very little to illuminate the Sky Below. Everywhere around him, there was just… nothing.
Sunny was still resting atop the treasure chest, holding onto it with his one healthy hand. He had no reference point to measure how far he had traveled, but suspected that the distance was swiftly leaving the realm of mundane sense and logic.
He was not very educated, however, even he knew that a falling object would forever accelerate at a steady pace… theoretically. That meant that every second Sunny was falling, his speed was increasing exponentially. By now, it had to be simply insane.
But he did not really feel that speed. All he felt were wisps of cold wind caressing his skin from time to time. If there was one good thing about the situation, it was that he had accumulated a bit of shadow essence and was able to summon the Puppeteer's Shroud again. So he wasn't naked anymore, at least.
If there was one thing he did know, though, it was the approximate speed with which he could glide forward with the help of the Dark Wing. Adding the weight of the dead treasure to the equation, he could more or less calculate the distance he was covering horizontally. With that in mind, he guessed that he would reach the middle of the Tear in around a day…
Problem was, he had no reliable way to measure time, as well. There were some clues he could try to use, like the rate of shadow essence regeneration or the state of his wounds, but they were not exactly reliable.
In heroic stories, characters often found themselves in similar situations. Every time that happened, the hero somehow managed to measure the passage of time by the state of their facial hair. Sadly, despite being eighteen, Sunny could not grow even the most pitiful of beards. That was a real shame.
'...I guess I'm not hero material.'
With a bitter sigh, he stared at the lid of the treasure chest and tried to assess his physical state.
Things weren't good, but they also weren't very bad. He had sustained minor internal damage due to the Crushing, as well as several rather ugly wounds in the battle against Mimic. The half-healed cuts left on his body by the Mirror Beast had also opened at some point, and were now hurting once again.
The worst injury was, of course, his broken arm.
His mental state was also somewhat in shambles after being ravaged by the visage of the Strings of Fate. Luckily, there seemed to be no long-lasting effects. Even the splitting headache was already growing fainter. Sunny also could not remember the exact details of what he had seen, as if his mind completely erased them from his memory to protect itself.
The only thing that remained was the fragment of the memory that he had preserved on purpose — the image of the thread of golden light leading deep into the Tear.
Sunny stared at the black nothingness, waited for a while, then slowly exhaled.
'Great. Now what?'
There was no answer.
***
After a while — Sunny had no idea how long — he got tired of waiting for something to happen and decided to act.
'Might as well…'
The first thing he did was summon the Covetous Coffer.freёwebnovel.com
Sunny expected that an identical chest would appear near the dead one, but instead, what he saw was a miniature version of it. A box made of dark wood, with strips of iron reinforcing it, appeared on the lid of the treasure chest.
It was about the size of a jewelry box, but not at all elegant. In fact, the Covetous Coffer looked more mean than graceful… somehow. As Sunny stared at it, the lid of the box raised slightly, revealing rows of sharp iron teeth.
He blinked.
'I guess that's all I can manage with my current Soul Core capacity.'
Shaking his head, Sunny looked at the Coffer and said in an uncertain tone:
"Come here."
Immediately, eight short iron legs appeared from under the box, and it scurried over before plopping down near him.
Sunny hesitated for a few moments, glanced at his fingers, then cautiously opened the lid of the box. Luckily, it didn't try to bite them off.
Taking off his pack, Sunny transferred its contents into the box. Although it seemed rather small, the Coffer swallowed all his supplies without any problem.
'...Perfect.'
Sunny closed the box, patted it on the lid, and dismissed it.
Then, he summoned the Moonlight Shard and methodically cut his now empty pack into strips of leather. Using his one healthy hand and his teeth, Sunny tied them into a semblance of a rope, then tied himself to the treasure chest, and finally calmed down.
Now, his coins weren't going anywhere.
Satisfied with his handiwork, Sunny rested for a bit. He was starting to feel tired… and sleepy.
Falling through the endless abyss turned out to be way less exciting than he had thought. In fact, it was extremely boring.
There were still a lot of things he had to do, though…
With a grimace, Sunny cautiously shifted his weight and crawled to the end of the chest. There, he used the Moonlight Shard to widen a crack on the side of the dead Mimic and separate two long planks of wood from it.
Then, he made a roll out of the last strip of leather he had and bit down on it.
'This... is going to suck.'
Without giving himself too much time to think about it, he removed his broken arm from its sling, and then proceeded to swiftly set the bones… just like he had been taught.
A sharp, blinding pain pierced his mind.
When Sunny regained his vision and the ability to think straight, he saw that his arm did not look like jelly anymore. It seemed more or less straight.
'That will have to do...'
Hissing and cursing, he used the two planks of wood and the strip of leather to create a sturdy splint, then carefully placed it back inside the sling. Now, his broken bones had a good chance of growing back together correctly.
Hopefully.
After that, Sunny summoned the Endless Spring and the Covetous Coffer, took some of his remaining food out of it, and had a strangely relaxed meal on top of the dead Mimic's lid.
By the time he was done, the Sky Below… did not change at all.
He was still falling into its depths, slowly moving the treasure chest toward the center of the Tear with the help of the Dark Wing.frёeωebɳovel.com
…He was also absolutely exhausted.
Sunny somberly stared at the distant false stars.
He stared at them until his eyes started to water and his thoughts became slow and muddy.
Then, he stared at them some more.
After a while, he thought:
'I can't take it anymore.'
By then, his reserves of shadow essence were full by a third. Judging that around twenty-four hours had passed after the destruction of the Twisted Rock, Sunny sighed, then dismissed the Dark Wing and allowed the chest to start falling straight down.
He was going to have to keep falling into the Sky Below for six more days... at least. Probably longer. Sunny shook his head, knowing full well that these estimations had almost nothing to do with reality.
Then, he did something that he had never thought he would ever do…
He cautiously lay down on the long lid of the dead Mimic, tightened the rope connecting them together… and closed his eyes.
Soon, Sunny was dead asleep, plummeting into the darkness of the abyss without a care in the world.