The thing slowly spreading from the ancient brazier felt like… pure evil.
Sunny shivered, gave Saint a signal to stay back, and shifted his gaze slightly. He was looking past spreading black flesh, at the source of this harrowing infection.
At the very center of the brazier, blackened by the flames that must have raged in it once, lay a severed human arm. Well… it resembled that of a human, at least.
The arm was much longer than it should have been, and the hand had seven fingers that ended with sharp claws. The rot seemed to be spreading from a terrible torn wound on the forearm, to the charred and emaciated flesh, and then outward, to everything else around it.
Despite the repugnant state of the severed arm, the cut that separated it at the shoulder seemed clean and perfectly smooth, as if delivered by a steady and unfaltering blade.
But Sunny was more affected in something else.
A deep frown appeared on his face when he noticed it…
In his mind's eye, the vile arm was radiating a blindingly bright, overwhelming, beautiful golden radiance.
It was awash in the light of divinity.
A frightening thought appeared in Sunny's head.
'Can... can it be?'
In front of him, stricken by the harrowing rot, was... a severed arm of a deity.
...It was also the reason why fate had brought him to this lost and forgotten corner of the abyss.
Chapter 448 Golden Needle
Sunny stared at the severed arm of an unknown deity, then at the harrowing, profane rot spreading from it. Then, he tiredly rubbed his face.
'...Why can't anything ever be easy?'
He was sure that his fate was somehow connected to that arm, which meant that he was going to have to get to it somehow. But Sunny was also sure that there weren't enough rewards in all of the universe to make him go anywhere near that rot, let alone touch something infected by it.
He had the feeling that this thing was way, way out of his league.
In fact, he suspected that a divine being had ruthlessly severed their own arm because even someone as powerful as that had no means to resist that spreading corruption.
What was Sunny supposed to do, then?
Well…
Trying to remain as far from the rot as possible, he studied it for a while before coming to a strange conclusion… or rather, a strange question.
If the corruption was so terrible, then why had it not spread through the entire tower? Why had it only managed to crawl a few meters out of the silver brazier, turning a small portion of the second level of the pagoda into its flesh?
'Scratch that. Why didn't the whole island become one giant chunk of rotten black... whatever the hell that thing is?'
The answer was not hard to guess. It was because the rot, just like everything else inside the tower, had been sealed away from time for thousands of years.
And now that Sunny had broken that seal…
His frown deepened as he glanced at the silver hearth that was overgrown and had become a part of the spreading rot.
Now, there were only two possibilities. Time was going to catch up to the devouring corruption, and it was either going to slowly consume everything… or starve and die.
Could that thing last for thousands of years with nothing to feed on except for cold stone? Did it need to feed on flesh and souls, or would anything do?
'...I guess I am going to find out.'
Keeping an eye on the patch of harrowing rot, Sunny tried to suppress his fear and took a step forward.
It didn't seem like the rot was spreading. At least not yet.
In any case, he wasn't going to get closer to it. But he also knew that if the worst happened, he had no tool at his disposal that would save him. If that thing began to grow, slowly spreading across the whole of the Obsidian Tower, and then across the whole island, Sunny was simply going to die. Probably jump down into nothingness to avoid becoming a part of that... thing.
There was nowhere else to retreat to in the Sky Below, after all. And he doubted that he would be able to find a second secret island out there in the void...
So, his only hope was to find something inside the pagoda to save him. He had to explore further…
Plus, there was a possibility that the rot would swiftly wither and die. Not that Sunny would bet on it.
Pressing his back against the cold obsidian, Sunny dismissed Saint and skirted around the outer wall of the great hall until he reached the staircase that led higher, to the third level. There, he summoned the taciturn demon again, hesitated for a bit, and then left one of his shadows to keep an eye on the devouring rot.
Feeling irrational panic at the thought of turning his back to the silver brazier, Sunny gritted his teeth, and then cautiously ascended the spiraling stairs.
As soon as the terrible thing disappeared from view, he let out a relieved sigh and realized that his entire body was covered in a cold sweat. Raising a trembling hand, Sunny wiped his face, and then continued to climb higher.
Saint being by his side gave him a little confidence, at least. The Shadow seemed absolutely unperturbed by the horrific visage they had left behind.
'...I bet fear can't even fit into that stone head of hers. Do Shadows have the ability to be afraid?'
He didn't know whether or not Saint could feel fear, but the gloomy shadow certainly could. In fact, behind its haughty exterior, it was rather cowardly. He was sure that the bastard would have been trembling all over if not for the fact that it was currently wrapped around his body.
Trying to distract himself with these thoughts, Sunny entered the third level of the Obsidian Tower… and froze, dumbfounded by what he saw there.
'I… I see. Wait, no. What the hell am I looking at?'
The chamber he found himself in was smaller than the previous three halls he had explored — mostly because the pagoda narrowed the higher it went, but also because the level was separated into several chambers.
And in that chamber in particular, dozens of porcelains arms floated in the air, each at a different level of being disassembled into tiny parts.
It was as though someone had stolen them from the pile of broken dolls in the basement of the Obsidian Tower and then brought them here to… to do what, exactly?
Sunny stared at the floating garden of disassembled arms, and then walked closer. He felt as though he was in some bizarre anatomy museum…
As it turns out, the porcelain dolls were much more complex than he had thought. In their disassembled state, their limbs showed how intricate the design was, and how many moving parts went into making each one as functional and articulated as that of a human. The joints, in particular, seemed like a marvel of engineering… not to mention the incredibly delicate weave of the diamond string beneath.
Even spelltech automatons could not boast of that level of ingenuity and intricacy.
But why were these arms brought here and taken apart? Who had done it? The Prince of the Underworld himself?
It didn't look like it… why would he need to study his abandoned creations?
It all became clearer when Sunny reached a stone pedestal standing at the far end of the chamber and saw a faint golden light emanating from a small object laying on it.
On the surface of the table were numerous parts that had been scavenged from the disassembled porcelain arms, several skeins of beautiful diamond string… and a long, narrow needle.
It was the needle that gave off a faint, weak radiance.
Sunny looked at the needle, then glanced at the floating porcelain arms, noting for the first time that each was missing a part or two.
Finally, different pieces of information connected in his mind, and he felt that he understood something about what had transpired in the Obsidian Tower.
Sometime after the Prince of the Underworld had left this hidden island — perhaps years, or perhaps thousands of years — an uninvited guest had snuck into the black pagoda like a thief, somehow getting past the closed gates without ever opening them or disturbing the seal that had been preserving this place from being ravaged by time.
That thief was a divine creature themselves… and also horribly wounded. One of their arms had been torn open and infected by the spreading rot that no one, not even a deity like them, could expel.
That was why the thief had severed their infected arm at the shoulder and tossed it into the divine flame that had been burning in the silver brazier on the second level, and then went down to the basement to collect limbs from the broken porcelain dolls. It was that deity that had circled the pile of them and left the footprints in the dust for Sunny to notice.
In the end, the thief ascended to the third floor and fashioned a new arm for themselves from the parts of the Prince's discarded mannequins… and then sewn it onto their body with the diamond strings threaded through a sharp needle.
…That was the needle Sunny was currently staring at, and the divine light on it was emanated by the remnant traces of the thief's blood still left on its surface.
But who was the thief? And why was Sunny connected to their severed arm by a golden String of Fate?
Sunny hesitated for a few moments, then reached for the needle… but suddenly froze.freёwebnovel.com
The shadow left behind to monitor the harrowing rot had noticed something.
The black, ulcerous flesh… was changing.
Chapter 449 Thousand Years of Hunger
'Here we go…'
Sunny faced the stairwell and stood motionless, looking at the black rot through his trembling shadow. Sensing something, Saint turned around, too. The tip of her sword hesitantly rose into the air.
The next few moments were going to decide whether he was going to live or die... or maybe be condemned to a fate much worse than death.
One level lower, the harrowing corruption that had been spreading from the severed arm of a deity was moving. The black ulcerous flesh was rising and falling, as if in the throes of… death? Or transformation?
Sunny gritted his teeth, waited for a second…
And then breathed out with immeasurable relief.
'Dying… it's dying.'
It felt as though he had been sentenced to execution, only for a pardon to arrive at the last possible moment, when the rope was already pressing on his neck.
Indeed, the terrifying rot was withering. As thousands of years that passed since it was locked in the Obsidian Tower caught up with it, the devouring corruption appeared to be dying of starvation. The stone surface assimilated into it convulsed and wriggled, as if consumed by pain. The silver brazier was melting.
The growths of the bulbous black flesh were slowly receding, their color turning ashen. The process was slow, but at the edges of the patch of corruption, the rot was already turning into… into wisps of darkness, which then disappeared without a trace.
As tension left Sunny's body, he couldn't help but sway a little.
'Good… something has gone my way, at last.'
Before, he had been considering his options and finding no possible way to escape from the rot if it was to start spreading.
He had considered trying to damage it with Broken Oath, but doubted that anything the Awakened Memory could do would work, considering that even the original owner of the seven-fingered hand resorted to severing their limb completely instead of trying to destroy the spreading corruption.
He had also entertained the idea of using the Cruel Sight, which was now infused with divine flame. But something told Sunny that the massive brazier where the rot had taken root had once been full of it, too… that was apparent from how charred the severed arm of the transient deity was.
If even thousands of years of burning in annihilating divine flame couldn't destroy or stop the black rot, then what hope did he have?
In the end, though, the corruption had destroyed itself. Neither divine flame nor an actual deity had been able to damage the black rot, but its hunger — and the relentless nature of time — were.
'Thank gods…'
Sunny inhaled deeply and tiredly closed his eyes.
The corruption was slowly dying, pieces of it slowly disappearing, bit after bit. All that was left behind were the damaged stone and the memory of primal horror.
He grimaced.
'But also, damn the gods! Why would they allow for such a thing to exist…'
Shaking his head, Sunny wiped the sweat off his face, then turned around and walked back to the stone pedestal.
Reaching with one hand, he picked up the long, sharp needle and stared at it for some time.
The needle seemed to have been made out of polished iron, but due to the traces of divine blood absorbed by it, the cold metal had assumed a feint golden shine. Sunny looked at it for a long time, trying to understand if this was a mundane item or some mystical artifact.
In the end, he had to admit that he had no clue.
The needle did not turn into a Memory like Weaver's Mask had. He didn't see any spellweave inside of it, either. However, the needle also didn't feel like a simple object. It was… strange.
He thought for a bit, then summoned the Covetous Coffer and carefully placed the needle inside. The skeins of diamond string also went in, easily disappearing into the gluttonous box.
'I will have time to study it later…'
With that, Sunny hesitated for a bit, then reluctantly headed back toward the second level of the great pagoda.
He was going to watch the harrowing rot die, and then try to approach the severed hand of the mysterious deity.
***
Some time later, Sunny was sitting on the lowest step of the stairs leading to the great hall, staring at the massive brazier in its center.
What was left of it, to be precise.
The devouring corruption took its sweet time dying. Even the hunger of thousands of years could not destroy it so easily, it seemed. The black flesh writhed and pulsated, disappearing little by little.
Several times, veins of rot tried to spread outward, clearly sensing the presence of a living being nearby and lusting to absorb it… him. But the profane infestation was too weak to overcome the entropic power of starvation.freёwebnovel.com
The silver brazier, which had long ago become a part of the horrid corruption, melted and fell apart, then disappeared into wisps of pure darkness. Soon, it was clear that the rot was not long for this world.
All that remained from its vile flesh were a few growths infused into the severed arm itself.
Staring at the disintegrating rot, Sunny felt both deep, primal terror and a strange compulsion to try and damage it a little in hopes of being credited for the kill by the Spell.
Who knew what reward he would receive?
But in the end, Sunny remained still.
Firstly, because he wasn't even sure that the corruption would be acknowledged by the Spell as a creature. He didn't really know if that thing was… alive, for the lack of a better word. If it was an entity, a process, or a manifestation of some profane law that he didn't know of.
Secondly, because he was absolutely unwilling to approach the rot, even now that it was dying. He wasn't even willing to let his Memories get anywhere near it. The Memories were connected to his soul, after all. Who knew if that thing was capable of spreading to a Memory, and then to his very soul through the invisible link?
So, Sunny simply sat silently and waited.
After a while, the corruption finally died.
The charred flesh of the severed arm became ashen, crumbled into dust, and finally disappeared in wisps of deep, impenetrable darkness.
All that remained was the empty hall, the patch of mangled obsidian in its center… a single piece of pristine alabaster bone shining with blinding gold radiance.
A sole phalanx of a finger.
Sunny waited for a few minutes, gathering his courage, then sighed and stood up. He glanced at the small bone, scowled, and walked toward it.
…It was time to see what fate had in store for him.