Shadow Slave

The hidden passage led Sunny underground, twisting and turning through the mass of stone. Despite the fact that he had been cautiously walking forward for a few minutes now, Sunny felt that he was still beneath the cathedral. In fact, by his estimation, he was approaching its center.

And indeed, right beneath the spot where the statue of the goddess should have been, the narrow passage opened into a larger room. In it, a deep well leading even further down was situated, with a winding staircase spiraling down into the darkness.

Sunny frowned.

'What is it with this place and creepy dark wells?'

Going further down was going to place him dangerously close to the catacombs. He knew all to well what kind of danger that would pose — the last time Sunny had ventured into the maze of ancient tunnels below the city, he barely escaped alive.

After hesitating for a while, he stepped onto the staircase and began descending. Deep, ancient shadows surrounded Sunny, giving him a little comfort.

At least he was among his kin.

After a minute or so of walking down the stairwell, Sunny entered a large chamber that seemed to be carved into the bedrock, as opposed to being constructed by human hand. On the other side of it, a large door forged from black steel stood, illuminated by two burning torches.

Two thoughts entered Sunny's mind simultaneously.

The first one was that the metal from which the monolithic door was made looked eerily familiar. It was the same dark, lusterless, impenetrable alloy that the Black Knight had been made of.

The second thought was even more disturbing.

'...How come those torches are still burning?'

Had they been aflame for several thousand years?

Come to think of it, the torches looked very strange. They seemed to be producing light, but it was pale and ghostly. There was no heat that came with it, too.

The shadows cast by the ghostly flames were the most disturbing, though. Because of the movements of the fire, they were supposed to be dancing on the floor. But instead, the shadows were absolutely motionless. It was as though the light of the torches had trapped and paralyzed them somehow.

Sunny thought for a while, and that ordered his own shadow to stay back. The shadow did not protest — in fact, it was visibly relieved. Taking a few exaggerated steps back, it merged with the deep darkness at the exit of the stairwell and waited there, glancing nervously at the strange motionless shadows from time to time.

Sunny cautiously approached the black door and lowered the Midnight Shard into a protective stance. He was ready to face any sort of danger.

…But nothing attacked him.

The only thing that happened was a sudden shill that run through Sunny's body when he had entered the circle of light cast by the two ghostly torches.

'These torches are… they are definitely some sort of a protective charm. I am almost sure that their power can harm even shadows.'

The question he had to ask himself, though, was this — were the torches meant to keep something from entering the space that hid behind the black door…

Or were they meant to keep something in?

Well… there was only one way to find out.

What Sunny was doing seemed absolutely crazy. But in fact, it was not. He had not come into this underground chamber just because of idle curiosity or because of being blinded by greed and the prospect of finding a treasure.

What led him here and pushed him to study the black door was his intuition.

By now, Sunny had to admit that his intuition was more than a mere manifestation of his subconscious. It had turned out to be correct one too many times.

Especially ever since he had consumed the drop of ichor.

After that day, he was able to sense the presence of divinity. And sometimes, he was even drawn to it — like he was drawn to this cathedral and to the mysterious key that lay buried in the body of the Lord of the Dead. The two seemed connected…

And Sunny felt that he was about to find out how and why.

But it was not all his intuition was capable of. There were other aspects to it, too.

In fact, Sunny suspected that it had more to do with his [Fated] Attribute than it had to do with the [Spark of Divinity.] If he were to guess, he would say that after he had been changed by the ichor, that Attribute was slightly enhanced, giving him the ability to sense subtle tremors that ran through the strings of fate from time to time — the strings that were, apparently, tightly wrapped around his body.

The combination of the change that happened to his eyes and his close relationship with those strings gave Sunny a slight affinity to revelations and fate — similar to the one Cassie had possessed, but infinitely less potent.

It was enough to guide him to this door and make him want to open it, nevertheless.

Stepping close to the monolithic black door, Sunny gazed at it and came to the conclusion that not even an entire army would have been able to break through this monstrous barrier.

There was, however, a small keyhole hidden on its dark surface.

Pulling on the string tied around his neck, Sunny took off the small metal key that hung on it and gripped it tightly in his hand.

After hesitating for a few moments, he carefully inserted the key into the lock of the black door.

…It fit perfectly. As soon as Sunny put the key into the lock, the faint light of divinity it emanated suddenly became a little bit brighter.

Sunny sighed, then readied himself and turned the key.

Something clicked inside the metal door, and then it silently opened. The pale light of the ghostly torches swayed, as though moved by an otherworldly wind.

Behind the door, a small room was carved into the rock.

And in it, a corpse in a dark mantle was chained to the floor inside a circle.

Sunny couldn't tell if the corpse belonged to a man or a woman, because there was a strange mask covering its face.

The mask was made out of black lacquered wood and carved to resemble the face of a ferocious demon. Its teeth were bared, with four fangs protruding from its mouth. The mask was crowned with three twisted horns.

Inside the black chasms of its eyes, there was nothing but utter darkness.