A/N: This might be the first time someone writes about Shadow Slave from First Person Point of View. And Since we are 20 Chapters deep I decided that this Journey of Sunny would be completely from His POV until he Returns to The Dark City.
Enjoy.
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Sunless's POV
It didn't take me long to reach the northern side of the wall of the Dark City. Thanks to my Shadows I have managed to reach the top relatively quickly.
Looking back I could see an expansive city lay in ruins. The beautiful stone buildings were broken and shattered, many of them turned into mere piles of rubble.
With a Sigh I turned my head toward the nearby watchtower and made my way toward it. Thankfully it wasn't a nest for some unknown horrors.
The structure was round in shape, rising above the main embankment by a good dozen meters. There was a wide wooden gate leading inside the tower, which was broken a long time ago, with only a few splinters remaining on the ancient iron hinges.
Behind the doorway, there was nothing but darkness. Sending my Shadow forward, I felt a familiar Shadow of an unexpected individual from within.
"Neph? What are you doing here?"
Noticing my presence Neph opened her eyes and stood up from her meditating position.
"I figured you would be heading toward the last statue to the north. So I thought I could offer a little help."
Her Grey eyes were serene and collected.
I could feel My expression hardening.
Nephis wasn't supposed to leave the cohort by themselves and venture out alone like this.
"What about the others?"
I asked. Although my expression conveyed that I wasn't pleased with the situation Nephis simply shrugged it off.
"They are gathered in one of the ancient buildings of the Dark City, a good distance away from the bright Castle."
With that, she walked forward and stood quietly before me.
"What about Gunlaug? What if he finds them before we return?"
A spike of irritation seeped into my voice. Nephis didn't say anything for a while and then answered.
"If Gunlaug had to look for someone it would've been me. So staying with them would only bring them harm."
A hopeless sigh escaped my lips, with the look on her face one could tell that she was determined to go, and no one could change Neph's mind if she decided to do something. There were a lot of things I had to consider if I were to go with her. So many things might change and so many variables could arise, and the risk of her losing her life would also increase.
I have experienced this myself after all, how dangerous these variables could be. a chill ran down my spine as I remembered the things that transpired underneath the ruined cathedral.
"Fine…"
I muttered, if she was going anyway, I might as well keep my eyes on her and make sure she survives.
A strange expression appeared on her face as if she wasn't expecting my response.
"…. I Thought you would refuse."
Her voice was barely louder than a whisper. I simply shrugged it off. Walking past her toward the opening in the wall that once served as a window, I gazed out into the horizon.
Far into the distance, a gigantic misshapen skull of some unknown massive creature lay between the slabs of the crimson coral labyrinth.
Turning to her I asked.
"Would you stay back if I do?"
A small smile made its way to her face.
"I would not"
I lightly chuckled.
"Then why bother? Come on, lead the way. We have to reach there before the sunset. We have a lot of distance to cover."
With that, we set our journey to the north as we climbed down the still-wet exterior of the wall.
*****
'I really did underestimate how large this thing was.'
As we arrived at the giant skull, I realized that it was perhaps at least as large as the city wall. Which was both reassuring and concerning. It could be a shelter for us but it could also house terrifying abominations.
We managed to avoid as much abomination as possible while also taking the fastest route possible in our journey toward the desired destination.
Although there wasn't any danger that we couldn't handle, we decided to take the safest route to conserve our energy in case we had to face against the champion of the statue.
Although I was already in possession of the Moonlight Shard I couldn't help but consider the possibility of facing something unexpected and utterly terrifying.
'That's [Fated] for you.'
And as it turned out, Neph and her cohort had swept through the area in search for the Champion of the Statue or the Statue itself, but couldn't find it or locate it anywhere. Aside from the records that pointed toward this specific Skull, the statue of the Slayer was nowhere to be seen.
Until….
"Is this where you think we will find the last Statue?"
…Neph led me to an ominous-looking bunker located at the base of the Skull, inside its terrifying maw which was riddled with enormous fangs, The bunker's entrance was made from the same material that the City walls and the other statues were made of.
"Yes. That's the only place we couldn't inspect since we couldn't even open it."
Nephis Calmly replied.
'Did it really have to be underground?? Just after what I went through this morning?!'
Soon Neph's calm voice brought me back from my inner turmoil.
"No matter how many times I struck its surface, it refuses to budge or open, Even with my White flames."
She stopped inspecting the entrance and stood back to her feet, and turned to my direction. I was standing a few meters behind her, so after a couple of steps, she finally reached me and stood to my left.
"Can you give it a try?"
Neph gestured to me to take the initiative, and so I did.
On my way toward the bunker entrance, I asked her:
"What makes you think I can open this bunker door when even you failed?"
Neph simply answered:
"I just felt like you could…"
Neph just kept her mouth shut afterward.
As I approached the bunker door, I knelt down to inspect it. The entrance's surface was wide enough to allow ten grown men to comfortably stand on it. And I was currently standing in the middle of it.
Placing my hand on its surface, I went with the most basic approach.
Which was Sending essence toward it.
And it surprisingly worked.
Looking over my shoulder toward the shocked face of Neph, I nervously chuckled.
'I would have a big problem if she asks me how I did it.'
Which thankfully she didn't.
A strong shudder went through the ground as the ancient mechanism began to work.
All of this raised a single question in my mind.
'How did Neph and her cohort manage to open this door in the previous round? Was this thing even here to begin with? Or was it my intervention that changed the course of things?'
As the bunker was fully open I couldn't see anything but utter darkness. At first, It seemed empty, but I could finally feel a vast space under the ground.
"Do we have to go down?"
Nephis voiced her question as she approached me from behind. She too eyed the dark expanse of the bunker below with doubt.
I shrugged my shoulders.
"Unfortunately, there's one way to find out."
I—for obvious reasons— didn't want to send my Shadows to investigate whatever lay beneath. So diving into the bunker was the only option.
Taking a deep breath I made sure that the bunker that I was going to jump in had an actual bottom, and wasn't some bottomless pit.
'That last thing I need is another journey of falling into nothingness.'
Soon I jumped in and Neph followed my steps.
After a Free Fall for a couple of minutes, we finally reached the bottom of the bunker. As I softly landed, I was welcomed by a hot gust of humid air that clung uncomfortably to my skin. However, the mild discomfort of the atmosphere was immediately washed from my mind by the scene ahead of me.
"What is this place..."
Neph mumbled as she, too, surveyed our surroundings.
We had stepped into what could only be described as a jungle, except that many of the trees were shockingly white, with leaves that glowed in various shades of red. Strangely, the trees weren't only growing out from the ground but also on the ceiling of the enormous cavern.
Despite the jungle's alien beauty, my attention was quickly pulled away as the door of the bunker that we had come from began closing shut.
"Damnation."
Looking back to the white trees, my mind raced. What terrors hid within this jungle? Would they be as bad as the Spire Messenger? Or worse?
I had—wrongly, it appeared—assumed Neph and I would be able to return to the surface the same way we got through. My eyes continuously scanned the area, my body tense in preparation for unexpected dangers.
I quickly but cautiously turned to Neph.
"It doesn't seem like we can go back the way we came from. Come on, it's a bit too open out here for my comfort."
Neph nodded. The two of us ventured deeper into the ethereal jungle, taking note of every oddity, of which there were many. We found thick, pale vines that connected the trees on the ground to the trees growing on the ceiling. Hundreds of blue globules filled the air, some floating up, others floating down.
Still…The Slayer statue was nowhere to be seen.
My senses were on full alert as we continued walking carefully through the dense array of otherworldly trees. From time to time, I'd see shadows flit from tree to tree at a speed that exceeded some Awakened abomination in The Dark City.
Despite how calm and quiet things appeared, I couldn't help but feel restless, waiting for the moment when something in the forest would try to kill me.
Nephis, too wasn't enjoying the view. She was just as restless and wary as he was. I immediately sent my Shadows in every direction to gather as much information about their new environment.
"I can't see much except for these two-tailed monkey-like creatures climbing up and down the vines."
I noted. Voicing my discoveries for Neph to hear.
"And you know those floating blue orbs? I think they're made of water. I saw a few of the monkey things hanging from the vines and drinking from them."
I nodded but maintained a constant lookout for anything potentially dangerous.
I didn't know anything about this place since I hadn't been here with the cohort the first time around. It felt naked to know nothing about anything.
Humans feared the unknown the most.
Neph grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me back squeezing it a little, Neph locked our eyes. Perhaps, Noticing my frightened expression she whispered:
"Be at ease, this place seems oddly quiet, so let's keep our voices down. We will push through this together."
"How can I be at ease Neph."
I retorted gritting my teeth, as I continued to walk carefully, wrapping myself in two shadows just in case.
I would have been more at ease if I were in this alone…
I continued to look forward. Unlike the straightforward coral labyrinth we had come from, this jungle didn't seem like it had any sort of predatory monsters of any kind, nothing that we had to beat in order to move on.
"Over there…It was a different color and small, but I saw some of those monkeys eating whatever that is."
Neph said, gesturing toward a pear-shaped fruit hanging from a branch above us.
I gave my companion a skeptical look as she pointed above me, at the fruit.
My initial impulse was to avoid the risk. After all, who knew how different the fruits affect different anatomies? Not for myself though, my blood weave would take care of the rest but Neph was different.
I easily jumped up to the first branch, then scrambled to the next, quickly ascending the tree. To my surprise, the branches didn't even bend under my weight, making it easy to reach the glistening orange fruit.
Just as I was about to reach for it, something caught my eye: there was a subtle distortion in the area around it that made me immediately pull my hand back.
And that's when I noticed the giant mouth rimmed with rows of serrated teeth clamping shut around the fruit, right where my hand would've been had I not pulled back. Strangely, I could still see the fruit inside the monster's mouth.
I leaped back to a farther branch, bracing myself for its next attack. However, the monster merely parted its puffy lips once more, and everything but the fruit it used as a lure became transparent.
I peered into its soul.
'Awakened Devil.'
Along with it, there was a subtle golden glow to the fruit.
'Divinity'
I could have ignored it but annoyance, however, was clouded by my greed for that fruit. It wasn't just a lure; I had felt my intuition quiver when I had been near it.
"Wait, why are you going back?"
Neph also watched everything from a nearby branch and asked, seeing me hop back toward the branch that the fruit hung from.
"I'm going to try and get that fruit."
Slowly, my outstretched fingers approached the area where I knew the transparent teeth would snap shut. The instant I sensed movement, I whipped my hand away, just barely avoiding the monster's bite.
It shut faster this time, I noted.
With its mouth now clamped shut, I struck at its transparent body, hoping to at least knock it unconscious. However, rather than hit it, my hand slipped right through. Losing my balance, I fell and had to catch myself on a lower branch, but by the time I climbed back up, the creature had opened its mouth once more.
The next time, the mouth closed even faster. The serrated teeth left several scratches on my marble shell because I hadn't been able to pull back fast enough, but this time, as I struck at the transparent beast, I wrapped my hand with my Shadow.
There was a slight give as if my hand was passing through a layer of some viscous liquid, but beneath that was its actual body, which shuddered like rippling water.
The transparent beast let out a shrill scream, a demonic fusion of alarm bell and squealing infant that made me lose balance again from pure shock.
I managed to hold on to the tree, as I struck the squealing creature once more, and its soft body went limp.
[You have Slain an Awakened Devil]
Prying open its mouth, I reached inside and pulled out the fruit. It was soft and warm to the touch.
"What a weird creature,"
I mused, staring once more at the deadly flytrap beast.
Squatting down, I checked on Neph, who was stirring awake.
"What happened?"
She asked, her voice shaky.
I held the orange pear out to Neph with a smile, offering her a hand.
"I got it."
Neph made a show of studying the fruit, though I could see her embarrassment at having almost fainted, from the reddened tip of her ears.
"I wonder if it's edible."
She muttered taking my hand and standing up.
"There's only one way to find out."
I sniffed the fruit, then nibbled on the outer edge of it, taking only a very small bite just in case it was poisonous. Though my blood weave would handle anything like poison.
I still had to be cautious. I didn't truly know what this fruit actually was.
The fruit was sour. Not bad, necessarily, but it tasted sort of like a more flavorful lemon peel. Then, as soon as I swallowed, I felt the change in my body.
The same change that occurs when My Twilight Crown replenishes my essence every dawn and dusk.
I somehow felt drunk.
"Sunny!"
Neph called out, her voice distant and muffled, but my attention, what little I could manifest, was focused behind her, past the tree line.
Heavy, rapid footsteps grew louder as the ethereal trees—whose branches remained unbowed beneath my weight—swayed fiercely in a path leading straight toward us.
"Something is coming,"
I grunted, barely able to get back to my feet.
Neph turned around, as her stoic expression went pale. I could swear that I heard her say.
"Damnation."
My heart pounded as the rapid footfalls grew louder; it sounded like an entire horde of creatures was charging toward us through the jungle. I hobbled as fast as my body would let me, fighting to even stay upright through the strain of processing the fruit I'd just consumed. There was no way I could fight whatever was barreling toward us in my current half-drunk state.
It wasn't poisonous at least. Since my Blood weave didn't react.
Thankfully, we managed to find a dip in the ground by a large tree nearby. The exposed roots gnarled together, weaving in and out of the ground to provide us with a covert shelter to hide in.
We squeezed our way through. Our bodies were particularly glowed to each other, the only thing between us was my tunic and her armor.
Our pounding hearts overlapped, each louder than the other, as we listened to what sounded like a stampede charging back and forth through the area we had narrowly escaped from, doubtlessly searching for us.
My mind whirled, trying to think of the reason why we had suddenly attracted the attention of... whatever was out there.
I couldn't see how eating the fruit could have—
That transparent flytrap... it let out that horrible scream just before it died.
And that's when everything clicked.
All of the organisms here—the two-tailed monkeys, the flytrap monsters—had adapted to make as little noise as possible in order to survive whatever was currently hunting me through the surrounding jungle.
"Sensitive to sound,"
I mouthed involuntarily whispering in her ear while pointing to my ear. Nephis flinched slightly but eventually nodded and the two of us waited for the noise of stomping feet in the underbrush to pass.
By now, the constant series of rapid footfalls had grown so close that the ground itself shook under me. A series of loud, clicking, chittering noises followed, and I suddenly felt the pressure being emitted by our hunter. It was significantly stronger than even the Forsaken Knight.
Whatever it was, I was confident it was one creature from the emission of raw power. One very large beast.
Steadying my breathing, I remained frozen as the grating sound of rusted gears clacking together grew closer. Nephis ducked closer to me, afraid of being seen.
Suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I sensed something approaching our hidden shelter. The rapid chittering grew even louder until I was able to see it.
The Creatures I encountered in Antarctica had been fairly horrifying to look at, but this creature was something straight out of a demon's nightmare.
With the overall frame of a millipede—except the size and girth of a gigantic train—the creature writhed past me, its countless spindly legs spanning thrice my height. I was able to make out the serrated pincers on its head as it passed by, but most of the smaller details were lost on me. I was distracted by the fact that the millipede was almost transparent.
Tinged in a soft crimson hue that blended with the glowing leaves, the giant millipede looked more gelatinous than solid, like it was missing its hard shell. However, seeing how not even the sharp, unyielding branches of the ethereal trees made a scratch against the creature's hide, I knew it wouldn't be easy to kill.
The millipede continued to crawl around us, searching for its prey. Despite its tremendous size and length, it moved with such nimbleness and flexibility that, even as it moved on to a different area, there were no broken limbs or upturned earth to show that a giant beast had passed through.
Still, I could hear it nearby. Its steps continued to shake the ground, keeping us from trying to leave my cramped refuge.
Time dragged as we anxiously waited for the millipede to leave when there was a change to the pattern of its noises. The beast's rapid steps began to slow, then became a rhythmic thumping of its many legs.
"What's going on now?"
Neph asked, whispering into my neck. Her face was positioned against my neck as my face was positioned slightly higher and to the left of her temples, which made me whisper every word in her ear.
"I'm not sure."
I responded, sorely tempted to take a peek.
It didn't take long to realize that I wouldn't have been alive if I had moved. Shortly after, a series of pained cries rent the humid jungle air.
I could only assume that the beast had used some form of echolocation to find anything nearby that had moved.
When the rhythmic stomping halted, I sent my Shadow who couldn't be detected by echolocation, it hesitantly left my body and glided out of our hole in the ground.
"It's okay, we can go out. It's… it's eating,"
I whispered. Which gained another flinch from Neph followed by a hesitant nod.
Steeling myself, I pushed past the burning sensation still eating at my throat and poked my head out of the shelter. The millipede had curled itself around a massive tree, which had, up until a moment ago, been home to a family of two-tailed monkeys.
It was a bloodbath. A larger monkey, drenched in its own blood, was being swallowed, while a smaller monkey pounded desperately, but ineffectually, on the millipede's head with a rock. An instant later, the millipede's head twisted sharply, throwing its attacker into the air, and quick as a snake it snapped the little monkey up, swallowing it rock and all.
Ignoring the gore—a sight that I had grown much too accustomed to—I studied the millipede. Pulsating circular depressions covered its back, but aside from the dagger-like pincers and its sharp legs, I couldn't see any other form of attack.
"Tell me you're not thinking of fighting that thing,"
Nephis whispered, hovering an inch away from my ear. With an amused expression, I whispered back.
"Not if I don't have to."
It didn't take long for over half of the dozen two-tailed monkeys to be consumed, after which the other half gave up and escaped, throwing down their sticks and rocks in order to flee up the vines before disappearing into the trees hanging from the cavern ceiling.
Several minutes later, when the millipede eventually uncurled itself from the giant tree and began slithering away, I couldn't help staring at the monkeys inside the beast's body.
While the organic material was withering—as if the essence of their soul was being sucked out of the bodies—a slight crimson glow began enveloping the rocks that the millipede had consumed along with it.
The stones were being filled with essence?
Or enveloped in it?
I couldn't tell.
Taking the chance to peer through its surface and look into its soul, what I saw was something I was not expecting.
The Thing was A Fallen Tyrant.