Shade finally had free time.
The weeks following the battle against the titans in East Antarctica had been a whirlwind of chaos and death. But now, after everything, two weeks of rest stretched out before him like a blank canvas. A respite for his body, accustomed to wounds and exhaustion. A respite for his mind, always on the edge of the abyss.
Without hesitating for a second, he returned to his citadel.
He appeared in the middle of the castle, right in the inner courtyard, and the warm air of the nightmare world enveloped his senses. It was a relief after the relentless cold of Antarctica. He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the tranquility of the place wash over him.
Then he moved.
Darkness embraced him like an old friend, shortening distances, until he reached one of the walls surrounding the enormous fortress. From there, the moon rose in the sky like a pale eye, surrounded by stars that blinked with ancient light.
"The Chained Isles?" he murmured to himself, considering the destination. But he shook his head almost immediately. "No. I'd better go to Godgrave."
His eyes scanned the exterior of the castle. Part of the ruins surrounding the fortress had been restored during his absence, now functional, inhabited. His subordinates rested in the makeshift bars that had sprung up among the reconstructed stones, drinking and telling tales of the Antarctic campaign. Their voices reached him, mixed with laughter and the clinking of glasses.
He smiled. It was good to see them like that.
He turned and walked toward the throne room. There, wrapped in shadows and dreams, rested Gunlaug. The enormous beast opened one of its eyes upon sensing his presence, a golden flash in the twilight, before falling back asleep.
"It seems not much has changed," Shade murmured.
From his hand sprouted soul fragments —hundreds of them— which he dropped in a corner of the room like someone leaving coins in a piggy bank. Gunlaug would absorb them while sleeping. It was his way of thanking him for guarding the place.
As he turned, he found Scarlet, who had just arrived from the waking world. The red-haired woman watched him with her scarlet eyes, a mixture of relief and curiosity in her expression.
"You're back, Shade."
"Yeah. I have about two weeks off and I was planning to spend them here." He leaned against the back of the empty throne. "How's everything been?"
Scarlet began to report. Her voice was calm, precise, that of someone who had learned to report amidst chaos. They had suffered attacks from nightmare creatures, nothing they couldn't handle. A Corrupted Tyrant had appeared near the perimeter, but Skadi had eliminated it out of boredom. The construction of the city was progressing well. The training of the Awakened continued. Several were facing their second nightmares.
"I see. Everything's fine." Shade nodded, satisfied. Then he frowned. "Where's Skadi?"
Scarlet sighed. "She said she was going exploring and left. That was two weeks ago."
Shade let out a dry laugh. "Really, what can I do with that woman." He shook his head. "Well, she'll come back. Do you want to accompany me on a trip?"
Scarlet raised an eyebrow. "What kind of trip?"
"To Godgrave. I want to achieve something, and that's the best place to do it."
She stared at him, assessing the risk, the madness, the implicit promise in those words. Then she nodded.
"Should I bring everyone?"
"No. The two of us and my dark creatures will be enough."
Scarlet nodded again. "And when do we leave?"
"Tomorrow. We should get there in a few hours."
At that moment, the air tore in the middle of the hall. A black crack opened in the fabric of reality, and from its interior emerged Skadi. The Supreme held a soul fragment that radiated a sacred light, so pure it hurt to look at.
"Where were you?" asked Shade, curious.
"Killing a Cursed beast." Her tone was as casual as if she had been buying vegetables at the market. "It was roaming near those hollow mountains, as you call them."
Shade blinked, bewildered. He checked his dark fragment counter and noticed it had increased by nearly a hundred in an instant. One hundred fragments. From a single creature.
"How did you manage to kill something of Cursed rank?"
"My will was stronger. My aspect countered its powers."
Shade looked at her, then at the sacred fragment she still held. "Skadi." The Supreme tilted her head slightly. "Do you want to accompany me and Scarlet to the Divine Realm of the Sun? Well, to a fragment of it."
Scarlet raised an eyebrow. "What for?"
"I want to achieve something. Investigate something. Your strength would be useful to us on this dangerous trip."
Skadi was silent for a moment. Then she nodded. "Alright."
Shade smiled. "Well, see you tomorrow."
He left the castle towards the bars. One drink, or two, before the trip. It never hurt.
---
The next morning, a hundred-meter-long eastern dragon soared through the skies towards the southwest.
The beast with black scales and golden veins flew with a grace that belied its size. On its back, three figures rested placidly. Shade, reclining on the scales, bit a blade of grass while his dark hair moved with the wind. Skadi meditated with her eyes closed, still as a statue. Scarlet solved a Rubik's cube with a bored expression.
"So what are we going to Godgrave for?" asked Scarlet without looking up from the cube.
"To form my seventh core."
Scarlet set the cube aside. She blinked. "Seventh core? Does that mean...?"
"Yes. My aspect rank is divine. It allows me to have more than one soul core, though it's harder as you accumulate more."
Scarlet looked at him in disbelief. Then she frowned. "Well, that's why you're so strong."
"Aspect rank isn't related to power. It just offers you more essence, nothing more."
"So you're just an essence battery?"
"No puns, Scarlet."
The woman rolled her eyes. "But yes."
Shade sat up, feeling the cool morning wind on his face. In the distance, a thin line marked the horizon: the hollow mountains. There were still almost two thousand kilometers to Godgrave. Several hours of travel.
He closed his eyes and let the wind speak to him.
---
Twelve hours later, they arrived.
The clear sky had been replaced by a sea of clouds hiding a deadly sun. Beneath that light, everything ceased to exist. Life could not flourish where that dead star still shone with eternal hatred.
Shade observed the enormous skeleton stretching for thousands of kilometers. Each joint, each bone, possessed a colossal size. This was Godgrave. The tomb of a god.
He looked at the skull of the ancient colossus and felt an unsettling sensation emanating from that place. Something alive, despite death. Something watching him from within.
He looked away.
There weren't many abominations on the surface. Gunlaug took care of that: a sea of black flames that sprouted from nowhere and reduced everything that moved to ashes. When the area was clear, Shade walked toward a deep crack in the ground.
He jumped into the darkness.
Two shadow wings sprouted from his back, catching Scarlet before she could fall. Skadi, for her part, used her will to stay in the air, floating beside him like a ghost of fire and ice.
"Now what?" asked Scarlet, looking at the bone walls rising around them.
Shade smiled. "Well, this."
He summoned the Winter Vestige.
The enormous floating titan emerged from the void, its body made of eternal ice and perpetual storm. It began to expel freezing air that froze everything in its path. The ancient abominations —Corrupted, gigantic, some as large as buildings— threw themselves at the winter beast. But it froze them before they could touch it, reducing them to ice statues that then shattered into a thousand pieces.
Shade felt the dark fragments increase rapidly, like never before. The Spell's voice wouldn't stop speaking in his mind, whispering Ascended and Transcendent memories, a torrent of knowledge he could barely process.
They landed on the ground. The crimson jungle stretched before them, red as blood under the dying light.
Skadi stepped forward. Her aspect activated, and flames burst from her body like a second sun. The jungle burned. The crimson trees turned to ash in seconds, opening a path through the ancient corpse of the god. On the surface, the sun did the same to the crimson grass, revealing the pale, pristine bone that formed the ground.
Shade, Scarlet, and Skadi began to walk through the now frozen and burned jungle, venturing into the heart of the tomb.
[NOTE: Do you want me to release the remaining chapters of this volume all at once, or two chapters a day?
Just so you know, there are only about six chapters left to finish volume 4.]