Shadow Slave

'So this is how it is.'

Sunny stared at the last image of the mosaic, a dark and resentful expression frozen on his face.

Depicted in the center of the mural, a sun fueled by blood shone on the mountains formed by dead bodies. Tens of thousands of people had been slaughtered to create it, and thousands more must have been butchered later on to keep it burning in the indifferent sky.

The first sacrifices had died willingly, lured into submission by their fanatical rulers. What about those who came after? Somehow, Sunny doubted it.

And for what? How did it all end?

The seven seals had been broken, and the ancient civilization had been obliterated.

But the sun created and nurtured by it was not destroyed… just corrupted. It still rose in the morning and fell beyond the horizon after the dusk, illuminating the desolate hell of its own creation.

As long as its vessel, the Terror of the Crimson Spire, existed at the center of the Labyrinth, it would continue to shine in the cold grey skies. And as long as it did, the darkness that had escaped its underground prison and turned into the cursed sea was going to continue coming and going, scared of its light.

'Great. The two deserve each other…'

He didn't know why the all-consuming darkness had become a literal sea of impenetrably black water, but had a guess or two. Either hundreds of years spent locked away behind the seals had affected it that way, or the artificial sun had.

The Terror had been changed by the curse, so why couldn't the curse be changed by the Terror in return?

'Why wasn't that sun extinguished, though?'

There was no one alive on the Forgotten Shore to make sacrifices to the Spire anymore, but Sunny suspected that there was a reason for why the crimson coral seemed to grow either out of or toward bones. If he was right, the whole Labyrinth was a giant maw with which the Terror absorbed the soul essence of every creature that bled on the coral before it died.

It was all a part of its body.

Sunny shivered, realizing that both the Labyrinth and the dark sea were, in fact, colossal living creatures. It was just that the scale of them was so boundless that they seemed like forces of nature.

Compared to the eternal struggle of the two titanic beings, the struggle of a handful of tiny humans was nothing short of insignificant.

…Or was it?

Suddenly, he frowned.

What about Nephis and her plan? How did the Shard Memories come into all of this?

At first, a dark thought entered his mind. He imagined that Changing Star was preparing a mass sacrifice of her own, a hecatomb to appease the Crimson Terror. The number of the Sleepers being sent to the Forgotten Shore each year was too eerily similar to the number of sacrifices made to the Crimson Spire by the inhabitants of the Dark City to be a simple coincidence.

But he quickly dismissed that thought. After all, the sacrifices were meant to renew the power of the Blood Sun, and that was not Neph's goal. If anything, she meant to destroy it once and for all to gain entry to the Gateway hidden in the Spire.

So… what did it all mean?

Sunny scowled, remembering every piece of information about the seven heroes and their cursed land he knew. And most importantly, those that came directly from the Spell.

After a while, he muttered:

"...Time has erased their names and their faces, but the memory of the defiant oath still remains."

This was the second part of the description that the Spell had given the Starlight Legion Armor.

His eyes widened.

All this time, he thought that this sentence simply meant that the legacy of the seven heroes lived on even after their deaths. But now, he suddenly realized that the truth might have been far more straightforward.

The key to understanding the secret of the Shard Memories was right in front of him this whole time. In fact, it came from the first Memory he had ever gotten on the Forgotten Shore.

The Azure Blade.

"On this forgotten shore, only steel remembers," he whispered, a sudden understanding dawning on him like a revelation.

The memory of the defiant oath remained… and only steel remembered. Sunny rubbed his face.

"I am such a fool."

Everything he needed to learn the truth had been at his disposal from the very start of it all. The heroes were long gone, but their terrible oath was still here, preserved in cold steel.

It was not the memory of it that remained… but the Memory.

The Shards were that Memory.

"Of course. It all makes so much sense now…"

But then, what was their purpose and why was Nephis so motivated to find each one?

That was easy to guess, too. Cassie had basically told him, all those months ago.

"...In the end, I saw a colossal, terrifying crimson spire. At its base, seven severed heads were guarding seven locks."

In its fury, the Terror of the Crimson Spire had beheaded the statues of its creators and brought their heads as trophies to guard the entrance to its lair… where Cassie had seen them, as well as seven mysterious locks.

What did a lock need?

A key. All locks required a key to either open them or shut them closed.

Sunny slowly exhaled.

The seven seals that kept the all-consuming darkness locked underground came undone, but they weren't destroyed. If one had all the keys, it was still possible to seal the cursed sea once again. That was what the seven heroes had left behind.

…And with the cursed darkness locked away, the Spire would lose its most deadly line of defense.

Finally, everything became clear.

Sunny remained motionless for a long time, looking at the bloody images beneath his feet. After a while, he sighed and turned away.

There was a bitter taste in his mouth.

"...Sick. I am sick of this place. So sick of all of this."

Cassie's vision showed her fire and rivers of blood?

Good.

It could all burn to the ground.

He didn't care anymore.