Shadow Slave

With pretty much every muscle in his body sore, Sunny walked over to the girls and fell on the ground. After catching his breath, he looked at Cassia.

"Cassie? Do you feel better?"

Several seconds later, the blind girl slowly nodded.

'That's a relief.'

He shifted and hesitated for a bit. Cassia didn't look too well. Her face was still very pale, with a distant, dazed expression on it. Her body at least was no longer trembling. Sunny wasn't very good at talking to people, let alone placating them. He wasn't sure what to say.

He cast a gaze at Nephis and sighed inwardly. Who knew that one day he would turn out to be the most sociable person for as far as the eye could see? What a joke…

"Can I have some water?"

Cassie turned to him and scowled, as though confused by the question. Then, she suddenly gasped and opened her eyes wide.

"Oh! Oh, sorry. Yes, of course…"

She summoned the limitless water bottle and offered it to Sunny. He took it with a grateful smile and greedily drank a few gulps before giving the bottle to Nephis. Eventually, it returned to Cassie.

"You drink some too."

After she did, he awkwardly patted the blind girl on the shoulder.

"Everything seems to be fine now. Uh… did you dream of another vision? You can tell us. If you want."

Cassie hesitated for a bit before saying:

"I… don't know. Maybe it was just a nightmare."

Sunny and Nephis exchanged glances. They both doubted that what Cassie saw was a simple nightmare. After all, people usually did not dream in the Dream Realm. The blind girl, meanwhile, continued:

"I don't really remember. It's all in fragments."

Sunny carefully considered his words, not wanting to pressure Cassie too much.

"You can just tell us what you remember. Maybe we'll be able to make sense of it together."

Cassia sighed and tentatively nodded. After a long pause, she finally found the courage to speak:

"At first, I saw a… a boundless darkness locked behind seven seals. Something vast was churning in the darkness. I felt like if I directly saw it, I would lose my mind. As I watched, terrified, the seals broke one after another, until only one remained. And then that seal broke, too."

She trembled a little.

shattered into a thousand shards, each shard reflecting its own image. Most of them were

Cassie fell silent, remembering.

star burning in the black skies, and under its light, the castle was suddenly consumed by fire, with rivers of blood flowing down its halls. I saw a corpse in a golden armor sitting on a throne; a woman with a bronze spear drowning in a tide of monsters; an archer trying

her face full

end, I saw a colossal, terrifying crimson spire. At its base, seven severed heads were guarding seven locks. And at the top, a… a dying angel was being consumed by hungry shadows. When I saw the angel bleed, I suddenly felt

Her voice became quieter.

and rage that what little remained of my sanity seemed to disappear.

an idea, she didn't show it. Sunny, however, was totally lost. He couldn't even

about the castle was pretty much straightforward. It showed her a human fortress and even the direction in which it was situated. This time,

Finally, he sighed.

was just a nightmare. Your previous visions

shook

the back

you do. Perhaps seeing a random

to him, a faint

"You really think so?"

trying to find the

It's

he felt

does it sound so ominous? I should try and stay away from angels in

they were finally ready

***

the stone platform, looking at the scavengers below.

always that

glanced at Nephis

They seem to be almost done with the carcass. I doubt

make any progress. It would be

a chance of

frowned, seemingly

a while, she

to spend another night near this statue. Let's leave

his mouth to offer his own opinion. However, a sudden

sea, amidst mounds of broken coral, the carcass of the giant shark-like monster — the remaining half of it, to be precise — was almost stripped of meat. And between its white bones, something was shimmering in the

large, luminescent

Sunny's eyes widened.

"Are those…"

Shards of two

Transcendent… two of them…

greed and fear. Greed because of how rare and precious transcendent soul shards were; fear because the giant shark turned

devil, if not stopped by a Saint or a large number of Awakened, could potentially destroy an entire city. Sunny belatedly realized that he was much closer to death on that first night than

"Should we…"