Cassie called out to Effie and watched her drag her starved body into a deadly battle against a Supreme Demon.
At the same time, she called out to Jet and Kai, watching Kai lead a fallen god away from the Jade Palace in a suicidal pursuit. At the same time, she called out to Rain, wishing to make sure that the young woman was safe in the middle of a devastating confrontation between the Mad Prince and the Dreamspawn, which was happening just one flight of stairs below the Archway Hall of the Ebony Tower.
However, to her surprise...
Rain wasn't there.
For a moment, Cassie's heart seemed to stop beating.
But then, she found the Princess of Shadows again...
Rain was leaning on a white stone wall, breathing heavily. Around her, mangled bodies littered the floor.
Behind her, the skull of a dead dragon stared at the sky with empty eye sockets.
'That's...'
That was the Ivory Tower.
[Rain? How did you...]
Rain flinched.
But then, Cassie knew how. She had taught the young woman how to repair the enchantment of the archway herself... she just had not expected that it could be done so swiftly.
[How did you repair the runic circle so fast?]
At the entrance of the Ivory Tower, a pale smile illuminated Rain's exhausted face.
"I... l asked the Ebony Tower to help — help me restore it to how it was meant to be. Strangely enough, it worked. When I started painting the runes, it felt like the stones themselves were guiding my brush."
Cassie spent a heartbeat digesting the information.
She wanted to ask why Rain had felt the need to leave. But the answer was obvious — the battle seemed lost, and Cassie herself had planned to escape. Or perhaps Rain had wanted to help in any way she could and made a desperate choice to leave the Ebony Tower for that reason.
"I am not a complete fool, you know. I wasn't trying to besiege the Ivory Island all by myself... however, it seemed like the King of Nothing had already killed everyone here, and the Dreamspawn himself had left the Ivory Tower behind to join the battle. So, I thought that it would be empty."
Rain's face darkened.
"Although it was not as empty as I had thought. Plenty of corpses, but more than a few skilled soldiers as well. They are all there, inside the tower... asleep."
Cassie drew a shallow breath.
[Asleep?]
Rain pushed herself off the wall and took a step forward, cautiously making her way into the Ivory Tower.
"Yes. It was me... I put them to sleep."
She reached the great hall of the ancient Citadel, where Hope's chains lay on the floor, forming the Gateway. Around them, dozens of figures were sprawled on the floor, fast asleep.
Rain swayed slightly.
"It's a funny thing... I thought that I wouldn't be able to assign all of them Epithets. But, you know? My Ascended Ability showed me that things have spirits, and places have spirits as well. Even collectives of living beings do, sometimes. So, that gave me an idea — I assigned a Name to this group of people, and then added an Epithet to that Name. And voila."
She pointed to the slumbering soldiers.
"Somehow, that worked as well."
Rain's voice sounded strained, as if she was on the verge of essence exhaustion. But she was safe, for now.
Cassie asked the next question carefully:
[So, what are you going to do?]
She knew what she wanted Rain to do. Needed her to do, really. But that was going to put the young woman at risk — if she could do it at all.
If she wanted to use the Gateway to flee the Dream Realm instead, Cassie was not going to hint at a different possibility.
Rain smiled weakly.
"What am I going to do? Well... I am going to steal a Great Citadel from beneath a Sovereign."
She took a deep breath.
"All I have to do is destroy the soul mark tethering him to the Gateway of the Ivory Tower, right? Granted, an Ascended like me has no way of achieving that... but I am not an ordinary Ascended, am I? My heart is supposed to be bonded deeply to the world, whatever that means. And I can speak to ancient towers. So..."
She took a step toward the vast circle of chains.
"Perhaps this will work somehow, too."
Cassie hoped that it would...
For both their sakes.
'It's done, then.'
Bastion, Ravenheart, the Night Garden, the Ivory Tower — all four of the Great Citadels were on the verge of changing hands. Had the potential to change hands, at least, robbing Asterion of some of his power in the middle of a perilous battle.
Sadly, while the Citadels did make him stronger, the true source of his power was people, not the lands they populated. And even if those Great Citadels were conquered, the people inhabiting them would still be subjects of the Hunger Domain.
It was Cassie's job to liberate them from that burden.
And she was already close to snatching the first few victims from Asterion's claws... The shockwave of a particularly devastating collision between the two swords — one flawlessly white, the other vibrant red — slammed into Cassie like a wall of concrete moving at the speed of sound. She withstood it with a quiet grunt and staggered, her back pressing against the wall of the forbidden hall.
The six remaining incarnations of the Mad Prince had fused into three, changing in the process.
One suddenly seemed to be cast out of impregnable metal, infernal flames burning in his chest — he fought fiercely and ferociously, abandoning self-preservation in favor of unadulterated aggression. The other moved steadily and methodically, his body as solid and grounded as unbreakable stone.
The third one was like a venomous serpent, elusive and unpredictable, lashing out of the darkness with the lightning-fast strikes of his cursed sword.
The one wielding the Sin of Solace was the blade of the guillotine, while the other two were meant to restrain Asterion — and were therefore worse off.
The Dreamspawn had not escaped unscathed from the vicious battle despite his dire advantage in raw power — or rather, despite his ability to express his power far more effectively by bending the world to fit its intent. However, it was the incarnations of the Mad Prince that looked like they had been through the meat grinder.
Asterion was simply too fast, too strong, too aware. He was less experienced and skilled than the Mad Prince, but made up for it with the help of his Will.
The Mad Prince did not seem to mind, though, enduring the gruesome wounds the Dreamspawn dealt him with a gleeful grin. As one of his incarnations was sent flying back, a fountain of blood escaping from the jagged hole in his side, the other two pressed the attack. Asterion sent one staggering back with a crushing strike of his palm, and at the same time raised his sword to block the Sin of Solace.
However...
The moment the white jade of the cursed blade touched the scarlet steel of Asterion's sword, it simply passed through it.
It all happened in the blink of an eye, not leaving the Dreamspawn any time to react. His sword rippled and let the Sin of Solace pass, then turned into a stream of liquid metal and escaped from Asterion's grip. The torrent of liquid metal rushed across the floor, and at the same time, the cursed sword plunged into Asterion's chest, cleaving through his collarbone and ribcage.
...That was Morgan regaining her senses, the plague purged from her mind by Cassie's power. She was the first.
A split second after escaping Asterion's grasp, she assumed her human form and rolled across the floor, slamming into the wall and looking around with a dazed expression.
Morgan was the first, but she wasn't going to be the last.
Cassie concentrated, knowing that time was running out.
Asterion, meanwhile, looked down at the graceful white blade extending brutally from his mangled chest.
In the next moment, he grabbed the blade with his bare hand and pulled its wielder closer.
His fist flashed, and the Mad Prince's skull exploded into a gruesome cloud.
One more incarnation was gone.
Most importantly, it was the incarnation that had been wielding the Sin of Solace. The Mad Prince was not alarmed, though, chuckling as his headless body toppled to the floor.
A shadow separated itself from the corpse, becoming the third incarnation a heartbeat later.
The Sin of Solace was already crumbling into a whirlwind of black sparks, having been dismissed — and then summoned again, falling into the hand of the fresh avatar.
The avatar was grinning.
"Oh, my... having trouble with a disloyal sword, are you?"
He laughed.
"You have my sympathy, ghoul... ah, I know that feeling well!"
The terrifying battle raged on, shaking the very foundation of the Ebony Tower.𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢
The foundation of the Hunger Domain was quaking, too.
Chapter 2992
Sunny braved the labyrinth of broken time, guided by the thread of Ananke's essence silk. His only companion on this perilous journey was the vile spawn of the Thieving Bird, who was now his Shadow.
As they searched for a way back to the present, Vile's vocabulary gradually expanded.
Now, apart from "vile", "damn", and "crap", he could also say "fool", "bastard", "wretch', "hell", and "scum".
Oh, and "damnation", of course.
That one seemed to be his favorite.
"Damnation! Damnation!"
Sunny covered his face with a palm and groaned.
He didn't try to be a bad influence on the devil child... he really didn't...
Hell, it was all that wretched little bastard's fault. Sunny was really not such a foul-mouthed scumbag, after all. He was willing to bet that the damn fool was pulling this crap on purpose, just to make him angry.
Otherwise, where would Vile pick up all these profanities?
'The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, I guess.'
With a progenitor like the Thieving Bird, it was no surprise that the young Devil was learning all the wrong things despite being in such an illustrious company.
...It was entertaining, at least.
Without Vile, Sunny might have gone mad a long time ago — not the least because there was no time in the maze of broken eternity, and therefore neither a long ago nor a one day soon.
Sunny had long lost track of time. They drifted through the alien and unfathomable darkness that hid between moments, following the thread of silver silk — without it, retracing his steps would have been all but impossible.
Sometimes, they emerged from the maze in the places and moments of time that Sunny and the Thieving Bird had traveled through during their battle. Some of these places were safe, allowing them to rest. Some were fraught with peril, so Sunny tried to leave them behind as soon as possible.
Before, he might have wanted to stay back and explore the different eras of the Great River. But now, there was a sense of deep anxiety in his heart.
He wanted to find Nephis. He was worried about her, considering that she had been left entirely alone in the maze of eternity. He was also worried about what she was thinking about now that she seemed to have remembered him.
The prospect of meeting her as himself — not the Lord of Shadows — filled him both with excitement and dread.
So, the closer they drew to the present, the slower their progress became.
But they did continue forward...
And, in the end, Sunny found her.
It seemed that Ananke had attached a thread of essence silk to Nephis, as well, and Nephis was following it back to the heart of the Estuary just like Sunny. Eventually, their paths crossed, and they both arrived at the same fragment of time.
It was Verge.
Not the vibrant and thriving Verge as it had been before the Defilement, but the desolate city of bones it had become after the Defilement was destroyed.
A deep night enveloped the Great River. Its currents were already gone, but the Thieving Bird had not stolen the suns yet, so the water shone with a radiant iridescent glow.
Sensing Neph's presence, Sunny dismissed Vile and walked in the direction where she stood on the edge of the water, looking downstream with a distant expression on her face.
Sunny stopped a few steps away and remained silent, not knowing what to say. Eventually, he attempted to smile.
"Hey, Neph. It's done. I killed that loathsome Thieving Bird."
He paused for a moment and then scratched his head awkwardly.
"Well, and then it escaped. So, the hateful bird is at large somewhere out there now. I have no idea where it went."
Nephis remained still for a long while, then turned to look at him.
Her face was expressionless, as always... in fact, it was even more expressionless than it usually was.
But Sunny could feel the dire turmoil of conflicting emotions raging beneath her calm facade.
Nephis seemed...
Overjoyed? Hurt?
Sorrowful? Happy?
He did not know.
She studied him for a long while.
Then, she said quietly, her voice betraying a kind of weakness he had never seen her show before:
"You left me."
Sunny looked away.
Sadly, Verge was the worst place for him to look upon. This was where he had abandoned Nephis and his friends, after all. This city, which was buried under a thick layer of bones, was more or less a monument to his sin.
Sunny turned to Nephis and remained silent for a few moments.
"But I came back. That... has to account for something, doesn't it?"
She did not answer and faced the beautiful expanse of radiant water.
After a long while, Nephis said evenly:
"You always leave me."
She sighed heavily.
"In the Dark City. During the Chain of Nightmares. And here in Verge, again."
Sunny looked at her, a hint of old pain appearing in his eyes.
"That's not fair."
His quiet voice was raw.
"You left me too, Nephis. You left me first."
Nephis inhaled deeply, then looked at him. Her face betrayed a strange expression. Was it fear? Was it longing?
Sunny did not know.
He knew her better than anyone else in the world, and yet now, he couldn't tell what she felt, what she was thinking about... What she was going to say.
Nephis exhaled, and then nodded slowly.
"Yes... I did. Perhaps I shouldn't have done that. But..."
A frail smile appeared on her face.
"I would do it again, Sunny. Because that was the only way I knew how to ensure that you would stay alive."
Sunny smiled bitterly, and then turned away with a quiet laugh.
He looked at the glowing expanse of the Great River.
"...Me too."
He sighed.
"I would do it again, too. Because I needed to leave in order to come back to you."
Sunny smiled.
"I am quite a selfish person, you know. Just like you."
While he finished speaking, Nephis took a step forward and locked him in a tight, desperate embrace.
She buried her face in his shoulder.
"Sunny... is it you? Is this really you?"
He remained motionless for a moment, then wrapped his hands around her.
"Of course, it's me. Who else would I be?"
Nephis took a deep breath.
She remained silent for a long while.
In the end, she said:
"Thank you for coming back, Sunny."
She hugged him tighter and then spoke in a slow, hesitant tone:
"Never leave... promise..."
Nephis fell silent for a moment.
"Can you promise to never leave me again?"
Sunny smiled and looked up, cradling her in his arms.
Eventually, he nodded.
"I promise."
He paused for a moment, and then laughed:
"Nephis... all the gods and all the demons in the world won't be able to make me leave you again. So don't you leave me behind, either."
The eastern horizon ignited with a beautiful golden radiance by then. The suns were rising above the Great River, promising a new day.
But Sunny and Nephis were not meant to witness this dawn. Theirs was a different path — a path through the broken eternity that led to a world drowning in darkness. The darkness was cold and dangerous.
But they were going to brave it side by side... Because they were lost in the darkness together.