Shadow Slave

Soon after Nephis had finally come back to her senses, they prepared to leave the shelter of the giant stone hand. The morning had just begun, so there was plenty of time to cross the remaining distance and climb out of the deep and vast crater. If all was going to go well, they would meet the next sunset on top of the tall wall of the mysterious city.

Of course, numerous things could go wrong between now and then. But, for some reason, Sunny felt optimistic.

This was a rare moment for his cynical, paranoid heart.

Just like before, Sunny and Neph took turns climbing down a few dozen meters and lowering Cassie to one another with the help of the golden rope. However, they had grown considerably stronger since the last time they had to do it.

Sunny remembered how tiresome it was to descend from the giant knight's statue in that way and chuckled. Now, he felt as though he could do it three times in a row, and considerably faster, too. Even though he had spent the last few days in an endless nightmare and brought his body to the point where it was about to shut down, now, there was nothing but resilient strength filling his muscles.

These two months that they had spent in the perilous hell of the crimson labyrinth, constantly fighting for their lives and slaying monsters that no Sleeper should ever face one after another, had made all three of them much more powerful.

Sunny doubted that a lot of Awakened had ever gone through this ruthless of an initiation and lived to tell the tale. Once he returned to the real world, he would most likely be considered one of the elite representatives of the current generation.

'Huh, that might actually be a problem.'

Well, he could always blame everything on Nephis. She was already close to being a mythical existence — the last daughter of the legendary Immortal Flame clan, one of the few Awakened in history who had managed to receive a True Name in the First Nightmare, the top student in her batch of Sleepers in the Academy, and so on.

People would easily believe that a prodigy like her had been able — and willing — to carry two pathetic weaklings on her back all the way to the Gateway.

Sunny just had to choose his words carefully when describing the events leading up to their triumphant return. Luckily, in that regard, he was a master.

Entertaining himself with such thoughts, he didn't even notice the flow of time. Soon, they were already approaching the ground.

Just before jumping into the soft black mud, Nephis looked at Sunny and said:

"Stay vigilant."

She didn't have to remind him. Sunny knew that the last stretch was often the most dangerous — mostly because it was natural for people to allow themselves to relax in these moments, falsely believing that the worst was already behind them. Numerous Awakened perished tragically with their goal already in sight.

He wasn't planning on becoming one of them.

He landed on the ground in a nimble roll, immediately jumped to his feet and outstretched one hand, ready to summon the Midnight Shard at a

was trying to kill

Nephis exchanged tense looks, and then slowly walked

the distant grey wall was

point, Sunny gestured for Changing Star to stop and turned around, curious to take a look at the statue whose hand had saved them from drowning in the dark

in a light flowing robe towered over the black mud. She was lovely and graceful, with a slim waist and delicate arms outstretched to the skies, as

was broken off, with only its shoulder remaining in place. Luckily, the other one was still there, and had served as a safe haven for

as Sunny expected, there were seven shining stars carved into the

fact that just like the giant knight, the graceful woman seemed to be missing her head. Once again, Sunny wondered if these stone titans were created without faces to begin with, or if something had beheaded them

heads guarding seven seals,' he thought, remembering Cassie's

destined to remain unsolved — Sunny doubted that he would ever come back

Realm, and almost every one of them

with all this

the statue that had saved their lives, Sunny turned around

vertical, something dangerous finally happened. Just as Sunny was about to step on a wide stone buried in the mud, the stone suddenly shifted

the vast emptiness of

his side, Nephis was doing the same, while Cassie swiftly stepped back to

on their flesh,

made that terrible

Sunny was trying to understand what was happening, a sharp pain suddenly pierced his right leg.

stone was chomping on his

which turned out to be a bizarre Nightmare Creature, revealed a mouth full of long, sharp teeth on its surface. It awkwardly rolled a couple of times to

leg clean off, but, luckily, the leather boot of the Puppeteer's Shroud turned out to be too

but not at

Her expression was as indifferent as always, but after all the time they had spent together,

"Uh…"

leg into the air and shook it a couple of times, trying to send the stupid

thunderous roar, it doubled its attempts to gnaw on Sunny's shin, its stone teeth on the verge of

has is if I die from annoyance,' Sunny thought with