Shadow Slave

The hidden passage led Sunny underground, twisting and turning through the mass of stone. Despite the fact that he had been cautiously walking forward for a few minutes now, Sunny felt that he was still beneath the cathedral. In fact, by his estimation, he was approaching its center.

And indeed, right beneath the spot where the statue of the goddess should have been, the narrow passage opened into a larger room. In it, a deep well leading even further down was situated, with a winding staircase spiraling down into the darkness.

Sunny frowned.

'What is it with this place and creepy dark wells?'

Going further down was going to place him dangerously close to the catacombs. He knew all to well what kind of danger that would pose — the last time Sunny had ventured into the maze of ancient tunnels below the city, he barely escaped alive.

After hesitating for a while, he stepped onto the staircase and began descending. Deep, ancient shadows surrounded Sunny, giving him a little comfort.

At least he was among his kin.

After a minute or so of walking down the stairwell, Sunny entered a large chamber that seemed to be carved into the bedrock, as opposed to being constructed by human hand. On the other side of it, a large door forged from black steel stood, illuminated by two burning torches.

Two thoughts entered Sunny's mind simultaneously.

The first one was that the metal from which the monolithic door was made looked eerily familiar. It was the same dark, lusterless, impenetrable alloy that the Black Knight had been made of.

The second thought was even more disturbing.

'...How come those torches are still burning?'

been aflame

very strange. They seemed to be producing light, but it was pale and

were the most disturbing, though. Because of the movements of the fire, they were supposed to be dancing on

shadow to stay back. The shadow did not protest — in fact, it was visibly relieved. Taking a few exaggerated steps back, it

black door and lowered the Midnight Shard into a protective stance. He was ready to face

…But nothing attacked him.

a sudden shill that run through Sunny's body when he had entered the circle of light

definitely some sort of a protective charm. I am almost sure that their power can harm

the torches meant to keep something from entering

were they meant to keep

there was only one way

was doing seemed absolutely crazy. But in fact, it was not. He had not come into this underground chamber just because of

him here and pushed him to study the black door was

his intuition was more than a mere manifestation of his

ever since he had consumed the drop of

of divinity. And sometimes, he was even drawn to it — like he was drawn to this cathedral and to the mysterious key that lay buried in the body of the Lord of the Dead.

Sunny felt that he was about

it was not all his intuition was capable of. There were other aspects to

than it had to do with the [Spark of Divinity.] If he were to guess, he would say that after he had been changed by the ichor, that Attribute was slightly enhanced, giving him the ability to sense subtle tremors that ran through the strings of fate from time to time — the strings that were, apparently, tightly wrapped around

happened to his eyes and his close relationship with those strings gave Sunny a slight affinity to

to this door and make him want to