Chapter 439 Do or Die
Sunny stared into the darkness with an incredulous expression, then shrugged:
"Sure. Whatever. Nice to make your acquaintance… Your Highness. I am called Sunless, by the way. Sadly, no title."
Silently, though, he thought:
'...The young prince that the Dreamspawn had taken away?'
Oblivious to his suspicions, Mordret hesitated, then asked politely:
"Sunless? What an unusual name."
Sunny grimaced.
"Yes. My mother had a… on second thought, forget that! Are you going to tell me about the divine flame or not?"
The Prince of Nothing was silent for a bit, then said:
"There is not much to tell. The heat of those flames is absolutely deadly. Unless you have some way to fly, you are in big trouble. Which, I assume, you don't… otherwise, you wouldn't be in this predicament, to begin with. Right?"
'Well… you can't argue with sound logic, I guess!'
Sunny sighed.
"...I can control the direction of the fall, but yes, no true flight."
He hesitated, then added reluctantly:
"For what it is worth, my Aspect Ability allows me to turn incorporeal, as well as teleport for short distances."
He didn't really want to share the details of his powers with the mysterious prince, but currently, there was no other choice. Mordret obviously knew more about the Sky Below than Sunny, so his advice was vital.
The lost prince thought for a few moments, then said:
"Turning incorporeal will help against being cooked by the heat, but it won't save you from the divine flame itself. However, not everything is lost. Even though you can't fly, you do have some mobility. With some luck, you might be able to dodge the conflagrations."
Sunny glanced into the darkness with a resentful expression.
"That I already figured out myself. Tell me something that I don't know, genius."frёeωebɳovel.com
The void chuckled.
"Fine. But only because you asked nicely…"
Then, it disappeared.
Sunny's face twitched.
"Goddammit! He's gone again!"
But a second later, Mordret's voice suddenly resounded from the darkness:
"No, no. There is still time. I was just thinking…"
He was quiet for a few moments, then said hesitantly:
"There is actually a path through the divine flame. An empty rift in the tapestry of stars where none of it remains. If you find it, you might survive."
Although it was hard to control his emotions these days, Sunny tried his hardest to suppress the misplaced anger and calm himself down. When he spoke, his voice sounded almost even:
"Why didn't you tell me sooner? How far am I from this rift, then?"
Mordret sighed.
"How would I know? It's not like I know where you are, exactly. More than that, I had never managed to find the rift myself. The Sky Below is vast and deadly, after all…"
'...So, he was exploring this abyss, too. Why? What's out there, beyond the fake stars?'
Sunny tilted his head, the asked cautiously:
"If you never found it, how do you know that it's there?"
The void remained silent for some time. After a while, when Mordret spoke again, his voice sounded distant and weak:
"The Tear… it should be somewhere near the Tear. I think…"
With that, Sunny felt that he was alone in the darkness again. This time, the mysterious prince was truly gone.
He sat motionlessly for a while, staring into the endless nothingness of the Sky Below.
"Near the Tear…"
The String of Fate, too, had pointed toward the Tear. To somewhere very near its center. If the rift in the annihilating field of the divine flames had anything to do with the golden thread, then Sunny had a much better chance of finding the path through the merciless stars than Mordret had ever had.
…He had already half-found it, really.
Looking down, Sunny sighed and closed his eyes again, returning to the endless routine of circulating the shadow essence through his body.
***
Day passed after day.
The closer Sunny drew to the obliterating stars, the calmer he became. Now that mortal danger was getting near, his mind had no time and reason to slowly destroy itself. The absolute nothingness of the void that had assaulted it, too, was much less empty now.
Not only was it full of threat, but also of heat and light.
And shadows…
Sunny had dismissed the leather elements of the Puppeteer's Shroud and undid the bands of its upper garment. Stripped to the waist, he meditated in the darkness, the Soul Serpent coiling around his pale and lithe body.
Because of the rough diet of only eating the poisonous meat of a dead devil, he had practically no fat left. His skin looked a bit feverish and was drawn tautly across his lean muscles, making for a sight that was both splendid and a little disturbing.
His broken arm had almost healed, so he removed the splint and spent some time every day doing simple exercises to bring it back to its former strength. He had to be cautious not to overexert it too soon, though.
The plan of how to survive the field of stars was slowly forming in his mind. It was bound to be a gamble one way or another, but Sunny was not going to give up without doing everything he could to survive.
…His confidence was somewhat reinforced by the fact that he had, most likely, discovered the rift that Mordred told him about.
Following the direction of the golden String of Fate that had been practically burned into his mind, Sunny studied a particular cluster of the stars for an entire week before finally noticing something that looked like a tiny, almost imperceptibly minuscule gap in the vast tapestry of countless shimmering lights.
Trusting his judgment, he summoned the Dark Wing and used it to push the treasure chest toward that particular cluster. Luckily, he was already not too far away from it… most likely because he had been aiming to follow the golden string from the very beginning of his fall.
As a few more days went by and the stars grew even larger, Sunny became more or less certain that the tiny gap was, indeed, there. It had grown slightly bigger, too.
What he was uncertain about, however, was his ability to reach the rift without being incinerated by the annihilating heat of the divine flame.
The field of false stars was vast, and the rift was tiny in comparison. At the speed that he was falling, missing it would be far too easy.
But what choice did he have?
'Do or die...'freёwebnoѵel.com
Well... when had it ever been any different?
Chapter 440 Merciless Stars
After more than three weeks of falling into the Sky Below — at least Sunny thought that it had been that long — he sighed and stood up, balancing on the dangerously swaying treasure chest.
His hair was wet with sweat, and his skin glistened in the piercing white light of approaching stars. By now, they did not resemble white dots in the boundless darkness of the abyss. Instead, each was the size of a fist, surrounded by a furious, blinding halo.
The heat permeating the void was suffocating.
Sunny stared down, at the ocean of white flames beneath him. If this was what remained of the inferno of heavenly fire after thousands of years of burning in an empty void… he shuddered to imagine what it must have looked like right after the hammer of divine punishment had fallen on the ancient land.
His gaze was locked on a small empty space between several radiant stars.
The rift.
This was his goal.
As Sunny stared darkly at the tiny patch of emptiness amid the vast field of flame, the void suddenly spoke:
"Have you… huh? Is that a… uh… what a large tattoo you have."
Sunny glanced at the darkness, then shrugged.
"What about it?"
Mordret lingered for a few moments, as though not sure what to say, then asked with amusement:
"Sunless… are you sure that you are a research assistant?"
Sunny grinned.
"Of course I am! Do you know how many contribution points they give me every month? I scribbled a few words about this and that, and that bought me a house. An entire house! Maybe being a researcher is not as swell as being a prince, but it's still a sweet gig… with all due respect, of course. Your Highness."frёewebnoѵēl.com
The void laughed.
"You are such an interesting person."
Sunny stared into the void with an incredulous expression.
"You are a bit of an enigma yourself, are you not?"
Mordret remained silent for a bit, then asked:
"Are you ready for what is about to come?"
Instead of answering, Sunny pointed to the ocean of merciless stars.
"Look there."
When the lost prince spoke, his voice was strangely regretful:
"I can't really see that well. What is it?"
'Oh… right.'
Sunny hesitated for a few seconds, then said:
"I think I found the rift you told me about."
Mordret asked with surprise in his voice:
"...Really? You found it?"
Sunny shrugged.
"We'll see. You said that it should be somewhere under the Tear, right? Since I fell right into the Tear, there's a chance that I'm right."
The void lingered, then said in a somber tone:
"What if you're not?"
Sunny smiled.
"Then it has been nice knowing you. Anyway… anything else you want to tell me before you go? I doubt that we'll have the opportunity to speak again before I reach the stars."
Mordred thought for a few seconds, then said:
"I might not be able to reach you at all after that. So… good luck?"
Sunny raised an eyebrow.
"Really?"
The voice of the void answered after a long pause:freewebnσvel.cѳm
"Yes. Why?"
He shook his head.
"Nothing, really. I just thought that you are stuck somewhere out there, beyond the stars."
Mordret chuckled.
"...No. I am stuck somewhere else."
His voice grew strangely distant. Then, an almost inaudible whisper reached Sunny's ears:
"I hope… survive… Sunless…"
Then, the lost prince was gone, leaving Sunny alone in the darkness once again.
He sighed.
"Me too. I hope I'll survive, too."
***
After Mordred disappeared, Sunny waited for a bit, and then broke the rule he had set for himself for a second time since starting this expedition — he summoned another Memory that should have been tied only to Mongrel.
The Mantle of the Underworld.
The intricate onyx armor weaved itself from sparks of darkness and covered him from head to toe. Sunny was not accustomed to wearing its closed helmet, since he was usually using Weaver's Mask instead, but it was not uncomfortable. His field of vision, however, became slightly constricted.
'Hopefully, no one will be able to see me this far into the abyss.'
Out here in the Sky Below, he felt as though no one, not even those who were attuned to revelations, could peer into his secrets and glean anything about them.
…The only exception to the rule was the Prince of Nothing himself. But he was gone now.
The Mantle possessed two enchantments that would most likely prove themselves to be extremely helpful soon. The [Stalwart] trait of the armor imbued it with high resistance against various types of elemental damage, including fire. Just seconds after donning it, Sunny felt the suffocating heat retreat, replaced by a pleasant coolness.
How long would that coolness last, he did not know.
The [Living Stone] enchantment, on the other hand, allowed the Mantle of the Underworld to repair itself while being worn. This trait would come into play later, helping Sunny protect himself even after the divine flame became intense enough to damage the onyx armor.
After that, Sunny summoned the dark longbow and the quiver of black arrows. By now, his hand had recovered enough for him to be able to draw the mighty bow… he just hoped that he would not need to.
Finally, he summoned the Cruel Sight and attached it to his belt.
…All preparations were now done.
Looking down through the narrow slit of the visor, Sunny sighed…
Now, everything depended on his resilience, luck… and how deep his reserves of shadow essence were.
***
In the stark darkness of the empty void, deeper than even the memories of a blue sky could reach, a cracked treasure chest was plummeting toward an ocean of searing white flames.
Its underside was bathed in the furious light, while its lid was drowning in the deepest of shadows. Wisps of smoke were slowly rising from its smoldering wood, and the strips of iron reinforcing it were slowly starting to glow as they turned orange.
Sunny, who had become a shadow and was once again hiding on the lid of the dead devil, felt fine… for now. Until the treasure chest was destroyed, he was protected from directly touching the light of the divine flame.
But how long would the corpse of the mimic last?
He was thinking about something else, though… something far more dreadful.
'The rift… the damned rift! I am going to miss it!'