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.

jumped down. He landed on the ground

nothing was trying to kill

exchanged tense looks,

distant

some 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

the slope of the colossal crater, slightly tilted to the side, a giant statue of a slender woman dressed in a light flowing robe towered over the black mud.

a long time ago. Now, one of the arms was broken off, with only its shoulder remaining in place. Luckily, the other one was still there, and had served as a

Sunny expected, there were seven shining stars carved into the stone surface

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 much

seals,' he thought, remembering

seemed as though it was destined to remain unsolved — Sunny doubted that he would ever come back to this cursed place after

every one of them was

with all

silent gratitude to the statue that had saved their lives, Sunny turned around and headed

finally happened. Just as Sunny was about to

resounded across the vast emptiness of the colossal crater, making

sword. To his side, Nephis

moving in the mud. No giant beast rose from it to feast on their flesh, no

made

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

damn stone was

a mouth full of long, sharp teeth on its surface. It awkwardly rolled a couple of times to reach Sunny

luckily, the leather boot of the Puppeteer's Shroud turned out to be too tough for the stone's jaws. So it was just munching on the leather

but not at all

raised his head and glanced at Nephis in bewilderment. Her expression was as indifferent as always, but after all the time they had spent together, he was able to recognize the similar kind of

"Uh…"

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

it doubled its attempts to gnaw on

thing. The only hope of killing me it has is if