Shadow Slave

Depicted on the ancient engravings, a beautiful land was bathed in sunlight. Lush forests, glistening rivers, and fields of flowers surrounded human cities built of stone. From what Sunny could tell, this was the Forgotten Shore before the mysterious and terrifying curse had turned it into the desolate hell it was today.

In the next mural, the beautiful land rested under the sky that was full of stars. Suddenly, one of them fell to the ground, causing a wave of destruction to wash over the human cities. When people approached the center of the crater left behind by the falling star…

Sunny almost stumbled when he saw the next engraving. In it, a naked human figure was standing at the bottom of the crater, wreathed in light. The inhabitants of the stone cities were surrounding the radiant figure, dressed in archaic garments and armor.

The figure seemed beautiful and pure, as though untouched by the imperfections of the mundane world. What made Sunny lose his composure was not its beauty and not how eerily familiar the soft radiance emanated by its skin was, but...

Its face.

On it, three eyes were burning with pure, incandescent light. Two were just like that of a human, with the third one situated above the other ones, right in the middle of the creature's forehead.

…Just like that of the terrible skull that the walking colossus had shattered with his stone hammer in the middle of a raging storm.

'...What does it mean? What is this thing?'

To Sunny's dismay, the next engraving was heavily damaged. He couldn't discern anything of what was depicted on it.

However, the one after that was in almost perfect condition.

On it, the radiant figure was kneeling on the ground, its chest pierced by the spear of the tallest human among the inhabitants of the beautiful land. What flowed from the terrible wound, however, was not blood, but an endless flood of pure darkness.

why did they

next mural. He saw darkness devouring the humans gathered around the fatally wounded creature and spread. Soon, it devoured the crater left by the fallen star,

devoured

all-consuming darkness," he

turned it into a hellish nightmare. Although the details of it were

over. Walking further into the

were either devoured by it

The starless void.

again, leaving humans trembling in the cold. Soon, horrifying creatures came from the darkness to devour them. The best and the brightest of

themselves started to turn into abominable

shiver running down his spine

was affected by the tragic

all seemed so terrifyingly

been the same, but the end result was eerily similar to what was happening in the real

suddenly appeared and spread across the entire world. The horrible monsters that came from nowhere to attack settlements and devour humans. The champions who had taken

the Nightmare Creatures coming through the Gates, the Awakened rising to fight against them, and the unfortunate soles who failed

Forgotten Shore was already over. Eventually, the curse had destroyed it. The people of his own world, however, were still trying to resist such

inhabitants of the Forgotten Shore were proud and mighty. They were capable of building cities that stood for thousands of years and fighting against the most terrifying monsters on equal footing. And yet, in

a desolate hell like the