Shadow Slave

Sunny stared at the severed arm of an unknown deity, then at the harrowing, profane rot spreading from it. Then, he tiredly rubbed his face.

'...Why can't anything ever be easy?'

He was sure that his fate was somehow connected to that arm, which meant that he was going to have to get to it somehow. But Sunny was also sure that there weren't enough rewards in all of the universe to make him go anywhere near that rot, let alone touch something infected by it.

He had the feeling that this thing was way, way out of his league.

In fact, he suspected that a divine being had ruthlessly severed their own arm because even someone as powerful as that had no means to resist that spreading corruption.

What was Sunny supposed to do, then?

Well…

Trying to remain as far from the rot as possible, he studied it for a while before coming to a strange conclusion… or rather, a strange question.

If the corruption was so terrible, then why had it not spread through the entire tower? Why had it only managed to crawl a few meters out of the silver brazier, turning a small portion of the second level of the pagoda into its flesh?

'Scratch that. Why didn't the whole island become one giant chunk of rotten black... whatever the hell that thing is?'

The answer was not hard to guess. It was because the rot, just like everything else inside the tower, had been sealed away from time for thousands of years.

And now that Sunny had broken that seal…

His frown deepened as he glanced at the silver hearth that was overgrown and had become a part of the spreading rot.

the devouring

except for cold stone? Did it need to feed on flesh and souls, or

guess I am going

rot, Sunny tried

like the rot

If that thing began to grow, slowly spreading across the whole of the Obsidian Tower,

else to retreat to in the Sky Below, after all. And he doubted that he would be able to find a

inside the pagoda to save him. He had to

a possibility that the rot would swiftly wither and die.

reached the staircase that led higher, to the third level. There, he summoned

of turning his back to the silver brazier,

a relieved sigh and realized that his entire body was covered in a cold sweat. Raising a trembling hand, Sunny wiped

least. The Shadow seemed absolutely unperturbed by the horrific visage they had

that stone head of hers. Do Shadows have the ability

was rather cowardly.

to distract himself with these thoughts, Sunny entered the third level of the Obsidian Tower… and froze, dumbfounded

see. Wait, no. What

chamber he found himself in was smaller than the previous three halls he had explored — mostly because the pagoda narrowed the higher it went, but also because the level was separated into several

the air, each at a different level

as though someone had stolen them from the pile of broken dolls in the basement of

of disassembled arms, and then walked closer. He felt as though he was in some

dolls were much more complex than he had thought. In their disassembled state, their limbs showed how intricate the design was, and how many moving parts went into making each one as functional and articulated as that of a human. The joints, in particular, seemed like a marvel of engineering… not to mention the incredibly delicate weave of

spelltech automatons could not boast of that level of

why were these arms brought here and taken apart? Who had done

like it… why would